New site

So, you've probably noticed that I'm not really posting much anymore. I got married and started school again. What do you expect? Here's the other problem. My husband and I have a blog and sometimes remembering to update both is a lot of work.

Here's the deal. Since I'm focusing a little more on my other blog, you should probably go to it to se any updates. :)

http://benandallyson.blogspot.com/

Ore-o-no!!

So, after moving into our apartment, we've discovered a few problems (leaky drains, broken air-conditioning, etc...) and I've become fairly good friends with the maintenance team. However, I discovered the biggest problem when I decided to make those home-made Oreos for Ben.

I preheated the oven to 375 degrees like the recipe said, but not knowing exactly how our oven worked, I decided to check the cookies at 5 minutes instead of cooking them for the recommended 9. I began to imagine how excited Ben would be when he came home to freshly baked Oreos, but was jarred back to reality when the smoke detector started beeping only 3 minutes after I had put the cookies into the oven! I pulled them out of the oven as quickly as I could as the smoke billowed out of it (melting my hot-pad in the process!) and started fanning the smoke away from the screeching device on the ceiling.

After I cleared out most of the smoke and got the alarm to stop beeping, I decided to do something rather drastic and turn the oven temperature down a whole 100 degrees! It seemed like a bit much, but after breaking one of the previous "cookies" in half and finding nothing but charcoal, I decided baking them at 275 for 7 minutes would be fine.

Boy was I wrong!

Imagine my frustration when only five minutes later the smoke detector started beeping again. I ran through the same drill, pulling the former cookies out of the oven and then running over to fan the smoke away from the alarm.

By this point I was hot and sweaty and disappointed about the two dozen cookies that now sat as a pile of charcoal nuggets in the garbage. I decided to try one more time. I made a single cookie and baked it for 3 minutes at 175 degrees and.... it worked!! I was so excited.

After far-too-much hassle, I ended up going to the dinner smelling like a campfire, but with delicious bite-sized Oreo cookies that I over-heard Ben say were "better than the real thing!" And now we know the smoke detector works. :)

................... Homemade Oreos

A word of warning: this cookie is rather sweet, calling for a whopping 1 1/2 cups of sugar! This would be great just by itself as a cookie, or maybe sandwiching some black cherry ice cream (or whatever flavor you like), but combined with the incredibly sweet filling, a few of these are liable to put you into a diabetic coma! If you're looking for something closer to the original, and more palatable so that you can eat them by the handful, take out a full half cup of sugar.

Makes 25 to 30 sandwich cookies

For the chocolate wafers:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar [see recipe note]
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375°F. (This temperature has worked for numerous other people, so unless your oven is as weird as mine, you shouldn't have any problems.)

2. In a food processor, or bowl of an electric mixer, thoroughly mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. While pulsing, or on low speed, add the butter, and then the egg. Continue processing or mixing until dough comes together in a mass. *Note: it stays really crumbly for a while. Keep mixing! It will come together.*

3. Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately two inches apart. With moistened hands, slightly flatten the dough. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.

4. To make the cream, place butter and shortening in a mixing bowl, and at low speed, gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla. Turn the mixer on high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.

5. To assemble the cookies, in a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch, round tip, pipe teaspoon-size blobs of cream into the center of one cookie. Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream. Dunk generously in a large glass of milk.

**You can try numerous variations on this recipe as well - it's only limited by your imagination. Two that I plan on trying are adding mint to make Mint Oreos, or filling the cookies with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese frosting.

Enjoy!

Smiling in Ohio

I’ve been married for one week shy of a month now, and I’m finally getting to break into my role as wife and homemaker. You’d think after a month of marriage I would have been overjoyed at the chance to cook every day. Alas, last night was the first time I’ve made dinner for the two of in quite some time. A honeymoon encompassing three wedding receptions along with the drive from California to Ohio left little time for me to master, or even attempt, some form of culinary creation. Last night however, I made Butter Chicken with Sautéed Onions and Mashed Potatoes, with Cheesecake for dessert. The food, of course, was excellent. :) Ben loved it and it felt so good - not only be cooking again, but to make dinner for my wonderful husband and have it waiting for him when he got home from a long day at work.


If you had asked where I see myself in 5 years in January, Ohio would have been one of the last places I thought of, if I even thought of it at all. Yet, here I am! We’ve only been here for a couple days, so I can’t complain about anything yet. :) It does seem like a nice little place though, and we were lucky enough to get here while the weather's still a little cool, before the humidity really sets in. We have our very own little 2 bedroom apartment and I can’t get over the excitement of having my own place. (Ok, its not completely mine, but I’m sharing it with my husband, not 5 other girls.) Just opening the refrigerator is a joyous experience because I don’t have to dig through piles of food belonging to my roommates in order to find something with my name on it. So while Ben goes to work everyday from noon until around 10pm, I stay at home and do.... what? I'm still working on that one, so I'll have to get back to you.


