Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Red Robin Celebrations

Doesn't this guy look happy?
 
It could be because he's about to eat a Mud Pie...
or it could be because he's finally finished with his OB/GYN rotation...
or it could be because he is now officially a Vanderbilt 4th Year Medical Student!
Most likely, it's a combination of all the above and more.
We had fun celebrating Brian's accomplishment at our favorite place to eat. 

We also celebrated 36 weeks of baby

and 5 1/2 years of being married
 
 I think we're as crazy (and maybe as clueless?) as ever.

Here's to many more Red Robin trips celebrating many more adventures!

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Midnight Snack

Brian gone on a night shift + Natalie no morning responsibilities = 
MonkeyBread ("skinny" recipe) at midnight.

 Pathetic? Maybe. But definitely quite yummy.



Sunday, July 15, 2012

Picked a Peck of Perfect Peaches

...well, it was actually 4 pecks.

My sweet friend Rebekah invited me to go peach picking in an orchard with her this week. That is definitely not something your average Arizonan girl has done in her lifetime, so I was pretty excited.

It rained all week but that didn't stop us, no sir. We went and picked those peaches, rain and all! Now I'm looking for a really good peach cobbler recipe...

Friday, July 13, 2012

Semi-Annual Pilgrimage to the Homelands

As soon as I finished school, I started on what ended up as the biggest project of my life. It is a family tradition to receive a quilt when you are married. I volunteered to make the quilt for my sister's wedding. She picked the fabric, and I drew up a plan. It was a great plan... if I had had several months do to it. Luckily, I had all day every day for 3 weeks to work on it. I used a technique I found on The Welsh Quilter.
 the back of the quilt is gray and yellow. this is square 1 of 100... I quilted a treble clef/bass clef/heart design on each square. I actually ended up mis-calculating and making 45 extra squares (?!) so there may be a mini-version of this quilt up on etsy in the not-so-near future.

This quilt was huge, she took over my entire desk!
It's hard to see in this picture, but I embroidered their names and a quote from Shakespeare about love and music.
 Brian was also working on the biggest project of his life: studying for Step 1 Exam for the Medical School Boards (aka "The Test of questions about anything in existence"). So he didn't mind that I was completely occupied. He studied for 6 weeks, 14 hours a day, 6 days a week for that bad boy. He resisted all kinds of social temptations (movies, game nights) that were posed to him. And he conquered that 8-hour test! He just got his scores back this week and he scored above the Vanderbilt average! (cue the music.. "Hail the conquering Hero! da da dun dun dun....."

We flew to Arizona for Sarah and Zach's wedding. We had a week full of Chimichangas, Just Dance 3, decorating, ice cream, and generally enjoying the Arizona sunshine.
Mom and Sarah manning the frying station.
Michael and Brian claimed the "quality control" station while making chimis
 Just Dance3... bringing families together
 Beautiful centerpieces for the reception
 caught in the act...


The wedding was beautiful, the day was beautiful (though HOT), the bride was beautiful, and everything went generally smoothly. It was so fun to be their photographer! My amazing friend Amanda has been so great to help me along as I learn how to take better pictures.




After the chaos died down, we flew to Oregon. There we had a week full of sleeping in outrageously late, visiting the Keldsens in Bend, s'mores, puzzles, golfing, Disney Sing-Alongs, nieces and nephew, mini-golfing, movies, reading, PS3 gaming, the beach, fireworks, and (of course) more ice cream.
500 piece puzzle!
 Eli--Commanding and Conquering
Disney Princess sing-alongs
 cute Avery!
 Silly Alayna
 Reading the Bearnstein Bears
Jenna, Alayna, and Uncle Brian shooting for Par
 Brian likes his ice cream...
 Alayna and Aunt Stacey
 Fireworks!

  The Oregon Coast is beautiful, but COLD!



All too soon it was time to fly home. It's back to real life... I am studying for the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Exam and Brian is starting his rotation in Anesthesiology. Always staying busy!

Monday, July 11, 2011

Memphis

I'm a little behind on the times (you'd think that since it's summer I'd have more time.... not the case), but Brian and I went to Memphis 2 weeks ago to see the Broadway musical "Beauty and the Beast."

If you haven't been to Memphis, don't go. No offense to you if you live there/love it. But it's dirty and run down a little scary. Now that we can say we've gone, we probably won't go again.

That being said, we did have a fun time just being there for 1 day.


They love Elvis in Memphis!
This is as close as we got to "Graceland"-- Elvis Presley's home. Tickets were $18 each and parking was $10! We did a drive-by of Elvis' private jet.
The Pyramid was closed due to flooding. :(We spent most of the day on Mud Island, where they have a wading river that is replica of the Mississippi River scaled down to .5 mile. The cool water felt so good on such a hot day!

Brian crushing the mini dam.

Drying off.
We ate at "Gus's World Famous Chicken." It was rather good, if a little spicy.


After walking down Beale Street (just to say that we have), we went to the theater for Beauty and the Beast.