Weekly Reflection- Week Three

I cannot believe that Senior Project has finally come to a close!  These last three weeks certainly flew by, as Becca and I were busy working on our project.  I had a lot of fun with Becca this past week wrapping things up and putting our binder and condensed book together.  Though it was a lot of work, I enjoyed every second of this week!  

This week, I learned that if two people really put their heads together and work as a team to create a project, it can happen!  I am so pleased with the end product of our project, and can't wait to hand it over to Proctor's Admissions Office.  I also learned the importance of opinions this week. Becca and I are very different individuals, thus bringing different ideas and opinions to the table every day.  If we hadn't listened to each other, I do not believe that our project could have turned out the way it did.  We both added our own personal flare into the book we created, and can really show it off as something special.  

If Becca and I hadn't completed this weeks activities, we certainly would be in trouble right now!  This week was crucial as we edited, printed, cut and paste everything to create our binder and condensed book on the computer.  We had the perfect amount of work for this week due to good time management.  Becca and I had plenty to do, though not so much that we were cramming to get things done.  We ended on Friday so that we only had a few small things to go over this weekend for our binder.  I am so happy with what we have done and finished this week!  Our binder and smaller book are professional works of art!

There was only one thing that wasn't expected this week, which was the addition of The Old Courthouse into our book.  Since Becca and I had decided to eliminate La Meridiana during our second week of Senior Project, we weren't sure which restaurant we would add into our book. There were three restaurants that we had in mind, though we weren't sure which to choose.  We knew we had to choose a restaurant quickly because this was our final week, so we made reservations for The Old Courthouse on Wednesday.  We were so excited with our meals at The Old Courthouse and were thankful that it was the first restaurant we had tried!  Although we weren't positive at the beginning of the week which restaurant we would include, we are certainly glad that we have The Old Courthouse in our book now to recommend to Proctor's  families!

Becca and I will benefit from this week's activities because our project is now complete and we can present it!  We feel confident in what we have produced and feel our work is top notch.  We hope that as much as we have enjoyed and benefited from our Senior Project experience, Proctor's Admissions Office will benefit from our work as well!       

The Final Day of Week 3

Today was the last day of week 3, the final week of Senior Project!  Though Becca and I have completed most all of our work, we do still plan to meet with each other this weekend to polish up a few things.  We are very happy and proud of our work and cannot wait to present it to Proctor's Admissions Office.  Today was busy as we finished all sorts of components of our project.  Becca came over at 9:00 this morning and we worked until 11:00. Becca showed me the title page she created last night, and it looks nice and is the perfect introduction to our book.  She sent it to my computer, and I added pictures of both of us that we had taken Wednesday night at The Old Courthouse.  After I proofread the title page and added the pictures to it, I printed it out and cut it to fit into our book.  I also worked on the Google Map that I am creating for our binder and condensed book.  I found it pretty hard to figure it out, because I couldn't  add text to each marker that I put to mark the 20 different restaurants.  I have an idea of what I will do to fix this problem though, and am going to play with it this weekend.  Other than that small problem though, the map is mostly finished.  During our time this morning, Becca printed out, cut, and placed into our binder all of her reviews.  It looks so nice!  We are so happy to have it completed.  Becca took the book home today to paste in all of our reviews this weekend!  We also have our Clickbook condensed version completed!  This weekend, all we have left to do is add on the Google Map and get it bound!  Around 11:15, Becca and I went over to Margaret's house for an hour.  She looked through our completed binder and was very pleased.  She had a few last minute suggestions and caught one or two spelling errors, which we were so happy she pointed out!  Becca and I appreciate her help so much and plan to see her one more time on Monday!  This afternoon, I met with our mentor Jane at Jack's.  She also read and looked through our binder and loved it.  She was a big help too!  After my meeting with Jane, I went to Proctor to turn in our Time Sheets and see the musical.  I was very happy with how smoothly today went and glad to be almost done with our project!  I have only one more blog left, my Weekly Reflection on Sunday, so goodbye for now!  

