Monday, April 11, 2011

A Catch up Post!

Hey World!

I'm back! And I'm blogging!

And I've got WAY too much to catch up on, so bear with me

First off... Clay and I rocked the festival of colors a few weekends ago
I completely lost my camera cord, and after a few unsuccessful attempts to get them onto the computer using various methods, I finally paid Walmart to put them on a disk, just because I wanted to blog them. So now... for your viewing pleasure... The festival of colors, round 2!
My husband is such. a. hottie.

Our buddies, Kinzie, Clair, and Ali joined us on our grand adventure
That chalk tastes like incense... incense tastes terrible. Good thing it's blessed by the hindu gods.

We make faces






Next up! One of the main reasons I haven't blogged in a few weeks... This lil assignment of mine
I've talked (bragged) about this on facebook, but I thought I'd add a little more of an explanation here! So this assignment is called "Big, Cheap, and Public" and the purpose was to make a billboard about something we're passionate about. We worked as partners and my buddy Callee and I decided to do a feminist piece (I don't hate men I promise) and society's views of women that was pretty conceptual. We also decided to take the BIG in big, cheap, and public very seriously.
After 3 straight days of work, many many ounces of mountain dew consumed, and little sleep received, we ended up with this beast. 20ft by 26ft. 12 panels, made up of 40 sheets of 11x17 paper each.
A HUGE thanks to my sweet husband, who stayed up with Callee and I all night long, taping this together, as well as putting up the panels the next day, and making us cookies during the long editing process. You do indeed deserve a grade for this. :)

So, I realized I never gave all of my readers the grand tour of the apartment! It took us a while to get everything put together, and we're still in the process but you'll get the idea.
First up, our front room! Clay didn't want to be in the picture..
The view from the couch
PS sorry for the weird colors on these pics. That's what happens when you put the camera on the auto white balance.
Our cute little kitchen... still trying to figure out what to hang on that back wall.
Btw, our mixer doesn't normally hang out on the floor. :)
Now, for what is probably my favorite room in the house... the bathroom. I think you can see why... :)
Yes, we have a skull and cross bones shower curtain. Making our bathroom the coolest bathroom, Anywhere.

And now, just because I felt like it, here's what we had for dinner tonight...
Parchment chicken
O. My.
Please do yourself a favor and make this sometime in the near future. It tastes like summer time. And if you're like us and survive on rice and chicken, this is a good way to mix it up.
WARNING: If you have any qualms about soaking your food in as much butter as you can, I'd avoid this recipe.
But if that is the case... I might cry for you.

And just because I love you all, here is the recipe!
First, you start out with some vegis.
Specifically a red pepper, some green onions, peeled medium carrots, zuccini, and some fresh parsley.
Julienne the carrots, zuccini, and pepper into pieces about 3 inches long. Mince the parsley, and cut the green onions into 3 inch long pieces. This will make the goodness that will cook with the chicken.
You'll need about 4 chicken breasts.
Next, the best part, the white wine, sage butter sauce.
Also known as heaven on earth.
The sauce will sound kind of tricky to make but it's actually really easy.
You'll need:
3 TBLS minced shallot (translated to tiny onion that makes you cry like a woman)
1 TBLS butter
1/2 cup white cooking wine (if you have issues with cooking wine, white grape juice works too)
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tsp lemon juice
4 TBLS cold butter- cubed
1-2 tsp fresh sage
salt and pepper to taste (I think it's fine without it personally but whatever floats your boat)

First, saute the shallot in 1 TBLS butter in small sauce pan over med heat until sauce. (Yes, sauce. Make sure you cut that shallot up small). This should take 2-3 min. Add wine, broth, cream, and lemon juice. Simmer until liquid is reduced by half (8-10 min), whisk in remaining butter 1 TBLS at a time, stirring constantly. DO NOT ADD MORE BUTTER UNTIL PREVIOUS ADDITION HAS MELTED COMPLETELY. No one likes lumpy sage butter deliciousness. Stir in sage, salt and pepper when butter has melted.
Then keep your spoon as far away from that saucepan as you can.
I would eat the stuff like soup if my arteries would allow it.
Next is the fun part. Cut some pieces of parchment paper into 12x12 inch squares. Put a pad of butter (MORE BUTTER! YAY!) in the middle of each square. Then put your chicken on there, and spice it up with the vegis you cut earlier. I don't like leaving anything out, but some people are particular so you can pick and choose. Throw a little more lemon juice on the chicken and vegis, then pull the corners and sides up and tie it with 100% cotton string.
MAKE SURE IT'S 100% cotton, or it WILL set on fire.
Throw the lil packets of goodness on a cookie sheet and cook in the oven at 375 for 30 min

While the tasty deliciousness is cooking, throw some rice in your rice cooker (or preferred method of cooking rice)

When the chicken is cooked, pull it out of the parchment paper, pour all the goodness, juices and all onto your rice, and top all of it with LOTS of sage sauce
It looks like this when it's all finished.
So pretty
And it looks like you actually know how to cook like a champ
(I am definitely NOT that person btw)

Try it out, you'll thank me later.


