Birthday things and a long overdue update

We've had an incredibly busy past couple months, which lead to my basic disappearance from this blog. Oops. I finished my student teaching and graduated, and ever since then, I have been working on getting my teaching license for Pennsylvania, finding an apartment, working on getting rid of things and getting ready to move, and our wedding! It's been pretty hectic.

My birthday was last week, and I had the best day. Aaron made me an amazing breakfast, which we ate on our patio. One of the reasons I love this apartment is because it feels like you live in a tree house in the summer, particularly on the patio. Then we went to a couple of beautiful spots around Halifax. We're trying to stop at all our favourite places before we move. We had dinner on the patio at The Bicycle Thief, which was delicious and had a fantastic view, which you can see in the photo with our cool blue water glasses. I made one of my favourite cakes, and Findlay played some cat games on my new iPad. It was hilarious.

I'm hoping to start posting a bit more regularly, but with the wedding and the move to Pittsburgh it's a bit dubious. We'll see how it goes! I can't wait for the next big adventures with Aaron.

Lately

I realized this morning that I have not posted anything in over a month! Life has been particularly busy this winter. I am currently on March Break from student teaching in a grade 6 class, and I have been loving every minute of it. Halifax has also been hit with a multitude of storms, which has left us covered in a very thick layer of ice and snow. Usually I love going out and taking photos in the snow, but all the ice has made is all quite difficult. I think we're all ready for Spring! I'm hoping to get caught up on some posts in the next week. How has your winter been?

DIY: Roast your own coffee for Christmas gifts

I've mentioned before that Aaron roasts the best coffee right here at home, but today I thought I would write a detailed DIY guide, because fresh roasted coffee is just about the best Christmas gift, in my opinion.

I love it when Aaron roasts coffee. The whole house smells delicious. And having fresh roasted coffee every day is pretty incredible. We always roast coffee in small batches so that we can constantly have fresh coffee.

What you will need:
Green coffee beans- we order ours from Buy Coffee Canada, and we've never been disappointed.
Popcorn popper - we use this one.
Measuring cup
Colander
Tea towel
Mason jars

1.  Measure out one half cup of green coffee beans. Place coffee beans into the popper.
2. Place colander underneath the popper (where the popcorn would pop out). In order to make this step less messy, Aaron usually places a damp tea towel over the colander to help catch the chaff that comes off the beans while they roast.
3. Turn on popper. The coffee will start to roast and rotate in the popper.
4. Listen for the coffee to start making a loud cracking noise. After the first crack, leave popper on for another minute or two. For us, 7 minutes total always gives us a nice medium roast. However, we only got to that time with significant amounts of trial and error. The time you roast your coffee will vary greatly depending on what type of popper you are using, the beans you are using, and the humidity. Our popper does not get hot enough to get the beans to a dark roast, which we don't mind, because we both like medium roast. If you like light roast, keep experimenting with the popping time until you find a cook time that works for you!
5. Remove tea towel, and dump roasted coffee beans into the colander. Using a colander during this part allows more air to reach the coffee so that it cools quickly, rather than continuing to roast. Keep the coffee beans constantly moving until they are cool, either by rotating the bowl or siring the beans with a spoon. If you want to be really thorough, you can use a fan directed at the colander to help cook them while you stir or rotate them.
6. Once coffee is cool, put your roasted coffee into mason jars, but do not close them! The coffee must release gasses for about 12-24 hours. You should also wait this long before you grind up and drink your coffee.

If you are giving your coffee as gifts, you can decorate the jars to make them more festive! I just used kraft paper and alphabet stamps to make the labels, and embroidery thread to tie a tag onto the jars detailing what kind of coffee is in the jar, and the date it was roasted.

It's a relatively simple process once you get used to it. Let me know if you have any questions! I hope that you enjoy roasting coffee at home as much as we do! Are you planning on making any gifts this year?

Fall in Nova Scotia

I absolutely love autumn. It is my favourite season, especially here in Nova Scotia. I love pumpkin everything, the crisp air, and the colourful leaves. I love it so much, I made sure Aaron and I got to have some fall engagement photos.

I took a lot of photos this year, but I have been so busy with school and with travelling to a very important wedding that I haven't been able to post as much as I would like, so I have this post and two more fall posts coming your way. I hope you have all been enjoying this season as much as I have!

Sherbrooke Village

These are a few photos from Sherbrooke Village a few weeks ago. Sherbrooke Village is a living museum of a pre-WWI Nova Scotia town. It's a pretty cool little place, complete with a working blacksmith, a photography studio, a pharmacy, and a pottery studio, among other things. We also stopped at Beanie's Bistro, one of my favourite brunch spots in Nova Scotia. Their pumpkin lattes are amazing.

Afternoon tea

Today was the first day of school, and my first day with my grade 6 class. I'm so excited to be student teaching in such a great class. I really couldn't be happier. Unwinding now with tea and good music.

Grey mornings

I love having coffee on grey mornings. Especially with ocean views as an added bonus.

Summer mornings

Perfect summer mornings include fresh flowers from the garden and homemade lattes.

Weekend happenings

I love that Kaarina is in Halifax. And that Ryan has now arrived as well! I had the best weekend hanging out with this lady and our beautiful friends. These are just a few photos of a couple of the places we went this weekend: we had the most amazing drinks on Friday with everyone at The Drawing Room, located above The Henry House. Seriously, the best atmosphere and drinks if you're feeling fancy! We also had sushi at one of my favourite sushi restaurants, the B-well Sushi and Cafe. I love the laid back, coffee shop type atmosphere, the incredible ginger iced tea, and the delicious sushi, particularly the Rock-n-Roll. Lastly, we had a lovely lazy morning sipping coffee at Local Jo's before heading to the beach on Sunday! You can also read about our market adventure here. There's nothing quite like summer weekends, is there?