Phyllis & Frog Prince

So the Institute had a fun little Halloween party last night. Mostly it was a dance, and mostly the fun part was dressing up and seeing everyone's constumes. I was Phyllis from the Office with a sign on my sweater that said "I love Vance from Vance refrigeration." (Meredith was also there with her lollipop, her 7-11 cup, and an ACE bandage on her pelvis with JIM HALPERT on it. Pam was there, too, and looked great.) Our friends Sam and Ariana were a nurse and a rebel. Brad was the Frog Prince, and looked great. He was sooo sad 'cause he was feeling sick and couldn't kiss all the girls so he handed out little rainchecks "for a life-changing experience." Good Times.

Ouch!!

This is a perfect example of why you should not iron your scrubs in a sports bra and shorts. I did this on Friday...

Shrimp Risotto

Sometimes when I make the meals for these parties, I think, "How does anybody afford to have 6 kids?" And then I remind myself that rarely do people have 6 teenagers at the same time. The shrimp risotto took 1 1/2 lbs of shrimp and used almost 2 bags of rice, and I think we all could have used a couple more bites!! It just amazes me sometimes.
Our appetizer this time was kiwi, grape, and apple fruit salad with rosemary syrup. I used fresh rosemary this time, which I usually don't do, and the syrup turned bright green, which was kind of fun.
Brad was in charge of the peaches, and they were good. A couple things to remember for next year:
Kiwis are totally in season this time of year. In fact, all those green fruits were on great sale.
Peaches are totally NOT in season this time of year. In fact, most stores didn't have them anywhere. No more peaches in late October on this menu!!
I think everyone had a good time. The girls especially were so cute and talkative this time. One is getting baptized next week, and is so very cute!

How To Make a Boyfriend

Last night while grocery shopping I met an Asian lady who asked me how to say sprouts in English. So I told her. Then I asked her a little bit about where she's from and how long she's been here. Turns out she's from Korea and has been here for 11 years. This is how the rest of the conversation went:
"You married" (her)
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"'Cause I have dated some great guys but no one I want to be with forever and ever."
"Oh, you know the Walgreens across the street."
"Oh, uh-huh."
"Next door. Is coffee shop. People go there. Drink coffee. Meet people. Maybe you make a boyfriend."

I laughed. Because what else do you do.

At least I know how to make a boyfriend. :o)

Sometimes It's Better To Just Stay In

So tonight I went shopping a little bit and bought a sweet shirt and decided I needed to go play. I was going to see Micah play, but I missed his show 'cause I was grocery shopping. (We did talk on the phone for a little bit though, and that was nice.) Anyways,, the point being that I needed to get out more, and Brad-o, little mister make out with the neighbors party all the time while I'm at work was making it very obvious I should go do something. So...I called Josh (my third, in case you're counting) who I met my second night here in AZ from my car when his friend was wearing a Boise State shirt. For the last four months, I hadn't returned any of his texts but tonight I figured the guys were probably out for halloween so I called. Turns out my memory isn't so awesome about his appearance AND HE WAS ALONE AND NOT WITH FRIENDS and I paid 20 bucks to go to a halloween party with a lot of sluttty slutttty girls and stand around talking for 45 minutes to a very drunk, very sweet lonely 34-year old somewhat overweight Mexican who thought I was gorgeous. So I took him home. Oh goodness. Sometimes when a girl is ovulating she needs a little more than this. It was an experience anyways. Brad and I are going to eat Chicken Cordon Bleu and watch Beauty and the Geek now.
Good-night!!
cc
p.s. Jessica..you know I can blame this on you for telling me to "not waste a pretty!!" (That means don't stay home when you're feeling hot)

Nelson

I met Nelson at a home evening on Monday night at church. Nelson is from CA and went to BYU and works in the fashion industry. This is fascinating to me. Nelson is putting on a fashion show on November 10th, and I will be going. So excited, although I have no idea what to wear to a fashion show.