Busy Thursday!-Day 14

It was an extremely long Thursday.  Becca and I had lots of work to do today, so much so that I worked for a total of 9 1/2 hours!  We woke up this morning and got right to work at 10:00.  I worked on so many little details of our project this morning that I am having trouble remembering them all. The first thing that I did this morning though was to polish the half of my reviews that I didn't print the other night.  I realized that it was kind of silly for me to print out five of my reviews the other night because although I had spellchecked them, I still wanted Becca to read over them (I think I must have just gotten a little excited that they were complete!).  We decided we would switch computers and read each others reviews later on today, because we were just so busy with our own individual little things this morning.  The next thing that I did this morning was create labels with a label maker for the restaurants that did not provide us with contact cards. For six different restaurants, I composed and printed out labels with their name, address, telephone number, website, and email.  After I had all of them printed, I stuck them on their proper restaurant page in our binder. Our binder certainly looked great this morning as Becca finished adding all of the pictures onto each page!  At 2:30 this afternoon, Becca and I took a short lunch break and then began working again from 3:00 to 5:00, when Becca left to go home.  During this time, we read and edited each others reviews.  We welcomed each other to change and add in anything that we thought a certain review was lacking.  I thought Becca's reviews were great though, and barely changed a thing.  We mainly made sure that spelling and grammar was perfect in all 20 of our reviews and that they matched each other in approximate sizes and fonts.  We spoke with Margaret after this today and the phone to catch up and plan a meeting with her tomorrow. She will be a great help in looking through our reviews with us and catching any spelling or grammatical errors that each of us might have missed. Becca and I will also be meeting with Jane tomorrow (we spoke with her over email) to go over our binder!  We are so grateful to be getting lots of help from such bright individuals!  After we spoke with Margaret, Becca flipped through the binder and discovered that a few of our restaurants didn't have a picture of their sign stating their name.  We fixed this though by simply typing the titles of these few restaurants onto a Word document, choosing a pretty color and font, printing them out, cutting them, and pasting them into our binder.  For the little time left this afternoon that Becca was at my house, we both began the review process using Clickbooks.  In our condensed version of our Top 20 Restaurants for Proctor Families book, we are going to include a cover page, title page, map, and 20 restaurants review pages that will each also give MapQuest directions and restaurant websites.  I began condensing my information onto one Word document as Becca did the same thing on her computer.  I recopied my reviews onto a new document and had to retrieve each restaurants MapQuest directions and websites again.  This process took a long time, and I wasn't even close to finished when Becca left to go home. After she left, I took a much needed break to relax and eat dinner and began working again from 7:00 to 10:00.  During this time, I re-read and printed out all of my restaurant reviews.  They all looked great with their different fonts, and I cut them out and added them into our binder.  I didn't paste them in yet though!  This will come tomorrow after even more thorough editing is done by Margaret and Jane.   I also finished my condensed version of our book on one Word document tonight.  At this point, I checked my email to find that Becca had sent her condensed version Word document over as she said she would.  Clickbooks requires that all of our information is in one Word document and in the exact order that it will be printed and bound together as, so I opened up Becca's Word document and I got to work combining our documents together.  I looked into our binder to refer to the order that our restaurant are in, which is by closest area, so this is exactly how I arranged the new combined document.  This took quite some time, seeing as the document came out to be 30 pages, though I was very excited to have completed this. Tomorrow, Becca and I are ready to print out our condensed book through Clickbooks and paste in our cut our reviews in the binder!   

Week 3, Day 13...2 Days Left!

I can't believe that Senior Project is almost over!  Becca and I still have a few things to do, but we have it all under control! Today, Becca and I woke up and started work at 9:00.  Becca finished all the pasting of menus and cards into our binder, while I had a lot of little things to do.  First, I called all of the restaurants that I had discovered the other night didn't have hours listed on their websites.  I wrote down all of their times, and sent them to Becca so she could include them at the end of her reviews.  Becca and I talked about how we wanted to our reviews to look with information at the bottom of them.  We both decided on having bullets under the review on the left hand side of it.  Our first bullet will state the days and hours for which the restaurant is open.  The second bullet will state "Becca's Favorite Dish" and our third bullet will state "Erin's Favorite Dish".  We also decided to state in a bullet if the restaurant has lodging or not, which we found a few of them do.  After writing up all of these bullets for each of my reviews, I starting searching online for all of the contact information I needed for a few of the restaurants that didn't have business cards.  This took quite a while, considering some of the restaurants didn't have websites.  I gathered all of this information and typed it into a Word document.  I plan to use a label maker tomorrow to create "business cards" for the restaurants that don't have their own.  For the rest of the morning, I also worked on my reviews and arranging them in one Word document.  My reviews, as well as Becca's, need to all be in one document for our Clickbook software (I learned how to use it this afternoon) that we will use to arrange our condensed book tomorrow!  I finished work with Becca at 1:00, when I left her house.  Tonight, Becca came over at 7:00 and we departed for The Old Courthouse in Newport. Since we have removed La Meridiana from our list, we knew that this week we had to choose a new restaurant.  We were so glad that tonight's dinner was perfect!  It is a great replacement and new recommendation in our book.  We took pictures and Becca and I spoke with the owner.  She was very pleased we were adding her restaurant into our book and gave us her card, a menu, a magnet, and a recent article published in New Hampshire Magazine about The Old Courthouse.  Becca and I both loved our dishes and had a great time.  We left and returned back to my house at 9:30. Tonight, for a half hour,  I worked on and printed out half of my reviews.  Tomorrow, Becca and I look forward to finishing our binder and starting Clickbooks!       

