Finals are Over and Christmas is on its Way!

This is what our Kitchen looked like for the weeks leading up to Brian's finals. Also note our dinner just barely squeezing itself on to the dining table. Dinner went about like this:

Me: "Here is dinner sweetie. I'm going to say a prayer."

(I say a short prayer)

Silence

clink of spoon on bowl

patter of furious fingers on keyboard

clink of spoon on bowl

Me: "So how is the studying?"

Brian: "I hate law school"

Ok. Nice chat.

 I just had to get a picture of this...Brian wearing his sweater with his huge books out. Someday I hope it will all be a vague memory.

 But THANKFULLY, finals are over (until next spring when Brian will GRADUATE, and then have to take the bar) and Christmas is almost here. Our stockings are hung by the chimney with care (or thumb tacks) and our tiny little tree is at least adorned with a few lights. There are a few presents waiting under the tree, but most importantly.....

 There are Christmas TREATS!

 These cookies are absolutely delicious. You can find the recipe over at my favorite cooking blog of all time Our Best Bites. I also added some Andes peppermint pieces which I have never seen or used before this year (they are so yummy!). If you like peppermint and chocolate then you will not want to miss these cookies. They are fairly easy and oh so good!

Bring on the pounds, oh Holiday Season, for it wouldn't be the same without them.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas.

Pigeons and Friends

This is a pigeon.

But I'm assuming you know that.

Pigeons like cities.

They like to annoy people.

And they like warm cozy roofs of schools.

Especially when the tiles on the overhangs blow off in huge windstorms and they can fly up inside and explore the whole empty space including air vents and the like.

I also think think they like the sound of my voice.

Why else would the pigeons congregate in the ceiling in my classroom and spend the first three hours of the schoolday cooing and fluttering and being an incredible distraction to all my students?

I hope Tom (our building manager) can get them all out. Last year he said this happened and he got six pigeons out of the roof and had to chase them down the hallways at the school and out the door. I can only imagine trying to teach a lesson on metaphor while THAT is going on in and or outside the door of my classroom.

On another note, I got together with some of my best friends in the entire world this weekend. Janie, Amanda, Kati, Annie, and I all had a luncheon (which turned into an entire day, evening, and night) at Janie's house. It was so great to talk about anything and everything with such wonderful people. Janie, Amanda, and I stuck around after the lunch (Annie and Kati had other obligations) and sat on the floor of Janie's living room until 9:30. We didn't even eat dinner or do anything really besides talk and play with Isabelle. It was awesome. I'm glad we are all in the same state, even if we don't see each other as often as I would wish. There is just something about friends that you've known since first grade or before that is simply special. Thanks to all my friends out there, but especially those who still love me even though they know WAY too much about me. I love you all.

Happy Birthday Brian

Brian was born on November 25th, which is appropriate because it sometimes falls on Thanksgiving, and I'm really thankul that Brian was born into this world. So thankful infact, that I did my best to make him the cake that he wanted--which was a cake with nutella frosting with crunchies on top. That was the description.

 So this is what I came up with--a chocolate cake with a mousse filling, whipped nutella frosting, and candied walnuts on top. It actually turned out really well and is something I'd definitely make again.

Thanks so all our friends who met us for dinner and cake. Brian and I are grateful to have so many fun friends and family in our life.

Happy Birthday Brian!

The last 28 years have made you into a pretty amazing person.

Happy Anniversary: Two Years and Counting

 Year two goes by even faster than year one, and things only get better. I am grateful for another year with my husband who makes me laugh every day, who surprises me in the little moments with his kindness and his generosity, and who I can always count on for an adventure. I've thrown in a few pictures of our adventures over the past year for fun--though it doesn't do justice to all the fun we've had between working and going to law school full time. Here's to many more adventures!

Happy Halloween

              If you haven't seen Some Like it Hot then I suggest you go find a copy at your local library, or even better, order it off Amazon.com and add it to your collection of DVDs. It is the funniest movie. Ever. I mean, how much funnier does it get than two musicians on the run from deadly mobsters, who cross-dress in order to hide in an all-girls band? Everybody knows (including Shakespeare) that nothing is funnier than cross-dressing and mistaken identies.

