What are the odds that both of my siblings and I are engaged!?! The best part is, I know we've all found real keepers :D It's strange how life works, but I couldn't be happier for my big brother and sister and their new fiances! I am so excited that my family is growing so big all at once. Colin and I will be the last to get married, which will definitely help in our own wedding planning and give us some time to figure out where we're headed. There are so many unknowns ahead - graduation is rapidly approaching and I'm anxiously awaiting news from UConn while starting to apply for jobs and internships. Colin is loving his job in Massachusetts, so the plan is northeast!  All I know is that it is an exciting time for all of us and knowing there are such bright things ahead is a good feeling to have <3 

Glad to say my winter break was filled with family and fun. It started out by traveling back home to NY and spending a little over a week enjoying lots of snow. I'm really happy Leticia and Justin came up for Christmas so Colin was finally able to meet them both! It was also just really nice hanging out as a family. I received some really nice gifts from everyone including some snazzy clothes for interviews and Western NY's finest candy - sponge candy and ribbon candy! We also convinced my mom to get not one, but two little kittens for Christmas to keep her company when we're not there to visit. It was a bad idea to wear my new sweaters around, but boy are they adorable! JC, the orange one, and Quinn, the black one, have very different personalities and they definitely made me excited for when Colin and I can have our own cats! 

After Christmas was over, Colin and I ventured over to Tennessee to visit Oma and Opa and the rest of the Spillane family. The 4 days we were there consisted of a lot of cribbage playing, movie watching, and 4-wheeling out in the woods. When New Year's Eve rolled around, JB, Colin, Allison, and I headed to St. Louis to have a mini-reunion with their old classmates and to enjoy a night out at the Hyatt. They had a dinner, open bar, and 4 live bands playing throughout the night - I felt like I was at a prom made for 21-65 year olds...and it was awesome! 

The rest of my vacation was spent back home working on my thesis, watching Law & Order with my mom, and visiting as many friends as possible! I managed to squeeze in a sleep over and a night out with my A-team bowling teammates :) 

 My biggest relief was submitting my graduate application for the University of Connecticut. I'm now filled with excitement about what my future holds and am hoping to hear back from them real soon! If I make it past the first stage I'll be headed up North for interviews at all of the hospitals involved in the program. 

Oh yeah, and I also let Colin cut a lot of my hair off on Christmas Eve.... it was the longest hair cut of my life and I was pretty glad I was seeing my hair stylist the next week, but hey, it was like a dream come true for him! (because for real, who let's their boyfriend/fiance cut their hair ever?)

Kupikia Tanzania!To Cook for Tanzania 
On sale now at: www.kupikiatanzania.com 

FYI to pronounce the title it is: "ku-pee-key-uh"

... it turns out making a book requires a lot of effort. I wasn't going to spend time on something I would be fine with throwing away in a few years; that is a challenge within itself. I also wanted people who decided to support the cause to not only be happy about who they're helping, but to have something they enjoy in return (and possibly even learn a thing or two!). So, I made this book full of pictures (I think just over 130!) and spent a lot of time formatting each and every page to get it to where it is today. Not to mention the amount of help I've had on this. My roommate, Aubrey, has tried almost every recipe in this book with me this semester and helped me edit all of the recipes! She is constantly baking cookies and delicious treats for our class so her recipe reading definitely helped make mine more "cookbook like." And then Colin helped me while in Tanzania, making the whole cooking process faster by taking pictures and writing down all the things we were chopping up, adding, simmering, or frying. He also happens to be an excellent marketer :) I think half the books sold so far were thanks to him! And then everyone who helped me edit the pages when Aubrey and I couldn't stare at the recipes any longer! 

Most of my updates on the book will just be posted on the website for the cookbook so it all stays in one place. Now, I'm busy trying to decide my next move with who to outreach to and what kind of big event I should have to raise a large amount of money in one sitting. I'm thinking about contacting dining services at Tulane to do a Tanzanian dinner night in Buff - the only all you can eat place on campus.

It was so exciting when everyone was getting their first round of books and I can't wait for people to start trying some dishes!
Online alone 175 books and 17 pdfs have been purchased and I'm slowly getting more and more donations - approaching the $3000 mark pretty soon!
Stay tuned at www.kupikiatanzania.com :)