The Best Undershirt Ever

I realized that I mentioned finding the best undershirt ever but i didnt mention which one it was, so just to clarify the best undershirt ever is the Downeast wonder tank for $9.99

The House... Today, 3 weeks and counting

I am sure the real reason you all check our blog is to know when our house is going to be finished, so far I think we are 3 weeks maybe 4 behind schedule, so keep laughing at us, but this is where we are as of this afternoon. 

The living room. The fireplace is all in but sadly the trim and paint are still missing (I am not even thinking about how the lights are missing, how there is no carpet, and see those electrical outlets without covers, year moving on)
The kitchen, this is the view from the dining room. The cabinets look a little bit more red than I remember them being, but I am sure with the pain, and backsplash it will be lovely. 

looking into the dining room. 
the front door... we still dont have a dorr handle but the door is on so that's a plus
the big space to the left is where our refrigerator is going to go. The backsplash between the countertops and the cabinets is still missing, but imagine how nice it will be (or check back in a few days and see for yourself). 
the big space in the middle is where the stove is going to go. 
looking into the kitchen from the living room. 
the masterbath... yes we did fix our shower mishap. 
laundry room
kitchen tile floor
Entry way tile floor

Top 10 favorite Utah things

I spent some time with an old friend this last week (yes old friend you do read this blog), and it got me thinking about a few things (more posts to come), but one of the things was the things i will miss when i leave utah permanently. 

Here is my top 10 list

10. Orem Walmart- I know this sounds so odd, but I love how packed it is, how you can never actually buy half of the items that you need, and that it is busy even at 3am. 

9. billboards with pictures of the temple, food storage advertisements, and byu- i love the mormonville part of utah- i resisted when i first moved here, but there is something about just accepting people and places for what they are, in order to love utah you have to accept that people love church, conference is a holiday, and Bronco is a state hero. 

8. BYU milk- I love BYU milk, everything from skim (well not really skim) to cookies and cream- there is something about BYU milk that is particularly delicious- I would guess they lie about the fat content and it is all just heavy cream. 

7.  no one will ever comment when you say you need to going visiting teaching, you have to teach relief society, or that you are dreading stake conference- there is something comforting about living in clone land. 

6. the Y- not the school, the literal Y on the mountain, I love the Y, not sure why but I do. 

5. Cafe Rio/Costa Vida- they are the same thing, and yes they are so overrated but still when you are living far away and dont have them you do crave it, there is something about that cilantro ranch that is DELICIOUS

4. Mormon movies in regular movie theaters- need i say more (i dont see them in the theater but it is kinda nice to know i could if i wanted to)

3. cheesy radio slogans like "family values talk radio", I like that family values are part of the normal every day vocabulary

2. Wymount- love it, seriously if I could love an apartment complex this would be it, I am probably biased since this was my first home with Brian but I love everything about Wymount. I havent been back since we moved, it is just too sad, I admire it from afar. 

1. BYU- its true, I never thought i would have an affinity for a school but I do. 

1 blue rug + white clothing= 1 quick trip to downeast

Sometimes you do stupid things, sometimes you have every intention of preventing yourself from doing something stupid but you just fail miserably. Last night I had one of those experiences. I went to do some laundry, I made sure to seperate my jeans from my whites (because let's face it that is all i have in my laundry basket), i grabbed the rug off the bathroom floor to throw in since it had toothpaste on it and i was good to go. I threw my jeans into the washer, the rugs, and then looked down and thought the load looked a little bit under filled so i threw a few more things in. I threw a brand new white shirt, several undershirts, one of Diana's nice new white towels, and a few other white things. I didnt think much about it, I went on with my night, called brian, ate a snack, did some homework, and finally came down to see how the laundry was doing, it wasnt doing well. It turns out the blue rug didnt do so well with my whites, every turned a nice shade of blue- not white tinged with blue, actually blue, not quite baby blue- a little darker. I just had to laugh, it was so ridiculous, I tried to bleach everything back to white (yes this was my first bleaching experience), but that failed, so now i have quite a few blue items- I actually like the blue t shirt and diana wasnt too upset about her towel, but I did have to go buy some new undershirts today. On a positive note, while i was replacing my lovely blue undershirts Diana introduced me to what can only be described as the best undershirt ever! I am converted, I cant believe I ever wore anything else. 

