Randomness

We had so many fun little random things go on the last couple of months, but I've been too busy to post on them. So here's the whirlwind update! (Not really in any particular order)

Nate baked his first creation! Smores Brownies. he saw the recipe, decided it sounded good, and made it one night when I wasn't home!

And he was SO proud.

We were able to attend the Draper Utah Temple open house. It was a wonderful experience to be in the temple with my family.I had my first go at stuffed peppers, and I do believe they were a hit! Presentation is the funnest part.

We've spent plenty of weekends with my nephew Trayson. He's our best little buddy.

These were the last two tarts we bought in France, and man, were they divine! A tart and a cream puff of course. Very french. We spent conference weekend in SLC with Nate's family and had a Fuller family Friday O Fun. Nate and Maren in the Planetarium predicting the weather.

For Maren's birthday, Nate decided to take her to the Utah State University Art Museum. (The girl loves art, and is very talented.) This was our favorite display. If you gave the shoes a quarter, they play a song. Highly recommend checkign this one out!

We had our first Frontrunner (the train that goes from North Ogden to SLC) experience. I was super excited to sit on the top, cause it's a double decker. Turns out it's really not that exciting. But convenient!

We attended our annual Jazz game. Nate REALLY loves the Jazz, and we are usually able to go to one live game a season. It's always a good time. Thanks, Stace, for tickets and making my husband so happy!

We had a really fun party in Pleasant Grove for Nate's nephew, Sammy. He turned 2.

The Fuller family watched the 3D Under the Sea movie at the planetarium in SLC. Also a definite recommendation. We loved it, even though it's only about 40 minutes long. :)

And of course it wouldn't be spring without the tortorous Baby Animal days in Cache Valley. I sure hope that chick survived Trayson's turn.My mom and I were in charge of all my nieces and nephews. What a day, what a day. I swear never to return. We're pretty positive the bunny on the end is actually a cat, but don't tell Trayson that.

This is my youngest nephew, Landry. And he's pretty much happy no matter what's going on around him. Thank goodness for Landry.Grandma couldn't handle the reptile house. She made me take the kids to see the snakes. (No one tell her two of her four grandkids held a snake, and loved it!)Here we are on our wagon ride. You can't see Grandma holding her face together behind Trayson's head, but that's how we all remember Grandma for that entire day. It's a very long story, but it's pretty much the main reason I vow to never attend baby animal days again. Watching my mother fall to her death has scarred me for life and I will forever associate it with baby animal days.We all ended up surviving, my mom barely.

So that's our random life for the last couple of months! Nate finished all of his classes and is now working on finishing his research. He plans to defend his thesis at the end of the summer. I'm just working working working. Right now is the busiest time of year for us, and I'm dying trying to keep it all together! So if anyone has any pull with people that travel at the University, I'd really appreciate you to tell them to not travel until August, please. It would really make my life a lot more enjoyable. We are loving the beautiful weather, working in the garden, and enjoying exercising outside. And we've LOVED this three day holiday weekend!

To the ends of the earth...

Nate has been offered a job in Ridgecrest CA so this weekend we took a quick trip out there for him to show me the place and see if its somewhere I could live. He flew out in December for the interview, but I'd never been. Here's a little taste...

If you think it looks like you're driving into the end of the earth, you pretty much are. Ridgecrest is a small valley of 25,000 people next to Death Valley in the Mojave Desert. You can drive an hour in any direction and not hit anything. It is completely isolated. So why would anyone ever want to go there, you wonder? Well, it's pretty much Nate's dream job, that's why. There is a large military base in Ridgecrest (the whole purpose of the town, basically). Nate's job would be in weapons prototyping. So he would be blowing stuff up and figuring out how to make it blow up better. Pretty cool, I know. But it is still in the middle of the desert.

In the VERY short period of time we were there, we did manage to pretty much see every inch of the city. We found the Mormonsand caught the end of a lovely desert sunsetThere are palm trees everywhere, and Nate says he would be so excited to plant a plam tree in our front yard.When we arrived friday afternoon it was 99 degrees, and when we left saturday around 1pm it was already 102. And it's only the middle of may!!! This is definitely one of the major drawbacks for the both of us, but right now, this is the only job that has been offered to us, so we'll see what happens. Nate is finishing his research now and plans to defend his thesis at the end of the summer. From there, we'll go wherever the jobs take us! We've had a lot of other random activities we've participated in over the last couple of months, but I just haven't had time to post about them. All those that knew we went to Cali for the weekend, wanted to see pics so hopefully I'll get those other random activities late this week. Hooray for summertime!

