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...