The art of letters

I just saw this video from a blog called Design Sponge and I thought I'd share it. I was looking at classes that the city of Provo offers, like pottery and cooking classes and I'm excited to take classes like that one day. Some are offered in the afternoon, which would be perfect for stay at home moms, so I think that's cool.

Legacy of Letters from Luca Barcellona on Vimeo.

Speaking of being artistic (and boy does this video make me wish I had talent like that), I'm planning on making Christmas presents this year instead of buying everything. I'm pumped and even though I won't be able to post what I make until after the holidays, hopefully I'll make some decor for our home too and I'll definitely post that.

I love my baby sister, and kaylea too

Brynn is amazing and I love that I've been able to see her a ton this fall. I'll see her in a few weeks, but in the mean time, I get to read her snazzy new BLOG. That's right, the Dalby family now has 3 lovely blogs to entertain you. There's B's blog, then there's Kaylea's (it's how I found out about it, thanks Kaylea) and of course, mine.

In honor of super awesome and rad blogs, here are some pictures of my sister siblings that I love (and that I think they love too). And that I think are all you need to see before you quickly become addicted to their blogs and anxiously await their next blog post .

PS I was looking through my old blog recently and I thought I'd start re-posting some of my favorite pictures and posts and maybe include my food blog recipes on here too, since I'm so bad at posting them on the other blog.

I know, it's too bad you can't be their dorky older sister, but we all can't be that lucky...

Lovely.

Doughnuts and ho cho at work in honor of the first snow of the season (Thanks Elise!).

I love my job. Especially when free food is involved...

Weekend Review: It's officially Fall weather

If I could capture this weekend in one picture it would be this:

This weekend the leaves were falling like crazy on our side of the apartment complex and then it got a little cooler and the heavens decided to rain cats and dogs all day on Sunday. I finally got to wear tights and even though I had approximately 10 minutes to get ready for church, I decided that my outfit looked especially snazzy, even if there's no picture to show for it.

We had a great weekend filled with local election-calling, office-watching, breakfast-for-dinner eating and all things good. Here's to a good week!

On Voting...

Yup, Ryan and I are officially registered to vote in Utah! I know, we're pretty good citizens, what can we say. I'm pretty excited to get my "I voted" sticker this November, not going to lie. Also, I won't lie that even though I'm no longer a resident of Indiana, or a college student, my IN license is pretty worthless and maybe illegal. Meh. I just don't want a Utah license. Nothing against Utah or anything, I just don't want it. Unless we go to law school out here and then I'll get one, but until that day, I'm definitely holding out.

Bridal Veil Falls

Last Saturday we walked around the Bridal Veil Falls area and took a ton of pictures as we walked. I've only uploaded my SLR pictures so I'll just post them for now. I've decided that I'll post more pictures now, since I'm beginning to intern with THIS lovely lady in the near future and my photog skills will only get better (cross your fingers). Either way, I love Utah in the fall and the weather was so perfect for this walk. The leaves are already starting to fall and although it makes the trees a bit uglier, I'm stoked for some rad leaf-pile shots.

Anyone else have some great fall pictures? Let me see 'em! Even if you just stalk by blog, come on, you know you want to link yours…. :)

True Beauty

I've fallen in love with an article called, "True Beauty" from a New Era (a Church magazine for youth 12-18) article from 2008. There's something about reading an article and reflecting on how to become better on a beautiful Sunday evening. There's nothing like getting a little frustrated, and then reading an article that reminds me who I am, that I am a daughter of God, and I'm not so frustrated anymore.

Here's one of the quotes that came out of it that I love: "A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart." Optimism, baby.

I love Sundays.

(read it with beautiful Mindy Gledhill in the background and there's no way you won't have a peaceful feeling)

Weekend Review: Finally, a good movie at the dollar theater

Yes, Ryan and I live for good dollar theater movies and don't have such a good track record with full-priced movies, so we stick with what we know.

This weekend we saw Toy Story 3 and it totally did not disappoint. Just talking about it with my little sister totally made her tear up all over again. Yes, I cried. Yes, we loved it. If you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for???

This weekend we also watched a super disappointing BYU/TCU game (they're ranked number four so it's totally ok that we were disgraceful, right?), walked around the Bridal Veil Falls area and took tons of pictures (to come shortly!) and I made a mean chicken noodle soup with homemade noodles. Brynn came to stay with us for the weekend too and even though we didn't see that much of her we absolutely loved having her around.

It turned out to be a great weekend and I think this week will be just as fabulous.

High school football anyone?

First off, I love my new job. I love the girls I work with, most of all. So when I heard that there was going to be a get-together on Wednesday nigh consisting of chili cheese dogs and high school football, I knew these girls were even cooler than I thought!

