Christmas

Our Christmas week has been busy. Peter's siblings have been staying at our house for the past week, and we have one week to go. It has been fun but a little too crowded at times. We got several new games for Christmas (Citadels, Fluxx, In a Pickle, and 5 Crowns), and we have really enjoyed learning how to play them all. Peter got me an electric toothbrush, and I got him a Clearplay DVD player. These DVD players allow you to edit the movies you watch to make them cleaner, so you don't have to hear the swearing or watch the violence or whatever. I think it's great.

The story of the DVD player:

Peter had been talking about how he really wanted this DVD player for a long time. I was intending to get it for him, but I told him his Christmas gift had a price limit that was well under the price of the DVD player because I didn't want him to know he was getting it. The day we went shopping for Christmas gifts, I asked Peter to give me a few options to choose from and to tell me which one he wanted the most. I already knew it would be the DVD player, but, again, I wanted him to be surprised. Once we were at the store, I reminded him that I had put a price limit on his gift. He had a little fit because it turned out that every single thing he wanted cost more than my price limit. So he was grumpy for our whole shopping trip, and I secretly bought the DVD player and then told him I got him a tie. (He wasn't thrilled.) I wrapped one of his old ties so he would think that was the gift I bought him, and put it under the tree. I hid the DVD player in the office and put it under the tree Christmas eve after Peter went to sleep so he would be surprised.

Christmas morning, Peter opened the DVD player and was so surprised. I don't think I've ever been able to surprise him with a gift he really wanted before. It was great!

Funerals.

This has been an eventful week. It was the last week of class, and finals are next week, with all the stress that entails.

In the past week, I attended 2 funerals. One was for Peter's uncle, Kirt, who died at 41 of a heart attack. He left behind several young kids and a wife to whom he had been married for just over a year (they got married the month after we did). During this funeral, I was so sad for Kirt's wife, kids, and parents. His death was totally unexpected and has been really hard for them all.

I also attended the funeral for my dad's cousin Maren. She died at 53 of heart failure. Maren had Down's Syndrome, and her death from heart failure has kind of been expected since she was born. She lived a wonderful life, accomplished a lot, touched many lives, and lived much, much, longer than people with Down's Syndrome usually do, or than she was expected to live. Her funeral was sad, but it was also happy. She had lots of frustration about not being able to accomplish everything she wanted to, and her family was happy that she is now free from her disability.

Both of these funerals were similar in that I was a family member, but didn't know the deceased very well. I wish I had known both of them better, and I look forward to meeting them again and getting to know them better in the next life.

My Favorite Christmas Carol

Today at church I was thinking about my favorite Christmas carol. It is Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. I used to not particularly like this song, at least not more than any other Christmas song. However, the words of the 2nd verse are particularly meaningful to me, and that is why it is now my favorite Christmas carol of all. For those who have not known the words to the 2nd verse, I will post them here:

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace.
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Risen with healing in His wings.
Mild, He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! The herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn king.

I love this carol because it talks about the Savior's mission on earth. He came to earth to heal us and to let us live again. When I hear this song, I feel great joy because I remember that everyone can be healed, and I remember that we all will live again. This song brings joy and comfort to me all year round, and I hope that my drawing your attention to it will allow it to bring joy and comfort to you as well.

Should you care to respond, I would love to know which Christmas carol is your favorite, and why. :-)

3 year anniversary

Today is the 3rd anniversary of the day when Peter and I officially became a couple. I remember it only because it is December 7th, and when one of my roommates found out she said that now there was another reason that December 7 would live in infamy. (December 7 is also Pearl Harbor day, for those who have forgotten.)

So happy anniversary Peter! Thanks for the best 3 years of my life, and counting! I love you!

Thanksgiving and the Grand Canyon

For Thanksgiving, Peter and I drove with my sister Sara down to our aunt's house in Cottonwood, Arizona. Cottonwood is about an hour south of Flagstaff, for those of you who haven't heard of it. It was tons of fun. There were lots of people from the Black side of the family there, and my mom's sister and her husband came up from Phoenix as well. My cousin Aaron and his wife Nerissa announced that they are expecting their first baby in July, which was exciting to hear. We played lots of games and didn't go to sleep before midnight the whole weekend. I am now exhausted, but it was totally worth it. :-)

Aunt Liz and Eli, my cousin Brett's son.