Day 12

Becca and I got a good amount accomplished today.  I drove to pick Becca up at 3:45 this afternoon and at 4:00 we went over to Margaret's.  Here, we were proud to show her our newly enhanced restaurant binder.  She loved it, and she had some great little ideas to improve it.  We discussed with her how the rest of our week is planned and when we can meet with her again.  It's the final week, so we are going to need a lot of help editing!  We left with Margaret the sponsor evaluation sheets when we left to go to Becca's at 4:45.  Tonight, Becca and I worked on a few different things.  First, I showed Becca the pictures of Carpaccio's and the Inn at Danbury and she liked them and agreed they were the best ones for our binder.  Becca began the pasting process tonight of the menus, photographs cut from yesterday, and contact cards into each restaurants page in the binder.  While she did this from 5:00 to 7:00, I worked on reviews in that time.  Tomorrow I will print them at my house and cut them out for our binder.  After a quick break for dinner, Becca and I began working again from 7:30 to 10:15.  I sat and looked online and through our book at all the top 20 menus.  I chose my favorite dish at each restaurant and also asked Becca what her favorite dish was for our "Erin and Becca's Favorite Dishes" section in our book.  After I wrote our favorite dishes down, I looked through our book again to determine which restaurants didn't have contact information cards.  Becca and I are going to have to write out contact information for Four Corners, Milestone, Lui Lui, Yama, and Jesse's.  I then looked through our book to figure out if any restaurants had their hours of operation listed either on their contact card or menu.  Almost no restaurant did, so I had to go onto each restaurants website and write down their hours for lunch and dinner.  A few of the restaurants either didn't have websites or their hours were not listed on their website, so I will have to call these places tomorrow for their hours.  The final thing that I did tonight was to go through our book to see if prices for each restaurant were listed on their menus.  Becca and I had thought that we would need to include a sentence at the end of each restaurant review on prices of food, but luckily each restaurant, with the exception of two, have their prices listed next to each dish on the menu.  We are going to somehow incorporate into the two restaurants reviews that don't list prices on their menus how pricey they actually are.  Tomorrow should be another good day of work!  

The Beginning of the Last Week!

Today, Becca and I really got a lot accomplished.  At 11:30 I drove to her house and picked her up.  We then drove back to my house to begin work. We started right at noon with our computers, a printer, scissors, papers, pencils, and glue. While Becca chose to work on printing out and cutting photographs today, I chose to work on and perfect my reviews. Though I had thought that reviews would be easy to write, I have found that they are actually quite difficult!  It took me quite a while to formulate different ways to write similar descriptions for each restaurant.  I referred to each restaurants website (if they had one) to read about each chef and their restaurant.  After writing for a while, I read my reviews to Becca, and she really liked them so I was happy about that!  She also read a few of her reviews to me.  We both can't wait to share our reviews with Margaret and Jane and know that they will be filled with any great ideas that we have forgotten. I am getting ready to start editing and printing out these reviews! Today was also a great day because Becca and I were introduced to a computer software, Clickbooks, that will allow us to create our smaller book that can be mailed to Proctor families.  The computer software is on my home computer and I will be taking time to learn about it. Becca will come over later one day this week and we will put together our book.  We will do this after our binder for the admissions office is finished (which will be in the next day or two).  Becca and I worked up until 5:00, when she left to go home for the night.  Before she left though, we discussed our plans for tomorrow and decided that I would work at her house tomorrow afternoon and stay the night so we could get a lot done!  Tonight, from 7:00 to 9:00, I did a few things.  First, I finished up reviews that I wrote today and did some editing.  I also created a multicolored cover for our binder out of different scraps of scrapbook paper.  Finally, I uploaded pictures that I took at the Inn at Danbury and Carpaccio's.  I chose the pictures at each restaurant that would be best for our binder and edited them.  Tomorrow should be another long day of work as Becca and I crunch down and try to complete our binder!       

Weekly Reflection- Week Two

This week has gone by very fast as the end of Senior Project approaches. Becca and I have accomplished quite a lot this week and are very on top of all that we still need to do to complete our final book.  One of the big things that I have learned this week is the importance of time management. Though Becca and I are at a good place with our workload, this last week has really snuck up on us and we really have to accelerate! I have also learned how to use Google Map tools.  This was a great tool to create a map for our top 20 restaurants and flag the area where each restaurant is on the map.  This project has really been reiterating the importance of teamwork to me. Becca and I each have different tasks in this project as well as a few of the same, and if one of us started to slack off, our project wouldn't be nearly as nice as it is becoming.  I am certainly glad that I have Becca to work with! 

