MD 2012

Mother's Day was great, even though I'm not yet a momma. At church I got to teach nine 3 year olds how awesome our ears are. I played a bunch of sounds for them on my phone. They thought the elephant and the baby laughing were the funniest.thing.they've.ever.heard. Afterwards, any woman over the age of 18 got a bag of chocolates even the ones who still get to sleep in and don't have to change diapers.

We spent most of the afternoon with my mom. We sat outside and ate snacks while we showered her with gifts (or rather gift). She is so amazing and deserves more than anything I can give her. I feel so lucky that we were paired up.

Dinner was at uncle Chris's house with my grandma and rest of the family and finished the night with Mad Men and strawberries and fresh cream.

And now it's Monday, but Memorial Day weekend is close!

And on Wednesday, we will have been married for 3 years.  Crazy.

Life is Beautiful

Life in Salt Lake is beautiful. I know I'm enjoying this phase of life very much. Sometimes I have an itch to move somewhere new and have new experiences, but I'm quickly reminded how much good is here in my hometown. The move will eventually happen but for now I'm going to take in as much family, pug, mountains, friends as I can.

I know that both Elliott and I have missed being in school and look forward to eventually throwing ourselves back in, but this time without it, I must admit, is nice. It leaves time for things like going to dinner, watching movies, re-watching all seasons of Mad Men, taking dogs to the park, going on trips to Disneyland, and spending time with the fam.

By the time I get around to blogging, all of my pictures have made their way around Instagram so they're probably old news for some of you who look at this blog. I just can't keep up, so that's the way it's going to be.

Part 1: Disneyland/Santa Monica/Magic Mountain

This trip was short and sweet. My brother and his girlfriend flew out from New York for the four day trip. We all revisited our childhood first at Disneyland, riding the same rides, getting the same treats, hearing the same music. It was great.

Sunday we drove to Santa Monica, the former city of my grandparents and our old stomping grounds when we were kids. The weather was beautiful. I even got a sunburn. We ate lunches, shopped, admired the ocean and it's calming waves, and sat by the pool. 

Monday we split parties and Elliott, dad, Nick, and I all took on Magic Mountain. I haven't been to roller coaster heaven for almost 8 years and enjoyed getting turned and flip every which way over and over again. Surprisingly (week of spring break), lines were short and the weather was perfect. We ended the day with the coaster X2, the best coaster we've ever ridden, agreed upon by all four parties. It takes you up backwards and facing the sky, and then it flips you in ways you've never flipped before. I didn't even know what was going on half the time I was laughing so hard. 

Tuesday was spent enjoying our last California hours, and then we flew home.

Part II: The transition back into normal life was made easier by our weekend plans. On Thursday we finally turned in our tickets for the live show Radiolab: In the Dark, which we had been waiting to see for months. Jad and Robert (the two hosts of the show) did what they do best and took us into different worlds with the aid of amazingly creative visuals and music. They handed out a makeshift flashlight to everyone to add visual to one part of the story. It was everything we thought it would be. Why are they so cool?

We also indulged in waffles from Bruges in downtown SLC and I have been very much enjoying all of the tree blossoms around town. They are right outside my work window and I sometimes sneak over to look at them when I have a minute.

Also, we of course went to the Real game, which they won 2-0.

Part III: Easter came and went and left us with church, dyed hard boiled eggs which promptly were turned into deviled eggs, a delicious dinner with roasted chicken, salad with every kind of veggie you could want, rosemary bread, homemade salted caramel ice cream, Easter baskets, candy, and one giant blow up T-Rex.

 It's been a great few weeks. The weather is shifting into spring mode which means more time spent outside and time to shave the legs more than once a week (good thing we just bought a gym pass which we've used once). Wishful thinking.

And probably the most exciting news of these past few weeks: Elliott aired his first radio show on the radio on Saturday! I listened at home and enjoyed it very much.It's been months in the making. Check it out:

Post Christmas Pick-Up

First things first: push play on the song below:



Our gifts for family and friends:

The few days after Christmas are always a little weird. After months of build-up, it's all over just like that. We had a great Christmas. My brother was in town from New York with his girlfriend. Our weekend was filled with Ruth's Diner, a lot of movies (Midnight in Paris, Warrior, Christmas movies), Sapo (a newly discovered restaurant), family, a lot of much needed down-time, and no snow.

I made a few things for gifts this year:

Nate left today for NYC and all the festivities are over. I find that some upbeat new music seems to help. Have you heard Coldplay's new album? Mylo Xyloto, and it's awesome. My favorite song: Hurts Like Heaven.



We're really excited for 2012 and we're looking forward to some great things coming our way.