On Saturday, Peter's mom, brother, sister, and sister's boyfriend drove down from Utah to visit the Grand Canyon. I visited the North Rim last summer, but I had never been to the South Rim. It was very beautiful to see. A highlight of the trip was our helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon. I had never been in a helicopter before, and it was incredible. Flying was so much fun, and the view of the canyon was spectacular!!!

Here we all are in front of the helicopter.
A view from Peter's window.

Peter and the view.

Here I am!

The weekend was a blast. We love our family, and we are so happy we got to spend time with them!

quirks are quirky.

Thanks to Ceri for tagging me. Although I am sure there are lots of things about me that are a little strange, it was hard to think of six things to write about!

Six quirks of mine...

1. I am obsessive about spelling. I nearly always notice if something is spelled wrong, and I correct people when they spell things wrong. Don't worry, I'm not judging you; I just notice and when I notice I have to point it out. I do, however, judge organizations that publish materials with poor spelling and grammar. It's not that hard to hire an editor or someone who can spell. Misspelling words or using blatantly incorrect grammar significantly reduces an organization's credibility, in my opinion.

2. I am very interested in the weather. I always remember hearing when I was growing up that the weather is a boring conversation topic, but it isn't boring to me. I actually do care if it's sunny or snowing or whatever, and if you want to talk about it, you can count on me to be interested.

3. I hate handwashing dishes. I would rather clean a toilet than handwash dishes. We have not had a dishwasher since we've been married, and it is for sure a requirement for whatever place we live next, because Peter usually doesn't have time to wash them, so I have to. :-(

4. I am really bad at multi-tasking, especially if it involves words coming from more than one source. I can't listen and talk, listen and read, listen and write, talk and write, etc. I get too distracted and lose track of whatever one I wanted to give more of my attention to.

5. A favorite food of mine (and my family's) is toast with butter and chocolate sprinkles. This is a Dutch tradition, the sprinkles are called hagelslag. Dutch chocolate sprinkles are actually made out of chocolate, not wax like American ones. If you ever have some high-quality chocolate sprinkles lying around, I recommend that you try it.

6. Apparently I have a distinctive way of walking. Several people have told me this, but obviously I can't watch myself walk. An old roommate of mine once recognized me from across a large plaza because of how I was walking. Maybe someone should secretly video me walking so I can see what is weird about it. For now, I just can't tell.

I tag: Sara, Kirsten, Rachel, and anyone else who wants to tell the world about their little oddities!

An interesting article

Peter found this opinion column in the Wall Street Journal today, and we totally agree. If you're inclined to see what we think about the economic crisis, free-market economics, and national morality, read away! We'd be interested to know what you think, too.

What next?

Peter's internship in Ghana got delayed until May or June. Now we're not sure if we're even going at all. If he gets a better job, then he'll do that instead. He is kind of happy about this, I think, because it means he can retake some classes next semester and boost his GPA.

I am NOT happy about this. I do not want to take classes, do not want to work, do not want to do anything. (Only for a little while. I'm just burned out. I'm not really lazy.) Now I have to figure out something to do. It makes the most sense for me to sign up for classes and keep working at the museum, but I really don't want to. I desperately wanted to be done with school. So if you have suggestions of really easy non-boring classes that I could take, I'd love to hear them. Or if you have any other brilliant ideas of ways I can occupy my time.

Livejournal anyone?

Today, for some reason, I remembered that I used to have a livejournal, and I wondered if it was still in existence. Turns out that they don't delete your account even when you don't update it for 5 years. It was interesting to reread it and see what sort of things I was into when I was 16. According to my livejournal, I was either really bored or really busy all of the time. And I was addicted to online quizzes that told you who you were. In case you're curious, you can access my livejournal here. I hope this blog is not nearly as boring and disjointed as my livejournal was. If any of you used to have livejournals that are still in existence, I would love to see them too!

I married a winner...

