whoa, it's been a while

I realized the other day that I have forgotten about my blog for almost an ENTIRE YEAR. Pretty pathetic for someone who wants to be a blogger... Allow me to give a recap of the past year:

Travis finished his last year at the University of Utah (yeah, now he's graduated - we feel old).  He graduated with a B.S. in Marketing and a minor in Russian. 

He began an internship with a telecommunications company called Five-9's Communications and stopped working with Daily Bread Food Storage last summer.  Transitioning from business to family sales to business to business sales has been challenging for him, but he is getting more experienced.  It was difficult for him to go to school full time and work enough hours to get the hang of things.  Now that he's graduated he's started on salary with Five-9's and the past couple of weeks has been working a first ever 9 to 5 40-hour-a-week job, which has been stressful but he's getting used to it.

When the end of our lease at our Bountiful apartment was coming up, we weighed our options.  Travis could only work part time at his internship (which luckily he got paid for at all), and I was only working part time at Zumiez in Layton.  Money was getting tight, and we decided to move to North Ogden to live in his grandparents' house while they are on their mission in Panama.  We really loved the Bountiful area: we were so close to Salt Lake (school, friends); we lived by a ton of fun stuff to do including the South Davis Recreation Center (SDRC) that offered cheap gym memberships, tons of fitness classes, basketball courts, an ice skating rink, and huge pools; finally, Bountiful had just begun to feel like home.  But we packed up and moved to the edge of civilization as we know it.  The transition was difficult (we feel so far away from EVERYTHING up here), but we couldn't pass up free rent!  

Since we were moving up north I decided to finish my generals up at Weber State University before transferring to BYU.  But as soon as I came to Weber, I loved it!  I changed my major to Journalism and got sucked into the small school environment.  One of my teachers helped get me involved in a club (WSU chapter of The Society of Professional Journalists - I'm now the Student President), and helped me get hired at The Signpost (school newspaper).  I originally was hired as a News Reporter, but then was promoted to Assistant News Editor in January and to News Editor in April.  It's been a whirlwind, and although I don't want my career to be with a newspaper, I've learned so much.  

I'm still deciding on exactly what I want to major in and might make some changes this year.  I want to do a little bit of everything; it's too hard to decide!  I love being in school though.

Trav's grandparents are coming home soon from their mission, so we'll be moving AGAIN (for me, the  4th time in a year and a half; for Trav, the 1,000,000th time in 6 years).  We'll be in South Ogden living in Trav's sister Britany and her husband Josh's basement apartment.  Their house is 5 minutes away from WSU, they have a beautiful huge lot, but most importantly Britany and I have become very good friends in the past almost 3 years.  We already hang out a lot, but I can't wait to be able to just run upstairs to hang out with my sis and watch our favorite shows!

Here are a few pictures from the past year (not many; I need to take more).

Seeing Captain America with the Betensons!
And Trav's creepy face in the background...

Lunch dates with Kari! This is one of the things I miss
most about living in Bountiful (August 2011)

Girls' night while our guys went to the
BYU/UTAH game. (September 2011)

Killing time with Tanay at Hobby Lobby!
(September 2011)

Visiting Matt and Beca and playing Star Wars
with Brady on the trampoline (September 2011)

first article in The Signpost, October 7 2011

Down in AZ to visit and on my way to a
The Decemberists concert with Noelle!

Travis' skeleton pumpkin for Halloween

At the Betenson's carving pumpkins for Halloween

So glad we're friends :)

Down in AZ in November for a bridal shower

Travis decorated this toffee and my whole family
always says he should be a pastry chef hahahaha

When we came back we had all these leaves to rake!

Jumping in the leaves to rake them up. Shortly after
these pictures were taken, some neighbors came
and helped us rake! (November 2011)

Making homemade curtains from an idea I found
                                                            on Pinterest (December 2011)                                                            

Jazz game! 

Girls' night with Kari and her cute girlfriends (January 2012)

This is Winston. I won him at work for writing
this article (January 2012)

Travis left me heart shaped notes all around the house
for Valentine's Day. We then celebrated by camping out in our
living room and eating s'mores (February 2012)

Yoga in our family room hehe (March 2012)

Down in AZ for Spring Break, having lunch at RA (March 2012)

Threw Tanay a baby shower! So happy I could help my best friend  (March 2012)

Date night trying out a new restaurant (April 2012)

Coworkers voted me Rookie of the Year! (April 2012)

I went to a Journalism conference in Denver (April 2012)

I promise I'll keep up with this more regularly!

all grown up

So husband and I are applying for life insurance.

whoadang. I am officially old.