Becca and I have had a lot of fun this past week putting together our book! Though it was time consuming to cut each restaurant menu and around 100 scrapbook paper sheets, our book looks so beautiful!  Our reviews are coming along nicely as well, and we will soon be finished with them to print them out and add them into our book.  We will also be printing out all of Becca's photographs soon too.  Although I know that this upcoming week will be very busy, Becca and I make fun with whatever we do! 

I am so glad that Becca and I got accomplished everything that we planned we would this week. I think that if we hadn't, next week would be way to crazy for us!  We have really used our time well and have thus a perfect scheduled week of work starting tomorrow.  For the most part, everything has happened as I expected it would this week.  The only thing that was different from what Becca and I had planned was our reconsideration of La Meridiana.  I was glad that I had the opportunity to go to La Meridiana, though I only wish it would have been better.  I expected more, and in some ways was let down, so after a talk with Becca, we have now decided to replace the restaurant with another one.  We have in mind what restaurant we want to add though, so in no way will this choice mess up our book, but instead, only make it better for the Proctor families that view it.  

Becca and I will greatly benefit from this past weeks activities.  We are prepared for what we have to finish and what we still have to do, and feel totally confident that everything is going to get done.  If we hadn't done all the work we did this week, I don't think that everything could have gotten done next week.  I am sure we would have found some way to get everything done if this was the case, but it wouldn't be done with perfection and such detail that we are putting into our book.  I am excited for this upcoming week because I can't wait to see the outcome of our final project. Becca and I cannot wait to present our book to the admissions office!     

Last Day-Week 2

Today was a good final day of week two.  This morning, I woke up at 9:00 and worked on reviews for our book.  I made sure that I was referring to each individual restaurants websites to read about the chef and his or her food to get a better sense of what I should write.  I also referred to the checklist sheets that Becca and I filled out at a few of the restaurants we visited.  After working on reviews for a while, I took a break for a lunch at 12:00.  From 1:00 to 2:30, I worked on creating a map for our final book.  I used Google map tools, which worked great!  I was able to create one map that covers all of the areas our top 20 restaurants are in.  In the map, I was able to add place marks to each of the estimated spots each restaurant is in.  At 2:30, I went over to Margaret's to meet with her briefly and have our time sheets signed.  

Tonight, I went to dine at La Meridiana from 7:00 to 8:00 with my mom and Margaret.  I have still had a lot of reservations about putting La Meridiana on our top 20 for a few reasons, so I thought I really needed to give it another try.  Tonight answered a few of my questions, and I am starting to reconsider including this restaurant in our top 20, from what I feel and what I know a lot of others do as well.  There might have to be a replacement of restaurants in our book.

When I got home after La Meridiana, I talked with Becca and I worked on more of my reviews for a half hour.  Becca and I planed that at some point this weekend we will go out and get more scrapbook paper.  We are excited about the progress we have made on our book this week and plan to do even more work together this weekend!       

Cut and Paste- Day 9

Today was a great day!  First, Becca and I woke up and and drove into Proctor because I needed to attend E block for jazz band rehearsal.  After singing, we went to assembly, and my girl BECCA was inducted into the National Honors Society (yay!!).  I was also happy that I saw Jane this morning and we were able to talk briefly about Senior Proctor and plan when we could talk further.  When my fabulous girl was done getting her award, it was around 11:00 and we headed over to the admissions office to meet with Kim Hurlbutt.  She was so sweet and very excited about our project.  She said that she would love for us to get our restaurant information onto Proctor's website, though she just needed to talk to Whipple Hill and work out some details.  It is looking like a great possibility that Becca and I will have our final restaurant books and a web page!  Kim said that she would get back to us and we could come in next week (if time allows) to put up our information.  We left Proctor around 11:30 and headed back to Becca's house.

Once at Becca's, we had a quick lunch break and then jumped right into work at 12:00.  Today was another tedious cutting and laying out day.  We worked straight until 5:00 cutting menus, MapQuest directions, and scrapbook page backgrounds.  Everything was going great until around the 15th restaurant review, where we ran out of scrapbook paper to line the plastic sheets.  Becca and I will just have to run out to a craft store sometime this weekend and pick up some more!  We also ran out of clear plastic sheets at Becca's, though I knew I had a bunch of extras at my house.  I left Becca's at 5:00 tonight with our book that only needed a little more cutting until it was finished (well, besides adding in our pictures and reviews). We discussed the work that each of us would do tonight and tomorrow before I left.  

Back at my house, I worked on finishing cutting and laying things into our book from 7:30-10:00.  I also worked on my Carpaccio's restaurant review. I collected all of the clear plastic sheets I could find and placed our carefully cut information into each one of them (even though they all don't have pretty scrapbook paper in them yet).  I am now happy to say that all menus, directions, and restaurant cards are all cut and placed into our book!  It feels like we are really making progress.  Tomorrow I hope to create a map with all of our top 20 restaurants, work on more reviews, and catch up with Jane and Margaret.   

