Happy Easter!

 

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday.

Did you do anything special?

We went dumpster diving...

not that we were planning or wanting to!

We also had a lovely dinner and walk with Ma and Pa Jensen

which more than made up for having to dig through garbage earlier in the day.

 

Easter baskets and colored eggs are so fun,

but I am grateful that the true reason for this special day is so we can reflect upon the life of our Savior.

 

xoxo

 



A Favorite Sight

I am so grateful to have a husband who is clean and tidy.

I love how Patrick always throws the towel over his shoulder when he is hard at work in the kitchen.

It is one of my favorite sights. :)

The Dentist

When I was a young girl,

my parents were loyal watchers of the television show E.R.

I couldn't be in the room when it was on or else I would get squeamish and scream and just be

all around dramatic.

I never thought a career in a medical field would be an option for me.

Yet somehow I thought I should tryout dental assisting.

During my two year stint working in the dental field I discovered I could handle blood, needles, anesthetic, and drills... as long as they were in someone else's mouth and not mine!

Imagine the horror I felt last month when I was at my annual cleaning and exam and found out that I had not one, but TWO cavities!

My perfect record was tarnished!

I set an appointment to have my cavities fixed and stressed about it for the next week and a half.

I was so good at telling others "No, it won't hurt," or "It won't be as bad as you think,"

but I couldn't convince myself of these same things now that it was my turn in the dental chair. 

How often do we waste so much time worrying about something and as soon as it is over we realize how much energy we wasted?

Things are most often not as bad as our wonderful imaginations can make them out to be.

Perfect example right here!

I felt so terrible for being "one of those patients" when I went in for my appointment.

Dr.Fessenden and her assistant, Isabel, were fantastic (which I already knew because I worked with them)

and in the end the worst part was that I wanted to visit with them the whole time but couldn't!

After my appointment I went home my mouth did the funniest thing when I tried to give Patrick a little hello kiss.

Because of where I was numb, my upper and lower lips kept pulling in opposite directions.

We sure spent a lot of time laughing that night. :)

"The" Special Burrito

Last Friday we met up with the folks in Erda for dinner at the original Virg's Family Restaurant.  Virg's makes this huge breakfast burrito that I knew Patrick had to take on.  It is seriously like a foot and a half long!  A giant tortilla is stuffed with hash browns, ham, and eggs and then smothered with a green Chili Verde sauce (my favorite part!) and finally topped with cheese.  Could Patrick eat the whole thing?!

He not only devoured the entire burrito, he said within five minutes of finishing it that he could eat another one! 

(Later while watching "Harvey" on my parents' new TV, the burrito did catch up with him. Patrick fell into a food coma and slept through the entire movie.)

I love the charm of this little whole-in-the-wall restaurant. It is the star of Erda!

Thanks to Ma and Pa Jensen for the fun evening!

Our "Grand" Adventure

Whenever someone finds out that Patrick and I are newlyweds,

 we are usually offered a piece of marital advice.

One of the most common pearls of wisdom is to make the most of the time we have as just the two of us.

I completely agree with this advice.

While we wish we could spend all our time taking foreign trips and eating out at romantic restaurants every night, that is completely unrealistic.

That said, we still find ways to enjoy every second of our new life together.

We decided since we can't fly off to England (our would-be dream honeymoon destination), we can make the most of the little things around us.

We can take shorter trips to places nearby, like Moab or St.George,

or even take a stay-cation right here in SLC.

Patrick has always wanted to stay the night at the Grand America.

He has a friend who gave us a discount on a room and we had one last wedding gift card so we just decided to go for it!

If you haven't ever been to the Grand America you must at least go and walk around, visit the shops inside, and eat the amazing (and free!) chocolate chip cookies.

Until you plan your very own Grand adventure,

enjoy the photos from ours.

Everything was extremely fancy, which should be expected considering it cost $800 million to build the Grand America.

We may have looked a little out of place amongst it all!

Our room.  My only complaint was that the pillows were almost too soft! Don't worry, I got over it.

The view from our room on the 24th floor.

It was a long elevator ride up and down from the 24th floor! Picture time!

I loved the JOUJOU toyshop inside the Grand.  I wanted to buy all the toys... for me.  Yep, they were that fantastic!

Outside of JOUJOU that had these awesome window displays depicting different fairy tales.
Creating window displays is a dream job of mine.

We both loved all the tapestries hanging in the Grand.
And Patrick also loved posing in all my pictures. Right, Patrick?



The courtyard. 

Always have to have at least one "stretch-your-arm-as-long-as-you-can-and-take-your-own-picture" together.

Patrick enjoying his time at the Grand very, very much.
I practically had to drag him away from the hotel.
I have a feeling we will have to find an excuse to go back (hopefully soon)!

Why there were no brownies for dessert...

That's why.

We were so excited to have Jay, Aubrey, and Baby G over for lunch on Sunday.

Last week I tested out a recipe for Black Bean Brownies.

Since J and A are also all about trying to eat better,

 I wanted to serve a healthy dessert.

The test run got a decent review ("This just needs a scoop of ice cream on it." -Patrick ) so I decided to go ahead and add the brownies to Sunday's menu.

Sunday morning I threw the ingredients for Quinoa Chicken Chili in the crock-pot.

I had the rest of my morning planned perfectly...

I would quickly mix-up the brownie batter in my Bullet,

then shower and get ready for church while it baked.

Obviously, that didn't happen.

Twenty minutes before I needed to be at church

I was in my penguin pajamas cleaning up great globs of the bean/sugar/egg concoction

that had managed to land all over the kitchen and living room floors.

Thank goodness for my new short hair that allows to get completely ready in apx. 15 minutes.

By some miracle I made it to church on time.

Despite the absence of brownies,

we still had the wonderful benefits of black beans that the chili was loaded with.

Maybe it's a good thing the brownies never made it to the table...

both chili and brownies may have caused black bean overload!

I recommend making both recipes,

perhaps just at seperate meals. :)

One Year

On February 17, 2012 Patrick and I went on a blind date.  We had dinner at Kathmandu's and then saw our "matchmaker" Kimberly perform at the Off-Broadway Theatre in GLEEK SCHOOL MUSICAL.

Sunday marked one year of knowing each other.  Crazy, right?
Crazy because some days it feels like it was just yesterday that we met and crazy because mostly it feels like we've know each other forever.  I can't imagine life without Patrick!

Since the 17th fell on a Sunday this year, we decided to hold a two-part celebration.  Sunday night Patrick cooked a delicious dinner for our part-one.  It was his own twist on Chicken Parmesan.  I enjoyed every bite! (I also enjoyed every second relaxing in the living room after dinner because Patrick always insists on cleaning up when he cooks. So nice.)



We decided for Monday's part-two of the celebration it would only be appropriate to relive our first date!


Patrick outside of Kathmandu in SLC. It had just opened last year around the time of our first date.  We are super happy it is still open.  Restaurants tend to come and go pretty quickly these days.
This place is soooo good.  You should go!

Our server seated us at the exact same booth where we sat one year ago!  It felt like deja vu (especially because I'm almost certain that is the same shirt Patrick had on one year ago, too).

On our first date, we talked so long at the restaurant that we were late for the show! (Kim, if you read this, we are so sorry!)  The same thing almost happened again this year.  This was the best photo we could get due to being short on time.

Guess what?  I had almost given up on blind dates.  I'm so, so happy I agreed to go on one last one! I cannot wait to see what our second year together brings!