So we're being all grown up and answering all this millions of medical questions like:

"Please list all of the times you have been to the doctor in the past 5 years (month and year) as well as why, what testing you had done or medication that was prescribed, and what was the result of each visit?"

Hold up. WHAT? I can't even count how many times...? Or when...? Or....What?!

And answer a FRILLION questions about medical conditions we've never even heard of.

THEN. The insurance company has a nurse come to your HOUSE to do your physicals. (No turn and cough, much to Trav's relief...) So she comes over yesterday morning and we had to give a urine sample, blood sample, and answer more questions, and get weighed, blah, blah, blah...

I hate giving blood. I hate needles. I hate blood. I hate people putting metal weird objects in my body (shudder).

But it didn't even bruise that much, so I guess it turned out okay....

Then later for lunch came this awesome creation:

Mozzarella Almond Tuna Melt

Ingredients:

1 can white albacore tuna

2 tbsp light mayonnaise

Shredded mozzarella cheese

Sliced almonds

Garlic Salt

Cumin

Salt & pepper

Oregano

Aspen Mill's "Squaw" Bread (from Costco - my new favorite bread. It's dark and nutty and awesome)

1. Mix tuna and mayo together.

2. Season with garlic salt, cumin, salt & pepper, and oregano to taste

3. Spread mix on Squaw bread.

4. Cover mix with sliced almonds and top with cheese.

5. Put it in the toaster oven (or regular oven set to broil)

4. Watch carefully! Don't let it burn.

5. EAT :D

It is soooo good. I ate it again today, even husband liked it!

That means mission accomplished... :)

So basically since we're getting our lives insured and I'm all wifey and making lunch for my husband when he comes home for lunch between school and work, I finally feel comfortable with my newish 20-year-old-no-longer-a-teenager self.

monday fun-day

On Monday Travis had work off for Pioneer Day (go Utah!).

We slept in until twelve after staying up until three the night before. And who says married people don't party?

Then we got ready and ate lunch and saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2. We went to the Cinemark out in Farmington, and let me tell you - it is way snazzy. When you buy your tickets you pick your seats out on a touch screen right at the cash register. Then when you pass a ginormous concessions stand, go into the theater, and find your seats, you learn they're made out of LEATHER and they ROCK back and forth.

So, obviously, as soon as our bums hit the seats we started to giggle.

Obviously.

The last Harry Potter movie was super good, but we should have watched part 1 again before we saw this one, because I didn't remember everything. People all over the Internet have been saying that when the movie ended that they felt like their childhood had finally ended. Although that may be a bit extreme, I definitely agree somewhat since we grew up with these stories, movies, action figures, games, and characters. We grew up knowing we were all Muggles, but secretly wishing an envelope would fly down our chimney or into our bedroom courtesy of owl delivery inviting us to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And even hoping we would be that "special" witch or wizard that would get a personal invitation by Hagrid himself. We wondered what position we would play on the Quidditch team. We wrestled over whether Hermoine should like Ron or Harry. We knew eventually Harry would defeat Voldemort, but we still shuddered at every close encounter. We cried (or at least teared up?) when characters died, turned evil, and certainly when Dumbledore was murdered. We counted down the days until the book and movie releases, then re-read and re-watched them countless times over the years. Our generation's childhood may not have ended when the final credits rolled, but this magical story WAS a huge part of many of our childhood's, and it's end certainly signifies the end of an era.

(PS - don't you secretly wish He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named will not really be dead and will come back in the next adventure: Harry Potter and the Mid-life Crisis? Don't be ashamed; we all wish it could go on and on).

After we watched Harry Potter we hung out at home for a bit, made dinner and packed it up for another picnic in the park.

We listened to Pandora on his phone. Lady Antebellum radio :)

freakin' cutie

By the way. Travis usually would NEVER wear a purple shirt. EVER. I've suggested it and said he would look so good in purple and SO many other colors and that he should just branch out...and to no avail. Then one day I walk out wearing this grey/yellow/blue baby-doll shirt and he says, "Maybe I should get a yellow shirt?" (It gets better). So I say "yeah you'd look great in yellow," wow I was suggesting this like a year ago - does it really take you a year to realize I know what I'm talking about fashion-wise? Then he says, "I think I should branch out and wear different colors. I'm getting tired of the same old stuff." I squealed. And the next day I went to our favorite store (Ross ha) and bought him this ^ purple beauty. Hooray! I consider it a huge personal victory. It's so great because now when I wear purple, or some purple like this outfit, we can match and look so good in pictures together. I love that....