Tuesdays we have small group dinners where some of the married folk feed the single ones. I’m in charge of dessert today and I'm rather excited. Ben is basically in love with Oreos – he has been since I met him, and probably long before that. I’m quite the opposite. I’m not really much of a fan of store bought/processed foods. If I can make it from scratch, I’d much rather do it that way. It’s definitely healthier and I think things taste better when made from scratch. Well, it just so happens that in one of my random recipe searches I stumbled upon a recipe for homemade Oreos that boast tasting just like the store-bought variety. So my project for tonight: make Homemade Oreos and test them on a group of guys who all know and love the “real” ones. I had to stop by the store to pick up some necessary ingredients and as I was checking out I had the following conversation with the cashier – a cute old man who looked to be in his 70’s.


Cashier: How’re ya doin’ today?

Me: Pretty well, how about yourself?

Cashier: Just fantastic. Couldn’t be better. If I was any better I’d be twins!


*pause as he starts ringing up my groceries*


Cashier: Ya know, people just aren’t as happy as they used to be. They don’t enjoy life anymore. If people enjoyed life as much as I do they’d sure be a lot happier.

Me: So tell me, what’s your secret to enjoying life?

Cashier: Keeping a positive attitude and Smiling. People just need to smile more. Ya see, I’m like a mirror. If you smile at me I’ll smile right back. Don’t you forget it either. Keep on smiling and you’ll enjoy life just as much as I do.


And you know, he’s right! As I left the store, I couldn’t help but smile - not just to myself, but at everyone I passed as well. Maybe it was the hint of “down home country” in his speech or the way that he said it, or maybe it was just my lack of human (other than Ben) in the past couple days, but whatever the reason, his comment hit me and I can’t seem to stop thinking about it.




So, I guess that's what's been going on lately. I'll post the results when I finish those cookies later!

Where oh where has my brain gone?

What a day, oh, what a day... Tuesdays and Thursdays are my "free days." I don't have classes and the only thing that I have to do is show up for an hour to help with the class that I TA. Well, my mom's in town this week to help with wedding plans so I didn't even have to go to campus today. "Lucky" you might think. I didn't have to do a thing! Well, I wish it were so.

After waking up extra early to grade all 80+ of the assignments that I had completely forgotten about, I headed out with my mom and my gramma to get an early start on the wedding planning for the day. At about noon I remembered that I was supposed to meet with my German group to film a movie for class AND... I was supposed to make an apple pie for that as well! Something that big you'd think I would have remembered! After I finished the pie, the three of us ran to the tux shop and another tie store. I think I've reached a point where I never, Ever want to see a green tie again! We looked at so many - and that was after mom and gramma narrowed the selection down for me! :) Then I rushed off to campus to meet with my group. A five minute skit took 3 hours to film!!!! I feel bad for all of the people who take part in movie-making. That seems less glamorous than ever, now!

So now I'm sitting here trying to do some homework before tomorrow. Obviously I'm getting pretty far with that one. I'm able to focus on a lot of other things, but that German paper is still hanging over my head and I can't seem to get back into the "German groove." I've officially decided that my brain ran away without me. Here we are, the week before finals and I'm left without a brain! The same sort of thing happens with computers sometimes: There's too much information going on and so it just shuts off. That must be the problem that girls have. We try to do far too much and once we're working on about 17 projects as well as taking on our kids'/friends' problems, we just start forgetting things. Our brains just get far too busy to keep up with everything so they just turn off every once in a while.

Now if I could just figure out how to schedule that "reboot" period to better fit my life...

Bridals!

This past weekend was a blast! Saturday I had my bridal pictures taken. I got lucky because not only did my sister come with me, my mom just happened to be in Utah so she got to come down as well. We all went up to the Capitol building in Salt Lake City. I've never been there before and I was amazed. It's absolutely beautiful!

I had hoped to be able to do the bridals outside, but on a cold, windy day with snow in the forcast, there's only so much you can do. And a classical building with marble and pillars made a beautiful second choice. Mom took some pictures while we were there as well and as much as I'd love to post all of them, I can't. Ben doen't want to see me in my dress(/isn't supposed to see me) until the wedding day. So here's a couple that are maybe a little less "revealing." :D I'll post the rest later.