Jalloween

There's a girl named Jesse in our ward who is about my age, and she's obsessed with Halloween. It's her totally favorite holiday, and she has events at her house all during October to celebrate. Last year, she was a piñata for halloween, and people hit her (softly) with a bat and she tossed candy up in the air. hahahaha
After the dinner party, we carved pumpkins at her house. Mine had a cactus, a coyote, and a pumpkin. Brad is going to her "camp in" on Friday. And he's making me a jalloween shirt.
Her blog is jalloween.blogspot.com.
Good times.

Dinner Party #2, Mandy, Randy, Christin, Tristan, Brad, and Julie

Making salmon for 6 people is absolutely terrifying. I have made salmon only for myself and it has about a 50% chance of turning out bad. Truthfully, maybe sometimes it's been in the freezer too long. And sometimes I think Albertson's salmon just isn't that great, but I was so nervous. I bought some beautiful salmon form Fry's, though, on a good sale (thank heavens!! I think I bought a whole fish!) and marinated it with ginger miso on Saturday night. We also made stuffed mushrooms that were fantastic and had little cheesecakes for dessert. It went so good. The girls loved the salmon- one said it was the best she'd ever had, and one had never had it before and liked it! We also had orange cauliflower, which Brad hated, but it didn't taste any different to me, and it sure looked cool.
The conversation went good again, and we even flirted a bit and talked about kissing and all that fun stuff!
Fun fun fun!!

How Christin got Her Groove Back

On Saturday night, there was a luau and I didn't go. This was a very cool girl-ask-guy church thing that they spend boo-koo bucks on and like 800 people came. Brad went. I asked a guy named Mark that I met a few months ago working at the church cannery who is not in our ward. He had already been asked.
The point being, though, Brad was listening to my phone call and was like, "Christin. You sounded like a dork. You did not sound like the confident sister you usually are." (Mark still asked if he could program me in his phone, though...:o) ) Later, I realized there were some truly decent guys in my ward who did not go, so I felt kind of bad, but I was not about to ask someone I didn't really want to go with just to go. I AM almost 28 so I figure I don't have to go if I don't want to.
But I think I had lost a little of my mojo.
I hadn't even painted my toenails in 3 weeks!!! That is so not me!!
So I went grocery shopping for the dinner party. And then I got my groove back.
I painted my toenails hot pink. Then at 4am I picked out my outfit for church, which was a khaki skirt and a Kenneth Cole shirt I almost never wear that looked great with that skirt. And my big hoop earrings. Brad said I looked cute. And two girls stopped me in our ward to say I looked absolutely beautiful that day. And I introduced myself to 4 guys. I felt so much better.

A little update

HI! So just thought I'd take a minute to fill y'all in on a little happenings here in AZ. First off, my schedule has finally become consistent and I work on Wed, Thursday, and Friday nights. This means, basically for sure, that nothing new will be on my blog on Thus, Fri, or Sat. Maybe Saturday night, but I doubt anything that cool will happen while I'm at work. Secondly, I am learning how to play Brown-eyed Girl on my guitar which is great. Third, I finally wrote a to-do list today and hopefully soon I will be working out awesomely instead of keeping the weirdest hours ever and not working out. Brad right now is selling his Lexus that he bought for a very good deal with the sole intention of selling. It took much longer than he thought and is very relieved.
K- on to the fun stuff...

Tonight I will miss a concert.

LIVE and Collective Soul are playing here tonight for $20 and I will miss the concert because I am working. Gross. Have a good night, y'all!
cc

Dinner Party #1

THE DINNER PARTY WENT SO GOOD!!
We've included pictures of the appetizers, but it might have been weird to take pictures of everything else.
We had:
Green Pears wrapped in Serrano ham with walnuts on the side
Tarragon Chicken on Spring Greens and Mashed Potatoes
and
Spice Cake with Cream Cheese frosting.
We actually had 3 guys and 2 girls over and everyone got along really well. The conversation flowed and everybody was just so pleasant and excited. Everyone stayed and talked for about 45 minutes, and it was just fun as could be. I guess I don't have too much else to say, except the chicken got done right as everybody finished their appetizers....whew!!!

