Next Up: Graduate School

Chris is currently applying to graduate school and I thought I would fill you all in as to where we could potentially end up next fall! In no particular order (honestly, order of remembrance), these are the schools he is applying to for their MFA in Creative Writing programs:

Syracuse University - Syracuse, NY
University of Iowa - Iowa City, IA
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, MI
University of California - Irvine, CA
University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa, AL
Washington University - St. Louis, MO
University of Nevada - Las Vegas, NV
Arizona State University - Tempe, AZ
Portland State University - Portland, OR
San Diego State University - San Diego, CA
University of Utah - Salt Lake City, UT
Brigham Young University - Provo, UT
Ohio State University - Columbus, OH

Some may be surprising...like Alabama...! But I really feel that wherever we end up is going to be an adventure, and its where we need to be for that period of time. Another reason that we picked some of these schools over others that are more well known (like NYU or Columbia) is financial aid. For example, Columbia can accept 50 or so new students every year, but there is no way they can give full funding to 50 people. However, UC Irvine only accepts 9, but gives all 9 FULL FUNDING. Then there are schools, like Alabama or Portland, that are fine schools but people don't think to apply to them (because they aren't as well known for this program), so its less competitive to get in, yet they also don't accept as many so they can pay for all of them. So, we went down the path of potential for free rather than most popular...

Anyway, as we hear back I will give updates! Not going to lie, probably won't post every place we get rejected from, but FOR SURE where we DO get in! They are due between December 1st and February 15th, so we should be hearing around March and April. Wish us luck!

Thanksgiving Tid-Bits

Just to start this post off I'm going to make you all very jealous. 75 DEGREES baby!! We went to LA to my house and the weather was A-MAZAING. We had so much fun, we did a lot of cool things: Rocky Cola Cafe, delicious dinner and fun friends, Dance Dance Revolution, Star Trek, Ronald Reagan Library, fancy schmancy car wash, Taboo, meet sister's BF, approve :), 9 miles around the Rose Bowl, BYU vs. UT football, and the new movie 2012!!!

Honestly, what I really want to blog about though is the food we ate during our Thanksgiving Feast. One of my mom's strongest meals is Thanksgiving dinner, as in EVERYTHING that goes into it. I learned some CRAZY things that I thought I would pass on.

1) We "marinated" the turkey overnight in...MILK! Whole milk. An entire gallon of whole milk, the turkey was a 12-1b. We bought a huge, huge, ziplock, put the turkey in, filled it up, and put it in a cooler with ice till we cooked it. And the meat was SO TENDER! Even the white meat that is usually pretty dry, it was so so moist. So, I'm doing that every year of my life now. She also put a cube of melted butter, salt, and pepper all over the outside right before cooking. YUMMY!

2) Mashed potatoes, you won't beat my mom's. The secrets, first she rinses all the starch out of the potatoes BEFORE cooking them. She cuts them then puts them bit by bit in a strainer and runs it through water till its clear (meaning no more starch). Then she puts a ton of butter and EVAPORTATED (canned) milk in as she is beating them. They are fluffy, delicious, and don't clump together like nasty glue.

3) We did real yams instead of canned this year. SO MUCH BETTER. Brown sugar, allspice, nutmeg, and pecans on top and baked them!

4) Lastly, these are a family classic for Thanksgiving and Christmas Even dinner: Organge rolls, but dinner-style rolls not breakfast. I'm putting the whole recipe on here for those that think they sound good!

Holiday Orange Dinner Rolls

-get cheap pillsbury rolls (don't buy the fancy big ones because they don't work as well), they come 10 rolls in a can and 4 cans in plastic wrap together. This recipe needs 30, so do whatever with the other 10.
-get a pan that is kind of like a bundt pan, but shorter sides and no ridges in the bottom. If you can't find one, a regular bundt works fine enough.
-one largish orange, grate skin with super fine grater - grate it directly into small pan
-melt one cube of butter and 1/3 cup of sugar in pan
-juice orange and add juice to pan
-stir until everything is nicely mixed
-drop rolls, 2 or 3 at a time, into sauce, turn over 3 - 4 times with spoon, then
-stand up in pan, 15 rolls per pan (so they lean against each other in the circle around the pan), so this will make enough for two pans
-drizzle remaining sauce over rolls
-let sit for about 30 minutes, then bake at 400 for about 15 minutes, maybe a bit longer, take out when the tops are looking slightly golden brown.