Peter's group won the case competition! I am so proud of them. All three of them did a really great job. Plus it doesn't hurt that winning means they get $1,000 to split between the three of them. Plus we got 2 pounds of BYU bookstore fudge. Plus I got to come to the award dinner tonight, which was nice because I didn't think I was going to. Great day overall. I am so proud of Peter!

You BYU students--look for a daily universe article about them in the next couple of days. I hope it's in there.

A crazy day of presentations!

This past week has been crazy. Peter is presenting today at BYU's Economic Self-Reliance Conference. He's been doing a lot of research with a professor and with people at the Center for Economic Self-Reliance, and so today they are presenting that research to the people at the conference. I think it's great that he gets the opportunity to present and to participate in the conference, especially because the conference provided dinner for both of us for the past two nights. :-)

Peter is also giving a presentation today for a private equity case competition, in Spanish. It just so happens that this case competition has also booked his entire day--they started at 8am, and it goes later than the ESR conference. So he is going to be jumping back and forth between the conference and the competition, and I get to be the chauffeur. Of course they couldn't schedule the two big events in the same location. That would make life too easy for us.

Last night, we were on campus until 3 in the morning so Peter and his group could finish their presentation. Why didn't I go home, you might ask. Well, I decided it would be a good time for me to catch up on all the American Heritage readings I have been skipping for the past two+ weeks. I have a midterm on Monday, and I thought last night was a good a time as any to do the reading. So I read American Heritage from 9-2, and Peter and his group worked on their slides for the presentation from 9-2, and then from 2-3 I was the audience while their group practiced the presentation.

Needless to say, we're tired today.

I really hope both presentations go awesome, and I hope they win their competition! We'll let you know how it goes.

A halloween recipe

When I was growing up, my family often ate dinner in a pumpkin at or around halloween. It is one of my favorite foods, and dinner in a pumpkin is now our family halloween tradition. I'm posting the recipe in case you want to try it too! If you want to cook it in the microwave (which is much, much, faster) make sure your pumpkin is small-ish so it will fit. Last week I baked it in the oven, and it took 2 hours and the pumpkin still wasn't all the way cooked. But it still tasted good.

Dinner in a Pumpkin

1 pumpkin, seeded
1/2 lb ground beef
1/4 c celery
2 T chopped onion
1 c cooked rice
1/2 c ketchup
1 T worcestershire sauce
1 t sugar
1/2 t basil
garlic
1 egg
8 oz tomato sauce

Brown ground beef, celery, and onion. Mix with everything else and put inside a pumpkin and microwave for about 20 minutes or bake in the oven for an hour-ish.

When you scoop out the stew, make sure to scrape a little pumpkin "meat" off the wall of the pumpkin; it's delicious!

spontaneity

Tonight, I decided to come home early instead of waiting for Peter on campus so I could get some housework done. I also made dinner, which we usually don't start thinking about until 7:30. I was really excited to have a good dinner planned and ready right when we walked in the door. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. Dinner still wasn't ready until 8:00, and I didn't make enough. As soon as we finished all of the food, our conversation went something like this:

me-"Peter, are you still hungry? I'm still hungry."
Peter- "yeah."
me- "what else should we eat?"
Peter- "let's go get tacos."
me-"okay."

30 seconds later, we were out the door and on our way to purchase some tacos to finish off our dinner of curried chicken and rice... Peter also decided that after getting our tacos we should drive around and figure out where the spotlight we'd been seeing every night was coming from.

It was really fun. :-) I love when we do random fun things like this when we really don't have time, but we make time anyways.

Vote YES on Prop 8

A friend of mine posted this on his blog about Prop 8 and gay marriage, and I thought it was really interesting. If I had commented on it, which I didn't, I think I would have just said "amen." Check it out.

A different city

So it turns out we're going to Tamale, not Kumasi. Whoops. If you are looking at our map, it's sort of in the northeast part. Tamale has a population of 350,000. Apparently lots of the people there are Muslim. I do think it's funny to be going to a city with a name that is a food in English (not Spanish, the Spanish name for the food is tamal). I don't imagine that we will be eating very many (any) tamales in Ghana, unfortunately. Unless I make them.