Brad Made Macaroons

Brad was bored on Friday night while I was at work so he and our friend Ariana decided to make Hazelnut Macaroons. The first line of this recipe says, "Choose a day that is not humid to make macaroons." Needless to say, this was quite a time-consuming undertaking, but definitely worth it. And definitely beautiful.

Brad turned 23 on Wednesday.

He had an awesome birthday. Because he spent it with me. And it was fun.
So...first he opened his presents. Which was a penguin of death birthday card, an avocado bath bomb, some shave gel, and a gift card to the buckle.
Then...we went on a field trip adventure. You see, when Brad lived in New Jersey there were these places called Rita's Italian Ice which he absolutely loved. Well, about a month ago I was reading "Phoenix Woman" magazine and they had an article about a lady named Teri who had moved here from Jersey and opened and Italian Ice place. So I surprised him and we had delicious Italian Ice on the patio.
Then...we went boating. Rafting, I guess some would call it. But not the people at Tempe Town Lake. Many of you do not know that a few years ago now I bought a big (medium, 4 person) inflatable raft to raft on at the little lake by our apartment complex in Boise with my roommates. This led to many wonderful memories, although we never really used it nearly as much as we should have.
Anyways, about 6 years ago, the city of Tempe created a Lake. It is obviously their pride and joy. So much so that we had to get a boat permit for my raft. A BOAT PERMIT. For a $60 raft. :o) The permit is only $5 for the whole year, and, actually, we were laughing so much about getting it that it didn't really matter at all. They also gave us the boating rules and about 5 brochures on activities to do in and around the lake. One of the pictures is me happily reading a brochure. I think next time we might actually back my Altima down the boat ramp and slide the raft off the top just for the fun of it. :o)
We also went out to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack. I don't love this place, but Brad really does. And he LOVES their bananas foster. Unfortunately, they had just run out of bananas. So we waited for them to go to the grocery store and get some. And it was worth it. Good good times.

Brad Drank the Milk

Brad thinks this story is hilarious, so I will tell it. The other day, I got up before work and poured myself a bowl of Special K fruit and yogurt. And then looked in the fridge for the milk. Which was gone. Because Brad drank it all. So I looked around the fridge for options and all I found was whipped cream. So that's what I had for breakfast. Special K with whipped cream. It was still a little dry because I couldn't justify the fat grams necessary to actually saturate the cereal. But it was enough. :o)

Tinkerbell Fairy

Sunday was so relaxing and nice. Sometimes nothing is better than catching up with old friends, and this was one of those days. We all (Me, Brad, Maria, and Corey, Maria's husband) watched conference on TV in our pajamas and Maria made us cinnamon rolls that were to die for (Brad was really impressed, and Maria, you should post the recipe up here as a comment).
Today was also Maria's little girl Audrey's birthday. She was three today, and Maria made her a tinkerbell cake that turned out awesome. So while we watched conference on the laptop, we talked and frosted the cake and made magic cupcake wands for the party. So cute!!
We left about 5, and headed out to finally catch up with Brad's friends, who were late, so we walked around Temple Square for awhile, which was nice. We met up with Brad's friends for just a few minutes and then headed over to Emily Smith's house. It had also been a little over a year since I'd seen her, and I had never seen her newest little boy, Everett. So we spent a few hours just talking and catching up, too. Her little boys were so cute and it was so nice to see them all again. (And thanks for the sandwich!! And you should post your bread recipe up here, too!!) - Tha's em's husband dave standing up all fuzzed out in the picture as brad plays papparazi....
We drove home all in one night because Brad had a test this morning. We drove from 9p to 6a. It wasn't so bad. And we did see lots of cute animals. 2 ground squirrels, 4 bunnies, 2 dead deer, 3 dead racoons, and mouse. Fun fun fun!