 You might be wondering what Some Like it Hot has to do with Halloween though. Well, I'll tell you. For lack of a new and original costume, I decided to revive my Marilyn Monroe costume for the Morrison's Halloween Party. That still left Brian without a costume (you see where this is going don't you). We thought about having him wear a suit and part his hair and walk around saying things like "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." A half our before we had to leave I got out my copy of Some Like it Hot to put the finishing touches on my costume and I had an epiphany. Wouldn't it be funny if we dressed as Sugar (Marilyn Monroe) and Daphne (Jack Lemmon) from the movie? How I convinced Brian to go along with my plan I don't know.....but I did.

 I wish we would have thought of it sooner so that we could have gotten a hold of a good wig and possibly some large high heels. Putting that aside, though, Brian made a pretty good Daphne. Kati and Jeff were also adorable as the Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood.

 And the food at the party was delicious, and in some cases creepy. If you look closely at the cupcakes it looks like they have shards of glass spearing the blood marks. We had Vulture on Steroids, stuffed with regurgitated owl food (turkey and stuffing), goblin guts in a gourd (stuffing served in a huge squash) and other various disgusting and yet delicious things on the menu.

Overall, it was a fun evening with good friends. We had Pan Am Stewardesses, Rosie the Riveter, Ghosts, Nuns, Jail-Birds, French Gentlemen, Mad Scientists, Dorothea, The Cowardly Lion, and others.

Happy Halloween!



Fall: Come and Gone?

As I sit on my couch, wrapped in a deliciously large fleece blanket, wearing fuzzy slipper boots and surfing my usual blogs, I wonder if my favorite part of fall is already over. The mountains are dusted with snow, and the lawn out back is soggy as a wet sponge. I'm craving pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. I took the time to make real oatmeal this morning. And while I enjoy fleece blankets, pumpkin and spice, hot oatmeal and even snow...Ican't help missing the few days out of the year when fall has definitely arrived, but it is still warm enough to wear your favorite t-shirt.

Over conference weekend, the boys (Mark, Dave, Jeff, Brian, and Uncle Tenney) headed up to the Uintahs to do real man's work, cutting down trees (literally, cutting them down, and sweetie, I'm glad you weren't crushed under any as apparantly there was a close call) and loading them into Mark's trailer and Tenney's truck. My parents are coming back from San Diego in the dead of an Oakley winter, which often gets cold enough to freeze your nostrils solidly together. My mom usually keeps at least two big woodburning stoves going constantly in the winter in Oakley, and that means a lot of wood.

I spent the afternoon enjoying my favorite kind of fall day--warm, fragrant, and brilliantly colored. It doesn't matter that I have walked the path along the ditch probably thousands of times in my life--it very seldom fails to take my breath away and rejuvinate me. The piles of aspen leaves gather on the water and make a nice contrast to the silky green moss undulating beneath the surface.  

 And you can't help but stop on your walk and sit on the bridge. Sometimes I'd spend a long time just listening to the water and beng fascinated by its movement.

 And when I returned the boys were hard at work cuttingup those logs.

 Isn't there just something neat about cattails? I remember when these first showed up in the pond...for some inexplicable reason I thought that was the coolest thing ever. A part of me still does...

Oh, warm fall days, how brief you are...

Oh Cougars....

Brian had a bet with one of his co-workers as to the outcome of the BYU vs. Utah Football game......

Talk about kicking you when you are down

Rubbing salt in an open wound

And adding insult to injury...

Labor Day Weekend

I took a day off school the weekend of Labor Day, and Brian and I, along with Brian's parents and his siblings Emily and Matt, headed down to San Diego in the suburban. We stayed in Las Vegas with Brian's brother Jon and his wife Abby. They had just had a baby and everybody was so excited to see and hold little Will (now I have two nephews of the same age named William). On our way to San Diego we got stuck in the Cajon Pass fire. It was miserable. It took us five hours to get through what would have been about three miles on the freeway. We thought we would be in San Diego by 2:00 p.m. and didn't get there until 8:30. I was sad that our trip was cut almost an entire day short, but we still made the most of it.

You can tell I am scared of getting wet in this picture...the surf was really high, so we didn't see many seals or sea lions, but we did have fun taking pictures on this rock.

I know this is a disgusting picture, and you are probably a little disturbed right now, but besides the pandas, the feeding of the reptiles drew the biggest crowd at the zoo. It was one of those things that you just can't look away from, even if you want to. We watched this snake devour this entire rat. As a side note, the rat looked exactly like Penny, my pet rat that I raised from a baby. This would have been her fate had she been born at the pet store....

