All in all, French Week was very rich and yummy. I think I also learned a lot of great cooking techniques. Julia Child’s recipes are certainly not the easiest to follow, but they are very proper and thorough.

Dinner No. 1: Boeuf À La Bourguignonne
(no translation needed)

A classic to say the least. It was a fair amount of work – first taking care of the meat, then braising the onions, sautéing the mushrooms, and boiling the potatoes. There was a lot going on at once. But in the end, it came out pretty well. I wouldn’t say it was the most amazing beef stew I’ve ever had, but it was definitely tasty – I especially liked the onions and mushrooms.

Rating: 4/5

Dinner No. 2: Soupe À La Victorine
Puree of White Bean Soup, Eggplant & Tomato Garnish

Another dish with multiple components to take care of, this soup was excellent. Step one was quick soaking the beans, then simmering them with bacon and spices. While that simmered for over an hour, it was time to work on the eggplant and tomatoes. The eggplant had to be salted and drained, then simmered with the tomatoes for a while. Lastly, the beans were pureed, and all the components came together with some more broth to simmer for a while more. The result was so flavorful and filling – Adam didn’t even notice the eggplant!

Soup Rating: 4.5/5

Dinner No. 3: Thon À La Provençale
Tuna Steaks with Wine, Tomatoes, and Herbs

I’ve never worked with raw tuna before, so that was a cool experience in itself. The sauce complemented the tuna perfectly and it was fairly easy to put together. I don’t have too much more to say about this one, except that it was pretty good.

Rating: 4/5

Dinner No. 4: Suprêmes de Volaille Archiduc
Chicken Breasts w/ Paprika, Onions, & Cream

This one turned out to be the best of the week! The paprika-onion cream sauce was rich and delicious. I’ve never used paprika as a primary flavor before, but I’ll definitely consider it more often in the future. Paired with peas and risotto, this was an amazing dinner!

Rating: 5/5

Dinner No. 5: Galettes de Pommes de Terre Farcies
Filled Potato Cakes

These potato cakes turned out nice and tasty, but they were probably the least successful item off this weeks menu. When I made the mashed potatoes, they came out too thin – so it was difficult to form patties with them. Then I forgot to add the cheese in the cakes, so I added it on top after flipping them over. Minus the cheese, they were stuffed with mushrooms, scallions and ham. Pretty tasty all said and done.

Rating: 4/5

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And that was it for French Week! All very good, but ultimately very exhausting. Next month…errr.. this month – it’s Irish!! Just in time for St. Patty’s Day!

Stay tuned!

1. Vietnamese – DONE!
2. French – DONE!
3. Irish – NEXT!
4. Indian
5. Jamaican
6. Ethiopian
7. Greek
8. Cuban
9. Moroccan
10. Thai
11. Polish
12. Japanese

Well once again, RootsTech was a huge success. With registrations up over 30% from last year, we had over 4000 genealogists and developers in attendance. And if I had to guess, there were probably twice as many developers as last year.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been up since 5am, have a cold, and generally haven’t gotten much sleep in the last 4 days, but I find it difficult to describe the overall essence of RootsTech – at it’s purest, perhaps: passion and excitement. Everyone who was there, or who followed it online, knows it was a big deal, a game changer. Two booming industries, two completely different types of people, massive age gaps – but – everyone’s on the same page. Everyone knows that technology is what will move the field of genealogy forward. Everyone is excited about the possibilities.

This was a recurring theme among attendees. Seeing genealogists and technologists sitting down together and discussing the need for advancement and the possibilities for implementation was a sight to be seen. And we already know this mashup of communities works – GEDCOMX is a direct result of it. Genealogists made the call for a better standard, a better way to house data – of all types – and technologists are coming together to find and implement a new, dynamic solution.