Christmas Eve Morning

#1: We went to the crazy over-the-top awesome candy cane-giving Christmas house.

#2&3: What we are doing this morning: making waffles with my favorite boy.

Merry Christmas eve morning!

Wall/Bunker Christmas Party 2011

We have an annual Christmas party with some close family friends of ours: The Walls and the Bunkers. We get together, have homemade clam chowder in bread bowls with fruit salad, and ice cream with hot fudge. Presents are exchanged and wassail is sipped. The past few years we have been having contests. We've made wrap dolls, gingerbread houses, and this year we had a tacky ornament contest. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of all the ornaments, but here's a break down of some of the tackiness (warning, there is some extreme tackiness):

1. Vegas show girl ornament

2. Santa's taking back Christmas with a stogie ornament

3. The angel Carol ornament (who's wearing shades because her light is so bright)

4. Zipper Stripper ornament (notice the zipper leggings)

5. Bloody tampon ornament (very tasteful)

6. Ghost Adventurers ornament (made by my dad. Notice the little ghost head on the hanger)

7. Overly Jolly Santa ornament

8. Rastafarian ornament

9. Flasher Santa ornament (before exposure)

10. Flasher Santa ornament (after exposure. The sign reads: "I see you when your sleeping")

11&12. The not tacky homemade wassail

Missing: Elliott's Snookie boobs which took 3rd place. I will post a picture of those gems later.

We then put them all on display and had a vote: Pick the 2 tackiest ornaments. And the winner was:

FLASHER SANTA!

(Which was mine)

Inspiration was taken from this photo: (found here). My favorite are the faces of all the victims:

I was surprised I won because there were some really tacky competitors.

These ornaments were also made but are just beautiful, not so tacky:

This party has been happening for over 24 years and I have loved every minute.

The Story Ark/Christmas/Elliott Talk

If you know Elliott, you know how much he loves radio shows.  He is actually working on starting one on his own. It is called the Story Ark (http://thestoryark.wordpress.com/) and he will be broadcasting on KUTE, the local university radio station. If he can figure it out, he will create a podcast too so anyone can listen. He just finished his first short about the mortuary business and will hopefully post it on his blog soon. Meanwhile, he's looking for good stories to possibly have on the show, so if you have one (and I know everybody has at least one), then go to the Facebook page here, give it the thumbs up, and post it on his wall. It can be one you heard from a friend, funny, sad, anything! The person who posts the best story wins a free American Apparel t-shirt.

It's super comfy and if you don't like this one, Elliott will send you one with a unicorn or your choice of mythical creature.

We are totally behind on Christmas this year. We haven't decorated and still have a lot of shopping to do. To add to the lack of Christmas feeling, it still has not snowing here in SLC. We usually have plenty of snow by now. I'll be happy as long as we get it by the 25th and for months after for good skiing.

Elliott and I had a nice conversation in his sleep the other night:

Elliott: "whisper...whisper..whisper" (he said this in a whisper, of course)
Me: What?
Elliott: "How many whispers do you have?"
Me: "What do you mean?"
Elliott: "Like, do you have a place mat full?" (accompanied by his hands showing me how big a place mat is)
Me: "I have six."
Elliott: Long pause. "That's enough."

Here's some news: I didn't get accepted to any of the graduate programs I applied to this year so it looks like we'll be in SLC for another year! This is good and bad, but overall it's just fine. I'll be building up my resume while Elliott possibly looks into an internship for next year. Meanwhile, we will be here in SLC enjoying
skiing, family, friends, and hopefully learning some new things (like lead climbing).

Smelly Breath

This was today's chat between Elliott and I while we were both at work:

Our combined name before was Belliott, but Smelly Breath is so much better, right?

Halloween weekend was great this year. On Friday I saw Thriller with some friends and on Saturday we went to the Real playoff game (3-0 win for REAL!).

Sunday my teaching partner and I took our Sunbeam (3 & 4 year olds) class at church for a walk. I said to one of the little girls "Look at all the spider decorations on the doors." Her response: "You're a spider." My response "Ok....?"

Last night we went to Nightmare on 13th (haunted house) with the fam and then hung out with friends afterwards and talked about past Halloween costumes.

Just in case there is any confusion I'm casting a spell and Elliott is about to take a bite out of the....zombie?

Snow

We've been blessed here in Utah with some new snow. It's so beautiful and means great skiing to come. The only bad thing about it is the job it does on the roads. I tried to make it up to Smiths in the avenues the other night (for those of you who don't kow the avenues they're very steep). I got stuck one block away and had to basically drive backwards to get back home. Snow:1 Beth: 0.