As if that wasn't exciting enough, we were graced by Marshall Nielsen's presence for the weekend as well. He flew out for the weekend to go skiing with Ben and Scotty. Aside from everyone getting sick, they all had a great time. :)

If you didn't guess, Ben's on the phone with me in that picture!

We also did a little test run on the restaurant Ben and I are wanting to have our wedding dinner at: Gloria's Little Italy. Like usual we gave high reviews. Since Ben and I first visited it in November, Gloria's has become our favorite restaurant. (In fact, Ben was going to propose there, but they were in the process of moving to a bigger and better location, so he chose La Caille instead.) Gloria's has the best Italian food I've had since I was in Italy!

Josh came down with mom and got to spend Saturday hanging out with "the guys" - Ben and Marshall. Afterwards well all went to dinner.

Bucket List

So I'm giving in and finally doing some of these tags. I guess that's what happens when you're sick at home and tired of doing homework. Oh well.... The first part is some of my own things, followed by the actual 'bucket list' tag. I made comments next to the ones that I've already done, and left the others blank.


See the Giant's Causway and visit County Cork, Irelan
Watch the sun rise and set over the oceans... on the same day!
Make a chair/blanket/pillow fort and have a picnic inside
Do an impressionist style painting
See the northern lights in Alaska
Learn to sail
Sail around Greece
Become fluent in German, Italian, Spanish, French, ...........
See the Amazon
while there, go fishing for piranhas and eat them roasted in banana leaves
Visit Punxautawney Phil on Groundhog's Day (again)
Go iceskating in Central Park
"frolic" in a huge field with long grass and lots of wild flowers
Spend a day building sand castles
Own a little restaurant/cafe/book shop


And now to the tag....


Donated Blood
Skipped school - saddly, yes
Watched someone die
Watched a baby being born - 4 in fact, my siblings as well as one of my cousins!
Been to Canada
Been to Mexico
Been to Florida
Been to Hawaii
Been to Africa
Been to Russia - does a half-Russian speaking country (Ukraine) count?
Been on a plane - definitely
Been on a helicopter
Been on a Glider Plane
Been lost - a few times, my favorite was getting lost in Florence and discovering we were miles off the map
Gone to Washington, DC
Hugged a homeless person
Swam in the ocean - most definitely, I can't seem to go anywhere near the ocean without getting wet
Seen a Glacier
Swam with Stingrays
Been sailing in the ocean
Cried yourself to sleep - another one of those unfortunately affirmative answers
Played cops and robbers
Recently colored with crayons
Ran a marathon
Sang Karaoke - Love it!!
Volunteered at a soup kitchen
Paid for a meal with coins only - to the dismay of the servers...
Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
Seen the Northern Lights
Been Parasailing
Been on TV - I think so, but I don't remember at the moment. :)
Done something you told yourself you wouldn't - yep: some I probably regret and some were awesome!
Been Streaking
Made prank phone calls
Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose - Orange Juice. Ouch!
Fed an elephant
Caught a snowflake on your tongue - Yes, but Ben always laughs at me when I try
Fired a gun - Of course.
Danced in the rain - So much fun! What could be better?
Been to the Opera - Shall I list them? My favorite is still The Barber of Saville
Written a letter to Santa Claus - And got a reply... Boojah!
Serenaded someone - That's what happenes when you play guitar
Seen a U.S.President in person
Been kissed under the mistletoe
Watched the sunrise with someone - No, but watching a sunset on the beach should count for something. :)
Driven a race car
Been to a National Museum
Been to a Wax Museum
Eaten caviar - One of those things I said I'd never do... and did. It wasn't terrible.
Blown bubbles - "Blasen" (bubbles) are one of the favorite passtimes in my apartment!
Gone ice-skating - in my back yard, in fact.
Gone to the movies - probably too often.
Been deep sea fishing
Driven across the United States
Been sky diving
Gone snowmobiling - does riding with my dad when I was 5 count?
Have seen the "Green Flash" at sunset
Lived in more than one country - Austria, baby! Can't wait to go back! :)
Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets - One of the most incredible, awe-inspiring, and breath-taking things a person could do. Too bad there aren't more places you can see the stars.
Seen a falling star and made a wish - Most recently was driving to CA last October.
Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
Seen the Grand Canyon
Seen the Statue of Liberty - From a distance
Been to Times Square - Yep, it's quite a sight at night.
Been to Las Vegas - Sure have!
Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
Been on a cruise
Traveled by train - Regular train (to Slovakia) and night train (to Italy) in fact.
Traveled by motorcycle - (on the back that is)
Been horse back riding - since I was two
Ridden on a San Francisco cable car
Been to Disneyland OR Disney World - Disneyland. My sister and I are working on the record for "the most consecutive rides on the 'Thunder Mountain Railroad'." We lost track last time.
Truly believe in the power of prayer - When you've actually seen the power of prayer, how can you not believe.
Been in a rain forest
Seen whales in the ocean
Been to Niagara Falls
Ridden on an Elephant
Ridden on a Camel
Swam with dolphins
Been to the Olympics
Walked on the Great Wall of China
Seen the Pyramids in Egypt
Been snow-skiing - Only once - I usually snowboard.
Been to Westminster Abbey
Been to the Louvre - Loved it, although I was half-asleep through some of it.
Swam in the Mediterranean
Been to a Major League Baseball game
Been to a National Football League game
Swam with sharks
Been White Water Rafting
Written a book or screen play - And won a contest with my book and had it put in the county library (that was in third grade though).

