Pearl Harbor - December 7th, 1941

I meant to post this a few days ago (on December 7th), but I forgot to put it up.  This a video that my brother and I made several years ago to be played at our high school on Pearl Harbor Day.  Most of the pictures and video were taken by us when we visited Hawaii in 2007.  I love the Christmas season, but I think it's important that we don't forget what happened at Pearl Harbor and the things people sacrificed so that we can all have the freedoms that we have today.  I'm grateful for what everyone has done and what others continue to do to enable us to live in such a great country.

-Ryan

Birthdays and Folk Dance

So I sort of like to call myself an amateur cake decorator. Only I don't really use fondant, because I think it tastes bad. And I'm really amateur. Like, 6-months-into-this amateur. Like, I've done three cakes. But they were awesome.

So for my dad's birthday, Ryan and I had him over for dinner with a bunch of his favorite foods, and I made him a cake. Now you must realize that all growing up we were a very healthy-eating family, and so the thought of using a cake mix or making something sugary and chocolatey for my dad was just too bizarre to even think about.

So instead, I made an applesauce spice cake from scratch and decorated it with almond-vanilla buttercream icing. And it was absolutely delicious.

 And of course, I decorated it with his favorite basketball hero's name. Around here, we call my dad Jimmerman.


A week or two later, I got to be in Christmas Around the World again with the International Folk Dance Ensemble. It was a great experience, and I'm so grateful for the chance I've gotten to be a part of the folk dance club these past two years. It's been a lot of fun and I've made some great memories!

These little Mexican dancer girls LOVED playing with us and wrapping up in our big skirts - this girl followed me around for 20 minutes!

Add caption

Sunday Dinner

So Ryan and I are blessed enough to live within 20 minutes of both of our families. This has been an amazing blessing for us - we are so grateful for the love and support of our family members, and they're great about respecting the fact that we're our own family, too. One of the best parts is that we get to go to one of our families for Sunday dinner every week - which is a lot of fun and gives us a chance to relax and enjoy being together.

This week, though, Ryan had to stay late at church for tithing settlement - and so I got to make Sunday dinner! It was a lot of fun planning the meal myself. I used my crock pot and made chicken stroganoff. Aside from the fact that it turned out a tad too salty (I put in too much soup mix) it was very delicious, and we had a great Sunday dinner at home together - with Christmas music playing and Christmas lights on, of course :)

Recipe: Chicken Stroganoff

6 chicken breasts
1 can cream of mushroom soup
16 oz sour cream
1 pkg dry onion soup mix (in the future, I'll probably only use about 2/3 pkg just to cut down on the salt.)

Put the chicken breasts in the crock pot. Mix the soup, sour cream, and soup mix together and pour over the chicken. Cook on low for 4.5 - 5 hours. Shred chicken and serve over cooked egg noodles.

Happy Sunday!

Autumn in full swing...

So between school and work and more school and more work, Ryan and I have managed to find time to do some really fun things. In addition to hanging out with some friends from the ward, finishing watching Psych season 6 and White Collar season 4 (can't wait for January!!), we've done the following fun things:

BYU football! We were right at the front on the north endzone one week, it was a great perspective, when they were at our end...

We went to Pizza Factory after priesthood session of General Conference. I won the who-can-build-the-biggest-salad on the one-trip salad bar competition...

We went to McCoard's Corn Maze here in Provo with Scott and Lisa. SUPER fun. We like playing with them.

At the end of October, I attended the American Translators Association conference in San Diego. It was a great experience, I made a lot of connections and I'm still trying to catch up on missing three days of school! It was warm there - that was the best part - but I missed Ryan... a lot. 

With the Hilton in the background (where the conference was held). This was the closest I got to the water all week...

With my little bird friend - this guy had a bird rescue and let me hold one on my shoulder.

The first aircraft carrier I've ever seen - it was soooo big!

Then, of course, Ryan and I had to celebrate Halloween. We started on Monday by going to Tucano's and carving pumpkins with my mom (lots of fun!) Then we had treats and watched the Sixth Sense on Halloween night. We didn't get any trick-or-treaters at our apartment - we're not right on a main road - it was sad. But we had a fun night anyway.

Ryan made the pumpkin snowman - I thought it turned out awesome!

 

If we had a quote wall...

Infamous quotes by Ryan tonight: 

"Mr. Trash Can is hungry, and his favorite food is spinach." 

"Jen, it's NEVER too early for Christmas music." 

"Football season IS fall. They're one and the same." 

"Let me tell you, this is totally overloading my endorphins." (In a flat, bored tone of voice.)

"You WAY overthink things!" 

Oh, how I love Friday nights with my Ryan! 

April 2009 at Temple Square :)

In two weeks...

Two weeks from today, I shall be on an airplane to San Diego...

I would like to be planning to do this:

(click on this link for endorphin overload... San Diego Zoo PandaCam)

Or visiting this:

But instead, I get to be attending this: (!!!)

My official certificate of ATA student membership arrived in the mail yesterday. I have polo shirts with the logo of my internship company sitting in my closet ready to go. I'm working on designing myself a business card and getting copies of my resume printed, and I'm so excited to go and meet lots of people who have been where I'm at and can give me advice on getting where I'd like to go with my degree and my career. 

The only really really really lame part is that Ryan can't go with me. He will be very busy doing this: 

 And getting familiar with this:

And hanging out with this awesome guy, who is getting home from his mission next 

week - and whatnot! :) We are all VERY excited about this:

Life is good!

Holiday Season!

One thing that Ryan and I have in common is we love holidays - especially Christmas - but all holidays are pretty great. We got really excited for Christmas this weekend, so last night we had a Christmas FHE and then decorated fall cookies (it was just too early for Christmas cookies). I think it makes school a lot less stressful when you have seasons and holidays to look forward to!

He's gotten pretty good at this decorating stuff, after doing cookies three or four times and helping me with cakes :)

Football season and fall all combined

Our predictions for the game on Thursday - mine on the left, Ryan on the right