Christmas was a lot of fun. Christmas eve we went and saw True Grit and went to dinner. True Grit Review: 5/5 stars. We loved it. On Christmas we woke up and opened gifts from Elliott's parents (thanks parents #1) ventured over to my parents house and exchanged gifts (thank you parents #2). We were extremely lazy until lunch when the whole family met over at my aunt's house. Brunch was filled with various casseroles, upside down french toast (our favorite), fruit, crossants, frogeye salad, and ham.

The Storey family is always exhausted and tired of holiday cooking by Christmas night so we go out to eat. We usually frequent a chineese restaurant, but having grown tired of it we went to another of our favorite non-Christmas celebrating Indian restaurants Tandoor with some family friends.

Elliott and I returned home and finished the day with Toy Story 3 (a new addition to our movie collection).

Monday we both had the day off so we went skiing at Solitude. Besides the broken promise of a little sun, the snow was good and the whole day was even better.

Thank you everyone for a great holiday. We're lucky to have you all!

P.S. (Roomates below us, please turn the heat back on. It's supposed to make it down into the teens this weekend and we would like to wake up and not be frozen solid tomorrow.)

Break!

After that last semi-morbid post (sorry about that) we have some good news, finals are over and we can now both start our break together! The next few days are going to be filled with:

Jib Jab Videos: check out the ones we made here

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/LYIbAmcIMyhg4YkU

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/y3N7j8lOQxBmaTnz

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/avw06iSsF2m91QaB

Shopping
Parties
Sewing
Gingerbread house making
Fudge making
Friends
Family
and hopefully some of this:

P.U.I

Labor day weekend was awesome..... Three day weekend + birthday + friends + farmers market + mini golf + ice cream + sweet tooth bakery cupcakes + friends + family = love

This weekend was just what we both needed. Some time away from work and school (not so much the school part if you count homework) but we both procrastinated on that anyway. Beth is on a journey to find out how to make the best homemade pizza. And I'm getting closer. I know I will not be able to replicate places such as Settebello or Vinto but I'm willing to settle (a little). I have this insatiable craving lately for authentic pizza (margarita mostly) and can't get enough! I made pizza a few weeks ago and it was a disaster. I used too much dough so it was too thick and it completely stuck to the pizza stone. After a little research I halved the dough and floured the pizza stone before I stick the pizza on. Oh and important info for anyone who has a pizza stone: put it in the oven while it is heating up. I learned this the hard way.

Anyway, craving pizza on Friday I scooted over to whole foods to get things to make margarita pizza. Whole foods has amazing pre-made pizza dough which I decided to try (still working on making my own). I also bought fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and organic tomato sauce (first time trying this. I made my own sauce last time around). That's all I needed for the pizza. I also picked up some things for a salad and made my favorite homemade poppyseed red wine vinegar dressing.

Now the shopping was the hardest part of this meal. The prep/cooking time was maybe 30 minutes and is as follows:

1. Preheat oven as hot as it goes (between 500-550 deg F). Stick in pizza stone WHILE heating up.

2. Take softball sized dough ball (approx) and stretch, throw in air, stretch, throw in air. Repeat until the dough is about as thick as a credit card. Do not roll the dough with a pin (I read it makes it really tough)

3. Get the dough really flowery (made up word?) on the bottom to prevent sticking. Lay out stretched dough on some flat surface you will be able to take over to the oven. Spread pizza sauce over dough (make sure you can still see the dough through the sauce. Too much will make it soggy)

4. Cut mozzarella in slices and place on pizza.

5. Drizzle pizza with olive oil and rub some on the crust. Add some salt as well

6. Put in the oven for about 5-7 minutes (just watch it and you can tell when it's done).

7. Slice and enjoy every bite!

On Labor Day (Beth's 23rd birthday) we did a lot of fun things. Elliott played basketball in the morning while I did homework (had to get it out of the way), then we went to breakfast with friends which was awesome (at the Park Cafe). Next we went mini golfing with the fam (beth's mom, dad, and Nick) at Mulligans in Sandy. I loved this because this is where my parents would always take us as kids so there's some nostalgia attached. My mom took a recent trip to the hospital after some breathing issues and headaches and they sent her home with loratab. Nobody in my family likes Loratab so she didn't take it. Except before we left to go golfing she accidentally took one thinking it was an IBuprofien. Elliott accused her of P.U.I or putting under the influence. She still beat me. Elliott won and I came in last. It never was my strength. I'll stick to things I can kick with my feet.

For dinner Elliott and I went to P.F. Changs. We started with lettuce wraps and the rest doesn't really even matter. It was a great day and nice that my birthday lands on a holiday every couple of years. That way nobody's working and can just focus on my birthday...just kidding...but seriously, it's awesome.

Tonight Elliott is in class and Beth is off to yoga (much needed after a 9 hour day).