Enjoy!


Thats it for my Thanksgiving tid-bits, but it was a fun holiday!

Cloud Strife's Sword

This is the best picture of the sword. We spent 5 hours and 50 yards of duck tape making it. Including the handle, it stands about as tall as Chris (who is 5'11"). It's one of our proudest achievements. We are mounting it on our wall. I'll post that picture when it happens :)
(Also for those who care, these are our friends the Morgans who were also FF characters Aeris and a Black Mage. Their baby was a Moogle!!!!!)

The Last Year in a Photo Montage!

Biggest thing, we graduated! August 14, 2009. Although I really say I graduated August 13th around 8:00 pm because that's when I turned in my last ever 12 page paper, my last ever assignment in college! (I wrote that paper in one day...hopefully my professor never sees this blog! However, pulling that off did leave me feeling quite accomplished.)

We went on tour with the BYU Ballroom Dance Company (Chris as a dancer, obviously, and me as a techie!) The tour was 3 1/2 weeks from April 27 - May 20...something...2009. We bused from Provo, UT through the Midwest and Eastern United States, covering all the LDS Church History sites, many US History sites, and big fun cities in between like NYC (we are in Times Square above). The last stop was Washington, D.C. and then we flew home.

On June 7, 2009, we celebrated our One Year Anniversary! We actually celebrated it a few times :) We were in Alaska at the time and it landed on a Sunday so the next day we went to this amazingly nice restaurant in Anchorage. The day after that we flew back to Utah, drove up to Logan and spent a night in the Anniversary Inn! For those who don't know, this place has themed rooms and we stayed in "Aphrodite's Court."


I don't have a picture of this yet, but we have been training for a marathon since the beginning of September! We plan on running the marathon in Salt Lake City April 17, 2010. Training has been great so far although the weather has been getting colder and colder...so wish us luck! 20 miles in the snow...I can't imagine it!

This is not a really "notable" event, but this Halloween we dressed up as Cloud and Tifa from the video game Final Fantasy. I have never played it but I loved my costume. Chris has a huge sword which is not in this picture so I'm going to put another one up of it. It took us 5 hours and 50 yards of duck tape to make! The rest of our costumes: $13 at DI and our own closets!

And just to conclude, what is currently going on in our lives is this. We are taking a year off to just be together, rest, play (and build up a savings!) before Chris goes to graduate school to get an MFA in Creative Writing. He took the GRE a few weeks ago and scored in the 92nd percentile for Verbal and 98th for Writing, so that was fantastic! His first application is due December 1st and the rest between then and late February. During the day he works on his writing samples and personal statements for the applications and in the evenings teaches ballroom at Charisma Studio in Springville. After 3 months of searching I finally landed a part-time job with Qualtrics, a company that sells licenses to use their online survey tool software. I call companies and set up demos for the salesmen with interested clients. I also still do my bookkeeping at home for ten (or so) hours a week and have three amazing violin students!

1 Year Later...an Update!!

The last (and first) post on this blog was a year ago...and there is so much to say that the most concise way I think is to steal Sara's photo montage idea (thanks!) and show the top things that have happened to us in the past year. I now have more time in my life and once the photo montage has caught you all up I REALLY do promise to keep it going.

My excuse/justification/etc as to why I didn't blog all of last year is this: 18 credits Fall and Winter and 11 Summer (aka 22 in a normal semester!). And working.

So, here goes the update! The events won't necessarily be in order, but I will date them, so if you want to order them in your mind, go ahead :)