...The Traveling Powells...: September 2011

Monday, September 26, 2011

Grandma comes to visit!

Last week, we were lucky enough to have my mom here for about 8 days. Not only did she treat us to her amazing cooking every night (she cooked double and froze the second part for when she left!!), she also had a wonderful time playing with Evelyn everyday, all day long. LOTS of good grandma time for Ev and she loved every minute of it! Thanks for coming to visit mom, we can't wait to see you in Montana at Christmas!!

Grandma paints Ev's toes!

New party outfit from Grandma! (the hat is mom's favorite!)

The ladies enjoy some snacks!

Friday, September 23, 2011

Baths are better with friends!

Elsa and Evelyn!

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Monday, September 19, 2011

3 Cheers

Tonight we gather to remember and recall a great friend. Our Audi has been with us through the last few years while we lived in Portland and here in Nashville. We put a little over 50k miles on it, took our first child home from the hospital, took trips all over the NW, drove to Bar Harbor, Maine and back last fall, North Carolina a few times and so much more. Its high quality windshield kept us safe (specifically Annie) when a piece of concrete dropped from an overpass and smashed the glass right in front of Annie, it hugged the corners tight at the high legal speeds on Montana's I-90 and always it got us to our destination in comfort and style. We will always have a fond place in our hearts for this car!

Now for the reality. There were some seriously ill noises coming from under the hood and after further inquisition I found that the transmission cooler that is inside the radiator was leaking, the expansion tank for the radiator was falling apart because of the transmission fluid in the radiator fluid, the transmission itself was slipping in reverse and even in forward gears (as I was driving it to the dealer today), the water pump was failing, the air suspension was leaking and to top it all off...the brake light went out today. I had found a local used car dealer that was willing to buy the car from us but found another one today that upped the offer and suffice it to say, we took the offer. So, for now we are a 1 car family and we will start the car shopping process (we are not complaining, we love cars).

So here's to the Audi, to all the good times, the good memories and to the $ we saved by not owning it after today!

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Last loooooong run!

Short post just to say that I had my last long run this morning! 20 glorious miles and about a 1,400 foot climb. I decided at mile 10 to not drive myself into the ground by running this crazy mile loop that adds a bit more elevation, like I'd done a few weeks ago, and just turned around at 10 and ran out. I was 21 minutes faster than my last 21 miler, so I figure that would have made this run about 10 minutes faster, had I done the whole 21.

SO GLAD to be done with those.
You know me.
I love running.
...But I am really sort of over spending 3+ hours running on the weekends. Only 13.1, 8 and 6 left on the weekends before the marathon. Oh, to *just* run 6 miles again! Glorious!!

Lastly, can I get three cheers for STILL being pain-free this marathon-training-go-round?? WOOO!!!

Friday, September 16, 2011

Disaster zone- anyone have a shovel??

My life in lab is crazier than normal right now. We've got Vanderbilt's GI SPORE renewal grant due on Monday. These grants are 5 million dollars for 4 projects for 5 years, and Bob- my boss- is the head PI for Vandy. In addition, my project is the basis for one of the projects. For those of you in-the-know, the whole grant is over 1,000 pages.... you can imagine what a pain in the neck it can be!

In addition, we got our reviews back on my paper from Cell a couple of weeks ago. (Suffice it to say that they were MUCH nicer than the ones from Nature!) Our revised draft is due not much after the SPORE goes in and we are hoping for the best. Cross your fingers for me. That publication would get me a lot closer to getting my own transition-to-faculty funding!

Anyways, suffice it to say, I've been doing A LOT of writing and bench work lately and when things like this happen, my bench and work space become a constant homeostatic flow of random papers, sticky notes, experiments spread everywhere. Many scientists would disapprove, I'm sure, but this is just the way it is for me until the dust clears. My labmates will be happy when things are better soon, as well, since they already give me a hard time for having the biggest desk in the lab and still "bleeding" unto their territory! What can I say?? I just have a lot of stuff!!

A couple of videos from last week...

Last week Ev had her first bout with the stomach flu last Weds. night. All clear by Thursday morning, but stay home from daycare anyways. I went to work in the morning, as things are really hectic in the lab right now- see forth coming blog post-, and then came home in the afternoon so Brendon could go to work for a couple of hours. Ev and I decided to walk to the elementary school nearby, like we often do on the weekends, so that she could play a bit. Here are some pics and a couple of videos we took while we were there. Apparently, she's going to be a barefoot driving kind of gal. :-)

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Big G, little g, what begins with g?

Goat and goo-goo goggles, g-g-g!

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Monday, September 5, 2011

Baked vs. Grilled?

Well, if you know us, you know we love pizza. Barbecue chicken pizza, in particular. A couple of nights ago, we decided to put to rest a question we'd been wondering about for a while now: does our favorite pizza really taste better when made on the grill? (truth be told, we were skeptical of the grilled approach) We decided to make 2 slightly smaller pizzas, instead of the 1 large one and put them in a head to head competition.

Ingredients:
1 trader joes pizza dough (split in 2 and rolled out, ready for toppings)

BBQ sauce- our choice (always!): Sweet Baby Rays

Two chicken breasts

1 can black beans

Red onion- sliced

Mozzarella cheese!

Before you start assembling the pizzas, grill the chicken until nearly cooked through. (It will cook the rest of the way on the pizza.)

For the baked pizza, place the dough on a pizza stone and spread the BBQ sauce on the dough generously, chop up the grilled chicken and spread on the pizza, followed by the black beans and chopped red onion. Cover with cheese.

Bake at 425 for 20 mins.

For the grilled pizza, after grill has heated to its hottest setting, clean off the grill and use a folded paper towel to spread some olive oil on the grates. Place pizza dough straight onto the grates. Close lid and cook for 2 mins. Pizza dough should be bubbling evenly. If not, cook dough for another minute. Remove the dough from the grill and flip over so that the grilled side is up. Cover in toppings like the baked pizza- go easy on the sauce and cheese so it doesn't get soggy. When you're ready to grill it, reoil the grates, place pizza in the grill and cook for 3 minutes. Remove and let cool.

Here they are, all cooked and ready to try:

The verdict? They were actually both great, and we were surprised at how crispy and yummy the crust of the grilled pizza was. Also, the grilled pizza cooked so much more quickly than the baked one! We will totally do the grilled one again, but I think next time with a bit more sauce!

Bon appetit!

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