We love kiwis!

Then it got dark and it started to sprinkle so we went to Pace's Dairy Ann for some popsicles (which we do multiple times a week). The girl who works there knows us and when we come in she automatically goes back and gets us two Tiger's Blood popsicles (raspberry-coconut). We went outside and played Bananagrams (a game like Scrabble) on the patio.

Travis won even after I was killing him the whole game :(

domestic goddess (for a night...)

The other night I made this fabulous delicious meal to celebrate our new dining table that husband's sister- and brother-in-law so generously gave us!

It's so pretty isn't it?

(P.S. see that pretty flower on the table? husband gave it to me. hehe. )

Trav LOVES asparagus, it's his favorite. Ever. So for dinner I whipped up this super easy medley of:

Cream of Asparagus Soup

Tuna Salad on Avocado

Garlic Cheese Toast

Mandarin Oranges

Raspberry Passionfruit Juice

YUM. Husband looked like he wanted to do a cartwheel.

And there was a whole lot of "Babe...BABE...well aren't you little miss homemaker?!"

(he wishes)

So. I got the recipe for the asparagus soup here: http://www.skinnytaste.com/2009/04/cream-of-asparagus-soup-1-pt.html

and the recipe for the salad on the avocado here: http://fortheloveofcooking-recipes.blogspot.com/2010/11/cilantro-and-lime-crab-salad-in-avocado.html

I changed them up a little bit though so I'll list my ingredients here:

Asparagus Soup

1 lb. asparagus (1 bunch)

1 tbsp. margarine

1 medium red onion

3 cups chicken broth

2 tbsp. sour cream

salt and pepper to taste

(The Gina Skinny recipe calls for 2 bunches of asparagus and 6 cups of chicken broth. I cut these in half and it was the perfect amount for just 2 people (no leftovers, though). I kept the 2 tbsp. of sour cream though because when I made this before with the original recipe, it wasn't super creamy. So if I was making it with 2 bunches and 6 cups of broth, I would probably use 4 tbsp. of sour cream.)

1. Dice onion.

2. Melt the margarine in a large pot.

3. Sautee onion in the pan for 2-3 minutes.

4. Snap tough ends off asparagus and throw them away.

5. Cut asparagus into 2 inch pieces.

6. Add asparagus, chicken broth, and salt and pepper.

7. Cover and cook for 20-25 minutes.

8. Remove from heat and stir in sour cream.

9. Put the soup in the blender and mix until you get the desired texture (we have a tiny blender so we have to do it a few spoon-fulls at a time - ha).

Tuna Salad in Avocados

(I changed up this recipe a lot. Here goes.)

2 cans albacore tuna

2 tbsp. light mayonnaise

1 tbsp. red wine vinegar

1/2 chopped red onion

1/4 cup rinsed black beans

1/4 cup rinsed yellow hominy

2 avocados

1. Open and drain the cans of tuna.

2. Mix in mayonnaise and red wine vinegar.

3. Open and rinse black beans and hominy.

4. Mix them into the mix.

5. Chop the red onion and mix it in.

6. Cut 1 avocado in half and remove the pit.

7. Pile up 1/4 of tuna salad on each avocado and save the rest for lunch tomorrow!

Garlic Cheese Toast

4 slices of your favorite bread

3 tbsp. margarine

1 tsp. garlic salt

Grated mozzarella cheese

1. Mix margarine and garlic salt.

2. Spread mixture on bread

3. Top with mozzarella cheese

4. Stick in toaster oven or regular oven set to broil (if you do it this way, watch it carefully so it doesn't burn).

Garlic toast is really good if you dip it in the soup:

I cut the outside off the avocados so they would be easier to eat.

This was super super good! Only it was way too much to eat, so maybe it would have been better with 1 piece of toast instead of 2 and half a bowl of soup. All this stuff is great for leftovers (except the toast) and it was so awesome! Oh, and eat some mandarin oranges and a new juice you've never tried before... Enjoy!

true dat

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

- Marianne Wilson