When the snow fell...

All we could do was build a snowman.

We named him Mr. Snowman. Pretty creative, huh? Thanks for coming to play in the snow with us, Megan!

It's been snowing pretty consistently here for the last week. On Monday alone it probably snowed close to 9 inches.

Almost every apartment in our complex is empty these days. Everyone is visiting family for the holidays. We, fortunately, did not have to make the long drive to Matt's parents. They came here instead. So it's pretty quiet around here. And now Mr. Snowman will be here to greet everyone when they come back from vacation.

I do not love the snow, but there are a few good things that happened due to this snow fall. We built a snowman (which I haven't done in a long, long time), and I happened to find my hot pink, furry mittens that have been lost for over a year. I absolutely loved those mittens. They were a Christmas present from my best friend Brittany a few years ago, and apparently sometime last winter I left them in the inside pockets of the coat I'm seen wearing above. A coat that obviously never gets worn. But thank goodness for our last snowfall.

I'm in charge of Christmas dinner, so I'll be sure to post pictures later of the delicious food I'm preparing!

Enough about Carrie already...

...that's probably what you're thinking about now. Well, since you all probably know I'm a big fan of Carrie Underwood (considered Matt and I made the trip to her hometown), I have one more story to tell.

I went to a Carrie Underwood concert!

Matt's not quite the fan I am, and opted out, so I went with a co-worker. But I have to say, lots of songs and 4 wardrobe changes later, it was the BEST concert I've ever been too. The competition?

1. John Mayer (seats 4th row center)
2. Kelly Clarkson (seats off to the side)
3. Anberlin (mosh pit style, and a close second to Carrie)

Okay, so I may not have a lot to compare it to, but just know it was amazing. Our seats were pretty far away, so I don't have any pictures of her to post, but it was enough just to be that close to her :)

At this point, I probably seem a little like a stalker. I even looked her up on Wikipedia to learn that we share the same middle name. We're practically best friends already! It's official...I am a stalker.

My co-worker and I sporting our cowboy hats in honor of the country music star

Comida Brasileira!

I'm taking a Portuguese class this semester (and will be for the next 2 semesters as well). I've also eaten at my fair share of authentic Brasilian restaurants. For these 2 reasons, I decided to try my hand at Brasilian cooking.

This is the sauce for the Brasilian Stroganoff. It's a little different from the American version I'm used to, and you eat it over rice instead of pasta.

The official name for these would be Pão de Queijo...or cheese bread. This was before they were baked. I got this recipe from my Portuguese teacher, who is Brasilian, so they were very authentic.

This is me making the dessert, called brigadero. Basically sweetened condensed milk and cocoa rolled into balls and covered with chocolate sprinkles. Delicious!

Guaraná. The infamous soda pop beverage of Brasil.

And here is a nice shot (not really, if only had Megan around :D). It shows the stroganoff complete with rice and matchstick potato chips as a garnish. To the side of that is the baked pão de queijo, and the Guaraná. We did have salad with the meal just to get some vegetables, but of course Matt says, "Oh, I'll just eat salad after I finish this."
Yeah. right.

And these are the completed brigadero. We ran out of chocolate sprinkles and had to use cocoa on a few of them. The recipe made quite a few, but as of today, this is all we have left. Like I said, they're delicious :)

This was me pretending to have a food blog for a minute. Just be happy I'm blogging at all! If you want any of the recipes, just let me know.

Hello 1992!

I was told that it's typical for me to post about "weird" things. I'm not sure what Kim meant by that, but I'll just think of it as a really sweet compliment :D

Last weekend we were making Halloween sugar cookies. Kim had taken all of the cookie cutters from the house in MT, including letter cutters that had originally come with a package of jello to make Jello Jigglers. All the letters were in an old plastic bag. They'd been in that bag for as long as I can remember. So exactly how is it?

County Market Homestyle Wheat Rolls. Packaged on July 27, 1992. For 95 cents!

County Market doesn't even exist anymore. The one I remember my mom always going grocery shopping at is now a Ace Hardware.

