Tuesday, November 30, 2010

A quick overview of the weekend:
Here are the people who made the party happen!

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!

We even had a return of the Swedish Chef :)

After I get a nap and a break from laundry, unpacking, and getting back in my groove, I will post some more!

xoxo, Stefanie

Thursday, November 25, 2010

The Spirit of Things

A Thankful Turkey.
It just helps me get into the spirit of things :)
In case the text is too small in the photo, this year I am thankful for:
Traditions
A job with insurance
Scott who is my advocate
Plane tickets to Indiana
Nice teeth (i know, i'm vain.)
Parents who raised me in the gospel
The Ensign in our home
Clorox wipes
Siblings as best friends

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Destination:

Departure time: 4:45am, Thanksgiving Day.
We are headed out to stay with the Whitehead Wildcats for a long weekend with the WHOLE family!!!
Upon arrival, we will feast:

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 :)
Any last minute things I should do while still 21?


And I think Monday we will relax before our flight back to
good ol' Utah.

Basically, we have a KILLER weekend planned, thanks (primarily) to Mom, Heather and Noelle. Let's just hope I get feeling better before our arrival!!!

Monday, November 22, 2010

FANTASTIC Show!

We were SO GLAD we could make it to Hale Center Theater's production of:
The Scarlet Pimpernel

This show was UNbelievable! And that's coming from a pretty tough critic. The costumes, the voices, the acting, the movement on that small, circular stage- it was incredible! When we first arrived we were a bit skeptical, noting the seemingly tiny stage and mere 10 rows of seating. But this circular stage was perfect for these actors. It was so cool to see their faces and feel the wind of their wake as they rushed on and off the stage. This show was funny, romantic, historical, suspensful, and just all-around a GREAT show! These were our two leads: Percy and Marguirite. SO great!!!
Even their wig artist was able to attach the wigs in such a way that they could all keep their natural hairlines. I'm telling you, it was perfect!
Scott even knew 2 of the actors. Here we are with Kristen afterward! Scott taught her in the MTC a few years ago...
While we were waiting for her to come out, I overheard an older woman saying that she is a "Pimpernel Junkie." She has been to over 50 performances of this show, and Hale's is definitely in the top 5! She had already been to their show 4 times, and was ready to line up at the box office to try to get in again that very night!!!
A BIG thank you to Charlene and family for the invite!

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Malaysia- backpacker style

Malaysia probably seemed the most mysterious of all the countries in Southeast Asia to me. But then we went. As we spent time there, it became less mysterious and just
so fabulous and foreign!
Here is our first meal- fish balls, mutton, a bunch of random protien items served raw on sticks, then you cook it in that pot in the middle. Malaysian fondue I guess, how great is that? 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.
After the big city, we headed out to the eastern jungle in Malaysia: 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!!!


This noodle dish was MUCH better, and I got a smoothie to welcome myself back into civilization- best idea ever!


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!

Monday, November 15, 2010

School.

Do I like school?
YES.
When I was in school, did I like school?
Not immensely.
Do I regret that?
YES.

It is really a two-sided topic for me.

When in school, I LOVED:
-Interacting with people
-Walking around between classes and to/from campus
-Having a variety of projects and assignments that interested me
-Doing different things every day of my life!
-Being challenged mentally
-Engaging in thought provoking discussions
-WRITING papers!
-Organizing my time and choosing my priorities throughout the day
-Learning new, cool things that expanded my vision



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!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Do you want the bad news or the good news first?

The Good news is that we miraculously got a notice in the mail for a $100 credit at
The Hotel Del in San Diego!
Combined with the leftover from our honeymoon, we hopefully have enough to have a REALLY great time over Christmas break :)
(When I told Scott about the credit, he said this was the BEST news he has gotten since we got married!)

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...

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

To Wine, or not to Wine?

It all started with a beautiful pot roast: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.


All in all, it tasted delicious and was very juicy with rich flavor. I usually let the roast cook in the Crock Pot, but this dutch oven was a dream! Thank goodness we got this wine as a free gift, I think I would be too nervous to go to the liquor store and I'd have no clue what to buy. Have you cooked with any unique ingredients lately? Do you have a corkscrew?

Monday, November 8, 2010

Time to Prepare for Christmas!!!

First, You choose 6-8 fantastic Christmas fabrics. I would suggest some darker, some lighter for contrast! Cut them into 2 inch strips and sew together either straight across, or at a bit of an angle for a more scrappy look (that's what I did). Be sure to iron every step of the way. (I'm not a big ironer, but it's a big deal for this project. Keep sewing strips until it looks as long or longer than you want your stocking to be. 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
super easy and fun
project even beginners can do!
So there you go, His and Her stockings :)