I've officially been bit...

By the one and only travel bug. That's right, I'm a traveler. And I like it. A lot!! This all began when I started hanging around with Nate. He took me to Las Vegas, Southern California, Denver, and then moved me to Washington DC where I saw nearly all of the north eastern United States! And now, again because of Nate, you may call me a world traveler. For Christmas, Nate surprised me with airplane tickets to Paris, France!

Nate's best friend and his wife having been living in Paris for the last year and a half and will be coming home to the states later this summer. So Nate decided if there were ever a time to go to Paris, France it would be when we had a tour guide and free place to stay! Chris and Brittany were gracious enough to put us up in Hotel Gamble(their apartment). We had so much fun staying with them, playing games all night long and getting a taste of their French lifestyle. I sometimes still feel like it was all a dream! Since we have about a gazillion pictures, I picked some of our faves and just put it into a slideshow. They are all mixed up and out of order, but I have too many to go through and make them neat and orderly. We hope you enjoy our whirlwind tour of our 8 day trip; if you'd like more pictures and more stories, I am more than willing to share everything! You just let me know where and when.

I thought it might be a good idea to give you all a breakdown of our trip before you get rushed through crazy chaos of pics. Then maybe you'll have a better idea of what's going on. (Feel free to scroll through to the pic slideshow at the end. I'll only be offended a little.)

Day 1: Arrive in Paris after 10 and 1/2 hour flight. (thank goodness it was direct). Go to the street market in front of Chris and Brittany's apartment. See the eiffel tower! Go the store and buy groceries. Take nap. Eat delicious Ratatouille for dinner. Head off to French National Championship Soccer Game. Have blast. See excellent firework show after game. Smell like smoke.
Day 2: Go to church (wonderful experience!!. Walk around Pompidue art museum and park. See Hotel DeVille (city hall). Take nap. Go to Notre Dame. Play with all the pigeons and pigeon people. Walk to Sant Michel (the young, artsy district of town). Wander around. First view of the Eiffel Tower up close. Go home and play games till wee hours of the morning.

Day 3: Nate and I wander on our own all day long all over the streets of Paris. Saw Invalides (where Napoleon is buried and war museum). Saw the Grand Palace and the Royal Palace (I don't really know what these are, but we saw them! and they are important!). Saw several famous churches (I won't name them all-you can get that if you take me up on my personal tour offer). Ate French fries and French McDonalds (we were a little nervous no one else would understand us or we understand them). Ate our first french crepes. Saw the National Opera House. Went shopping, bought cute Paris clothes and jewelry. Went to Trocadero (the best view of Eiffel in the city) and watched the tower light at dusk. And sparkle! It sparkles on the hour and that's my fave! Went home and played games till wee hours of the morning.

Day 4: LONDON! We saw everything there is to see in London, still had some left over time, and did it all in one day. I'm not going to name everything we did and saw, cause if you think of something in London, we did/saw it. And did it all walking! London was dreary and chilly, but our favorite thing about London was that everyone spoke our language and it was awesome! We thought it was dang funny that at every cross walk it's written on the road which way you chould look for cars (cuase those crazy britts drive on the wrong side), and we loved that our train arrived at King's Cross Station! I really liked the taxis, and Nate was in awe of all the little Hogwarts kids he saw walking around town in their robes. I had to refrain him from asking them if they were Gryffindor or Slytherin.

Day 5: The Palace of Versailles! Wow, my high school art history teacher would be so proud. This was a definite highlight for me. I feel pretty darn good about crossing off "walk the gardens at Versailles" off my bucket list. France is definitely an ornate country, but this palace was outright pompous! After our all day adventure, we spent the evening back in Paris exploring on our own some more. We saw the Bastille, the Pantheon, and the Opera House. We are pretty much experts at walking the streets of Paris!