Day 8

Becca and I had a very productive day today!  We had talked to Margaret this morning and she said to come over at any time.  We decided we would go to her house at 2:00, and we ended up staying until 5:00.  Becca and I covered a lot about our book with Margaret.  She helped us to change our minds about how we would label and order our book.  We ended up agreeing that labeling the restaurants by area that they are in would be best. Therefore, we have Wilmot, Danbury, New London, Grantham, and Hanover labels.  I spent a lot of my time at Margaret's sorting through our book and putting all of the restaurants in order of the area they are in.  Then, I arranged them from closest time distance (according to MapQuest) to furthest away from Proctor.  I also did a lot of cutting out and a little bit of writing.  When we left Margaret's at 5:00, we decided we would drive and both stay the night at Becca's.  We have to wake up early to come into Proctor tomorrow (for E block, assembly, and our meeting with Kim Hurlbutt) and Becca lives closest to school, so it works out perfectly.  Tonight, Becca and I worked from 6:30 to 10:30 on assembling our book.  We pulled out our colored scrapbook paper and scissors and began.  We spent all of our time cutting out directions and menus to perfectly fit on each individually cut scrapbook paper.  We chose paper that matched well side by side in the book and arranged how the menus, directions, cards, pictures, and reviews should be pasted onto each page. Becca and I found this process to be very time consuming!  It is taking a lot longer than we expected, but our book is looking so good!  We completed pages for six different restaurants tonight, and each page is so unique and eye-catching.  Once we are finished with this process, all we will have to do is finish writing and print out our reviews and pictures (for our final book to sit in the admissions office).  I am looking forward to our meeting with Kim tomorrow and hopefully another successful day!   

Week 2, Day 7

This morning I woke up to go and take my AP Environmental Science exam at 8:00. After being tortured for three hours, I was so happy to be done with the exam!  I left Proctor and was at Becca's house by 11:45.  Becca and I worked for a solid six hours today.  

At Becca's house, we had a short lunch break and talked about what we would do today for our project.  We decided that we would drive over to my house to do our work, since I have a color printer that we have been using.  We got to my house around 12:45 and got right to work at 1:00.  

Today, Becca and I did a number of things.  First, we decided on what we would do for directions.  We already knew that we wanted to print out MapQuest directions for each restaurant in our book, but we hadn't made our minds up yet for what to do about maps. We eventually came to the conclusion that we are going to make one large area map of our restaurants with a map creator program.  I will be the one working on this in the next couple of days.  

While Becca printed and cut out MapQuest directions, I finished cutting out restaurant menus from the other day.  I also went through a few menus from restaurants that had been available for us to take and cut them up.  Next, we finished printing and cutting out the other ten menus online that I didn't get to yesterday.  

Becca and I discussed a lot about our page layout today and how we want our final book to look like.  Both Becca and I have great paper to use for decorative backgrounds of each page in our book left over from previous scrap booking, which we both love to do. We have been putting all of our restaurant information into the plastic sheets in our book, and it is looking great so far!  We also talked about how we are going to label our book with color tabs, and I think we have decided on food type.  

Another things that we had on our agenda for today was to email Kim Hurlbutt in the Development Office at Proctor.  We explained to her our Senior Project and the possibility of putting all of our restaurant information under Proctor's A to Z page. She emailed us right back and thought it was a great idea.  We scheduled a meeting with Kim for Thursday.  Becca and I understand that creating a website can be a hard and lengthy process, and our main goal of our project is to create a final binder/book and a condensed version of this book, so we are going to meet and see what this possibility could entail.  We really hope that we can add our reviews and pictures etc. to Proctor's web page though, if time allows!

At 5:00, Becca and I took a short break for dinner and were back to work for another hour between 7:00 and 8:00.  Becca worked on a few of her reviews, while I worked on a few of mine.

Tomorrow should be a good day of collaborative work just as today was!  We are planning to get a lot done on our reviews and then meet with Margaret later in the afternoon.  

