Graduation

Dima graduated with his Masters of Accountancy this past April!! I think I was just as excited as he was!!! It will be good to have our evenings together. We had lots of family in town for the occasion which made it that much better!! It was filled with good eating, Carl Bloch museum, the movies, Easter celebrations, and fun family time. Thanks everyone for coming down to celebrate and be with us!!

Congrats Husband! I am so proud of you!!

Recipe One of Five

So I'm getting an early start to my list this year, and last night I tried my first of 5 new recipes. I usually don't branch out much from the traditional chicken or beef-based dinners, so I thought I would try one of my favorite soups while it is still wintery weather: French Onion Soup! Yum! I thought it would be really hard since I always saw it as a gourmet dish you could only get at restaurants, but it turned out to be super easy! I used this recipe as a basic guide, and made a few changes: I only used about 1 onion, and used all broth instead of half water, half broth, substituted apple juice for the wine, and added a hint of Thyme. yummmy! It was a good change from the regular grind, and filled in all the cracks.

picture from here

And, I think I just found recipe 2 and 3! I'll let you know how they turn out...

If you have any favorites recipes you think I should try feel free to leave them in the comments!! Any and all ideas are appreciated!

Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer...

So I'm not quite sure how this happened, but the other day I was straightening my bangs and I burned my nose!!!! That's right, not anything normal like my forehead or ear... but my NOSE!! The very tip of it. And if you look closely at the pictures you'll see that now there is a perfect circle of pink on the very tip of it. Luckily its not terribly noticeable as of yet, but sometimes it gets worse as time goes on... Dima says I remind him of Mickey (or rather Mini) Mouse. haha. Oops. Now every time I see it when I'm getting ready the song "Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer" comes into my head. Hopefully I can still play in all the reindeer games... or become a hero or at least meet Santa or something...

23 Things

Well, my birthday has come and gone, which means it's time for a new list of ambitions! I did pretty well on my last list, especially considering I made it with less than 6 months to accomplish it all. So some items may carry over to this year.

1. Move

2. Hike Mt Timp

3. Attend the Sundance Film Festival

4. Make flower hair clips

5. Host a party

6. Attend the Temple 2x/mo.

7. Try out Zumba

8. Run a race

9. Meet my new nephew

10. Read 5 books for fun

11. Cook 5 new recipes

12. Make a quilt

13. Take a vacation

14. Finish the Photo Wall project

15. Edit and print our wedding photos

16. Attend a Monster Truck Rally

17. Attend an NBA game

18. Go to Zions

19. Secret Service Project

20. Have 6 couples over for dinner

21. Continue to learn Russian

22. Find 2 new hair-do's.

23. Make a rice sock

V-day Shenanigans

Valentines turned out great! Although we had work and school going on we were still able to get in lots of quality time. We started the morning by eating a delicious German Pancake breakfast together (which hardly ever happens); then after a break from work and school I came home to these beautiful roses on the counter, and my wonderful husband at the talbe!!!! (I normally don't see him until dinner).

Then I gave him his valentine gift: soda (which I never buy, much to his sadness) and a pop-out valentine with a coupon for a back massage.

Then he took 2 hours off of homework to make me my favorite dinner: chicken with mushroom cream sauce and mashed potatoes!! YUM! (sorry no pictures... I ate it too fast.)

Pretty much we are perfect for each other and enjoyed spending some extra time together. Overall it was a lovely lovely day!

Love Shack

The decorations are up, my outfit has been decided, and Valentines Day is just around the corner!

ICE CASTLES!!!!

This past weekend we made some home-made pizzas (yum!) then headed up to Midway to see their winter wonderland! The Ice Castles were awesome! I could have stayed there all night! I was mesmerized by how beautiful they were. Not to mention how tall they were! - you could walk through them and under them... and I love that they were lighted up... from the inside!!!! The formations were so intricate yet natural too, it was absolutely gorgeous. This would make an awesome place for a photoshoot.

and I was able to check off another of my 22 things to do while I'm 22... always a plus!

If you're in the area, its definitely worth a trip up... but dress WARM! especially wear warm shoes, and then go get some hot chocolate afterward!