Inspiration

Just some of the ideas I've come up with for wedding themes/ideas while poking around the internet. :)

Engagement Pictures

While we were in Montana over Christmas Break, we decided to have a good friend of mine (Margie Judd) take our Engagement Pictures. It was freezing! Actually, it was below freezing and it was snowing and the wind was blowing really hard. However, it was worth the pain and loss of minor limbs. Margie is a great photographer and I love the way our pictures turned out!

This last picture is my engagement ring. I acutally got to design it and I absolutely love it!
Ben did a great job. :)

If you didn't get it from my last post...

...I'm Engaged!!!

Ben and I met over the summer on a blind date while I was visiting my "sister" in San Francisco. She thought it'd be fun for me to go on a date while I was there and arranged, with his sister-in-law, for us to meet. He had a fun evening planned with dinner followed by a sand-castle-building-competition at the beach. We went to the Elephant Bar Restaurant in Burlingame where I had the MisoYaki Fresh Grilled Salmon.
It was absolutely delicious! In fact, I still crave it every so often. Ben decided to be original with a couple mini-burgers and fries. We started talking and basically never stopped. By the time we finished our Chocolate molten lava cake and Crème Brulee, the fog had rolled in off the Bay and it was completely dark outside. We had to go to Plan B: watching a movie over at his house... Serendipity. That was Wednesday.

On Thursday we decided to go to the beach for part 2 of our first date: The Sand Castle Competition. The competition part didn't work out so well, but we did end up making one fine sand castle.
Ben was so cute though! He brought a blanket and buckets and even packed a picnic dinner. After building the sand castle and getting drenched in the tide (like usual, I can't go to the ocean and stay dry), he carried me back to the car where we dried off and then sat on a bench to watch the sun set. Wie romantisch!
Afterwards we went back to Meagan's and helped her set up a facebook account. :)

Friday I was going to babysit for Meagan and Benj while they went on a date. At the last minute I decided to take Ben up on his offer to help me babysit. He came over and we had a blast taking care of Meagan's girls.


I discovered that Ben is great with kids!
I remeber thinking that it was too bad I wasn't that interested in him, because he was going to make a great father some day. He read to Ella while I put Anne to bed and then the three of us had a dance party in the living room.

***4 Months Later***

The Engagement Story. December 5, 2008

We were studying/watching a movie at my house when he got a phone call and had to leave suddenly. I was grading papers and paying more attention to the movie than to his phone call, so I didn't really mind, especially when he said it would only take 30 minutes.
Soon after he left, the doorbell rang and there were 5 roses sitting on the front porch, each with a different reason of why he loves me tied to it. It was so cute! At first I had a feeling that he was going to propose, but I talkled myself out of it saying that he did cute things like that all the time. I put the roses in a vase and sat back down to continue my movie/grading. As soon as I got comfortable, the doorbell rang again! There were another few roses with more reasons. I put those in the vase as well and sat down again. Just like before, as soon as I got comfortable the doorbell rang again!
This continued until I had 23 roses, each with a different reason why he loves me. The last rose came just before I sat down (thankfully) with a note telling me that I had dinner reservations at 6 and my chauffer would be picking me up at 5, to put on a nice dress and call my sister if I had any questions.
So... I sat down and finished grading the papers. When I looked at the clock I only had 10 minutes to get ready, so I panicked and ran around trying to find something to wear. I finished getting ready just as his roommate arrived and we headed out on the long drive to Sandy, UT, to the most incredible restaurant I've been to this side of the Atlantic: La Caille. It's a beautiful French restaurant built in the style of a French Chateau with most of the antiques imported from France.
We drove up the tree-lined drive where everything was decorated with Christmas lights and I was completely in awe of the whole thing. When we arrived, we went up to the third floor where Ben was waiting for me. He had the whole floor reserved so that we were completely alone. We had an amazing meal (Baked Onion Soup, Apple and Walnut salad on Butter lettuce, and Eastern Duck in a pomegranate sauce for me and Lobster Bisque, Arugula and Goat cheese salad, and a Steak with Scotch-Peppercorn sauce for Ben). It was another one of those meals where, afterward, I never wanted to eat again, for fear of doing that meal an injustice.
After dinner we went outside in what may have seemed a futile attempt to die of frostbite, but was really just another part of a wonderfully romantic evening - looking at all the Christmas lights. We walked around the grounds and then up the hill to a gazebo by a little pond. I was completely enthralled by the swan so I didn't notice the bench or the little box sitting on it. Ben suggested that we sit down and I when turned around he pretended to be startled and asked what it was. He sat me down on the bench and then got down on one knee and told me how much he loves me and asked me to marry him. As I said yes, I noticed camera flashes all around us. Then my sister and cousin jumped out of the bushes and took a ton of pictures of us, making us pose all over the grounds as well. He was so cute about all of it and it really couldn't have been more perfect. :)