   

The Beginning of Week 2

Unfortunately, I couldn't do much work today on my Senior Project because I had to spend most of my day (and all of tonight too!) studying for my AP Environmental Science exam tomorrow!  My exam will be in the morning, from 8:00 until around 11:30.  This will leave plenty of time tomorrow afternoon for Becca and I to work on our project and hopefully meet with Margaret.  I was able to work for three hours today though!  This morning I started at 9:00 and worked until 12:00.  A big chunk of this time was spent visiting 10 of our top 20 restaurant's websites.  On each website, I printed out menus on my color printer.  Becca and I decided a few days ago, with the help of Margaret, to include menus in our final book.  We feel that a lot of families will want to look at a menu before deciding to drive to a restaurant.  I printed out menus of the following ten restaurants: Peter Christian's Tavern, New London Inn, Inn at Pleasant Lake, Milestone, Four Corner, Canoe Club, Molly's, La Meridiana, Mai Thai, and Margaritas.  With the other bit of time during my three hours, I worked on my restaurant reviews.  Now that Becca and I have completed our top 20 list, we each have 10 reviews that we have chosen to write.  We will definitely collaborate and help each other with all 20 though, as well as having Margaret and Jane help us with editing.  The 10 restaurant reviews that I am focusing on are Peter Christian's Tavern, New London Inn, Inn at Pleasant Lake, Canoe Club, Molly's, Mai Thai, Margaritas, Inn at Danbury, Colonial Farm Inn, and Carpaccio's.  I am excited to work on these reviews all of this upcoming week because I absolutely love all of these restaurants!  Becca and I talked today and we have made plans for tomorrow.  She knows that I needed to be studying all day today, and I know that she did some good work at her house.  I already can't wait until my exam is over tomorrow and Becca and I can get to work! 

Weekly Reflection- Week One

I am surprised at how fast my first week of Senior Project has gone by!  It has certainly been a very fun and successful week!  I have enjoyed every minute of working with Becca, our sponsor Margaret, and our mentor Jane.  Margaret and Jane have been wonderful in helping us with our project, and Becca is just the perfect partner to work with.  We each have different ideas, therefore, each bringing our own flare to the project and making it something that's going to be very special.  Becca and I are an ideal pair to collaborate and create a book that we hope will be a wonderful asset to Proctor's admissions office as well as all of Proctor's families.  

Becca and I have really been on task this week, and have finished up the week being right where we need to be.  We have definitely accomplished all that we were aiming to this week and I am proud of what we have created so far.  Because Becca and I have accomplished all that we planed for this week, next week will go very smoothly and we will be able to stay on track with our activities and goals that we wrote in our project proposal.  

I think that everything, at least from my perspective, has happened exactly as expected this week.  Becca and I are both very focused on creating this project and were sure to follow exactly what we had planned for this week.  We are in a perfect position to dive right into next week with our reviews.  I am so excited that we have completed our top 20 restaurant list!

I have learned so much this week!  For one, I now know and understand the difficulty of writing reviews.  Our book is going to take quite some time to put together.  When writing reviews, Becca and I both feel that it is important to capture the efforts that each chef puts into making his or her restaurant their own.  In the reviews that each of us will be working on, we must make sure to incorporate the quality and style of food, as well as the restaurants atmosphere, service, and prices.  Other things are important to include too such awards the restaurant has received.  On top of the lengthy review process, Becca and I must also include directions to each restaurant, websites, telephone numbers, and photographs.  We also want to add in some of our own little touches such as "Becca and Erin's favorite dishes"!  I can't wait until we complete our book, though I now understand why 30 hours of work a week is definitely crucial!  

Overall, week one has been a success!  This week has really allowed Becca and I to become organized and prepared for all that we have to do for our final project.  We have had a great start, and I have loved seeing how all of our new ideas come together each day.  Jane and Margaret also share with us great ideas that we might never have thought of, so I am so happy they are here to help with our project!  I am so pleased with what we have put together so far and only hope that everyone will enjoy our top 20 restaurants we have chosen.  Becca and I are certainly excited about them all, as well as each restaurant is excited to have been chosen for our book.  I can't wait for tomorrow, as week two begins!

Day 5! The Last Day of Week One..