Tamale apparently has really cold mornings and really hot afternoons, because it's close-ish to the Sahara. I'm not too worried about this, because "really cold" apparently means 59 degrees fahrenheit. Coming from Provo in February, it'll feel just fine.

A little more information

We are going to Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana. It's the red city that's in the middle of the south, in case you're having trouble finding it on the lovely map. The average temperature ranges from 75-85 degrees during the months that we'll be there. It is the capital city of the Ashanti people, and their king lives there although he doesn't have power within the Ghanaian government. It's also a good place to get kente and adinkra cloth, so I read.

My boss suggested to me that I should apply for an ORCA (undergraduate research) grant and study Ghanaian museums while I'm there. It so happens that there are several museums in Kumasi, so I actually could do that if I want to. I just have to decide what exactly I would study, and write a grant proposal in the next couple of weeks. Even if I decide not to write the grant proposal, I'll definitely be visiting those museums.

I'm a lot more excited now that I know where we're going, so I can learn all about it.

Going to Ghana

We are going to Ghana! On Monday we found out that Peter got an internship in Ghana for this coming January-April. He has been doing a lot of research on microfranchises, which are small businesses to help people in 3rd world countries get out of poverty, and the internship is to help set up and manage a new set of microfranchises. (This is the watered-down version for non-business people like me. If you want more details, ask Peter.)

I am really excited and a little nervous, of course. I think it will be an amazing work experience for Peter and an amazing experience in general for us both. I don't even know what city we're going to, or if we have to get crazy shots, or anything. But it's going to be an adventure.

No more pictures!

Today I finished my project at the museum of photographing arrowheads! I have been taking pictures of things pretty consistently since August, with a couple of weeks in July too. There were over 1,000 pots and over 1,000 arrowheads that I took pictures of. Let me tell you, I am excited not to be hunched over the camera tomorrow. I'm not exactly sure what my next project will be, but keep your fingers crossed that it won't be taking pictures.

Vietnamese Sandwiches!

I love Vietnamese sandwiches. I used to eat them all the time when my family lived in Seattle, but when we moved to Oregon City there was a sad lack of places to buy them. So I had not eaten a Vietnamese sandwich for probably 4 years at least, UNTIL TODAY! There is a little restaurant in Provo that sells them, and they are very good! The restaurant is Dew, and it is in the basement of Campus Plaza, which is kind of a ghetto location, but still. You should check them out. Their bubble tea (which they call bubble drinks so that Provo people will buy them) is also good. Although I hadn't had bubble tea before today, so I can't really judge. Their website with their menu is http://www.dewprovo.com/ if you are curious.

9/11 exhibit

For my Museums and Cultures class, I had to visit an exhibit of some kind and write a paper about it. I decided to visit the 9/11 exhibit that is currently at the BYU library, and will be there through Oct 3 if anybody is interested in looking at it. The exhibit has a wall with framed pictures of people who died in the attack, and their pictures are splattered with multicolored paint, sometimes covering most of the face. The main part of the exhibit is a metal frame with 3,000 tags, one for each person who died, and 2,000 of them have pictures and biographical clippings of the people who were killed. The tags are also splattered with the multicolored paint, so you often can't really read about the people who are on the tags. The purpose of the tags is for people, after looking at the exhibit, to write down what they think.

It was really interesting to go through the exhibit, especially because I had to write a paper about the experience so I was really paying attention. At first, when I was looking at the wall of framed pictures, I felt really sad for everybody who had died. When I was looking at the metal frame with tags on it, I shifted to thinking about the people who had written on the tags. Some people wrote messages to comfort people who would come (death is not the end, scriptures, those type of things), some people wrote political messages, patriotic, pro-war, anti-war, etc. A child drew a picture of a bird flying through the clouds, I liked that one. Some people wrote letters to the person whose biography was on the tag they chose. Some people just wrote what they were doing on September 11. Another big theme on the tags was "we will not forget."

So my question from the exhibit-- why do we do things like this? Why do we write messages for total strangers, and why do we read them? Maybe we write them more for ourselves? And why did the artist make a whole exhibit designed around this random sharing of feelings and thoughts?

I guess a blog is kind of like that, although I didn't think about it at first. I don't really think anybody I don't know reads this blog, although I guess they could if they wanted.

