Best video ever.

This is adorable. Watch it like 5 times. And think of your childhood. And laugh.

I think I'm going to watch it again…

Can someone say BOSTON?!

Ok, so Ryan should totally be writing this post, but I'll do the honors and he can write a follow-up.

We're going to BU this fall!!

For those of you who don't know, Ryan was accepted to Boston University Law a few weeks back and we've decided to pack our bags and head to New England this fall. It's a bit crazy and a little surreal, but I'm excited for a new adventure and for new opportunities.

Here's to 7 more weeks in Provo, a little family vacay in July, and then moving to Boston (even though I've never even been and we're not going until we're moving…we're crazy and cool, we know)!!

nbd, just hanging out at St. Peters...

Hero

Story time.

When I was in a group called "Singing Boys and Singing Girls" (original, no?) in 6th grade, we went to a contest in San Antonio, I think, and me and all the girls in the car (while my mom graciously volunteered to drive) decided to listen to Hero, by Mariah Carey, practically the entire way there.

No really. We put it on repeat and after a couple of times she'd make us listen to another song in between Hero, to break it up a little.

Well, I heard the song on the radio the other day and I thought of that trip and how I was a crazy, dorky, pre-teen and then thought of me raising pre-teens one day…shutter.

Ha, ok, I wasn't that bad, but man, my mom was so good to us! Hopefully I can be as cool as her.

And for your viewing entertainment, I bring you, Mariah Carey.

http://youtu.be/0IA3ZvCkRkQ  (Turns out I can't embed it, but this is probably the best one out there. Oh, and you'll thank me for this lovely flashback to the late 90's so trust me, you've gotta watch it:)

Rome: Day two. AM

Thursday was our day in Rome that we pretty much did and saw everything we could in 24 hours. We wanted to get as much done as possible since we knew the next day would pretty much just be Vatican City and then we could do whatever we didn't get to on Saturday.

We started at the Colosseum. Holy Moley, it was so cool to see it in person! It's definitely not as big as it was in it's prime, but it was still so cool. Did you know there are so many holes in it because people used to loot the metal from it to save money and re-use resources? Kinda classy and environmentally friendly…and cheap and sad too, but what can you do. We bought a tour as our first day in Rome extravagance and learned loads. We bought our tickets and went to Palantine Hill first, went to our tour and then saw the Roman Forum all in a few hours. Can someone say coolest ruins ever???

I think my favorite part of Rome was just seeing history at every turn. I mean, you can walk down the street and there are just discarded columns and stone from who knows when?! Rad.

Happy Birthday Kaylea!!!

My sister is absolutely amazing and today's her birthday! I can't believe that she got married and she's about to have a baby all in the same year! I'll take a wild guess and say that this is probably the best year of her life :) I'm so stoked to be an aunt and I'm so grateful that I can call Kaylea whenever something arises and she totally has a listening ear and gives great advice too.

Happy Birthday little sister! You really are the best.

Rome Day 1: Trevi Fountain

After leaving Provo in the am on Tuesday, we arrived in Italy at our B&B Wednesday evening, around 6 (don't even get me started on how I wish I lived in London so Italy could only be a three or four hour plane ride away…) and then set off for Trevi fountain.

[[ps, we actually got some pizza at a restaurant near our B&B but it was awful. They had sausage on it that was mostly pink and not even cooked, and I was not about to get food-poisoning on our first night in Rome, so we don't really count that as our first meal.]]

Turns out, the Trevi fountain is Ryan's favorite place in all of Rome, and at night it is so pretty! Flocks of tourists just sitting on the fountain's steps, listening to the water gushing out and eating their gelato. Lovers taking pictures of one another, of themselves, and everyone just basking in the light of the fountain. It was absolutely beautiful and the best first-memory of Italy.

Want a picture?