The Sessions

I attended a pretty even mix of user and developer sessions, here’s a semi-brief run down on my favorite five:

The Powers of Evernote: Photos, URL’s, Censuses,
Geo-location, and Stories

I already use Evernote quite a bit, even for genealogy to some degree. In fact, I’m composing this blog post in Evernote on the flight back to Detroit. So I already had a fair idea of what it’s capable of, but I wasn’t familiar with the many of the integrated tools and was interested in how others are using it to supplement their research. Here are just of few of those tools and uses:

• Evernote Web Clipper – This one is pretty straight-forward. You install a plugin and can create new Evernote’s with the click of a button that contain the content of a webpage, snippet of a webpage, or just a link to the webpage. An easy way to bookmark and store research.
• Clearly – This browser plugin makes web content easy to read in Evernote. Great for those ancient, hideous web pages.
• Skitch – An app that allows you to markup images. Perfect for highlighting names or keywords and annotating photos or records.
• NoteFuser – This Chrome plugin, created by Jimmy Zimmerman, won First Place in the 2012 RootsTech Developer Challenge. The plugin hooks into FamilySearch.org and geni.com person pages allowing you to tie Evernotes to specific people in your tree.
• ifttt (if this then that) – Here’s a really interesting service that “puts the web to work for you” by automatically… doing stuff. For instance, it can create a new Evernote everytime your favorite genealogy blogger publishes a post. Their site can explain it better than I can.
• EverPress – A lot of genealogists seem to like keeping their research log in the form of a WordPress blog. This allows you to automatically share the contents of an Evernote folder with your blog.
• Scanning directly to Evernote. Did you know there are scanners that can do that?
• GEDCOM storage. It was suggested you could store your tree files in Evernote. However, another session suggested keeping them in Dropbox – which I like even more, since you could setup your apps to source that file and keep it in sync.

Basically, it was suggested that you store everything related to your genealogy research in Evernote. Could be cool, will I try doing that… mmm, I don’t know… we’ll see.

Eleven Layers of Online Searches

This was an awesome presentation from Barbara Renick – she really knows what she’s talking about here. So if you’re having trouble finding someone, here are 11 steps to take that might just lead you to a breakthrough:

1. Try just the name – see how many results you get, look for patterns
2. Try the name with identifiers – such as event, place, dates, relationships
3. Try name with initials – there is a handy page on the FamilySearch Wiki on guessing name variations
4. Add wild cards – use *, ?, AEIOUY replacements, adjacent location searches
5. Try no last name with identifiers – see Layer #2 for identifiers
6. Try no first name with identifiers – see Layer #2 for identifiers, including the sex of the person will help with this one
7. Try no name with identifiers – mix and match identifiers, expand or contract geographic focus
8. Try another name in the household – a more unique name
9. Try another name in the neighborhood – that has been enumerated nearby in other census years
10. Try combining names – husband and wife, multiple generations, related surnames – godparents, witnesses, etc
11. If at first you don’t succeed try a different search tool – websites, CDs, search catalogs for resources by keyword (not name), or go classic – books, films, manuscripts.

Telling Stories: Transforming the Bare Facts of Genealogy Into the Astonishing Tale of You and Your Family.

As genealogists, we’re constantly digging up facts and compiling information – but just having all of that data doesn’t mean we have a story to tell. Presenter, Ian Tester, discussed what it takes to turn your own family stories into Who Do You Think You Are? worthy tales. The following video was shown as a basis to that discussion.

Stories Through Data from Ross Forrest on Vimeo.

Making the Most of Technology to Further the Family History Industry (Ancestry.com Panel)

This was a great panel with some of Ancestry.com’s top technology leaders led by Tim Sullivan, President and CEO of Ancestry.com. They discussed technologies they’re working on, technologies of the future, what it was like to support the website during the third season premier of Who Do You Think You Are?, and the growing IT needs at Ancestry.com.

Creating Cross-Platform Mobile Apps with Titanium

So Titanium is pretty awesome. Now that I know more about it, it seems like a good candidate for an idea I have (see the conclusion). The session discussed the pros and cons of using Titanium, and ran through a simple demo. It was led by some of the Family Search developers – who just the day before – launched the brand new, Titanium made, Family Search Indexing app.