The daily drive

This year I have lived a bit away from Provo, this has given me quite a bit of time to listen to the radio every day. One day this week I happened to run across Dr. Laura on the radio. To me Dr. Laura is like a mullet- it's something you want to look away from because it is just too much, but there is something that draws you in and wont let you move on with your life. Dr. Laura grates on my nerves, she doesnt let the callers talk, I think sometimes she gives bad advice, and she is a hypocrite, with all that being said at times I like how she tells people straight out what they should do. The other day there was a 26 year old female caller with a college degree and a professional job that called in to ask if she should marry her 23 year old freshman college student boyfriend, that yes, still lived with his mother. First off, I couldnt believe she needed to ask that question, obviously you shouldnt marry the man child, but it got me thinking, how often do people do things that are obviously idiotic? I would guess when it comes to marriage it happens all the time. To be fair I can't take Dr. Laura's advice on this one, by her definition I married a "man boy", when we got married Brian was still in school, worked at the bookstore, and had only been on his own for a bit- but still I would argue that he had been on his own for 2 years (not counting the mission), and let's just say the kid was pretty financially responsible (it might be the accountant thing that does that). As I listened to Dr. Laura talk to this caller I wondered what would life have been life if I had chosen to marry an irresponsible individual like the caller was describing, someone that had never lived away from home, someone without the potential for a solid job, and someone with little to no education, I would guess life would be different, frustrating, and in general a little bit harder than life currently is. Why do people decide to go down that path, I guess I cant think outside the box, but every time I think about it all that comes to mind is love does NOT buy the groceries and pay the mortgage. I guess the moral of that story is good thing I married the accountant. 

The Miracle of Life and Why It Makes Me Shake in My Moccasins

I am in public health, I have been the TA for womens health for... awhile now, I have seen plenty of birthing videos, read quite few books, heard the birth stories, and researched pain management techniques but still the idea of actually giving birth makes me grateful that I currently have 0 children (and 0 on the way). What is it about birth that makes those of us that havent done it shy away from actually doing it? Is it actually a traumatic process (I would guess that in some ways it is), or is it the way that our society portrays the process? Not too long ago I read an article about a woman in Mali that give birth, strapped her brand new baby (we're talking minutes old) on her back and went back to work. I am sure that her birth wasnt the most pain-free event but still it doesnt seem quite as dramatic as birth here. What is it that makes birth dramatic in the US? Is it the fact that we birth in hospitals with medical professionals around us? Is it because we know what can go wrong? Or is it our perception of pain that makes it seem traumatic and something that we should avoid, medicate, and block out? I dont have any answers, I think it is going to be a few years before I can answer any of those questions... I'll have to get back to you on that one. 

"It tastes like a hot dog!"

Last night Diana made a delicious dinner (like all dinners), she tried to connivence Alayna to try a piece of shrimp and finally she did, right after she tried it she turned to Jake and exclaimed" try it jake it tastes like a hot dog!" I still dont see the connection, but apparently shrimp tastes like hot dogs

The house... today

The bricks today, still not done but getting there, I will take what I can get. The interior walls have been textured, the house is supposed to be painted this week, the cabinets installed, if we are lucky the tile started, and maybe even get started on the driveway and patio- cross your fingers that we will have good weather for the next few weeks!