Day 6: Chris didn't have school today soe he got to come with us to the Catacombs. This was so crazy to me! There are miles and miles and miles of underground tunnels all over Paris. Several hundered years ago, the cemeteries were filling up and there was no room for new bodies coming in. The priests decided to move TONS of bodies into the underground tunnels, The Catacombs. They did a precession at midnight singing creepy songs with everyone dressed in black moving the bones. There is a section of about 2 miles open to the public. You go down a very tiny sprial staircase about 60 meters down into the ground., then roam the tunnels of bones. Although very creepy, it's so very cool at the same time. After the Catacombs, we met up with Brittany and headed to the Arc de Triumph and walked the Champs Elysses. The craziest thing to me about the arc is that NO insurance covers you while driving around this circle. All the streets of Paris basically branch out from this point, and it is madness!! The Champs Elysses is the ritzy street of Paris. Our game was who can find the most outlandish item for sale in the window. Nate found a watch for 35000 euros. it was unbelievable! At each of these stores, you have to be "rung" in, but if you don't look like you have money, they won't even answer the door. It was a really fun experience; this was what I pictued Paris as. That night, Nate and I spent the evening on a night cruise of the Siene river. It was a beautiful way to see the city, very romantic. We really enjoyed all of the audioguides offered at all of these places we went to. It's so cool to learn little things you never would've seen/known otherwise. Spent a little more time at the Eiffel Tower and carousels (ps these are all over the city!). Went home, played games until wee hours of the morning.

Day 7: There is an incredibly beautful church in the middle of the ghetto, called Sacre Couer. We woke up early on this morning to go take fun pictures on this amzing landscape without any people on it. After the photo session, we roamed the Montmarkette. It's a shop area with a plaza full of artists and gypsies. I felt like I was in a movie while we roamed here. Very European. We made our way down to the Moulin Rouge, got our pics from the outside, went home and ate French toast and took a nap. That night we took our friends out to a good ol fashioned Creperie to thank them for their kindness. Our food was divine!! It was lot of fun to dine in Paris. From here, we headed to the Louvre and did our best to see all that we could in just a few short hours. Note to anyone headed to the Louvre: it's free on Friday nights from 6-10 if you have a student card! Went home, exhausted, and played games until wee hours of the morning.

Day 8: By now, we felt pretty good that we had seen and done all that we could while in Paris. We felt every minute was well spent. We went to the market again this day, and Nate and I packed up on Souvenirs and LOTS of chocolate to bring home. We had a beautiful going away feast complete with baguettes (Nate's ultimate fave) and chocolate lava cakes. Of course, we had a long tournament of games and it the night(well morning) was ended with Nate and I staying up until about 4 am listening to the Aggies win!!! Of course, we didn't forget about our boys! We woke up very early the next morning and headed off to the airport. The flight seemed a lot longer going home, and it took me about 4 or 5 days to get back on the right schedule (8 hour difference). All in all, what an adventure!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mucho mucho Merci's to our travel buddies, Chris and Brittany. We obviously couldn't have done all of this without you, and we can't wait until you come home!

And don't forget, there's plenty more where these came from!!! So who's up for my next trip? I've got Greece, Hawaii, Brazil, on my list, just to name a few!

Livin in the 801

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ9TTCTyid4

Valentine Fun

We were kind of dissapointed in Valentine's day being on a saturday, so I decided to kindd of go with a Valentine's theme for the whole week. Nate was made a lot of his favorite dinners and treats, and I was overwhelmingly sweet all week! :)

My famouse oatmeal choc chip cookies, with a special giant one for Nate!

One of his favorite dishes that I make... I was really proud of this one! Probably the best pizza I've made so far. And it looked so pretty!!

For the actual holiday, all I asked for was no homework. I was really excited to just get one day where I could spend all hours of it with my hubby. That NEVER happens! The day ended up with a whole lot of basketball, but I enjoyed it. Nate had a church ball game that morning, so after a big beautiful breakfast

(yes, those french toasts are kissy shaped! how cute)

we headed off to that. We had a photo session scheduled for our afternoon with our friend Isaac. He's a very creative photographer, and we wanted to give him some practice. :) He's got awesome prices, and the session is very personable, professional, and easy going. (He really didn't tell me to say those things, I jsut mean it!) Check out his website, and you can also see us in the gallery! Thanks so much, Isaac. We had a lot of fun with him and his family, and enjoyed pretending to be lovebirds again. :)http://www.wix.com/isaacstephens/photography

After our photo shoot, we got to have dinner at my VERY FAVORITE restuarant here in Logan, Kamin Thai Cuisine.