Today was quite eventful.  This morning I went into B block for AP Environmental Science.  I need all the practice and studying I can get before next Tuesday's exam!  A little after class, I drove to Becca's at 11:00 and we discussed plans and her dinner last night at Bistro Nouveau.  She really loved it, and I trust her taste, so we will be adding it to our top 20!  Hopefully I can get there to eat next week.  Becca and I also completed our time sheets at her house that were due today.  At 12:00 we finished up our work because we had to drive back into school.  I had to attend E block as well today, while Becca waited for me and edited pictures.  After E block, at 12:45, Becca and I met up with Jane, our lovely project mentor, and told her all about our week.  She thinks we are right on track and loves keeping track of us on our blogs.  By the time we were done meeting with Jane and had found Michele to turn in our weekly time sheets, it was 1:45, and we headed back to Becca's.  Becca and I parted ways at her house, as she needed to stay at home this afternoon to complete college forms as well as work on our project.  We also decided that this afternoon she would visit La Meridiana to determine whether or not we should include it in our top 20.  I haven't had a chance to talk to her tonight because I just got home, but this weekend we will decide if it has made our top 20 and let you know!  Once leaving Becca's, I went home and worked from 2:30 to 3:30 on Hanover restaurant reviews for our final binder.  I then did some things I needed to do around the house until it was time to leave with my mom to go pick Margaret up and head to Carpaccio's in Hanover.  We left at 6:45 and didn't get home until 11:15!  We had so much fun and I probably ate some of the most delicious food that I have had since visiting France last winter.  The chef is from Italy, and let me tell you, my pasta dish was heavenly!  I had the Tortelloni di Formaggio Caprino, Salsa di Arancia e Polline di Finocchio (large hat shaped pasta, stuffed with goat cheese, thyme and sage, sauteed with fresh orange juice, dried orange peels and fennel pollen).  For desert, my mom, Margaret and I shared Tiramisu and Cheesecake, with were also both excellent.  This is probably one of my new favorite restaurants on our top 20!  After our meal, we spoke with the chefs wife, who was the hostess tonight.  She was so nice (as all the staff was here) and talked with us about her and her husbands life and travels and his experience as a chef.  They actually are currently living in Potter Place in Andover (their old restaurant, until they moved to Carpaccio's).  I can't wait to go back again!  Well, today has been a long 6 hours of work, and I am stuffed, so I'm going to bed!  Look forward to a weekly reflection post on Sunday and another coming week of our Senior Project blog posts!

Day 4-Busy in New London

Today was another busy day!  Since Becca had her AP English exam and a job interview this morning, I was able to get a few things done in the meantime for our project (about a 1/2 hour of work).  At 2:30 this afternoon, Becca and I drove over to the Inn at Pleasant Lake.  From previous dinners here, I know that Pleasant Lake is so delicious and is highly recommended!  Here, we talked with the head chef and he gave us some great information on the inn and restaurant.  He told us to come back at 5:30 to take pictures, when the restaurant would be all set up for dinner.  From here, Becca and I decided to drive back to my house, getting back at 3:00.  I did a few things that I needed to do for college, while Becca worked on editing pictures for our project.  From 4:30 to 5:30, we went to Margaret's house to talk about our plans and progress made on our project.  We showed her everything from yesterdays adventures and talked about tomorrow and our time sheets. Becca decided that her and her parents would make reservations and go out to Bistro Nouveau tonight because this is one of the restaurants that neither of us have been to before.  In fact, I just got a call from her saying she just got home and that the food was excellent!  We are almost there in completing our top 20 restaurant list! When we left Margaret's at 5:30, we headed back over to the Inn at Pleasant Lake to take pictures.  Becca took the photos, and by 6:00, we were back at my house. Shortly after getting home, Becca's parents came to pick her up and they went off to Bistro Nouveau (which I am so happy they enjoyed!).  Tonight I stayed home and worked on my assigned restaurant reviews, directions, and menus from 7:00 to 8:30.  Lots of writing and printing to be done! Today was a good 4 hours of work. Tomorrow is exciting because I will be going out to dinner with my mom and hopefully our sponsor Margaret at Carpaccio's, a great little Italian restaurant in Hanover.  The head chef at Carpaccio's actually used to own Potter Place, which I am sure some remember and loved.  I have never eaten here, though it looks very promising, so in fact that I am positive it should already have a spot on our top 20. Tomorrow, Becca and I will have completed our top 20 list, which is also very exciting!  Next week we will really be able to start digging into the review process.  

Day 3- A Trip to Hanover + Lebanon

Today was quite the busy day!  It started this morning when I picked Becca up from her house at 11:00.  Today was such a beautiful day to drive and explore the great restaurants that Hanover and Lebanon have to offer!  Our first stop today was Hanover.  We first went to Margarita's, where we spoke with the manager and told him about our Senior Project.  Becca took pictures while I continued to talk with him and collect menus and business cards to use in our final book.  He was so happy to help!  We found this to be the case with all of the managers, owners, or staff members we spoke with today, which made our day go so smoothly!

After Margarita's, we stopped at the other following restaurants in Hanover that have made our top 20 list: Jesse's, Molly's, The Canoe Club and Mai Thai.  We were lucky to get a seat at The Canoe Club for lunch and Becca and I each had the most delicious chicken salad.  Not having been there in a while, we referred to our restaurant checklist that we created on day one of Senior Project, and we found we had nothing bad to say!  What a delicious lunch!  Before leaving Hanover after lunch, Becca and I had one more stop to make.  We walked over to a restaurant called Carpaccio's, where we are so excited to be eating and taking notes at this Friday night (we both have never been before!).  It looks great!