Honorable Mentions

• Genealogy Idol – Just like it sounds, four genealogists competed for the title.
• Exabyte Social Clouds and Other Monstrosities (Keynote) – A very fun discussion of where technology has been, where it is now, and where it’s going.
• Genealogy Internet Gems – A run through of some of the best genealogy sites and services available.
• Ancestral Lines Pairing Systems: Uniquely Numbering Each Ancestral Line, Generation, Pairing and Sibling – An overview of a newly published pedigree numbering system. Pretty interesting, I am currently working with my own custom system that is somewhere between this and Aftenafel.
• Event Driven Web Apps with Node.js – A solid overview of how Node.js works and what you can do with it.

Video for a lot of these sessions will be up soon, but the highlights are already streaming on the RootsTech homepage. You can also check out the session schedule, where you’ll find syllabi for most of the sessions, as well.

Events & Excursions

Ryan Hamilton

The first night of the conference, RootsTech brought in comedian, Ryan Hamilton. He was hilarious!! I think he thought our odd combination of genealogists and technologists was pretty entertaining as well – cracking a few jokes about the age gap. At one point, he started taking audience questions which was epic. Here’s a bit he did for our show:

Late Night at the Library

A tradition carried on from RootsTech 2011, Late Night at the Library was an even bigger success this year. They had to ask us not to all come at once so that they wouldn’t run into fire regulation issues!

First up was the Who Do You Think You Are? Season 3 premier! It was a blast watching the show with such a huge group of genealogists. The crowd’s reaction to the findings and to Martin Sheen’s reactions were very entertaining. And hving an inside look at the production of the show made it that much more enjoyable.

After the show, it was time to get down to business. First, I hit up the subscription sites and scored three key obituaries that confirmed some things I wasn’t quite sure of! After that, I decided to try my hand at searching the microfilms (for the first time) for a specific naturalization record and declaration of intent. I found the naturalization record as referenced the by index, but no luck finding the declaration – I even went back and tried again after the conference.

Salt Lake City

Me, Benjamin, Mary Lou

Between all the sessions and events, I had a bit of time to explore the Temple Square area. First, I went at night to take a few photographs. The second time, I went back with a few new RootsTech genealogist friends – Mary Lou and Benjamin. Benjamin, mysteriously, has no legal surname… no joke. Being that he is a genealogist (ie. someone who spends his time looking for last names), this baffled Mary Lou and I to no end. We have not been able to pry to story out of him yet. Maybe next year.

After strolling around the Square and taking a tour of the top level of the secondary LDS office building (where we got some great views), we headed out for a drink at The Beerhive. I had a pretty good Desert Edge UPA, although it was a little weak as far as the alcohol content goes – a theme you can expect from UT beers.

Compared to last year, I didn’t see nearly as many SLC oddities. See last years RootsTech Recap if you want to know what I’m talking about. I did get a few alright photos though – check out the best in the Flickr slideshow below:

Ready for Next Year

Last years inaugural event was excellent, and to me, my official entry into the world of legitimate genealogy. Obviously, I enjoyed the event so much that I didn’t even hesitate to return. This year’s event, however, left me with a much stronger feeling of inclusion and forward momentum. Throughout the conference when people would ask, “Are you a user or developer?” I replied with, “I’m in the middle,” and I think that’s probably the best place to be. I have a strong interest in doing the research and seeking out dead people, but I’m also interested in creating the technologies to help me do that research.

Just a week ago, an idea for a genealogy research log tool popped into my head – because, in all honesty, I suck at logging my research. There’s no easy way to do it! You either have to write or type out long names, specific spellings, data sources, and more. I just want to do the research, not spend 75% of my time compiling the details on how I’m doing it. And, it seems like I’m not alone. In D. Joshua Taylor’s Genealogy Software Forecast session, there was an overwhelming majority of attendees who admitted to not keeping a log, and a discussion that went on to cover the need for an easy, fast, intuitive, and even automatic way to log from any location. So that is my goal this year, to create and develop an awesome multi-platform (see the Titanium session mentioned above) research logging tool – specific to genealogy. If all goes well, I hope to be entering it into the RootsTech Developer Challenge in 2013!!