I did not write on one of the tags. I didn't have any thoughts I could have articulated, except maybe, "why?" But I think that would have been misunderstood.

Hopefully last semester!

This semester is going to be really, really, really busy. We are both finishing up all of our required classes this term so that we can leave school if Peter gets a job that starts any time between December and April, but we aren't officially graduating until April. That is so that we can keep our jobs and our insurance, and potentially take classes if we'll be here longer. I like all of my classes, and I wish I only had one or two of them instead of 5. Plus writing my honors thesis. Plus working. Plus trying not to let my house be as gross as it has been. Plus pretending to have a life.

Not to complain. I know that everything will be fine and the semester will go very well. It's just a little intimidating at the start. I probably won't sleep as much as I want to this semester, but that will be okay too. Life is always good, and there are always things to be happy about. Even when you're really, really, really busy.

Baptism

Today my youngest sister got baptized! My cousin Katie and another girl from our ward were also baptized. It was a really special day and I am so glad we got to be here and be part of it. We are here in Oregon through Labor Day and I'm sure we'll have lots more adventures to post about at the end of the week.

Pics of Timp

Here are the promised pics from our trip up Timp.

Taking a quick break by one of the many waterfalls on the way up.

The start of a beautiful day. We pitch our tents on the edge of a cliff with the amazing view shown above.


Sunrise panorama

The path to the top.

At the top at last with our friends Nathaniel and Rie

Two of the many mountain goats to visit our campsite.

New baby cousin!

Well my new baby cousin finally arrived. Baby Linnea was born Monday evening, and she is sure cute!

Steph, Linnea, David. This one is my favorite.

Look at all that dark hair!

Babies are so sweet and cute! Congrats Steph & Dave, if you read this. I can't wait to see her in person!

Timp!

Friday and Saturday we climbed Mount Timpanogos with our friends Nathanael and Rie. (For those not from/familiar with Utah, Mt. Timp is a way high mountain close to BYU). We backpacked halfway up Friday night, stayed the night near Hidden Lakes, and hiked the rest of the way (without our packs) in the morning. The views were incredible, the scenery was beautiful, it was a wonderful experience in general. We were incredibly sore afterwards, and today is the first day that walking isn't painful. Totally worth it. Pictures to come.

Restaurants to try in Provo

So this weekend we tried three different restaurants that I highly recommend.

Restaurant #1: The Saigon Cafe at 440W 300 S in Provo. Dinner was amazing and sooooo cheap! Both of us ate for $9 before tip and we had leftovers. And it was really, really good. Definitely check them out.

Restaurant #2: Little Italy at 279 E 300 S in Provo. We went here for dessert, and the gelato was incredible. The raspberry gelato tasted just like fresh raspberries. We want to go back and get dinner here too sometime.

Restaurant #3: Pizzeria 712 at 320 S State in Orem. We had heard that this place was really good, so we went for lunch. It was totally different than I expected. It was a nice sit-down place, and more expensive than I thought it would be. The pizza was good, the pannini was good but not as, and the salad that came with the pannini was really weird (as in not good). We want to go back for dinner since we're pretty sure they serve a different menu. But they're worth checking out too.

Arizona Part II

So the interview went very, very well. The people I interviewed were really nice and friendly, and they had a lot of good stories to tell. Right after the interview, we drove 3-ish hours down to Mesa to visit my grandparents Black. They had a random butternut squash plant grow that they didn't plant, and they gave us one of the squashes. I had never eaten butternut squash before, and it was really good!

After visiting my grandparents, we drove an hour to Peoria to visit my mom's youngest sister. She is expecting a baby any day now, and they moved into a new house about 3 months ago. We had a wonderful time visiting them.

David, Stephanie, Me, Peter. I can't even really tell she's pregnant in this picture.

Cactus near their house in Peoria. Cactus takes a really long time to grow, so big ones like these are hundreds of years old.

The next day we stopped in Cottonwood, Arizona and ate dinner with my dad's oldest sister and her husband. After that, we drove all through the night except for when Peter got too tired, so we had to stop. We got home at 5 in the morning. It made for a pretty crazy week, because we hadn't gotten any sleep, but it was totally worth it.