At the fountain, there's a little saying about throwing coins in. One for luck, two for love, three to come back. Naturally, I threw in three. I've already got a pretty sweet husband, and an awesome family and super rad friends, so I'd say I'm pretty lucky, and very loved. Here's to coming back to Italy!!

After Trevi fountain we found some gelato, since I just HAD to have some on my first day in Italy, and let me tell you, it did not dissapoint. Some of the best coconut gelato ever. Oh and another picture to tell y'all just how excited/happy/pumped/joyous we were?

Um, don't judge my lack of make-up, we'd been traveling forever and I totally looked cute as we left SLC Tuesday morning, but we took these pictures Wednesday night. Yeah, calculate that little fact in your mind right now…

The next day was fabulous, I can't wait to post more and relive the awesomeness!!

Saturdays are awesome and you should eat this greek salad right now.

Don't hate me, but this isn't an Italy post. I'm super behind in just about everything right now, but I just wanted to post something that's actually happening (aka not having to schedule a post for while I'm at work or scheduling recipes I made weeks ago that I completely forgot about).

As we get ready for the big move across the country, today and yesterday we cleaned out a ton of stuff ang gave 5 or 6 garbage bags to DI of random clothes, Kaylea's duvet cover that we've had for way too long (remember that orange and white one and the matching orange body pillow? yeah, totally still had that) and old clothes of Ryan's. The sad part is that our house still looks exactly the same. Ha.

Also, I menu-planned yesterday and I must say, we're eating some rad meals this week. We went shopping this morning and the only packaged things we bought were saurkraut and some pitted kalamata olives. Oh yeah, this week will be so good. I just can't get italy out of my head and all the fresh food we ate. We've got some packaged foods like soups and rice a roni to eat before we leave, so we'll try to eat that, but I just can't make myself buy that stuff anymore. We'll see what happens when we move and our expenses increase, but hopefully we can stick to fresh foods > packaged foods in our diet.

Oh and I just made PW's Greek Salad. I highly recommend it. Like, right now. It's beautiful and sunny outside and eating this salad totally completes this summer day. Plus, I think Ryan and I will be playing a little whiffle ball and going on a run lated today. Man, this weekend rocks. Oh, and just to show you how good this salad is, and since no post is truly complete without a picture:

Italia

We're back from our one week vacation to Italy! We had a blast and were very fortunate to have so many things go well for us. This is just a teaser post, unfortunately. More will come with lots of pictures. It's good to be home, but there's a part of us that wants to go back and enjoy that Italian sunshine and the beautiful view from Piazzale Michelangelo...

Sweet and Sour Meatballs (Mel's Kitchen Cafe-style)

Ok, so I've already blogged about sweet and sour meatballs before, but as I was looking for a recipe to use up our ground beef, I came across Melanie's sweet and sour meatballs and decided to give them a go.  We really liked them and they were pretty quick to put together and bake too! Melanie said that they were a go-to favorite meal that her husband requests, so I knew I just had to make these babies.

photo via Mel's Kitchen Cafe

Another hats off to Mel (NOTE: Maybe I should be in a fan club of hers, really, I may need some therapy or something. Sometimes I go to her website and look at the pictures of the meals and desserts on her sidebar and I want to make them all, seriously, she's my go-to blog. If you haven't gone over to her blog yet, go. I guarantee you can bookmark 5 recipes (for example, I want to make: this, this, this, this, and these) in a matter of minutes.)

No really, you have to go now.

Asian Chicken Wraps

Another hats of for Mel and her delicious recipes. Ryan actually made these babies and they were scrumdillyumptious. Furreal. So make these soon, or have your man make them, he'll be so proud of himself.

Want proof? I was licking my plate, literally, since these babies were messy and delicious and wonderful. Ryan totally didn't approve. I don't lick my plate in public, so licking it at home is ok, right?

Our kids will have some great manners thanks to me, haha.

You can find the terrific recipe here.
update: I posted the link, sorry about that!

Here's a picture just to start your saliva juices flowin. :)