CHRISTMAS

We had a full apartment this Christmas, my sister Annie stayed with us and Michelle did as well for some of the time.  My brother mic stayed with Adrea so it was all of us siblings together (Michelle is practically a sibling).  Me and Michelle decided to make Christmas Terrariums (I didn't think of this myself) and instead of buying little fake christmas trees at Michael's, Michelle had the idea to gather pinecones and little naturey things outside,  and cover them in glitter and such.  I like how they turned out, but I don't think we'll be able to keep them for next year since they won't package very well (no lids).

 Here's how they turned out:

For Christmas eve, we did our young tradition of making sushi, and it was yummies.  I added in Miso soup and cream cheese wontons to the menu this year, and after we were done I had bananas to get rid of and a bunch of left over wonton wrappers so I improvised and made little fried banana bites.  I thought they were just as good as the fried bananas you get at PF Changs, and really easy to make.  We had them with honey and ice cream obvi.

Since we don't have kids yet, we live vicariously through my sister and her two boys (you may have already noticed this by now...).  After Seth and I had our own little gift exchange at home (which included globes & old fashioned shaving kit for Seth, and two adorable sweaters I've been coveting for me, and lots of awesome gifts from the most amazing in laws evah) we went over to Adrea and did our gift exchange and watched the boys open their presents.  I made Henry a book of all of his little adventures over the year, including all the pictures I took of him and some he took himself.

Dinner was also a full success.  Adrea made pork which is usually not my favorite, but it was delicious, accompanied with some mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts, roasted carrots with goat cheese, and salad.  Kaila and her family came up to spend it with us and she brought gluten free rolls which are very yummy.  After dinner we made a Buche De Noel, or a Yule Log.  Even though it is gluten free, it's a bit too much frosting for my taste.

I hope everyone had a merry christmas and now we are going to Chicago to celebrate our anniversary.

Our Move from the Northwest to the Midwest

(This post is long overdue...by about 4 months)


We recently made the move from Seattle to Indiana, and we took about a month and a half to do it. We took our time visiting friends and family and didn't hesitate to make stops at interesting looking places on the side of the highway.

Saying goodbye to Seattle

The first place we stopped was off of 90 in Washington.  We saw a sign for something called "Wild Horses Monument" and it sounded awesome so we had to stop..  I'm glad we dod, because the monument was awesome.  We drove to the bottom of a large hill and saw a pack of metal horses on the top of the hill.  We did a little hike up the mountain/hill (it was quite a climb, especially in flats) and took some photos.

Our first stop was in Rexburg, for our family reunion.  We arrived a few days earlier to stay with Seth's parents, and we made a trip out to Jackson Hole to go to The Bar-J, which is becoming somewhat of a tradition, as we did the same thing last year.  If you don't know what the Bar-J is, it's a bunch of goofy cowboys with amazing voices that put on a show with music and jokes.  Before the show you have a chuck-wagon meal, it is soooooooo good.  You choose your meat and you get a baked potato, baked beans, cornbread, and lemonade.  So good. 

Indiana & Utah, represent.

We spent the family reunion in Rexburg, unfortunately I got sick on Saturday when everyone spent the day at the waterpark, my tonsils swelled up so big it hurt to talk or even turn my head.  Yuck.  Luckily the doctor gave me some good stuff to make the swelling go down and I only really felt it for one day.

After the reunion, we spent a couple weeks in Utah.  It was a laid back trip, but we spent one day with our friend Brent strolling around Antelope Island.  It was really hot and extremely buggy, but that didn't mean it wasn't gorgeous.  At one point we walked out on this pier, and there was just a constant stream of bugs, you could feel them hitting your ankles.  They're tiny, and if you look closely enough at the pictures you can see them all on the water.  

We then spent a few days in Ogden, and then it was on our way to Denver, to see our friends.  We stayed with Nic & Kirsten, and saw some other friends while we were there.  I think most of our friends from college ended up being in Denver, it was so great seeing everyone.  Seth's brother also lives there and we had dinner with him.  It's kind of strange really how many people we know in Denver.  Besides strolling Denver, we went to Garden of the Gods with Nic & Kirsten, and it was really cool, I only wish we had been able to go up to Pike's Peak, but it didn't work out.  The train tickets to the peak were sold out, bummer.  Still, Garden of the Gods was awesome.

After that, we were on the road.  We drove through Kansas, Missouri, Illinios and made little stops along the way.  In Kansas, we saw signs for a place called Prarie Dog Town and we knew we had to stop.  And can I tell you?  Prarie dogs are soooo precious, they might even be cuter then Sea Otters (maybe).  So you pay, then you get a little baggie of food, once you walk out the door there are tons of Prarie dogs running around, it's awesome.  Unfortunately, there were also lots of animals in cages that looked miserable.  I'm not a fan of zoos, I hate to think of animals being caged up, there were some fox breeds that looked particularly miserable.  The gift shop was full of amazing crap, we ended up buying a dream catcher that now hangs proudly from our rear view mirror.

We also saw signs for a Wizard of Oz museum and I wish we could have stopped but by the time we passed it it had already closed.  The one other place we stopped was a place called Nostalgiaville, USA. According the the multiple signs before you get to the exit, it has all sorts of goodies of 60's pop culture.  Unfortunately, this didn't turn out to be a gem like the Parie Dog Town, most of it was stuff you could find at Target, but it was still an interesting little place.

And that's about it for our road trip.  Sorry for waiting so long to post this, we also have lots of video, but haven't gotten around to editing those.