Question

Is it preferable to post more often without pictures, and update the pictures when I can, or is it better to wait until I have pictures/Peter's computer to post?

Snowflake, Arizona

This weekend we are in Snowflake Arizona. We came down so I could do some research for my honors thesis. I am interviewing a family that donated a huge collection of pottery to the museum where I work about where they found the pots, and how they collected them, and things like that. We are staying at the Osmer D. Heritage Bed & Breakfast. It's an old house built by one of the founding families of Snowflake, and it is the best b&b we have been to thus far. The people who work here are super nice and friendly, the breakfast is AWESOME, and the rooms are all cute. If you ever need to come to Snowflake for any reason, we definitely recommend it.

On the way down here, we nearly got killed by a tumbleweed that was bigger than Peter and I put together. It randomly came loose from the guardrail and smashed into the front/side of our car, and after that every little tumbleweed that blew across the road made me jump.

Also, it's not too hot down here, which surprised me. It was overcast this morning, and the high is only supposed to be like 80-85ish.

Well, the interview is tomorrow. Hopefully it goes well. I'll post about it afterwards.

July 4 & 5

We had a pretty awesome weekend! July 4 started out bright and early... we got up at 5AM to volunteer at the Freedom Run in Provo. It's a fun run/5k/10k in Provo. We helped with runner registration and handed out prizes at the end. After breakfast and a looooong nap, we went down to Nephi to visit our new baby cousin, Sadie Jane. She was born around 4:30 AM, and she was adorable. In the evening, we drove up the hill to watch the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire.

Here we are waiting for the fireworks to start.

Fireworks!

July 5, we went to Lehi to see my cousin's daughter's baptism. It was wonderful to be there with her and to see all the family.

My cousin, his wife, and kids.

Peter, Bailey, and Me

Later that evening, we drove to Logan to see a car show with two of our friends. The purpose of going was to win our friend Mike's dad the '68 Dodge Charger that they were giving away, since it was his dream car. Unfortunately, we didn't win, but we had a pretty okay time anyway.

The Charger that wasn't meant to be...

Peter with his head inside of a monster truck.

Peter and a Delorean. You can't see it, but the license frame says "Where we're going, we don't need roads," and the license plate says "Outatime."

Family!

Last week my mom and baby sister drove out from Oregon to take my sister Sara back to BYU. She decided to come back to school instead of staying home for the whole summer. It was a lot of fun to have them here, but definitely busy! On Tuesday, I spent pretty much the whole day with Anna and my mom. We went to the duck pond and fed the ducks, which was awesome. One mother duck had 15 ducklings!!! Most of the others had between 3 and 5. After that, we went to BYU's dinosaur museum. Anna was thrilled to see the Allosaurus, because she just did a report on them for school. We also went out to lunch and dinner and had a wonderful time. Pictures to come as soon as my mom emails them to me.

Rodeo!

Last night we went to the Strawberry Days Rodeo in Pleasant Grove. We had a really good time! The last time I went to a rodeo I think I was in elementary or middle school, so it was a long time ago. There was lots of good country music, really yummy strawberries, and fun rodeo events to watch. My favorite was probably the "mutton bustin' ". They have little kids ride on sheep and try to stay on. It was super cute.

This is the four of us at the beginning of the rodeo.

Here is a man lassoing a little calf. I felt bad for the calves in this event--they are just thrown to the ground and tied up so they can't move. But I liked the picture.

This video is one of the bronco riders. That was my second favorite thing to watch. The bull riding probably could have been equally cool, if anybody could have stayed on. We only got to watch like 3 people on bulls. Oh well.

One month later...

I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last blog post. I have been insanely busy. I took a really awesome class, linguistic anthropology, which required a recorded 107 hours of class work in order to get an A. I realized 2 weeks before the semester ended that I had less than 50 hours done. So I spent the last two weeks working a LOT on my class work. We'll see what grade I end up with; I did 98 or 99 hours of work, I can't remember anymore. It was an awesome class, just a little stressful at the end.