At first I was a little skeptical of a high school football game on a Wednesday night, but then I remembered that Utah has/had Fall Break at the end of this week, so the game was technically on a Friday, school-wise. We were supposed to dress up in their school colors (Maple Mountain was maroon and gold and Ogden was black and orange (talk about awful)) and that was when I realized that I didn't own any maroon. I know I have at one point in my life, but I must have given the maroon stuff away! Either way, I looked like I was going to a Halloween work party.

But when I got to the game and saw the score, I promptly zipped up by blue coat and rooted for the Maple Mountain Eagles. What can I say, I like rooting for a winning team! Also, I'm from Texas, where high school football rules, so I gave the girls a run for their money and cheered as loudly as possible. Maybe the others around us where a little frightened by my intensity, but someone had to do it, right??

PS I didn't smell alcohol the whole game. Also, there weren't policeman hovering over the student section. That was definitely not the case at good 'ol CHS...

A wedding on my mind

Since my little sister is getting married this January I've definitely got weddings on my mind. I really want to do something fun to help her out, as my gift to her (along with something sweet B and I will go in on) and I've been looking and looking and searching for wedding reception ideas as well as looking at wedding photography so that I could take a few unofficial shots of them and add to my portfolio.

Here are two of my favorites as of yet; one of a favor and one of a pose. Kaylea (my sis) really wants some sort of photo booth, so I thought this idea of making your own props would be way fun (found here). And I'm absolutely in love with all of Lexi's wedding pictures. She was in my freshman ward and probably doesn't know that I've copied and pasted her Facebook photos to my favorite wedding pictures folder in iPhoto, but oh well.

Nutted Wild Rice

This is quickly becoming my favorite side dish. I first had it in DC this summer and I can't wait to make it again. And even though it's officially called "Nutted Wild Rice" I also like the name "Fancy Rice" along with "Sister Harding's Amazing Rice". Whatever you call it, it's amazing.

Here's a picture of the meal we ate last night (the chicken was so good too, I'll post the marinade soon). Seriously, it's divine. It's from the Silver Palate Cookbook. Thanks Sister Harding for this amazing recipe!!

Nutted Wild Rice
1 cup raw wild rice *or you could use a brown rice/wild rice combo or whatever
5 1/2 cups chicken stock *or water
1 cup pecan halves *I chopped them into smaller pieces
1 cup yellow raisins
grated rind of 1 large orange
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint *I used dried, so 4T
4 scallions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup fresh orange juice *a medium orange should give you about this much, or substitute store-bought oj
1 1/2 t salt
more salt and pepper to taste

1. Put rice in a stainer and run under cold water, rinse thoroughly.
2. Place rice in a medium-sized heavy saucepan. Add stock or water and bring to a rapid boil. Adjust heat to a gentle simmer and cook uncovered for 45 minutes. After 30 minutes check for doneness; rice should not be too soft. Place a thin towel inside a colander and turn rice into the colander and dreain. Transfer drained rice to a bowl.
3. Add remaining ingredients to rice and toss gently. Adjust seasoning to taste *this is the part that I love.  You can really go to town and add more or less of whatever ingredients you love/not-so much love*. Let mixture stand for 2 hours to allow the flavors to develop. Serve at room temperature *We ate this after about an hour and a half, but the more you let it sit, the better the flavors meld. I can't wait to make this dish for Sunday dinner and make it before we leave for church!

Serves 6

Mid-life Blog Crisis

I just can't seem to find that perfect bloggy background. So here's to another change and an odd layout for now, since I'm in the last five minutes of my lunch break and don't really have time to fix it.

However, I would like to say that Miriam's bread, made by Whitney this Sunday and given to me since it made a few loaves, is amazing. Especially as bread for my sandwich. Seriously, so good. Once I snag the recipe I'll be sure to put it up on here or that cooking blog of mine that I've been very, very neglectful of.

Sorry!

Last night we played Sorry! for FHE. We read a talk from the most recent GC (they're totally on the ball!) and then played two awesome games of Sorry.

As you can tell, I won the first game and Ry won the second. They were both pretty close games, so it was a lot of fun. Seriously, I love the game of Sorry. If anyone wants to play me sometime, they should definitely come over. I tend to be super competitive over things/game that shouldn't be competitive, like Sorry, so you're in for a treat.

Also, this is how I really felt after losing.

You can see how close I was to winning…he just beat me to it.

Weekend Review: Apparently we laugh pretty loud.

This weekend was actually pretty chill. My dad called me Sunday night but I only had 10 minutes to talk and when he asked about my weekend I couldn't really think of anything cool that we did. That's always a bummer to me, when you can't remember the things you did over the weekend. but in case you were wondering, here's how it went down:

On Friday I went into work for a girl who was sick, so I felt bad for her but it was great to get more hours in. Ry and I had a lazy Friday since he was prepping his mind for the dreaded LSAT (boo).