So there you go...another post about something weird!

I Ain't In Checotah Anymore

But I was there a few weeks ago!

For those who may not know, Checotah, Oklahoma, is the home of Carrie Underwood--2005 American Idol winner.

During our exciting trip to Oklahoma, I had to go there because we were only an hour away.

Posing by the Highway 69 sign

Carrie's high school...very stalker-esque of me


"Where 69 meets 40, there's a single stoplight town..."
And I was totally there! One of the highlights of my summer :)

Craigslist Treasure

In the words of Kimby, it was a screaming good deal.

A Singer Touch & Sew 600 for $30.

I've wanted a sewing machine for awhile, but I just figured there was really no room to keep one in our apartment. When Matt found this listing on Craigslist about 2 weeks ago, we just couldn't pass it up. We don't know what year it was made (probably sometime in the 1960s), but it has had 3 owners previous to me. The girl that sold it to us said the 2 owners before her only used it a few times. It sat at her mom's house untouched for 20 years. She used it quite a bit, but she, her husband, and kids were moving so they decided it would be easier to sell than move with them. I'm pretty sure the sewing machine alone would be worth at least $75, and I got the whole thing (machine folds into the desk) for $30! I haven't used it yet, but we are pretty excited about the good deal. And don't worry, we were able to find room for it in our tiny apartment :)

Graduation!

This is a week late in coming, but lateness seems to be the common theme with my posts...

And the good news: Matt officially graduated from BYU!

My original idea for this post was pretty awesome. I was going to go all out and add the playlist thing to the blog, but only put the graduation march on there. (Pathetic...I can't even think of the name of the "graduation march") It would instantly start playing the second anyone looked at the page and probably scare you because you weren't expecting it. And then you would get sick of it playing over and over again anyway. It would have been perfect :)

Now the news is a week old, although still very exciting, and I figured the playlist idea just wasn't going to happen. But I'm posting anyway to say:

Congratulations, Matt! I'm so proud of you...and jealous since I still have a ways to go :)



UPDATE: It's Pomp & Circumstance March No. 4 :D

Memory Lane

As we were driving into the Walmart parking lot tonight, the odometer officially read 180,000 miles! We obviously had to pull over and take a picture to remember that moment.

We've been driving this car together for over 30,000 miles. And don't worry, we plan on keeping it until it dies (which could be another 100,000 miles. Go Honda!).

This car has made several trips to Oklahoma and back, and all over the west. Who knows where we'll take it next. Maybe to YOUR house!

Better late than...

NEVER!

It's been over a month since my last post, and I'll tell you why. Because I'm lazy :) So after some nagging from a sister named Kimberly, I am finally taking the time to let you all in on "life".

For the 4th of July, Provo gets a little crazy. There's a giant Freedom Festival with lots of events all week. There's a lame parade the morning of the 4th...and for some reason, the entire city always camps out on the lawn/sidewalk next to the street. Megan and I did it two years ago, and although it was kind of fun to camp out, the parade was in NO WAY worth it. So Matt and I didn't participate in that this year. Instead, we got up at 6 AM to go to the hot air balloon event on the morning of the 4th. There were about 18 balloons, and they all lifted off at around 6:30. It was pretty cool. Several lovable characters there...including a pig and Smokey the Bear.
After the hot air balloon fun we were driving home and saw a fox...riding a motorcycle. Pretty random. I think he worked for the local Fox news station.
And of course the on the night of the 4th there's the Stadium of Fire, which this year had Miley Cyrus and the Blue Man Group perform, and Glen Beck MC'd. Matt and I worked as ticket-takers, and stood at the gates of the stadium for 7 hours. It was a loooong time. From what we could see/hear, the concert was good, and the fire works at the end were awesome. We almost caught on fire a few times because the gate we were at was right next to where they were setting off all the fireworks. We only had to deal with a few trouble-makers, and only had to stop a mom and daughter from trying to sneak in. Someone had left (and gotten a BYU stamp on their hand for re-entry), then pressed the stamp on the back of their hands. Too bad that made it say UYB. Then after the concert, we saw Glen Beck exit the stadium and get into a car. Awesome :)

Nothing Compares to Mother's

The other night for dinner I made french toast, and being the creative genius that I am (see previous post), I tried to recreate the delicious Crunchy French Toast I had at Mother's Cafe in Portland, OR. The result didn't look too bad and tasted great, but it didn't even compare to the real thing.