Last weekend, we flew to Syracuse, New York. Peter's mom is getting remarried, and we went to meet her fiance's side of the family at a big dinner thing. It was fun. We really liked her fiance's kids, who are our age or older (mostly older). We also went to Peter's sister's senior vocal recital. She has an amazing voice! I had never heard her sing before. Here's a video of her singing as Maria from West Side Story. I really think she would make a great pop singer, which this video doesn't really demonstrate. But anyways, she's awesome. The other video she doesn't sing in, but it's still pretty cool.

I'm a little behind on my posting...

Because Peter has all the pictures on his camera, and his camera and his computer are never around at the times when I want to blog! And I think our blog is super boring, because we have no pictures... oh well. Maybe tonight I will remember to remind him to get the pictures.

Important things that have happened in the past few weeks:

1. My birthday. It was awesome! Peter made me an archaeology-themed treasure hunt. He hid clues around the house and in my binder. Attached to the clues were the Indiana Jones movies 1 & 3 (I don't like the 2nd one, it scarred me for life as a child), tickets to see the fourth one (which we still haven't done), a dinner at an awesome Lebanese restaurant in Salt Lake (Cedars of Lebanon, it looks a little ghetto on the outside but the food is awesome!), and the last surprise was a night at the Egypt Room at the Anniversary Inn. It was pretty much the best birthday ever! The next morning, Peter realized the pants he brought to wear to work had a humongous hole in them, and so we went to the Gap and bought him a new outfit. It ended up being the exact same outfit one of the manikins was wearing, although we didn't do that intentionally.

2. My kegger! Since I turned 21, we decided to have a root beer kegger at Peter's grandparents' house. Their house is a lot nicer and their yard is a lot more spacious. We bought way too many mini-kegs of root beer, but we had a great time. The root beer we got was really different--it had things like licorice and cinnamon in it. I think I prefer regular root beer, but it was still a fun experience.

3. My garden! I dug up our backyard... we're in a rental and I didn't exactly ask permission, but it was a spot where grass wasn't really growing and it looked like it had been a garden before. Hopefully that's ok. I planted corn, green beans, zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, and bell peppers. I am way way excited for home-grown vegetables. They always taste so much better!

4. I am sick today. Lame. I have a fever and I was achey and tired most of the day. However, I eventually got the room warm enough so that I didn't feel cold anymore, and I am feeling better now than I did earlier.

So now we're all caught up, except for the pictures. Hopefully those will come later tonight.

Moab and a Wedding

The past two weekends have been really busy and really fun! Two weekends ago we went camping in Moab and hiked around Arches. It was super pretty and really fun! Our campsite left something to be desired... plumbing... but it wasn't so bad. We also hiked in Negro Bill Canyon, which was everybody's favorite hike, it was mine anyway, because it was soooo pretty. We hiked next to a stream and there were trees and red rocks and it was awesome. If you're down there, you should go.

Here we are under the delicate arch.

This is an old Indian ladder that Peter (foot) and Lauren (head) climbed.

Negro Bill Canyon. Isn't it beautiful?

Last weekend my best friend (and Peter's cousin) Amy got married. We got to go to Portland and go to their sealing in the temple, and it was beautiful. It sprinkled a little while we were taking pictures, but other than that the weather was cooperative. The reception was fun, too. It reminded me of when we got married, only much less busy/stressful. I have definitely decided that getting married and being married are the happiest things in the whole world.

Kachina Exhibit at the MPC!

This evening was the grand opening of the Kachina Exhibit at the museum where I work. It is awesome. Everyone should go see it! The museum is at 700 N 100 E in Provo, open from 9am-5pm Monday through Friday. If you let me know in advance, I will even give you a tour! So come!!!

This is one of the lovely kachinas you will see when, not if, you come see the exhibit. :-)

Festival of Colors

Yesterday Peter and I went to the festival of colors with a bunch of our friends. For those who don't know, the festival of colors is a Krishna celebration. The story goes like this. There was a witch named Holika who was killing babies and children by taking them into the fire so they could get burned. One day she tried to take a boy into the fire who chanted a mantra about lord Krishna, so he was protected, and the witch got burned instead of him. To celebrate this event, they burn an effigy of the witch and throw colorful chalk into the air to represent the joy of overcoming evil, or something like that. Anyway, so we went to the Krishna temple, ate some awesome Indian food, watched some cool dances, and threw colorful chalk into the air and at each other. It was amazing. We got soooooo dirty from the chalk, and couldn't breathe for a little while because of all the chalk in the air. But it was a blast. We will probably go again next year if we're in town. And we will go EARLY so we can get a good parking spot. Pictures to come...

