Food, Glorious Food

This last week was quite a food week. It began with me making a delicious minestrone soup. I didn't happen to notice how big the recipe was till halfway through when I was transferring the soup into a stock pot in order to add the second half of the ingredients. The recipe served 10-12. needless to say, it served 4 that night, we froze 6 servings and I ate it at least three times as leftovers this week. This was just the beginning.

Jeremy and I decided to start trying a few new recipes each week and actually grocery shop for a menu. So this week we made 3 new main dishes: zucchini stuffed with quinoa, a beef and sweet potato dish (I thought it seemed African and my sister thought it was Morrocan, so either way it seemed like an ethnic dish), and pumpkin pasta with a gorgonzola sauce topped with pears and pecans. All three recipes were fantastic.

Then today, we did a bit of catering. Jeremy and I are in charge of activities for our church and once every six months we have a mingle instead of Sunday School. We created fruit and cheese platters. I have been wanting to make some baked Brie and this was the perfect opportunity. I placed pears on top and wrapped it in phyllo dough, tasty! Jeremy made his specialty apricot honey chevre, also a hit. I didn't get very many pictures...but here are a few.

Then tonight my mom and sister came over and we had whole grain waffles with a raspberry, cherry compote that my mom made, along with hazelnut Italian sodas. All I can say is, I'm glad Jeremy and I have also been making a conscious effort to get exercise everyday.

Our house (3 months new or old depending on how you see it)

All I can say is we love it!

Life in the fun lane

Life really is about fun and sometimes I forget to document all the fun because, I am on to the next fun thing.

A lot has happened in the last few months and for some reason it has not made it on our blog....especially the big news. I cut my hair, but I guess that doesn't really qualify as big news. Any guesses? (we are not expecting a baby).

We bought a townhome in Sandy. We absolutely love it. Maybe one of these days I will take a picture and post it for you to see. It is a little big for us, so we are trying very carefully not to fill it. We have 3 bedrooms, 1 of which we are only using the closet for our outdoors equipment, the room itself must remain empty. The other we have started to set up an office and then we have the one we sleep in. We went looking for a house and found it the first day, put an offer on it the second day and within 30 days we were moved in and enjoying the new responsibilities of home ownership (except that the HOA does everything except take out our trash).

Insert Picture (you can anticipate this in the next month.)

I will try to add some pictures of the past few months. I haven't located the pictures for everything... so some I will just have to tell you about. We had a very fun 4th of July up at Snowbird resort. We swam a lot, played a few games, rode the gondola to the top and had a snowball fight, and basically just enjoyed time in the mountains. It was nice, but I definitely prefer to be in Maine at my Grammy's house with all our extended family.

I started a tennis group that played every week during the summer. It was a lot of fun.

We went to a few Utah Symphony concerts up at Deer Valley. Picnicing in the mountains with beautiful music is one of my summer staples. Jeremy and I are going to really miss all the student discounts on cultural events. I guess we'll just have to become proud supporters of the arts. He will be graduating in April. It is coming quickly!

We recently went on a short trip to Zions with our friends the Boey's. Here is a picture of me on the top of Angel's Landing, one of our favorite hikes. We also enjoyed good food, art and the hot tub.
We went on a hike up at Silver Lake in Big Cottonwood Canyon.
We went on a non-hike... somewhere else in Big Cottonwood canyon. I say non-hike because it seemed much more like a billy goat trail, in fact, I don't think we ever actually found the trail. Our dog loved it, so I included a picture of him with us.I love fall and so here is my fall godess picture. It is on the same hike, the leaves were so beautiful. I had to collect a few, but I had no where to put them but tucked in my sunglasses.

We Went Vacationing

We went on a trip to the Mid-Atlantic states. Elizabeth's brother-in-law, Aaron, graduated from law school and we decided to fly out for it. Here's the run down:


We flew into D.C. on Friday night. We stayed there overnight, then spent a day on the mall. We went to the Holocaust museum, then met Elizabeth's sister, Lydia, and Aaron and his family. We visited a few monuments and a couple art galleries, then left town.


Saturday night, we arrived in Williamsburg, Va, home of William and Mary Law School, where Aaron was set to graduate. Our friends, Adam and Nora, are also living in Williamsburg, and we were thrilled to visit with them while we were there. Adam and Nora had a son since we last saw them, and it was great getting to know little Samuel. It rained Sunday during the graduation ceremony and did not stop until Tuesday morning. Finally, the sun came out, so we headed for the beach on Wednesday.


We met Lydia and Aaron in Virginia beach. We played on the beach while the sun was out, then went out for Sushi, then dessert, then ice cream, then pizza. Gluttony much? Jeremy woke up with heartburn three times that night. That evening, we also rented a pedal surrey. That was more fun than all the food and heartburn combined. Lydia and Aaron had to go pack up their apartment the next day, so they left on Thursday. That same morning, Adam, Nora, and Samuel came down. We made sand castles and played in the sun. The harrisons left that afternoon and Elizabeth and I caught up on American Idol on youtube.


Friday, we drove to Richmond to visit our friends Ted and Joy. They showed us around Richmond (Monument Ave, Belle Island, Carey Street). The next day, we drove up to Baltimore with them for an Orioles game. On the way, we stopped at the Washington D.C. Temple.


After the temple, we changed into regular clothes, finished the drive, and walked around Baltimore's inner harbor. After a hearty meal of crab cakes, fries, and gyros (more heartburn), we went to the game. Camden Yards is a beautiful stadium.


After the game, we drove back to Richmond. The next morning, we decided to drive up to Wilmington, Delaware, to visit Lydia and Aaron in their new home. We were surprised by how beautiful Wilmington was. That night we ate pizza, then a burger and fries at Five Guys (You guessed it: heartburn). That was pretty much the whole trip. Thanks to our friends for making it a great trip.

Red Rockin' It In Moab

Jeremy and I went down to Moab with part of my family. It was my first trip to what many people in Utah claim as their favorite place on earth. We packed in a lot of hiking and saw a few arches; they were ok. Well, really it was spectacular. I had never hiked in such desolate conditions lots of sand and rocks, hardly any water or vegetation. One of our favorite hikes was to the delicate arch. We were hiking and then all the sudden we turned a corner and came upon it. My favorite part about it was watching all the people on the ridge waiting to take a picture of the arch without people in it. However, there were so many oblivious tourists who continued to pose under the arch. Finally, it cleared out and we intercepted the next eager tourist and pointed out the whole ridge full of people waiting. He said, "that makes sense." Two minutes later the whole ridge was empty.

I had fun. It showed.A curious picture taken by ourselves of ourselves.

Park Avenue

We took a small detour on the way home to stop at Thompson Springs. These petroglyphs are over 4,000 years old (2000 B.C.).

Color-Me-Mine

We went on a date to color-me-mine, a fun store where you get to paint pottery. Here are the results. FYI, we have done this before, this was just our first attempt at "big" pieces.

Elizabeth painted this beautiful bowl. The stars are arranged in an infiniti pattern, symbolizing her love and adoration for me. That sounds pretty schmoopy, doesn't it. She is such a sap.I made this beautiful honey pot. I think I will put honey in it--maybe goldfish.

Jeremy's favorite holiday

I love St. Patrick's day. It is so unpretentious. It is a holiday built on drinking and turning stuff green. I think there was once something about driving snakes into the sea, but that seems to be long forgotten. Still, no gifts or cards required. Optional gifts are great, though. Here you can see the very thoughtful gift t-shirt Elizabeth gave me. She bought it off a Wheaties box. I love her.