Well that just about covers it! It was a pretty awesome and successful trip and I can’t wait for next year. Side note: it was also pretty successful for my Twitter account – I was retweeted by @RootsTechConf, @AncestryDotCom, and even @RyanHamiltone – hello >20,000 impressions!!

Wow. So, who knew those online contests where you can win trips and meet celebrities ever paid off?!?! It turns out, the grand prize is not a lie. Because I won it!! No joke.

Each day for two weeks, I submitted my basic contact information to the Ancestry.com 15 Days of Discovery sweepstakes hoping to win an iPad 2 or a camera or a 1-year subscription… any of those would have been nice. The contest ends, a few weeks go by, and I get that magical phone call: “You’ve won the grand prize of the Ancestry.com 15 Days of Discovery sweepstakes!”. Ummm…. what!?! No. Freaking. Way.

At the time, I honestly had no idea what the grand prize even was. LOL. So I was in a bit of disbelief. And then he told me what the prize was, and oh.my.god. …

• Airfare for two to Los Angeles
• Two nights stay at the luxurious Beverly Wilshire hotel
• Transportation to all locations
• A private tour of NBC Universal studios
• A tour of Shed Media, where Who Do You Think You Are? is produced
• Lunch with Lisa Kudrow and the producers of Who Do You Think You Are?
• VIP tickets to the Tonight Show with Jay Leno

Wow. Very cool. And it turned out to be even cooler than I expected.

Adam and I left for LA on Tuesday morning and got in with enough time to see some of the city. Our car picked us up from the hotel and took us to the swanky Beverly Wilshire where we checked in and met up with Marvin, who you may know as our awesome wedding officiant.

First stop was Santa Monica Pier where they happened to be filming for the show Private Practice. We made it just in time for sunset which was beautiful. It was a lot chillier than expected though!

Next it was off to dinner at Umami Burger. It took us quite a while to get there since we hit the legendary LA rush hour traffic, but it was definitely worth it. I had the Earth Burger which was excellent – a mushroom and edamame patty, white soy aioli, truffle ricotta, cipollini onions, lettuce, and slow-roasted tomato. Yum! We also got an order of truffle cheese fries which were just as good as they sound!!

After dinner, we headed to the famed Hollywood Boulevard to stroll the Walk of Fame, Kodak Theater (where the Academy Awards are held), and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre (where you can find the hand and foot prints of the stars).

Lastly, we decided to stop for a drink at Blue Palms Brew House, a specialty bar that rotates craft brews in every few weeks. I had a pretty solid Beachwood BBQ Breaker Pale Ale. The whole time we were there, I kept noticing a man in athletic wear and a ball cap who bared a striking resemblance to Nick Lachey, formerly of the boy band 98 Degrees and married to Jessica Simpson. Turns out, it really was him. Woot! My first celebrity sighting in Hollywood!!

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The Big Day

Early wake up. $80 breakfast room service. Limo pick up.

First stop, NBC Universal for a private tour. No photos allowed unfortunately, but we got a pretty cool inside look at the studios and how things work. Things of note: the set of the Tonight Show, the set of Access Hollywood, the set of Days of Our Lives, the set warehouse, old costumes. Cool stuff.

Second stop, Shed Media – where Who Do You Think You Are? is researched and produced. This was really awesome. We got to meet all the shows producers and researchers. Everyone was really nice and happy to be there. It seemed like a really fun work environment where everyone loves what they’re doing. After a bit of chatting about what goes into producing an episode, Lisa Kudrow and the other producers showed up! Lisa seemed pretty surprised that Adam and I were so young. We talked about where my genealogy research has gotten me and some of the road blocks that I’ve hit. She encouraged me to ask the researchers for their thoughts, which I did and to which I received some great suggestions.

