#39 - Finished!

This past weekend was a bit odd... in a good way. I stayed in Chapel Hill for Easter instead of going home. Although it was sad to be away from my family, I got to partake in some things that I wouldn't have gotten to if I would have gone home - a Good Friday service, SummitKids, Easter lunch with an awesome family from church, and Maple View! Going to Maple View Farm was on the 101 things to do list and now, with great pleasure, it can be marked off.

Even though it appears to be in the middle of nowhere, Maple View isn't far from Chapel Hill at all. Luckily that means I will be going back ASAP.

Since it was a first time treat, Taylor & I went all out with two scoops of ice cream in a waffle cone.

Excited... and slightly crazed.

I got one scoop of Carolina Crunch (their signature flavor, which is very rich and caramely) and one scoop of double chocolate (basically frozen brownie batter). Needless to say, I couldn't finish the whole thing. 

Taylor got one scoop of cookies & cream and one scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough. The cookies & cream was amazing and the chocolate chip cookie dough was really creamy. Since they make the ice cream with real cream, it has a great consistency and flavor, but its really rich. Two scoops of creamy ice cream and a homemade waffle cone is a lot, as evidenced by the crazy picture.

In addition to ice cream, we bought cream (for coffee) and milk. It is hands down the best milk I've ever had. Same for the cream. You have to pay a deposit for the glass bottle (for the milk) but after your initial deposit, you can bring the glass jug back and get another bottle of milk without having to pay the extra fee.

Maple View has the best homemade ice cream (and dairy products) I've ever had, which is saying something. I'm counting down the days until I can go back!

#23, 42, 45 - Finished!

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you should probably check this out. Please continue.

This past weekend, Taylor & I started completing some of the things on our 101(ish) things to do in 1001 days list. We grabbed some dessert at Mad Hatter's Bakeshop & Cafe (#45), went to Duke Gardens (#45), and had a picnic (#42)!

We got a slice of cookies & cream cake (as well as chocolate cheesecake, which I forgot to take a picture of. Curses.) at Mad Hatter's to go and ate it for dessert on our picnic. I will most definitely be frequenting this establishment again. Soon. Aside from baked goods, they have some delicious sounding "real" foods. The cakes, cupcakes, danishes, and cookies were beautiful. Also, if you're a coffee person like myself, they have quite the extensive list of coffee (and non-coffee) based beverages which looks promising. Plus, I've heard they roast their own beans there! 

The cookies & cream cake we got was... interesting. I wasn't a huge fan of the icing. The icing, however, must not have been too bad because I ate it anyways. Next time I'll probably try the black & white signature cake with an americano, not that I've thought about it or anything.

We set up a picnic under a pavilion at Duke Gardens, ate lunch (and the cake!), and started exploring the gardens.

The gardens were huge, not to mention gorgeous. There were lots of trails for running/walking, but we didn't have too much time to spend there so we mainly focused on seeing the more decorative flora. There was even a cute cafe in a cottage-like house within the gardens. I want to go back soon, take a book and blanket, and settle down on the expansive lawn for a few hours.

Hopefully this will be the first of many accomplished things on the list!

P.S. to all you Carolina students/fans that think I'm a traitor for even setting foot on Duke property - I sported my UNC bag the entire time. Go heels.

101 Things to do in 1001 Days

I was recently procrastinating by checking out some random cooking blogs instead of studying genetics. This is my life. I happened to stumble upon a blog that discussed a "101 things in 1001 days" challenge. I googled it. I read more blog posts about said challenge. I immediately decided to embark on this challenge (mainly because its a huge list of fun things that I get to mark off!). I perpetually make lists (they usually consist of things I've already accomplished, but I add them to the list anyways just so I can mark them off). Type A, I know.

I also managed to wrangle my sweet boyfriend into this and we came up with a combination list. I'm really excited about getting to do these things together (or at least most of them together). It was surprisingly difficult to come up with 101 things to do so we only have 91 things on our list, but I think it will still be challenging to accomplish all of them. 

I categorized the list into sub-sections for the sake of simplicity. Our list consists of the following categories (with a few examples from each category):

101(ish) Things to do in 1001 Days

Start date: April 8, 2011

End date: January 3, 2014

• Food & cooking
• #1: Make homemade lasagna
• #6: Compile family recipes in a binder
• #10: Bake cupcakes with a filling
• Spiritual
• #12: Go through Starting Point at church
• #13: Find/join a church after graduation
• Things to do together
• #19: Get "Ticket to Ride" & play it
• #25: Go geocaching 
• #31: Go indoor skydiving
• #32: Go to the Varsity Theater on Franklin Street
• #39: Go to Maple View Farm & get ice cream!
• Dates
• #42: Have a picnic 
• #43: Get just dessert at the Melting Pot
• #45: Go to the Mad Hatter in Durham
• Personal
• #55: Graduate! 
• #59: Get eyes checked (Liz)
• #72: Be consistent about Meatless Mondays for 1 month (Liz) 
• #80: Put the majority of CDs onto iPod (Taylor)
• Service
• #86: Clean out my closet & give away 101 items (Liz) 
• #89: Babysit for a couple for free (Liz)
• #90: Volunteer at a free clinic (Taylor)
• #91: Put together an Operation  Christmas Child box 

 I'll hopefully update our progress as we complete different things!

*To calculate 1001 days from today, go to this website.