Last weekend, Rob and I made dinner - pork tenderloin and sweet potatoes!  Definitely one of my favorites...

I (finally) added these to my recipe cards here and here.  I actually gave a presentation about this meal last August.  For Teaching Assistant training, we had to give a brief presentation to "teach something to the group" - while droning on and on - errr.... excitedly educating - the group about membrane film and adsorption theory was tempting, I opted to go with preparing a home-cooked meal...  

(I was pleasantly surprised at how well this actually went over with everyone!  Most of my fellow TAs promptly suggested we get together for dinner some night.... I saw RIGHT through THAT one!)

Tangent aside!  Just figured I'd let you know the recipes are up!  (Don't get too excited... it's definitely a stretch calling them "recipes"... I feel like I don't quite meet the ingredient quota...)

Yummmmm!!!! :)

Rob FINALLY made it back home last Thursday!  He, with Jenn, took a 2 week road trip across the country to help two of our friends - Brian and Kevin - move to Seattle!  It sounds like they had an awesome trip - I'm super jealous that I couldn't go with them... siiiigh.... stupid research... :(

Anyways, now that he's back, it was time to kick of the summer!  Troy marks its summers with festivals-a-plenty!  The first of which, is River Street Festival.  This was our third year going - there's a sidewalk art contest, tons of food and craft vendors, live music, magicians - everything!

We didn't take too many pictures but I snagged a few of some of my favorite sidewalk paintings:

How awesome is this Mad Hatter?! 

And that's a pretty sweet Captain America, you might say....  (too bad the shadow kind of ruined the photo... sorry!)

LOVED this one - again, sorry about the shadows... - it's a flock of birds and the sky changes from grayscale to rainbow when they fly past!

And of course, the obligatory couple self-portrait :)

The first of many beautiful summer weekends - can't wait for the next adventure!

Last weekend was RPI's graduation!  We had beautiful warm and sunny weather, which made certain parts of the ceremony unbearably hot, but the little breeze definitely helped!

I snapped a quick photo of Rob on my phone on our way up to the ceremony!  :)

We met up with his family (14 of us total!) and I sat with them while he headed off to get lined up.

I snapped a bunch of photos, so here we go...

Rob has been the President of the Class of 2012 (and is going to be their Alumni Class President) so he gave a speech before the Undergraduate diplomas were given out!!  He did a great job, too. :)  

And then here's Rob receiving his diploma from Dr. Jackson!

Rob graduated with honors, Cum Laude - we are all so proud of him!! :)


I took a bunch of photos of our friends receiving their diplomas, too - I'll probably just throw those up on Facebook for now though...


Time to wrap it up!

Congratulations, everyone!!!

Now it was time to head down to the main campus for the BBQ!  But first, we grabbed a few photos with the family:

(I grabbed these from Rob's mom - they're all from her camera)

Here's Rob with his parents and brothers...

And here's one with me! :)

We got a photo of the whole group, too:

Rob's family headed home after we had lunch - we had a big celebration dinner with them the following night at a restaurant in Amsterdam.  Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos - but between all of the other cameras, I think we got plenty of photos!  I'll try and share a few once I get a hold of them.

So after a much needed nap, Rob and I met up with Kaleigh and her family (mom, dad, and brother Grayson) and our friend Corey to go up to Hattie's in Saratoga for dinner!  We wandered around the park a little while we waited for a table.

Kaleigh, Corey, and Grayson took a spin on the carousel!  Rob and I thoroughly enjoyed watching - and waving like maniacs every time they went by. :)

It was the perfect end to the day!