We also went to seaworld. Brian and I have two year passes which is really nice. It was great fun, I hope Brian's mom Deanna still had fun even though I told her that we wouldn't get wet sitting where we were and then she got SOAKED. At least our view was great....

Thumbs up for a fun weekend, despite the fact that we got stuck in a fire, oh, and that Joel and Deanna had their ipad and macbook pro stolen out of the car. I hope everyone else had fun too, even though it turned out to be a much more expensive trip than planned, what with the theft and all. It was great to see my parents, I miss you Mom and Dad.

And the School Year Resumes

School started today. And yes, I was dreading it for most of the summer, but I watched this video a couple weeks before it started and I was surprised to feel some excitement to start the year again. I taught all but one of the students interviewed in the film and most of them are pretty great. I hope I really am making a difference in at least one student's life or really teaching someone something that they will be grateful for later. If so, I guess it makes it all worth it. I also make a brief cameo appearance in the film. See if you can catch me!


Here's to another year....

I Can Make Clothes!

A couple things about me: I love clothes. I hate spending money. You see my dillema already don't you. In this battle between the clothes and the money, Brian will tell you that the money always wins. And he will be right. Sometimes Brian BEGS me to buy clothes. How many husbands do you know that beg their wives to go buy clothes? Probably not many. He finally convinced me to buy a new pair of shoes a couple of weeks ago. I took them back the next day. I was finally tired of never haing anything new, so I decided to try making myself some clothes. I took inspiration from my friend Kati who is like a sewing machine (pun intended) and has made some really cute shirts, dresses, and skirts. I didn't have a pattern, but I did have inspiration from places like Shabby Apple and Downeast. I have now successfuly made a skirt and a dress...no patterns and very little sewing ability. I loved this skirt from Shabby Apple, and I had some other ideas of what I wanted in a skirt. I also had some leftover material that I had purchased for pillows, but then it turned out to be just the wrong color from what I wanted. The material cost me 3 dollars. The skirt above cost 52 dollars. Below is the final product:

I also wanted a knit dress that was simple, comfortable, and sort of drapey. I took inspiration from the following dresses from Shabby Apple and Downeast. The dresses from Shabby Apple were close to or over $100 and the one from Downeast was in the $40 range. I bought the material for $10 and the belt for $5.

My version still needs a couple tweaks to make it fit better, but I wore it to church today and figured I might as well take a picture while I had it on. Who knows when I will get around to actually fixing it or blogging about it otherwise. Definitely not quite as cute and certainly not as well tailored (real sewing peolpe would be horrified I'm sure) but I think for the price difference it was worth it. Plus, no matter how bad it looks, I'm still proud of myself for figuring it out on my own.

Antelope Island

I've lived in Utah all my life (excluding one year) and yet I have only been out to Antelope Island once before. I don't remember how old I was. In fact, the only thing I DO remember is eating a buffalo burger which I threw up later that night. Not a great memory. I've also NEVER been swimming in the Great Salt Lake, and only been out to it maybe twice. This last weekend I found out what I was missing, and while thousands of bugs was one thing that I wouldn't have MINDED missing, everything else was pretty great.

We rode our bikes on some of the mountain biking trails out there and were not disappointed. The trails were sandy and sometimes hard to pedal through, but the views were great. We even ran into one of these guys while we were on the trail. Brain was out ahead and the buffalo stopped and glared at him and started to swing his head and paw the ground. Not a great sign.

Brian turned around and came back to the slower folk until the danger had lumbered slowly away.

They aren't kidding when they say you can float in the Great Salt Lake. You can hardly swim because your feet and legs are pushed up to the surface.
Despite the brine shrimp and the SALTY SALTY water, we enjoyed ourselves. The water is warm and you can bob around like a little bouy.

Brian even ate a couple brine shrimp in order to earn five dollars (which translated to papusas back in SLC later that night)

I think one of my favorite things about the whole trip though (besides dutch oven dinner and dessert) was the sunset. It was absolutely gorgeous and my dinky digital camera just cannot do it justice. There was a warm breeze and the crickets were singing as Kati and I watched the sun sink over the water. It was almost as good as being at the ocean. Thanks Kati and Jeff for joining us on another fun adventure!