I am so in love with this place. The atmosphere is so wonderful, and the food...oh the food. It's just to die for, and that's all there is to it. My meal this time was a special just for Valentine's, and if I was more brave, I would have taken a picture of my volcano chicken. It came out on fire!!! And it was so divinely delicious. We were so sad when we got home, becuase we realized we left our to go boxes on our table. If it hadn't been a complete whiteout, I might have considered going back and finding them. At home, we ate Nate's favorite Ben and Jerry's ice cream for dessert, and sat down to the Aggie bball game on tv. Unfortunately, this stupid game ruined our lovely day; dang aggies, lost to dumb boise. We ended up being entertained by the Slam Dunk Contest. I really loved just being lazy and spending the whole day with Nate-no worries. Even though it wasn't his ideal kind of Valentine's day. He really really really loves surprises, and because we were spending the whole day together, he said he couldn't surprise me and was very dissapointed. He did give me a lovely bouquet of "purple" flowers and 4lbs of red vines. Such a romantic, bless his sweet heart. He knows exactly how to show his love for me.

It's totally ok if you want to call these flowers pink, cause I do. But don't tell Nate that, cause he swears they are purple!

It was so nice to have a much needed long weekend; Tuesday morning came and I was not ready to be an adult with responsiblities again. Mucho love to my hubby for such a wonderful weekend, and we hope you all enjoyed yours as well! Next break is just a few weeks away, and before you know it, hopefully, it will be good weather season!

Ode to Logan

Since Nate is still working on his Inauguration post(yes, he was there, without me. Details to come later, when he does his own post),I decided to keep all of you happy readers happy. Since I really don't have anything going on in my life, I had to get my creative juices flowing. So far, this is all I've got. Please feel free to contribute; I'd love to add to my Logan funnies collection.

For those of you who have lived in Logan you know exactly what this poem is talking about. (I can't take credit for this creativity; thanks for supplying me,Maren.

WINTER

It's winter in Logan
And the gentle breezes blow
Seventy miles an hour
At thirty-five below.

Oh, how I love Logan
When the snow's up to your butt
You take a breath of winter
And your nose gets frozen shut.

Yes, the weather here is wonderful
So I guess I'll hang around
I could never leave Logan
I'm frozen to the ground!

You know you’re in Logan when…the high is 28 degrees and you see people without coats and wearing sandals. (I really just witnessed this!)

You know you’re in Logan when…it’s 15 degrees outside, but the sun is shining, and you hear the comment, “What a beautiful day it is today!” (Literally heard this yesterday, and the person was being serious!)

You know you’re in Logan when…you just reimbursed some students for their travel to the state capitol to protest the university’s budget cuts. (Really? We’re going to PAY the students to go rally? Now I understand the need for the furlough. Don’t even get me started on the stupid things USU pays for.)

Like I said, this is all I've got so far; I just couldn't keep my fans waiting any longer. But I'm dedicated to creating more Logan funnies. (This is how uneventful my life is right now.) Again, we are gladly accepting contributions. Happy 6 more weeks of winter! :(

Oh, The Lovely Holidays....

The Holidays were wonderful. The time off from work and school was wonderful. Spending so much time with family and eating way too much good food was wonderful. And now we're back to real life.
Nate has started his last semester of classes, and though its only been a week, it feels like he's been going for months. He's working very hard, as usual, to keep up with his classes and get his research done. Now that we are back in reality, let's remember the good ol times from the lovely holidays.
PS: Hold your mouse over each picture to view the captions.

We spent New Year's Partying with good friends, and being old and married and leaving at like 1230. I actually took a small nap after work, just to be prepared; I thought we'd be up all night. Alas, New Year's Eve just isn't what it use to be. We had a couple of Nate's old rommates, who were in town for Christmas, come over for games and treats, and we had a blast!! I'm quite sure if those boys hadn't found such awesome wives, they would have lived together forever. I laugh so much when we all get together; I just love it.




Wish us luck with our resolutions, new classes, travels, and whatever else may come! And the very same to all of yoU!!!