Alex Graham, Jennifer O’Connell, Me, Lisa Kudrow, Adam, Dan Bucatinski

From Shed Media it was off to lunch with Lisa and the producers at the restaurant: Ammo. I got the orecchiette with rapini, radicchio, Picholine olives, breadcrumbs and crushed red pepper . It was absolutely excellent. While we ate, we discussed everything from the shows we watch, to ideas for celebs on WDYTYA, to SOPA and copyright infringement. Everybody was really down to earth and nice. It was an awesome experience to say the least.

Finally, we said our goodbyes and nice-to-meet-you’s and it was off to our final stop – a taping of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. I was probably the least excited about this part of the prize as I’m not a huge fan of Jay, but it was certainly cool to get a behind the scenes look at how those late night shows are filmed. The guests were Jennifer Garner, Ross Matthews and the band Parachute. Ross Matthews was my favorite guest, he was pretty hilarious. The whole episode is available online if you’d like to try and spot us in the crowd – we had pretty good seats – fourth row and center.

After that it was back to the Beverly Wilshire in the last limo ride. Since Adam’s grandma lives in the LA region, she came out to the BW with some cousins and we all headed out for a tasty dinner at a nice little Persian restaurant. The food wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. The company was the best part! Finally, we were back at the hotel and decided to use our $100 dinner credit on a lovely dessert spread – cookies and ice cream and strawberries with balsamic, oh! and a $22 glass of Cabernet Sauvignon!

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And that was pretty much it, the next morning we had another $80 room service breakfast and made our way to the airport, travelled ALL day long, and finally made it home.

What a trip! And there were so many things I left out of this already lengthy blog post! So here’s a few of my favorite photos from the journey to help fill the gaps for you! Best viewed in fullscreen!

After spending a week in Israel eating nothing but the best, I came back feeling inspired and motivated to eat better and work towards being healthier overall. So, I stopped shopping for food at Meijer and started shopping at the local Westborne Market. I picked up a few cooking magazines (the books would come a little later). And I was off to the races. It started out pretty simple – basic chicken and veggie recipes, steak and potatoes, etc. – but it didn’t take long before I was trying new things and getting creative.

Now, eight months later, I have a growing collection of over 20 cookbooks and magazines. And in the last few months, I’ve been getting more and more into international cuisine – as you all know by now. With the new year comes new resolutions, and so it was decided:

My goal for 2012: One international cuisine week per month for twelve months.

As you may have guessed, this first cuisine week is Vietnamese – a cuisine I was entirely unfamiliar with. It turned out pretty well, with a few particularly awesome dishes. Read on for the deets… (and to find out what cuisine weeks are coming up next!)

Dinner No. 1: Thịt Bò Xào Bông Cải
Beef Stir-fried with Cauliflower

Not a bad first dish, pretty basic – flank steak and cauliflower stir-fried in garlic and fish sauce with a bit of onion. I served this up with kasmati rice and some lightly dressed spinach. Solid flavors overall.

Rating: 4/5

Dinner No. 2: Canh Riêu Cá và Chả Bắp Rán
Salmon with Tomato, Dill & Garlic Soup and Corn & Coconut Fritters

In this case, I’m going to have to rate the two parts of the dinner separately because the soup was okay, but the fritters were pretty freaking awesome! The soup probably would have been better if I had used fresh dill, however the market was out that day. Oh well, it was good for what it was – very salmony.

The fritters though, wow. Tasty fried sweet corn bundles of joy. And dipped in a sweetened Sriracha sauce for some serious kick. SOOOO good. I will be making these again – and will probably double the batch!