Be Careful What You Wish For...

Wow. It's already the end of January! I can't believe how fast the time has flown by. As I looked at the date on my last post I decided that I should probably write something. My life has taken some interesting twists and turns in the past few months.
When I was younger, I used to look at people in the movies and think that they had to coolest lives and I would wish that my life was more exciting. Well, I got my wish. Basically, my life is like a movie, and just when I think it's finally over, something new happens. Recently it's been rather stressful (that, and school are what have kept me from adding to my blog), but when I'm able to take a step back and look at the big picture, it's rather amusing!
(*keep in mind movies like "The Notebook," "Made of Honor," and "Bride Wars.")


"Once upon a time there was a girl... She was dating a really great guy, but while visiting an out-of-state friend she was set up on a blind 'fun date'. She had a great time with the blind date, but still really liked her boyfriend. Sadly, her boyfriend went to a different school so she rarely got to see him. Mr. Blind Date, however, went to the same school as her and they enjoyed spending most of their time together doing fun things that friends do. Soon, Mr. Blind Date became Mr. Wonderful and she broke up with her boyfriend and started dating Mr. Wonderful. Just when she thought things were going smoothly, Mr. Fantastic decided to jump into the picture.

Mr. Fantastic was her best friend and missionary whom she had been writing to faithfully for 3.5 years. He came home from his mission and she decided to take a road trip out to see him. As fantastic and awesome as he was, and even though she had hoped/planned to marry him soon after he came home, she was falling in love with Mr. Wonderful. She started talking to Mr. Fantastic more often and she found out that they would be living next door starting in January, as well as taking one of the same classes. Then one night he asked her not to rush into the decision she was facing with Mr. Wonderful and to marry him instead. Unsure of what to do, she decided she needed some time away from both guys to figure things out. She wasn't that lucky. Then very next day, she was swept off to an incredible restaurant by Mr. Wonderful where he asked her to be his wife. As if two proposals in two days by the two men int the world she would marry wasn't quite enough excitement, she received a surprising phone call the following day. Mr. Fantastic had flown out to visit for the weekend! Talk about crazy!

After spending time with both Mr. Wonderful and Mr. Fantastic, she knew she had to make a decision fast. There was more stress, confusion, and sleep deprivation than she would have liked, and she almost lost the most incredible man in world, but in the end it all worked out. Taking into account the timing of things and her future plans among many other things, she realized that marrying Mr. Wonderful was the right decision. It was one of the hardest decisions she'd ever made, but now she is completely in love with Mr. Wonderful and couldn't be happier because that's exactly what he is: wonderful.

Now she had hoped that was the end of the story and they would get married and live happily ever after. Well, for the most part that's how it goes. But you didn't think her life would be so dull did you? Since October she had been tentatively planning bits and pieces of her wedding and was now able to dive in full force and get everything planned. The wedding date was set. As she searched for a place to hold the reception, she got the exciting news. Her roommate was getting married! What fun! Now the two of them could work on wedding plans together. Then they set the date and picked a location. Her roommate was getting married the same day as her. In the same place. One hour after she was!!! Was this some kind of joke? How impossible! Ah, but of course, knowing the story of her life, she should have expected something like this. Now not only does she have to plan a wedding while going to school, but she gets to make sure everything stays civil and friendly in all of the wedding planning that's going on.

I guess we'll just have to wait to see what will happen next..."