First Anniversary

I take you to be my partner, my friend, my love, and my lifelong companion. As we build our dreams together, I will encourage your dreams; I will support you through times of trouble, and rejoice with you in time of happiness, and I will treat you with respect, love, and loyalty through all the trials and triumphs of our lives together. This commitment is made in love, kept in faith, lived in hope, and eternally made new.

Many thanks to our family and friends for your continued support and love. We have so many happy memories from the wedding weekend. We'll be reading our leaves and looking at our album. Cheers!

Zach on Criminal Minds

In case you missed it:

Green Clean

A few months ago when we decided to paint our apartment, we shopped around for paints that were environmentally and human friendly. We were shocked to learn that most paints emit VOCs, or volatile organic compounds, which are pollutants that are emitted from many household fixtures like furniture, carpet, and building materials. We spend so much time in this tiny place, we didn't want to add more gunk to the air! Indoor air can be much worse than outdoor air depending in VOC levels. Having seen the smog around here and wiped layers of black dust off the exterior of our windows, we decided to go as healthy as possible. We found a great paint at Home Depot called Freshaire; it has no VOCs and we love how it has perked up the place. 

After doing some further investigations into VOCs we decided to take up an experiment in cleaning. Since many household cleaning products contain know toxins, we thought we'd see what we could do with some old fashioned natural cleaning products. For a few weeks we've been cleaning with white vinegar, lemon juice, and baking soda, and have been amazed. The vinegar smell is a bit overpowering at first, but it goes away once the surface is dry. We've cleaned bath and shower, floors, countertops, chrome fixtures, the toilet, the toaster oven, and have taken stains off of our white ceramics. It's effective. It's cheap. It's better for us. It's fun to watch the baking soda bubble. Here is the article that got us started. If you give it a try, let us know if you make any discoveries of know other natural cleaning tips.

That said, I still love the Magic Eraser. Might hold onto that one. 

Back to School Special

It was a Back to School Special 80's style for our last improv show. Based on "Pretty in Pink," the show was all things high school and 80's: bad fashion, powerful cliques, angst, just not being understood!, after-school clubs, overbearing teachers, and well-meaning parents who just don't get it. We hosted a prom following the show and many audience members stayed for the party.

Mrs. Meadows speaks with the school superintendent 

At graduation

Quintessential prom picture. Note the awkward hands.