Saturday was the big day and he's finally done forever (keep your fingers crossed) and while he was focussing hard on his test, I watched Best in Show and two episodes of 30 Rock. I use my Saturdays oh so well. Then we watched the BYU game and we finally won a game! Oliver and Julie came over and watched the game with us (they're true fans officially…in their final semester at BYU :) and we had an AMAZING meal of Julie's famous chicken chili and I made bread bowls for it. That's right. Homemade bread bowls. They were rad, just sayin.

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Oh, and as for the title, we played Scrabble afterwards and it was not a good evaluation of our vocabulary levels. It was a long time before we thought of words with two vowels (just ask Oliver) and we were busting up quite a bit. Then today, someone at church mentioned how they were going on a walk around our quad and could hear us laughing up a storm. And how they walked by when we had Josh and Miriam over and could hear us all laughing then too. Turns out if you know how to laugh loudly, you can be our friends :)

Have a great week everyone! Hopefully I won't be as lame as last week as post a bit more.

Soup Failure

Turns out you can't make butternut squash soup with spaghetti squash. I PROMISE that the sign said "butternut squash" at the store...too bad I didn't even really know what they looked like so I couldn't make an educated decision and look and say, "nope, those don't look a thing like the squash I wanted to buy."

Oh well. I tried. I failed. I tried to puree it as much as I could, and added some sugar too, but I just couldn't eat it. It reminded me of the time I tried to make carrot juice. Carrots in a blender taste like carrots. Mushed. Awful.

Well it turns out it wasn't that bad, since Ry had two bowls of it before I tossed the rest. It reminded me of how my dad would sometimes finish off our food so it wasn't wasted. Such a dad thing to do. And it reminds me of how many characteristics Ry has that remind me of my awesome dad.

On that note, if you're in the mood for soup, try this recipe. It's the one I was planning on making. And if I ever buy butternut squash (I'm planning on buying and re-making the soup this weekend) I'll put it on the blog. Because food failure is SO not cool.

Good Luck Ry!

Ry takes his LSAT this Saturday! If everyone could say a little prayer for him, we'd totally appreciate it. I know this week has been a tough week for him studying for this along with two midterms and writing a group paper and completing a research paper outline.

He's a stud and I think one of the biggest lessons that I've learned this last week as he's been hardcore focusing: I hate doing the dishes. I'm known for making a mess in the kitchen, but usually Ry helps me clean and does the dishes. I've been doing the dishes so Ry can have more time to do his homework and I absolutely abhor it. Seriously, Ry is a major stud and I'm so grateful he does the dishes and so much more to help out.

All in all, I know that Ryan will do great and I am so excited for this next year of our lives, wherever we will be.

Have I mentioned that Ry is a stud??

Weekend Review: Conference, Mission, Peaches, Neighbors

*from a photo session with my sister this weekend*

I feel like such a slacker! I haven't blogged in, it seems like, forever! Sorry all you faithful readers, but Ry's been hogging the computer and I've been working and hanging out with him every second that I can squeeze in since his LSAT test is this Saturday and he's been studying like a mad-man.

I can't believe this Saturday is finally approaching! Ryan is totally my hero and he's been studying so hard, I'm so proud of him. He works so hard!

In other news, here's the weekend review!

1. General Conference was amazing. I haven't downloaded the talks to my podcasts yet, but I'm so excited to do that and get the Ensign and read them all a few times, before April comes around!

2. I can't believe that we went to our last mission reunion while living in Utah*. Ryan was able to meet up with the last mission president he had and touch base with his first one too. I brought Brynn for the ride this time and it was nice having someone else to talk with while Ryan chit-chatted with all his buddies (he didn't even have time to sit down to his dinner, he ate standing up!).

3. I bought some AMAZING peaches from BYU's farmer's market and made some peach cobbler just last night! I didn't take a picture since it's too dark, but maybe tomorrow when the lighting is better I can show you the cobbler(s) in all their glory.

4. Our neighbors are amazing. At 10 pm last night Josh came over to give us a few slices of bread Miriam had made and helped us turn on our heater. Then I gave him a cobbler and as he was leaving to get us more bread the Mellors came home from an ultimate frisbee game and we talked in the stairwell for a good 10 minutes or even 20? I love being friends with my neighbors, it totally makes a difference in life!

*Well, we don't know where we're going to law school yet, and he's applying to BYU so there's a chance we could stay here, but we have our eyes set elsewhere. Who know's where we'll be in a year, but keep your fingers crossed it'll be east of Utah.

college football.

Don't even get me started with BYU's game tonight. Actually, all colleges have rough years, it's just a bummer when you're actually at the school, in the town, when that rough year comes.

On a better note, I'm in Ryan's College Pick 'Em group. And I'm currently in 1st place (nbd). Actually, I've been in first place for the past 3 weeks. I won't tell Ry or any of his friends how I do it, and I don't even look at Ry's picks, since it'll totally mess me up.

Pretty much, I'm amazing. Keep your fingers crossed I can stay in 1st after tomorrow!!

Also, I can't wait to go to GC with Brynn and Ry tomorrow morning. This weekend will rock.

i love fall in utah!