Easter Dinner and My New Easter Apron!

Check out this adorable apron my mom made for me! It came in the mail yesterday, just in time for Easter. I love it. I wore it while cooking our Easter dinner and everything turned out wonderfully ... it must be magic. Here's a pan of the homemade rolls I spent the afternoon making ... yum! I had to let them rise 4 times. But really they weren't hard, just a little time consuming. But it was fun. We also made a ham (first ham we've had since being married), rice and tomato gravy (it's a Southern thing - my Louisiana relations would be so proud!), and asparagus. Luckily Nate and Lori were there to share all the food ... and we'll all being enjoying ham sandwiches this week.

Here is my cute Joe. It was fun to cook together for a little bit of the afternoon ... though he did decide it was enough work that he should be exempted from the dishes. :) He wants to try making some soup with the ham hock ... my dad is the master soup maker so maybe Joe can get into that as well.

We did not do the whole Easter egg thing ... next year. We just can't do everything, okay?? Happy Easter!!

This is serious business ...

Well I almost hate to post again because my last post was so great. If you didn't think it was funny then maybe you just had to be there. Anyway, here are a few pictures from a week or so ago when Joe and I went out for RIBS! Ummmm, so yummy. We had a buy-one-get-one-free entree coupon so we could order the biggest meals and it still worked out. :) Joe ordered the full rack of baby back ribs and then the server was like, well, do you want all-you-can-eat? It's the same price. So of course he did. You can see that he took his rib eating pretty seriously. The baked potato was forgotten about and taken home for later - this was all about the ribs.

Not a laughing matter for me, either. Here I am going for some extra carolina honey sauce. (I got a half rack ribs/ salmon combo.)

Here is is the best picture ... all the ribs we ate, combined! Not bad. It had been a really long week so it was fun to get out and enjoy a nice meal together! We had fun!

More Cookies than we bargained for ....

Okay you seriously have to hear the funniest story EVER!!! So tonight (after a long day of doing NOTHING but work on a paper due on Monday) we had a barbeque with Lori and Nate and afterward Joe announced he wanted some chocolate chip cookies. So we whipped some up with a Betty Crocker mix my mom sent us (everyone helped), preheated the oven, and got ready to stick in the cookies. We opened the oven, and HOLY COW, there were already cookies in there, perfectly baked!! (Well, a tiny bit crispy). We just stared at them dumbfounded for a minute and then were like, okay, who put in the first batch???? Well no one had. We were a little confused. So GUESS WHAT ... the cookies were there from 3 WEEKS AGO when my mom had baked them for us on her last night here!! We totally cracked up for like 5 whole minutes. So basically, we somehow forgot about our last batch of cookies. And also, we obviously haven't opened our oven once in the last 3 weeks (we eat a lot of cold cereal). The funny thing is that Joe was all mad because he had come home from school the day after my mom left and been mad that I had finished off all the cookies. If only he had known to look in the oven!!!
So needless to say, we tried the cookies. And they weren't half bad. Although we decided to mostly just eat the fresh ones.
Nate thinks that maybe the cookies will be good if we crumble them up in a bowl and pour milk over them, like cookie crisp cereal. What do you think?? Are we crazy or what???!!

My First "Tag"

So, it looks like I've got a tag to do. I knew it would happen sooner or later ...

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
Well, I was 14 and in 8th grade. Junior High can be tough, and I didn't fit in all that well with all the Utah girls (I moved in 7th grade). Luckily, I had 2 amazing best friends, Summer and Karalee! Basically, we were obsessed with Mary Higgins Clark books. We had tons of fun sleepovers and we loved going to Brick Oven. We thought were were way cooler than we actually were. But we had so much fun!!

2. 5 things to do today
Well today is almost over so I'm not too optimistic about accomplishing 5 more things. But here's what I did: studied (preparing to give a 2 minute testimony to state senators on Tuesday about a bill), ran on my treadmill, showered, ate food, and now blogged. It was a pretty boring day (didn't leave the house) - I promise they do get more interesting than this. Is that seriously all I did??

3. What snacks do I enjoy?
What foods count as a snack? Well, fruit is my favorite snack - varies by the season. Apples, watermelon, grapes, oranges, strawberries, whatever. That only counts as one snack though. I also like: kettle corn, candy/sweets (though I don't eat it that often), bread and honey, and muffins. Besides fruit my most common snack is probably granola bars, but of course I'd rather have cookies or something.

4. What would I do if I were suddenly a billionaire?
Start designing my dream house - I mean houses. Go on lots of trips!! Don't worry, you all can come!!

5. 3 bad habits
I asked Joe and he said 'chewing on ice.' Also - crying too much (is that a habit?), and getting stressed out easily.

6. 5 jobs I've had
Law firm summer associate (favorite job!), CareFirst Financial Specialist (computer all day), Ann Taylor sales associate (spent all of my paycheck), Economics TA (perfect college job), Perfect Tan front desk and bed cleaning (sexy arm muscles from cleaning beds, skin cancer), Jamba Juice (first job!).

