i don’t know where the road will take us next, but for the past six months it has been fun to be a part of the revitalization of downtown durham.  i’ve enjoyed walking to the y, the bakery, the coffee shop, my hair appointments, countless dinners, the farmer’s market and biking to the grocery store.  i even was going to bike to work once, but the night before i had a major crash and was convinced to hitch a ride the next morning instead.  below are pictures of our first apartment, the warehouse-turned-apartments that were evan’s last project during his stint with a local builder.

Tonight we went to the Carolina alumni basket ball game!!  It was so fun!!  Read about it here.  Lots of great Tarheels playing, coaching and cheering the other guys on.  They debuted the new lights and the player announcements were truly the highlight of the evening.  Chills up and down your spine every time they announced another spectacular Tarheel.  Out of all the great ball players we have had over the years it is hard to think about who were your favorites.  They are just all so good.  My personal favorites:  George Lynch, Shamond Williams, Rasheed Wallace, and currently Ed Davis. Who are your favorite Heels?

Not bad for a first go at a chili competition. 

So last night I took second place in the MBA chili cook off.  While you might think the competition was not too tough, there were 12 chilis and at least one of the judges had actually judged a legitimate chili competition before.  I made a white chicken chili that Kelly makes sometimes and we like it a lot. I think that making something different gave me the edge that I needed.  It was kinda of like being a singer and picking the right song to compliment your vocal style.  I am a decent cook but nothing special so I went for the white chicken chili so it would stand out as different and not blend in with all the other chilis.  So I guess it worked pretty well.  My favorite coment, “Hey man I just wanted to shake your hand, that chili was bad ass.  Best white chicken chili I have ever had.”

last weekend evan and i trucked back to knoxville to gather up all of our stuff (well as much as could fit in one toyota tacoma and one 6×12 uhual trailer, which was surprisingly more than we planned on) and bring it back to durham!  we are renting our house to some friends there.  and then this weekend we’re moving, well i’m moving, from our cool downtown apt that was built by evan, to an almost as cool downtown apt built when evan was only three, a.k.a. not by evan.  although i’ll miss our lux granite countertops, tiled shower and stainless steel appliances, we’ll greatly appreciate our reduced rent.  i called time warner cable today to tell them of our move and after a long conversation i finally explained that really what we are doing is flip flopping apartments with this other guy… he’s moving into ours, we’re moving into his.  the guy on the other end laughed loudly in disbelief and said “in all my two years of working here, i’ve never heard of anything like this!”  yep, that’s how our lives go.

but a few monday ideas for those in town:

the ben&jerry’s at broad street offers buy one, get one free sundaes on monday nights.  that’s 2 sundaes for only $5, which is way cheaper then even their kid’s cones.  an idea for anyone that likes to indulge as much as the travises.

we also recommend checking out dos perros which opens tonight according to their website.  it’s a new mexican restaurant in downtown durham.  if you do check it out at any point, please leave a comment and let us know what you think.

sarah, stephen, evan and i had an exciting time over the weekend trying out the Only Burger, Durham’s latest burger sensation.  the Only Burger is a food truck that drives around town and tweets its location so that the masses will arrive and be fed.  they have delicious burgers, including veggie burgers, which we did not try, and hand-cut french fries.  usually they do a dinner shift and a late night shift, and also do lunches at the farmer’s market and american tobacco campus, just to name a few spots.  my burger and fries were delicious.  check them out at www.onlyburger.com.

ps.  the only burger reminds me of this post by our friend michael who lives in LA.  food trucks in LA, food trucks in Durham… Durham is as cool as LA? 

So the post, that held down the top of the blog for so long, featured our rooftop garden.  I figured people might be interested in an update.  We have starting getting some tomatoes.

Beautiful right?? But the problem is that they are really tiny.

These tomato plants have come along way but they have a long way to go until they are truly a success.

finally getting back into blogging after a long absence and a bit of prodding. how can you not want to please your readership? so our absolute favorite thing this summer has been watching arrested development. i know we’re like 6 years late getting into this, so if some of you out there who have already seen it are thinking, kelly, do you live under a rock, i understand. but for anyone that is asking, what is that? you should immediately head here, and watch as many episodes as possible before bedtime. at least that’s what we’ve been doing. the show is a “the office” style show featuring a family owned development company that goes south when the president/father is sent to jail, and the son, michael, has to keep the family and the company together. the show ran from ‘03 to ‘06, and then was cancelled, as it was ahead of its time. hats off to the fosters, for highly recommending it.

with no yard, evan crafted some troughs to grow our tomato plants in on our building’s rooftop deck.  we brought these plants with us from knoxville when they were small in a small plastic bin, and they are growing still and starting to show signs that we’ll soon have a crop.

we have twelve plants in three troughs.

growth!

we have 10 small green guys on three of the plants.

enjoying hanging out on the deck!

my dad was inspired to wipe the dust out of his ice cream maker by our previous post.  he found the slushy section of his ice cream recipe book (not ben & jerry’s) and immediately went to buy a bottle of cheerwine for a cheerwine slushy.  here’s what you do… after preconditioning your ice cream maker bowl, simply pour in your soft drink of choice and let churn for 15 minutes.  voila… slushy!  looks fabulous.