Lesson learned: next time I'm in the mood for Crunchy French Toast--plan a trip to visit Mark and Mark :D

A Giant Cookie

This term Matt is taking a History of Creativity class. As a take-home portion of one of his tests, he had to do a mosaic. Since we're both creative :D...we came up with this cool idea!

A giant sugar cookie and chocolate chips. He'll get an A for sure.

The mosaic is of the Roman aqueducts. What do you think?

Summer!

The wind wasn't that great, but we still had fun.

Flying kites is awesome.

I think I'm bad luck...

A few weeks ago when I found out my surgeon had broken his ankle right before my post-op appoinment, I didn't think too much of it. I ended up seeing his nurse practitioner (which was a waste of time), but everything turned out fine.

Today I had a follow up appointment with my general doctor at the student health center to get some blood work done and all that fun stuff. He walks into his office where we're waiting for him, and he has one of the foot casts on! He said he broke it playing basketball.

Call me crazy, but the one thing these doctors have in common is me...and now broken ankles.

So watch out!

The GF House

This past weekend was pretty crazy for us. Two of our friends got married in Salt Lake on Friday, and then one of my good friends from high school got married in Great Falls on Saturday. We made the trip up on Saturday morning and drove back Sunday. Although we weren't there for every long, we had to go by the house and see if anything had been done to it. The last I heard, it was supposed to be auctioned off in April. I don't know that it was, but there is someone doing something inside! You can't really tell from the pictures, but all the walls were taped off in the living room, and all the curtains were tied together in the windows of the bedrooms. And like always, the lawn was a disaster. It's a pretty sad sight...thought you all would want to see it for yourselves :)

The Real Deal

This picture was taken immediately after removing the steri-strips late Thursday night.

This picture was taken about 24 hours later.

I guess I should probably explain for those who don't know what happened. In the beginning of February I noticed a large lump in my throat, and after going to the doctor several times and have all sorts of tests and ultrasounds done, I was told I had a complex cyst (sack of fluid and tissue) and a nodule on my thyroid. The test I had done was inconclusive as to whether the nodule was cancerous. After 3 different doctors told me I should have surgery to remove the cyst and nodule, I went ahead and scheduled it. So May 7 I had the surgery, and the surgeon removed the cyst that was the size of a golf ball! The nodule was non-cancerous, and they only had to remove about a quarter of my thyroid. I still haven't gone in for my post-op appointment, but as far as I know, everything is great, and I'm recovering well. Although the incision isn't my favorite, I think it looks pretty dang good just two weeks after surgery. It becomes less noticeable every day. I can't wait to start using the Mederma Kim bought me!

Humorous Hospital Moments

A few funny things that happened to me during my short stay at the hospital...

Considering my little knowledge of how things work in hospitals, I was not aware of the line of authority that exists between nurses, nurse's aids (aka CNAs or PCTs), and all the others that work in patient care. So how was I supposed to know that soon after my surgery when my nurse mentions "when you need to go to the bathroom, we'd like to help you the first time" she didn't mean she would be helping me?

A few hours later when my nurse, Janet, came in to shoot more morphine into my IV, I said, "while you're in here, can you help me go to the bathroom?" She gives me a somewhat surprised look, then says in a rather disgusted way, "I'll get someone in here to help you." And she sent in the CNA. Apparently I offended her because I didn't see her the rest of her shift. Every other time I needed morphine another nurse came in because Janet was apparently "at lunch". A little fishy if you ask me...