When we left Hanover, it was off to Lebanon, which is convenient because it is just about five minutes away!  In Lebanon we visited four other great restaurants: Yama's, Lui Lui's, Koto's Steakhouse, and Three Tomatoes.  I only wish we had time to eat at all of them today!  We left Lebanon for New London around 3:30 and by 4:00 we were home.  It was such a productive afternoon.

Once back at my house, Becca and I reviewed our day and made plans for tomorrow.  We divided up the restaurants that we will write reviews for, and I decided on doing Margaritas, Molly's, Mai Thai, and The Canoe Club.  Becca left after this at 4:30.

While Becca went home tonight, I got ready to go out to eat at The Inn at Danbury with my family for some delicious traditional German food.  We arrived in Danbury at 7:00 and were home by 9:30. Wow, was my meal so good...though I must say, I am stuffed!  I talked with the owners, took pictures, collected cards and took notes on my dining experience.  It is definitely a restaurant worthy of being on our top 20.

Becca and I had such a fun day, though quite a busy one!  With all of these restaurants checked off our list now, we only have 5 left to visit.  We are moving right along and are really going to start focusing in on our reviews!  We hope you like the restaurants that we are featuring in our top 20 so far!    

Day 2

I drove to Becca's house this morning at 10:45.  From here, we headed over to Proctor to talk with Michele and meet with our project mentor, Jane.  We discussed our project with them, worked out some kinks, and set up a longer meeting with Jane on Friday.  After our time at Proctor, we drove back to Becca's house around 12:00 and had a short lunch break.  At 1:00, Becca and I discussed the rest of our plans for the day, keeping in mind that we had a meeting with Margaret at 2:30.  We chose to stay at Becca's today and work on our reviews together until it was time to go to Margaret's.  Our 2:30 meeting with Margaret was great!  We talked with her for two hours about ways that we could better our project.  She helped us to narrow down our restaurant list to 21 (we will reveal or top 20 soon...but until now...it's a secret!).  We also decided on the restaurant's that we need to dine at either because we have never before eaten at them or haven't in a long time.  Becca and I talked about more new ideas for our final binder of restaurant reviews and how we would label our book with Margaret.  Margaret recommended using clear plastic sheets with tabs, labeling them either alphabetically, by area, or by type of food.  She is such a big help!  After leaving her house at 4:30, Becca and I drove back to my house to finish up our day of work and make plans for tomorrow.  We decided that tomorrow we will drive to the Hanover/Lebanon area to take pictures, collect business cards, talk with owners, and go out to lunch at one of our top 20.  I will also be going out tomorrow night to another one of our top 20 restaurants for dinner with my family.  Becca went home around 5:30, and from 6:00 to 7:00 I worked on my Peter Christian's, New London Inn, and Colonial Farm Inn reviews and directions.  I am definitely looking forward to tomorrow!  

Senior Project-Day One!

   Today was the first day of Senior Project!  I first drove to Becca's house at 12:00 and we brainstormed and chose six restaurants that we decided were fit for being in our top twenty restaurants for Proctor families.  We decided to look at the town of New London today, and in New London we chose Colonial Farm Inn & Restaurant, Lake Sunapee Country Club, New London Inn, Millstone, Peter Christian's Tavern, and The Flying Goose Brew Pub & Grille. 

   After choosing these restaurants, Becca and I created a restaurant checklist that we can bring to each restaurant that we dine at.  The checklist focuses on six categories of information that we will need to know in order to create reviews for our top twenty restaurants.  These six categories include service, food, dress code, atmosphere, distance from Proctor, and prices.  Once we created our checklist, we talked about the rest of our plans for the day.  

   We decided we would drive into New London and visit all of our six restaurants we chose. While Becca took pictures of the inside and outside of each restaurant, I collected business cards and any sample menus.  At each restaurant we talked with either the owner or a staff member to explain our project and ask permission to take cards and photographs.  Everyone was so happy that they had made it onto our top twenty list!  Along with taking pictures and collecting restaurant business cards though, Becca and I also made notes at all the restaurants using our restaurant checklist sheets.  

   By the time we were finished in New London, it was 2:30 and we drove over to our sponsor Margaret Wulff's house.  Here, we met for two hours to discuss the start of our project and what we will accomplish this week.  Margaret helped us to think up some great new ideas for our project!

   After Margaret's, we drove back to my house.  We found a great three-ring binder and clear plastic sheets to place our restaurant cards into along with reviews and directions that we will soon create!  Becca and I decided to divide up the restaurants, each taking three, to begin writing our reviews.  The three restaurants that I chose were Colonial Farm Inn, New London Inn, and Peter Christian's.  

   When Becca left my house at 5:00, I worked until 6:00, focusing on directions to these restaurants from Proctor.  I also better organized my notes from today and began my Peter Christian's review.  Today was definitely a great start to our Senior Project with a productive six hours of work!