7. 5 things people don't know about me
Ok, last one, this blog is getting long. 1 - I have OCD about certain things (just ask Joe), 2 - I think I am good at wasting time, 3 - If I could change one thing about me, I would give myself a tan, 4 - When I see a spider, I stop breathing (ok so maybe you already knew that), 5 - right now, I am listening to Joe cough up his lungs (very sexy. Poor guy!).

I am tagging - Tristina, Summer, Heather, and Adrienne.

Two weeks ago ...

Previously, I posted a little bit about my mom's latest visit to Baltimore. I seriously can't believe it was only two weeks ago she was here - it kind of seems like forever. But I have been neglecting my blog (life is getting a little crazy so get used to it!) and am just getting around to posting more pictures from our Saturday outing downtown for the "Great Tastes of Baltimore" event. It was fun to experience one of the nice things downtown Baltimore has to offer ... there are many, but sometimes I forget because going to school each day I pretty much feel like I'm in the slums. Anyway, thanks to Lori our adventure was well documented - enjoy!

Here we are enjoying ... what was it? Something with chicken. Who knows. But it looks like we liked it.

Yes, Lori and I found the chocolate strawberries! I was a milk chocolate fan, she was dark. Either way ... YUUMMM.

Here we are in line to try a popular dish ... luckily there weren't that many lines, just kind of crowded in certain spots. My mom is to the right of Joe - I don't know how we ended up without any pictures with her in them. When we were getting the chocolate strawberries we were yelling for her to come for a picture (Christie! Mom! Mrs. Lewis! Franklin! (maybe she'd answer to my dad's name, you never know)), but couldn't get her attention. And we were too focused on the strawberries and chocolate to actually go grab her.

The tiramisu was without a doubt my favorite thing there. I didn't even know what tiramisu was, really. Probably not all tiramisus are good but this one was divine! We walked by the building I worked in last summer (and will be going back to for the last few weeks of this summer). It's the Bank of America building, floors 7 - 14. I had pretty great view! (Side note: Joe and I are watching Live Free Die Hard and I saw my building in the movie! It is easy to spot because of its gold top. Now that is exciting!)
This shot was definitely not my idea. I mean who needs a picture by the name of the firm they worked for? But I was very obliging for my mom and Lori, who thought otherwise.

Well that's it for our fun time. It is something we of course would never have done on our own so it was fun that my mom was here and wanted to do it! It was such a fun weekend, and once my mom was gone the shift back to "real life" was very abrupt. But it was fun while it lasted!!

Listen up, music fans!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5YHgEYOxJU
Okay friends! I want you to check this out .... it is my sister-in-law Maria's (stage name Scarlett) first music video and it is for a song called "Fight With Me." She is simply amazing in it. If you like this song, there is definitely more where it came from! She has written dozens of incredible songs and is currently producing a CD that will be out this year. Anyway, with all the avenues available online to get your name out and and with how INCREDIBLY TALENTED she is I just don't see why Scarlett shouldn't be a huge success. Go to YouTube, sign in and watch the video, and leave a comment!! Also you can go to http://bridgetone.com/scarlett and hear a couple other songs. The song "You See Me" is so good, you'll love it. Enjoy!! And feel free to pass along this information to anyone!

Love visitors, hate goodbyes

Well the good news is I was lucky enough to have my mom come visit me for 4 days this weekend!! The bad news is I had to say goodbye and send her back to Utah and won't see her again for almost 6 months! But that's allright because I am SO glad she came to visit! We had lots of fun together, of course. Friday was fun because I didn't have class so we got to have a relaxing day just the two of us. I especially enjoyed our long lunch at Cosi! Yum. On Saturday we went on an adventure downtown to the Baltimore "Great Tastes" event with all these chefs, food, etc ... it was fun. I'll post more pictures once I get them from Lori! On Sunday my mom got to see me teach Relief Society which was kind of fun. (Last year when she came I spoke in sacrament meeting .... she knows how to time it!) My mom made us lots of delicious food and it was fun to have someone "taking care" of us for a day or two ... Monday night was a real treat because there was warm food waiting for Joe and me after a long day at school! Anyway, it's back to the books for me, but I just wanted to say THANKS FOR COMING, MOM!! Love you!!

Hang ten, baby!!

So I have never surfed and have never really had a desire to surf ... it looks impossible (boogie boarding is sweet though). Well, much to my surprise, last night (in my dreams) I learned to surf and it was amazing!! Our friends Chad and Emily taught us how (um, do you guys even know how???) Emily got some sweet pictures of me riding the waves, but I can't actually post them becuase, well, it was just a dream.

Maybe the reason surfing was somewhere in my subconscious is the fact that this summer the law firm I'll be working for is taking us to San Diego and we'll be learning how to surf (apparently the managing partner loves it or something). I hope the experience lives up to my recently-elevated expectations, but I expect it will fail to do so - miserably. Scary!! Maybe the real explanation for my dream is just that I'm wishing for summer to be here ...