Here are the 3 Thanksgiving pie chefs 
Good work ladies!
My birthday remains- what a GREAT day to be alive!
Harry Potter party! WOOT.
Here we are at the Indy 500 Racetrack! More details on this to come!
After I get a nap and a break from laundry, unpacking, and getting back in my groove, I will post some more!
A Thankful Turkey. 
Departure time: 4:45am, Thanksgiving Day. 
The next morning, festivities will continue, but this time CHRISTMAS style :) Since we will spread our separate ways come December, we'll celebrate on Friday instead!
Saturday is HARRY POTTER day! We will finally see the new movie, and there are rumors that we'll play our own game of Quidditch in the backyard. I hope I'm on Tanner's team.
Can you guess whose birthday is on Sunday??? Yours Truly :)
These were our two leads: Percy and Marguirite. SO great!!!
We stayed at a nice place (read $20 US/ night) our first night in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I didn't know this at the time, but we probably did that just so Scott could iron his shirt for church. :)
This awesome family had us over for dinner after church. They are all caucasian, but this husband and wife (on the left) have lived in about 15 different countries and their kids were all born in different countries too! We had a LOT of questions for them!!! Then the couple in the middle were invited over for dinner too. They got married the week prior, and she (from Utah, went to BYU-I) moved out to Malaysia where her new husband is on a government assignment. Wow. Needless to say we had a perfect afternoon, GREAT food, and enjoyed the comfort of their penthouse which consisted of the top 3 floors of a skyscraper downtown. With a pool on the open-air top level.
One side of the river had a few (like 2 options) hostels and floating restaurants, and then across the river was the park/jungle. So every morning we took these boats over. I think it was like 5 cents/ ride. 
Probably Scotts biggest regrets was not sleeping over in this hut, which is right beside a salt lick where all the animals come at night. Here he is trying to see a leopard or something cool: 
One great thing we did do was hike to some bat caves. It was SCARY. The bats were HUGE, and I could hear them everywhere, see them everywhere, SMELL them everywhere, and even feel them hit my ponytail as they flew by. Gross. 
I know this isn't a great pic of me, but it is DEFINITELY the most emotive :) My face really looks how I felt after a long hike up a mountain.
There is nothing to really scale this ant against, but let me tell you, they were HUMUNGO and always biting me. I guess I didn't get a disease!
It is obviously too dark to see, but here we are at a floating restaurant with some German friends. We did a hike with them and kind of hung out while we were both at Taman Negara. They were such a fun couple, and definitely knew enough English to make our time together enjoyable!
Another one of the awesome hikes was to and across this hanging bridge. You know that hasn't been checked for quality assurance :) Ha. They were SOOOOO long and rickety. But see how they were literally THROUGH the jungle- it was just so amazing. I sometimes think about this hike when I fall asleep at night.
Riding down the river in the longboat cost about $5 US more than the bus, but I would have paid $25 more for that experience! Jungle river with water buffalo on the side was SO much better than the hot sweaty bus we took to reach Tamah Negara.
Apparently they don't charge for trail maintenance like they do at National Parks in America:
I wonder how this cute girl got her clothes? During our explorations we came upon random tribes of people. So fun to see the kids playing and the parents building.
We were about 3 weeks into our trip at this point. So sometimes it was nice to take a little rest and read a book on our stoop. We each read probably 4-5 books over the course of the trip.
I just thought I'd put this pic in for good measure. It was at a bus exchange site and by FAR the worst meal we had in Asia. I can't even describe it. Gross, sticky-ish sauce with some kind of noodle and unidentified seafood mixed in. It doesn't sound that gross here, but believe me, it was a BUST.
Back to the city to see:
The Patronus Towers!!!
The malls there were OUT OF CONTROL. I mean in all the big asian cities. They were always so architecturally impressive and very clean, comparatively.
Here we are on our last morning in malaysia, just enjoying some bread, i mean breakfast and oj on the top of the building. That is one great thing about asia, they don't waste space- the top of buildings are always good for something!
The KL tower was a great way to see the city.
We took the audio tour and learned all about the city, past and present.
We definitely love Malaysia, but stay tuned for the next review on our favorite country: INDONESIA!
Congrats if you're not family and you made it through this long, long post!
Now, I LOVE:
-Having my nights FREE! I really can’t imagine giving that up!
-Never feeling guilty for not working on that paper or getting ahead on my project when I’m out having fun!
-Never fighting my professors for an A
-Reading for fun, instead of some text book
-Having my own desk/ office to decorate
-Being an expert on certain subjects and knowing all the answers to people’s questions
-Not studying for hours, not even knowing if I was or wasn’t ready for the test.
I’m not super sure what the point of this post was, but I guess it could be to LOVE your life if you’re a student now, and LOVE your life if you’re a worker. And if you're a mom, I'm sure there's a lot to LOVE too :)
I can't believe it's been a YEAR since I went through the temple! WOW, time flies!
There is just so much to LOVE in life!
The bad news is that it was soooo cold this morning that my lock to get in the car was sort of frozen shut, and once I did get going, the gears didn't shift so well. I can tell it is going to be a long winter...
Then Scott got a stroke of inspiration to use the bottle of red wine we got from the Hotel Del last January... 
This was our first time ever cooking with any kind of wine, so we were pretty unsure what to do. The first task was to get the cork out. It took quite a bit of brainstorming to come up with the idea to use an actual screw and these orange things below in lieu of an actual corkscrew. 
Scott thought maybe 1 cup would do the trick. Ha. Luckily, we only put in half a cup, but even that was a bit much. Turns out the potatoes really absorb. Who knew? We decided not to have guests over because you could taste/smell the wine pretty well. Next time I think we will just put 1/4 cup right onto the meat when we sear it. 
I just drew my pattern onto newspaper and used that for my template. Make it a bit bigger that you want your stocking to account for seams! I attached it to just 1 layer of my favorite "Warm and Natural" batting, then, top-stitched over all my seams with a zig zag stitch. This is to make sure it doesn't bust apart with all the goods on Christmas morning, and just to make it look cuter :) (oh, and be sure to cut the stocking out whichever direction you want the toe pointing. Look at your fireplace for inspiration!) 
I threw these tops on (with 2 layers of warm and natural) and attached a little loop to the top. I also put a liner inside (using the same newspaper pattern) with the same fabric I used for that top rim. This is a 
So there you go, His and Her stockings :)