Well, that's about it from our end!
Hopefully we'll be able to share some more awesome news shortly

No, we're not pregnant

I promise

We'll return to the blogging world soon!
Until then, have an awesome Tuesday!

XOXO

Friday, March 25, 2011

Things I Like, Things I Don't

Things I've Disliked lately:


Having WAY too much homework, and having no desire to do it


Clay being at work til 8:00pm


The rainy, cold weather here in Logan while my family heads to Hawaii


The Logan DMV, and everyone that works there


Things I've Liked Lately:


That my weekends start on Thursday


Staying in Bed until Noon today


Tasty Paninis


Thinking about this day...




Hanging out with my girls


Watching WAY too much Scrubs (thank you netflix)


Wearing these freaking awesome shoes around campus yesterday...

and getting the best looks EVER!
(These are the shoes I wore to my reception btw)


Getting to see my fam tonight


Being married for 3 weeks. Hazzah!


Hope you all are having a lovely weekend!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Pretty Things for Wednesday


So, I'm just sitting here, not listening in my history of photography class

But feeling very inspired all the same

Take a look at these little pretties I found by one of my favorite photographers:
Richard Avedon

I think this model deserves a gold star for this pose. She totally ate it right after this shot.
O how I wish I had a big snake... you never know when you might need them

and maybe some elephants

All of these lil gems, plus what I have planned for dinner tonight...
Grilled Chicken and Roasted Red Pepper Paninis
You're welcome husband
Recipe found on one of my favorite blogs... The Pioneer Woman

Will be just enough to get me to Saturday,

And Clay and I's cross Utah extravaganza to...

SLC
and Provo for Round 2 of the Festival of Colors!


Yay Wednesdays!


I'll let you all know how the Paninis turn out

You're welcome

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Mini-Moon and Sunday Walks

Hey World!

I'm back from my wedding hiatus!

And I have a few stories to share!

First off... IM MARRIED THESE DAYS!!!
Weird
But O so fun :)

I'm gonna save my wedding day recap for when I get a few more pictures back.
Something that I cannot WAIT for! :)

But just so you all know, it was a perfect day :)
I really can't thank everyone enough for coming and for all the work that was put into it
Especially my mom
She's pretty dang amazing if you didn't already know it :)

But like I said, no pictures, no story so we'll get ahead a little bit and I'll tell you about Clay and I's mini honeymoon to SLC! (Mini-moon phrase taken without permission from the Experiment in Poverty blog. I thought it was cute. And appropriate :)

It was so great to get away for a couple days, just the 2 of us, and to go out and do fun, nerdy things together and kind of get into the swing of getting married.

We did lots of fun things like...

Going to a Filipino Restaurant!

The Food was AWESOME
But I have to say my favorite part was Clay getting SO excited to talk to the staff there.
I love how much he loves the Filipino culture. And the people
Gotta love Sinigang :)
Thank heavens Filipino food is so tasty :)

We also did stuff for me, like checking out the aquarium...
For how much space they had there, I thought it was a pretty nice aquarium!
They even had Clay's new favorite animal..
Photos taken on Clay's Ipod.
I loved the caimans
Totally worth the trip and the near death experiences on the freeway during rush hour traffic :)

We also headed over to the Gateway so Clay could see his first IMAX movie

In 3D no less!

And of course, because I love animals too much, we went to the zoo...
Where Clay and I decided we'd like a pet giraffe
This was probably my favorite pic from the ENTIRE trip.
Did I marry a version of my dad? Perhaps...

Clay loved the monkeys.

Monkey's creep me out.

And we chased around some peacocks for kicks and giggles.
We also pretended to be rich for an evening and went to Ruth's Chris for steak that was WAY too expensive.
We felt very out of place
So we hit up P.F. Chang's for dessert.

Overall, it was a grand time!
Another big thanks to my dad for finding, and paying for our awesome hotel. We could walk to almost anywhere we wanted to go!

One more exciting bit of news...
It was warm enough to go on a walk on Sunday!

So Clay and I went and did a little photo safari!

We found a tree house in an abandoned lot near our apartment...
And I taught Clay how to use the manuel settings on my D70!
Check out his awesome photography skills...
Unfortunately... the weather didn't hold out
And today, it looks something like this...
Looks like a day for curling up with one of our new quilts and watching a movie!

Clay has dubbed this month "Trilogy month" so it works perfectly with our schedule!
Tonight we're finishing up Indiana Jones

PS Am I the only one that feels like I did something incredibly epic by just watching Lord of the Rings?
Yah, maybe that's just me... :)
Happy Wednesday Everyone!
And of course, more adventures to come!

Love,
Us
XOXO