Soup Rating: 3.5/5
Fritter Rating: 5/5

Dinner No. 3: Gà Kho Gừng
Chicken and Ginger Simmered in Caramel Sauce

If you recall, I said Vietnamese week had some particularly awesome victories – the fritters were the first, and this chicken was the second. First of all, I made the caramel sauce myself – just a) boiled sugar in water until it smoked, b) took it off the heat and swirled it around until it blacked, c) submerged the bottom of the pot in cold water to stop it from cooking, d) poured additional cold water into the caramel (this extra water is what made it into a liquid sauce), e) returned it to the heat and stirred until the water was mixed in well with the caramel. Bam. Caramel sauce.

The rest was pretty straight forward – place boneless, skinless chicken thighs chopped up with some ginger in a sauce pan, add the caramel sauce and some fish sauce and simmer for 15~ minutes. Viola, you have the most amazingly tasty chicken ever.

Rating: 5/5

Dinner No. 4: Bí Đỏ Hầm Dừa
Winter Squash Simmered in Coconut Milk

This one turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. I used acorn squash instead of the recipes banana squash or butternut squash. I don’t think that was the problem. It really just lacked strong flavor.

The recipe called for raw peanuts, winter squash, sweet potato, a bit of sugar, and of course the coconut milk – simmered until the veggies had cooked and the coconut milk had thickened into a sauce. The best part in my opinion was the peanuts! If the recipe had has some kick to it, maybe a bit of curry, more of a Thai spice flavor – it probably would have been pretty good.

Rating: 3/5

Dinner No. 5: Trứng Chiên Tôm
Egg, Shrimp, and Scallion Pancakes

These were sort of like an egg foo young, but better. They were also extremely simple to make – just mix a few beaten eggs with shrimp and scallions and ladle about 2 tbsp. at a time into a 1/4″ of oil. Flip when the edges start to brown. On their own, they were pretty good – but dipped in a tiny bit of fish sauce, they were epic.

Rating: 4.5/5

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And so that was Vietnamese Week! Pretty good, I’d say! There are definitely a few things I’ll be cooking again. Now it’s time to prepare for next month – FRENCH!! And what better cookbook to refer to for French cuisine than Mastering the Art of French Cooking?! So if you have any favorite recipes from the book that I should consider for next month – let me know in the comments!!

1. Vietnamese – DONE!
2. French – NEXT!
3. Irish
4. Indian
5. Jamaican
6. Ethiopian
7. Greek
8. Cuban
9. Moroccan
10. Thai
11. Polish
12. Japanese

Well, I should have posted about this way back in September, but life has continued to be busy – so here it is, three months later… an overview of our honeymoon in Toronto, Canada!

We were married on Saturday, September 10, and after a nice family and friend brunch on Sunday morning, we hopped in the car and headed to the good ‘ol Canadian border. Of course, we got caught up in customs and had to sit in the immigrations office for a whole hour. That was sweet. It also turns out highways in Canada are freaking helicopter patrolled!?! WTF? So we didn’t speed on the way to Toronto. So we arrived at our adorable B&B a little later than expected.

The owner, Geoffrey, was lovely though and welcomed us warmly. He also gave us an awesome late night dinner suggestion – House on Parliament. Adam got a burger and I got a beef and mushroom pie and a tasty Spearhead Hawaiian Style Pale Ale!

Day 1: Exploring the City

Our first full day! We headed out to the Lawrence Market to catch the City Sight Seeing tour bus. Not a bad deal, by the way. Thirty bucks for a guided ~two hour tour around the city and a bonus boat tour of the Toronto islands!! We stepped off the bus for lunch around Dundas Square and picked up some Magic cards at the pretty serious card shop that we passed by. Stopped for some tea and coffee and then grabbed the next bus that passed by!

Finally, it was time for the boat tour! This was one of my favorite parts of the trip – a nice relaxing boat ride around the islands. Spectacular views, great weather, and my new husband! <3

Day 2: Casa Loma & the Royal Ontario Museum

Day 2 was rather pleasant. We headed out to Casa Loma after breakfast and explored the castle and gardens. Lots of cool old stuff all over the place! After a few hours of exploration here, we headed downtown to grab some lunch and then to the Royal Ontario Museum.

