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.