Crazy Day

How lucky we are to have friends! Not traveling to Utah very much, I sometimes forget I actually have friends who live there. (especially if I don't check my blog for a day or two). Hold up...I should probably talk about conference a bit...
So Brad and I oringinally had tickets to different sessions. So he posted on craigslist that we would switch with someone and it worked out great. So we did a little manuvering once we got inside and got to sit together. We went to the Saturday afternoon session, and it was really good. Besides the fact that it's just an amazing sight, my favorite part was standing and singing with 21,000 people. Besides knowing a bunch of people in other countries are doing the same thing.
Afterwards, Brad and I drove to Layton and ate at Olive Garden. It was really crowded, but surprisingly, the bar was almost empty. So we sat and ate dinner there, which was actually very good.
I had called Maria- my friend from high school that I haven't seen in at least 2 years-- to see where exactly she lived. Which was in Layton! So I dropped Brad-o off at the guys' session of conference at a church near Maria's house and just went over and chilled. It was so fun to talk and catch up on things.
At 8, I left to go pick up Brad. We had plans to go to a comedy improv at the Off Broadway Theatre. I had a blind date that someone from work down in AZ had set me up on. And two of Brad's friends were supposed to meet us there.
So we set off looking for a hotel where we could stay, but they were all booked. So...
I called Maria and asked if she really wouldn't mind if we stayed in here basement and she was like "totally!!!" So almost all of my stress went away.
BUT I Still looked like a mess because I was wearing my church clothes and my makeup had all worn off AND it had rained like crazy and my hair was plastered to my head. So...sneaky sneaky...we drove back to the Peery hotel. And I got my clothes and toothbrush out of the trunk, and walked through the lobby to the bathrooms in the hallway. And changed. And brushed my teeth. And then walked straight out. Scandalous!
I did my hair and makeup in the car and then we drove to Temple Square and met Chip in front of the assembly hall. (Nice guy, not really attracted to him). Brad's friends had bailed on us so it was just us 3, which actually was ok.
The theater was hilarious. The show is called Laughing Stock and it's right off Main and 300 South and is totally worth going to whenever you have a chance.
So we dropped off Chip, and drove back to Maria's. She had left the door unlocked so we sneaked right in and downstairs with our Wendy's. :o) She had left us cute little notes all over about where stuff was and was so cute.
And I think I caught up on 4 nights of sleep while I was there 'cause I felt better than I had in a long time.
Thank you, Mer!!

The Peery Hotel

One thing Brad does really well is think of fun things to do. He's still working on all the planning elements. :o) So we he called two of his friends really late to see if we could stay there (I think they'd kind of talked about it....I thought a little more...) they were busy or out of town. So I got online and got us a fun hotel. Now, it's kind of a waste of romantic-ness to stay in a hotel this fun with your brother, but it was still fun. They had one room left with two beds and it wasn't too expensive. The Peery hotel is right downtown and was built in 1910. I think the elevator is original..it's really squeaky and has crazy old buttons and hasn't completely stopped by the time the door opens. hehe so fun. Also, we had two canopy beds, free bottled water, bath and body works stuff, 500 thread count sheets on Simmons mattresses, and robes, and Egyptian cotton towels. That's what the website says, anyways, and it was a blast. I slept so good. But not long enough. Turns out our 10 hour drive was an 11 hour drive where we changed time zones and lost an hour so it seemed like 12. Anyways, here's some pictures of us chillin' in our room.

Arizona is prettier than I thought

Brad and I headed out to SLC on Friday. I took my first Paid Time Off, and must say that I enjoyed it quite a bit. :o) Up till now, I had only driven from Bullhead City to Phoenix, which is not a particularly gorgeous drive. This time we drove through Flagstaff and on cool little highways and it was gorgeous. I took one picture that turned out great (due to Brad's cool camera that can make pictures turn out great at 80 mph). It was SO COLD when we got to Utah!!! We left a 94 degree day and arrived at a rainy 42 degree night. Ahhh! Take me back! Take me back!