Dusting off the soapbox

It has been a bit since I rambled/ranted so here goes, recently I have been hearing a lot about how public school is determinatal to children. I have been thinking a lot about that and I have come to one conclusion- no it isn’t. I will agree that currently in some areas there are some things taught in public school that I do not want my future children to be a part of, but that isn’t what I am talking about. I have heard that children that attend public school suffer emotionally because of untrained teachers, sexual harassment, embarrassment, boring classes and competition. While I will agree that the first two are determinantal, I would have to say the number of children subjected to that is so small that I think I will take my chances, I don’t understand the others. Yes, school can be boring at times, and yes the most embarrassing moments in my life occurred in public school, and yes it can be a competitive environment, but I honestly don’t think that those things have negatively impacted me. Sure it would have been nice to be told I was fantastic all the time, but that wouldn’t have encouraged me to strive to be better, and yes it would have been nice if I didn’t trip in the 10^th grade trying to get a note back from the guy I liked, and yes it would have even been nice if every single class I ever took was taught by a well qualified intellectually stimulating instructor- sadly life isn’t perfect, sometimes you trip, sometimes math class is mind numbingly boring, and yes sometimes someone else gets a better grade than you did, but that is life- life is tough. I don’t think the solution to these items is to remove your child from the world (although you are entitled to do so). Despite the stats that show that homeschooled kids perform better academically (which I have a hard time believing) they lack other essential skills, like dealing with peers, handling disappointment, and learning to cope when mommy isn’t there. Besides missing out on essential social development (which is necessary to function in the real world, get  an actual job, and become a well adjusted adult) I wonder what else homeschooled kids are missing. How well trained are their parents to teach them? I would say that in many cases they aren’t well trained, or at least they aren’t as well trained as Miss Jones the  high school algebra teacher. I can say this for a certainty, if Brian and I were to homeschool our children they would be missing out on a lot, even with our soon to be 2 Masters degrees I don’t think we would be as effective as a trained teacher, we wouldn’t know how to plan lessons, grade papers (although to be fair this is what I currently do ), and make sure that our children are meeting their academic milestones. So we will stick with public school, we will get to know their teachers (or so we say about a decade away from ever having to do it), pay attention to what is going on at school, and live in an area where the lessons taught in school mesh with the lessons taught in our home, community ISD here we come. 

Elder Adawi's Mission Call

My little brother Michael got his mission call on Thursday night. He was called to the Mexico, Chihuahua mission! Congratulations Elder Adawi!

Michael the tough guy in central park 
Modeling his lovely scarfs
right after shake shack 
modeling the goods from chinatown

Brick by Brick

Our house is almost bricked! Yay! Just in case you wanted to see how it looks here are few pictures for you!

The back of our house at sunset, isnt it beautiful... well it will be more beautiful when it is finished, when there is a patio, when there is a fence, and when the lawn is put in, but i will take what i can get right now. 
our bedroom window(s)
the front of our house. We hope the bricks are lighter when they dry, but since it has been raining for a few days they look a little dark 
our mailbox! We have a mailbox!!
The view from the front. 

Growing Up

Today Brian got his first paycheck from his first real job. I can't say that we are rich, but wow it feels  good to get paid (that might be because it has been a LONG time since it happened but still). All this has got me thinking, we are actually grown ups now. Those carefree days of newlywed college students are gone, we are grown ups now, with 3.5 college degrees, a house (sorta), and a real job (this one we have without qualifications). When did this happen? It seems like not that long ago that we were living in Wymount and just starting out. On another note, one of my friends became a grown up today too (not that she wasnt already, she does already have a baby), her husband got into med. school. Congratulations Brad and MaryAnne (dont you love gett a shout out on the blog)!

Getting Ready

Since coming back to Utah my morning routine has changed. I used to get up and get ready in silence, sometimes turning on CNN or the radio to get a jump start on the news but other than that things were generally quiet. When Brian was home I would wake him up as I finishing getting ready and we would inhale some yogurt and run off to school (literally). Now my morning routine has taken on a new life, there is lots of talking, laughing, sometimes singing (although this isnt me), and a crisis or two. We sing the alphabet song, we talk about what they are going to do that day (Jake usually says he is going to joy school), I try and convince them it isnt time to go downstairs, that is gross to eat cereal while sitting on the bathroom floor, that toliet paper isnt a toy, we talk about how i should do my hair, why black isnt my color, and their favorite holidays. I try to convince them that my toothpaste isnt food, that little people dont need blush, and that yelling at 7:30 in the morning isnt the best idea. I think we have gone through this routine pretty much every day since I arrived in September, and it still hasnt gotten old. This morning we discussed Alayna's dislike of mashed potatoes (even though she gladly ate them last night), convinced Jake not to sit in the tub with his blanket, and read a Bernstein bears book while sitting on the bathroom all before 8am. Life is good!