The museum was pretty sweet – some of the cool stuff: the crystal room, the gem room, DINOSAURS!!, taxidermy, and all sorts of art.

Day 3: Niagara Falls

This was probably my favorite day. The falls were beautifal and mind-blowingly awesome. Of course, we had to take the Maid of the Mist out to the bottom of the falls – which was crazy!!

After a few hours, we hopped in the car and took the scenic wine-trail drive up to Niagara-on-the-Falls. We grabbed a great lunch and then strolled along the streets and did a bit of souvenier shopping, grabbed some coffee and tea, and then headed out to the lake. Soooo relaxing :)

Day 4: Science Center, CN Tower, Chinatown

Well the Science Center turned out to be pretty weak. I only took one photo while we were there. The place was practically empty, maybe because the school year had just started and it was too early for field trips. Everything was really old, a lot of the interactive displays were broken. They clearly haven’t gotten much funding in the last 20 years. Oh, and food options = zip.

So we headed back downtown to the CN Tower and took the elevator to the top for some awesome views. And afterwards it was off to Chinatown for an amazing dinner.

Day 5: Toronto Zoo

The zoo was pretty awesome, and not crowded at all, which was good except that it meant that none of the food stands were open. So we kinda starved ourselves through lunch. But there were a lot of cool animals out and the indoor animal environments were pretty cool since all the animals could move around us freely.

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And that was just about it!! Lots of good sights and scenes, tasty treats and drinks, relaxation and great company.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the week, and below that is the complete photo book I made to remember the week by. Hope you enjoy checking them out!

Best viewed in Full Screen!

Again – best viewed in Full Screen!

2011 was phenomenal. Insane. Exhilarating. Awesome. Joyful. Busy. Just all around generally incredible.

Probably my favorite year in my <27 years of existence.

Here’s just a few reasons why:

• Marriage – Best day of my life. We did it!! And it was wonderful!! Everything was perfect and beautiful, and everyone had a wonderful time. It couldn’t possibly have been much better. Not to mention our awesome honeymoon in Toronto (blog post coming soon, seriously)!!!!
• Israel – Best week of my life. Adam’s family, the sites, the history, the people, the FOOD!!! Such an amazing experience and SO thankful to have had it!
• Cooking – After returning from Israel and the week long experience of exquisite cuisine, I came back yearning for a healthier, more enjoyable lifestyle. And for me, that started with the abandonment of frozen bag dinners and the purchase of several great cookbooks (which eventually lead to Cuisine Week)!
• Genealogy – In between wedding planning and traveling, I was able to break through a few brick walls, connect with some distant cousins, and I even managed to win the GRAND freaking PRIZE in the Ancestry.com 15 Days of Discovery sweepstakes!! The trip to LA is in just a few weeks!!
• RootsTech – And going along with the genealogy stuff, I had the opportunity to attend the first ever RootsTech conference in February which was an awesome mashup of genealogy and technology. I’m already all booked for the second conference in Feb. 2012!
• CodeMash & An Event Apart (San Francisco) – My first two real web / developer conferences – all thanks to my new(ish) work home – Quicken Loans! These were a lot of fun, a lot to take in, and certainly reinvigorated my profession.

So much awesomesauce in 2011. It’s actually pretty hard for me to imagine 2012 being better than that.

No big life events planned and no super huge crazy travel plans. Just the Ancestry.com trip in January and RootsTech in February – which will both be awesome. After that I’ll be able to actually start conserving my time-off. Maybe towards the end of the year we’ll plan a bigger vacation, who knows what 2012 will bring?!

Time to go work on my list of New Years resolutions!

SlickQuiz, simply put, is:

A jQuery plugin for creating pretty, dynamic quizzes.

I’ll let the demo speak for itself – check it out below!!

Check out the github page for all the technical details!

A good friend of mine is going through a very rough time and could use some help paying off her medical bills, please help if you can.

You can submit your donations to: GoFundMe

It would be the best Christmas gift she could ever receive.

For more on her story, visit: Living Incidentally