And for my next story, late Wednesday night (and by late I mean maybe 8:30 or 9) I was lying in my bed with most of the lights off when this woman wearing a sweat shirt and jeans sticks her head into my room and says "Hey, how are you doing? Can I get you anything?" Being drugged up and a little confused anyway, I just answered, "I'm doing okay. No, I'm fine."

There was a pause, then she said, "umm, I'll be right back," then ducks out of the doorway and someone else in the hallways asks, "was that her?" I just kept laughing to Matt that this strange woman thought I was someone she knew. Turns out the person she was looking for was in the room next to mine.

Check this out

I know you've all been dying to see the incision, so here it is! I'll be sure to post another one as soon as the steri-strips come off. I'm feeling okay today--just hopped up on Percocet. I'm only eating soft foods, which works out because now I have an excuse to eat lots of ice cream :)

I was released from the hospital yesterday around 2 PM and I haven't done much other than watch TV, sleep, and eat when it's time to take a pain pill. Oh, and my voice is almost back to normal! I'm hoping to be feeling well enough to go back to work by Monday or Tuesday next week.

That's all I've got for now, but I'll post again if anything new happens.

The Big Trip

I'm finally blogging about our trip to Portland! Sorry a lot of the pictures are kind of dark. I'm a far shot from Megan and her photography skills. We had a lot of fun and stayed busy! And I tried not to take as many pictures of myself...Jill always makes fun of me! :) Enjoy!

Who Knew?

Once upon a time there lived a little boy named Matthew. Matthew was in third grade and he had a girlfriend. He really liked his girlfriend, but he wasn't sure that he liked her the most out of all the third grade girls. One day he and his girlfriend were playing with another little girl, and that was when Matthew realized he really liked this new little girl. He told his girlfriend that he liked this other little girl, so she couldn't be his girlfriend anymore, and she was devastated.

Meanwhile...at recess, Matthew, old girlfriend, and other girl are still playing together.

"Hey [other girl], will you be my girlfriend?" Matthew said.
"Sure!" other girl said.
"Now I'm sad," old girlfriend told Matthew.
"Oh, well...you could be my girlfriend too," Matthew said to old girlfriend.
"I can?" old girlfriend asked.
"Is that OK with you?" Matthew asked other girl.
"Yeah, OK," other girl said.

And Matthew took both of his new girlfriends by the hand as they walked across the playground and into the sunset.

This is a true story. Matt told me about it when we went out to dinner on Friday night and I thought it was hilarious. Who knew my husband was such a player in his much younger days? :)

The Many Faces of Jessica

You might find it strange that I'm putting a slideshow of weird pictures of me, but this was Megan's idea :) There's no way around it though...I'm a weird person, and I love posing for pictures. This is a little taste of the faces I'm capable of.

Our Garden

This spring we're really into plants. However, due to the fact that we live in a small, windowless apartment, we had to get creative.

As you can tell, Matt was forced to use girly sunglasses as eye protection, and our clothes hamper as a work table. He really is quite resourceful.


This is the finished product--flowers and all. We know the chains aren't that pretty, so we won't be entering our "planter" in any beauty contests.

You may also be wondering how I took the picture from that angle. I bought a hover craft.

Some call it murder. We call it dinner.

I know this is all old news, but I have to catch everyone up. About a month ago we attended a Murder Mystery Dinner. Matt was Japanese Emissary "Hu Flug Dung", and I was his daughter "Miss Chow Pat". I don't think we did very well trying to look Japanese...but it was fun anyway.

Matt preparing for the evening.

The final product. We are dang good lookin'.

Phun in Phoenix

I didn't take a lot of pictures while we were in Phoenix, but I thought I should proudly display the few I did take. We love Benihana (mostly because it was made famous to us by the Office), and we love Phoenix. We hope to go back soon.

Why paint with a brush? Just use your toes.

It certainly isn't warm enough here yet, but after being in Phoenix last weekend it reminded me of the fun stuff we were able to do last summer when it wasn't always cloudy and looking like it could snow any minute.

We bought some washable finger paints and tried something different. We still have the paint somewhere. We'll have to try it again this summer.






Here's the proof we used our feet. Guess which one is which ;-)