They do not love, that do not show their love- Shakespeare

President Monson has been one of my favorite speakers for as long as I can remember. I love the quotes he memorizes, the stories of selfless service he shares, and the sincerity behind every message he shares.  As you may know i found a video this morning with excerpts of a talk he recently gave, and I think this message has been my favorite. The concept taught is so simple, but yet so often overlooked for bigger and better solutions, I love the simplicity of his message. So my dear readers, I challenge you today to follow President Monson's advice, look to those around you that you care about and let them know what a wonderful impact they have had on your life, yes this is cheesy, and you may not want to look foolish, overly committed, and childish in front of your friends, family, and peers, but the rewards for following this advice will be far greater than any embarrassment you might happen upon. 

Excerpts from the talk

"I believe that among the greatest lessons we're to learn  during this short sojourn on the earth are lessons that help us distinguish between what is important and what is not. What is most important almost always involves the people around us. Often we assume they must know how much we love them, but we should never assume, we should let them know"

"Despite the changes that come into our lives, may we fill our days as much as we can with those things that matter most, may we cherish those we hold dear and express our love to them in word and in deed."

"Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved"

What Matters Most

This morning as I was getting ready to go Jared, Alayna, and Jacob were watching youtube videos on lds.org, they came across this one that I really liked (if I knew how to embed videos into posts I would, but since i dont you will have to follow the link)

New House Video - with sheetrock

Hope you like it.

Someone Somewhere is Laughing...

I am convinced that someone somewhere is laughing at me. Today was one of those days where you think someone made this happen to me just for a laugh. Seeing as how there was no real damage i was able to laugh, but it was one of the those mornings where you say, "really?"

Okay here is the 411 (dont you feel like it is 1999 again?). These last few weeks I have been staying with Jared and Diana (who have been so nice to put up with me). They live... a little bit far from school, so I have to drive. This morning I got in the car, got on the freeway and headed on my merry way to happy valley. I made it to school without any major issues (except a bit of traffic), and i started hunting for parking. Parking is a rare commodity at BYU. For some reason who ever designed the parking lots didnt do it with the students in mind, as a result parking is limited, there are tons of faculty spots (empty and mocking me by the way) but very few student spots. Even having a graduate student sticker doesnt help, if you arent there super early you get to park way the heck away (or you dont park at all), I didnt get there early today. I arrived and knew i was going to have to look for a bit, 45 minutes later i still hadnt found anything (by the way did you know that is how long it takes to get from jared and diana's? what a waste of time). So by this time i was a little ticked. I dont think hunting for a parking when there are plenty of faculty spots available is a useful way to spend my life. I finally found a spot (in a close lot too), i was so excited, and as i was turning in (really quick before someone cut me off and stole it), i "bumped" into a pillar, really i laugh at people that do this, pillars dont move, you should, but i did it. Now there is a big huge scratch on Jared's car, and i have a parking space (wouldnt it have been funny if i had gotten cut off? I think i would have hurt someone). oh well, someone somewhere got a good chuckle today. 

Feeling Domestic

This weekend I was feeling domestic, okay to be fair this weekend i wanted a little break from studying (i did study on friday and for a bit on saturday but have decided not to on sunday) Since i was filling my time with things besides homework i had time to do these. It looks like this week I am going to spend lots of time in the lab. 

The first couch pillow for our new house. I have decided to branch out and include both red and green in our house. I know pretty adventurous. 

Since we will be spending christmas in Dallas in our new house (and flying to visit my family a few days later) i realized we would need a few christmas things (including stockings since we have a fire place), so I started working on that project. This is stocking number 1 aka my stocking, brian's will be same but with a green snowflake print. 
A close up, I really like the trim fabric, if it didnt have pink in it i would have made the stockings out of it. 

First off, I apologize for this hideous picture (actually for all the ugly pictures on this post, i was too lazy to find the camera and this is what i ended up with). So this is  the apron I made. Diana had  a pattern, and offered a few words of encouragement, I gave in and this is the finished product. To be perfectly honest I think this is the girliest thing i own. 
An up close look at the fabric. I included this red fabric in a quilt i made when we lived in texas last year, I saw it at the store and jokingly said to diana, "wouldnt it be funny if i made an apron out of that fabric?", let's just say she liked the idea and now I have a "girly" texas inspired apron. 

A Tour of Our House

From Brian:

I know you are all sitting on the edge of your seats to see our house. I went by today, took some pictures, and shot some video. So, first, here are a few updated pictures:

The front of our house as of today

The bricks that will soon be our outside walls

A quick shot of our future living room

And now the moment you've all been waiting for...