Comfort food

Today I discovered what my comfort food is: pasta and spaghetti sauce. I have not been feeling so great the past few days and have really not had a lot of appetite. So today, when I got home, I wanted to just go to sleep, but I knew if I didn't eat I would be miserable in the morning. Nothing sounded good until I saw the jar of spaghetti sauce in the refrigerator, and suddenly eating seemed like a good idea. A really good idea, in fact. And as I was eating, I realized that spaghetti sauce and pasta (although usually not spaghetti, ironically) ALWAYS sounds good, especially when I feel sick at all.

In honor of my discovery of my comfort food, I am posting one of my favorite pasta-and-spaghetti sauce recipes. Enjoy.

Ziti Casserole

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cook ziti (I use penne) pasta according to package directions.
Combine two 15-oz packages cottage cheese, one 8-oz package of mozzarella, diced, 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese, two eggs, one tablespoon chopped parsley, one teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Mix together with a wooden spoon until blended.

Spoon a little spaghetti sauce into a casserole dish. Layer noodles, cheese mix, and then sauce three times. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes. Top with extra parmesan cheese.

A week

A brief summary of my busy week: I went home last weekend for my Opa's funeral, which was wonderful and sad at the same time. I could say a ton more about that, but I think I'd rather not share it impersonally online. I had two tests yesterday, a paper and a presentation on Thursday, and my house has been a huge mess since I haven't had time or desire to clean. We worked on that today, it's much better than it was earlier. On Friday I also went to Sara's house in the evening, and we made french onion soup. It was super easy, cheap, and really good. Definitely something I will add to the list of meals to make more frequently. Today I went to the zoo to observe the monkeys for a class, and it was actually a lot of fun. The baby orangutan was way cute. She was doing somersaults-- I didn't know they did that.

Tomorrow is daylight saving time, so we lose an hour of sleep.

on Milk

So the other day in a conversation with my friend Sarah, she mentioned that the BYU Creamery has better milk than anywhere else in Provo. I drank creamery milk my whole freshman year and I really didn't think it was anything special, but today I realized she was right! We happened to buy creamery milk after buying the cheapy brand at the grocery store, and there is a huge taste difference. I can't believe I never realized it. It's so much better. Plus creamery milk is cheaper. I don't think I will buy other milk while we live here.

President's Day, Bananas Tempura, Etc.

Happy President's Day! I definitely enjoyed sleeping in this morning, I hope everybody else got to also. Today Peter and I get to catch up on all the homework and housework that we didn't do on Saturday. Hooray.

Tomorrow Peter is leaving to go to a conference in California for a couple of days. It will be great for him and I hope he has fun, but I'm not really happy that he's leaving. I guess I'll live.

Last night we made bananas tempura for dessert, and it was amazing. It was really easy, too. We mixed together 1 cup bisquick, 1 egg, and enough milk and water to make a thin batter, dipped the sliced bananas in, and fried them in a little oil. We ate them with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup. If you've never eaten bananas tempura, I highly highly recommend it. :-)

New Car!

We bought a new car today! It is a black '86 MR2. I wasn't sure how I felt about buying it, but after seeing it today I am really excited. The only downside is it's a manual, which I currently do not know how to drive. Oh well. And it will be nice not to be car-less anymore. Hopefully this car will bring us better luck than the last one we had...

Chinese New Year

First post! Yay! We just got back from a Chinese New Year party with some of Peter's friends. It was awesome. There was lots of yummy food, and we played Chinese Jeopardy. To end the night, everybody took chopsticks and tossed a salad into the air. It was messy, fun, and very tasty. Maybe someday we'll learn to speak Mandarin like we've talked about doing.

Today was really nice and warm. Too bad we still have a couple more months of winter. I am ready for some sunshine!