Here is the quick tour (1:15) of our house:

And here is the longer tour (5:30) of the house:

Hope you all enjoyed the experience. Tune in for more as it becomes available.

-Brian

Something to Make You Laugh

If you need a laugh, or something to brighten your day this is sure to at least make you chuckle. 

Our Trek to Texas: the picture version

I realized I never blogged about our trek to Dallas. Basically, it was boring, long, and Brian didnt make me drive once despite him getting the stomach flu. The pictures are more fun than the drive, enjoy.

Working backwards. this is where we ended our lovely journey, we had hoped there would be more to see than just a mud pit, but this is what we found... home sweet home.

Childress, Texas, this seems like a lovely place to live, in the middle of texas, with nothing except cows all around.

Childress Regional Medical Center, doesnt this look like a lovely place to work? Dad this picture is for you.

Our lovely caravan to texas, doesnt it look super fun?

Deep in the heart of Texas, this is what you see for about 600 miles (if you drove through Dallas this is what you would see on the other side, but luck for us our journey ended not too far outside the city)

Stopping for lunch/dinner. We saw a sign for the "best fried chicken" in texas so we stopped. It wasnt the best fried chicken, but I was hungry and Brian was still against food at this point.

Deep in the heart of texas... this is right as we entered texas so really i shouldnt say that. Brian drove the entire way to Dallas, despite throwing up ALL night halfway through our trip. Sadly he caught the stomach flu, but he toughed it out. I am thinking he thought driving while nauseous was a better option than letting me drive the truck with our car attached.

Leaving the rocky mountains entering New Mexico

Driving through colorado- this is the other side of denver

The beautiful Rocky Mountains

Our caravan, the morning of the second day

The rocky mountains. This was my first time ever driving through colorado and it was beautiful, not sure it would be worth it to drive through again but still it was very pretty.

Entering the rocky mountains

Our last view of utah

Saying good bye to Utah!

Casseroles: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Sometimes I am a food snob, maybe I should clarify, and I am a recipe snob. If the recipe doesn’t come from a reputable source aka America’s test kitchen I am a little bit skeptical. I don’t like recipes from ward cookbooks, family reunion cookbooks, or recipes recommended by someone’s friend’s sister’s old college roommate. I know that some of these recipes are good, but others are… truly horrific. The other morning I had a conversation with my brother in law about this. I think it is safe to say that we are both against casseroles; I think that most people should be against casseroles. As we were discussing that we decided we might need to do a little research, so Jared pulled down a battered old ward cookbook, there were some gems in that book. We found one casserole that was truly disgusting, just the ingredient list gives me the heebie jeebies (yes the heebie jeebies). The recipe included egg noodles, ground beef, spaghetti o’s (yes the nasty canned pasta), and a few more things I cant even remember. I left that experience asking myself the following questions: who eats this stuff, how do people that eat this stuff get the nutrition to survive from these non edible meals, and how do you even think this stuff up? Seriously, who thinks that cream of mushroom soup, egg noodles, cheese (yes just cheese not a specific type of cheese), tuna OR “hamburger”, tomato soup, corn chips, and maybe some frozen vegetables make a delicious dinner? When you can substitute the meats that is a little bit of a problem… well maybe not, I just don’t have any experience with casseroles so I don’t actually know.

Jared and I came to the following conclusions about casseroles

1. Casserole recipes are created by mothers who have lots of children and little time

2. Casserole ingredients are determined by mothers that haven’t had time to go to grocery store in a week or so because of all their other duties and responsibilities

3.   

3.    3. Casseroles are how most people use their food storage (and why we need companies like Deals to Meals)

4.    

4.    4. The addition of ingredients like tomato soup, vegetable soups, and frozen peas are the only way many mothers can get their children to eat green things

5.     

5.    5. Casseroles are okay for kids, but maybe not the best option for people over age 8

So after all of this I have to ask, do any of you have good casserole recipes, can you think of any really good recipes, are you willing to share them?

* To be fair there are some casseroles I like…well one I can think of, Brian’s grandma makes a delicious casserole called “chicken dressing casserole”, it is seriously delicious and you all should try it, but other than that casseroles are not good.