Who did Brandon marry? Idk, my bff… Kara?

We flew out to Chico, CA this past weekend for the wedding of one of my favorite half asian twins/yayas/roommates/bffs. It was a beautiful wedding with details that would put Martha to shame.

Congratulations Kara and Brandon!

The future Mr. and Mrs. Leen with Brook Daly, Brandon’s uncle and effective matchmaker.

The Leens

A similar photo was taken last year at Jamie’s wedding with all of our married friends looking gleeful with our wedding rings and kara sat in the middle with a pouty face.

The Swensons: The first of the three Yayas to get married off.

Heaps upon Heaps: Easter Weekend

Suburban life is upon us on this glorious Easter weekend. Saturday morning started out with a 9 am neighborhood Easter egg hunt and breakfast pot luck down at the end of the culdesac. There must have been at least 20 or so kids under age 8 and their accompanying parents and grandparents (not all live on the street, but there are probably at least 10 here). Add that to the approximately 60 dozen filled plastic eggs (if you wanted to participate, you were supposed to bring 3 dozen eggs the night before), and you’ve got yourself a party. Although we have no kids and are over the age cut off for the egg hunt (age 12), we had a really good time meeting our new neighbors. There are some new families with young kids as well as some really friendly older families with kids in high school and some with grandkids. Apparently the neighborhood holds two street parties a year: the egg hunt and 4th of July. We were told to wear fire retardant clothing and bring eye protection for that one. Given his history with explosives and the law, maybe July isn’t a good time for Tyler to visit. Or David, for that matter.

The rest of the day was spent in true homeownership style (at least the definition created by Marshall and Mollie). We went to Home Depot, got some blinds and a rake and went to work. I am pleased to announce that, thanks to my very handy husband, we are no longer sporting the mismatched sheets on windows. We now have blinds! At least in the living room. All other rooms will have to wait.

One nice thing about our house is that we have a yard.  One bad thing about our house is that we have a yard.  Today we raked and raked and raked. Since the house has been unoccupied and then covered in snow for the last many months, the poor lawn has a nice layer of pine cones, needles and leaves that have had the added benefit of being compressed by about a foot of snow the entire winter. We made heaps upon heaps of needles, cones and leaves and now have to figure out how to dispose of our heaps. At the moment it looks like our yard has been invaded by lawn-dwelling beavers.

Although there were no eggs in sight for our Easter dinner, Shane, Lucas (our new basement-dwelling renter), Clinton and I enjoyed the feast and then headed out the back gate to our OTHER back yard (the one we DON’T have to mow or rake) and played frisbee until it was too dark. WE LOVE OUR NEW HOME!!!

Life as new homeowners: so far so good.

Well apparently the masses (all relatives, mind you… what an ornery bunch) have spoken and we are now posting an update. The last few months have been filled with skiing, fun company and enjoying life. Oh, and buying a house. About that…

In a rather quick and painless (aside from the whole mortgage thing) turn of events, we closed on our house on leap day and moved into it a week and a half ago. We were hoping that there would be financial advantages to closing on the 29th (like only having to pay insurance and taxes every 4 years, etc.), but apparently that is not the case. We don’t have internet access yet which explains why we haven’t set out to blog about this development yet. More details later since I’m at work right now and am not exactly what we like to call “billable” at the moment.

We love our new house. It is everything we wanted, and it will fill our needs for a very long time. It’s down in Cottonwood Heights, at the mouth of the canyons on a culdesac backing up to a huge park and rec center. It is an older rambler that has been completely gutted within the last year and remodeled with all new flooring, kitchen, bathrooms, windows, finished basement, etc. It’s basically a new house in an established neighborhood with huge trees (slacklining!) and a view. We have tons of room and are anxious to have people over. If you’re thinking about heading out our way, let us know. We still have a few boxes to unpack and could use the help. Just kidding. We wouldn’t do that.

We’ll post a couple more pictures once we’re all moved in and have something a little cuter than old sheets covering the windows. Or maybe when old sheets come back in style. Which ever comes first.

December = Month of Family: Skiing Edition

The awful weather we experienced on Christmas eve was good for one thing. Well, two things, actually: tons of snow in the mountains and the knowledge that there is a Micronesian island nation called Kiribati (that sends female missionaries to be tour guides at Temple Square). You can guess which fact we were more excited about.

Scared off by the weather experiences from the day before, the parents decided to stay at our house for the day while the rest of us headed down to Alta to go skiing. One of the perks of my new job is transferable season passes, so all four of us got to ski for free. And despite this fact, Marshall and Mollie STILL haven’t been up to take advantage of them. tsk tsk.

We were glad that the weather and snow conditions cooperated for the boys, given their 10-odd year hiatus from the sport. Bluebird powder conditions abounded.

After deciding that the boys and I were ready for a little more excitement, Shane led us out of bounds to do a little bit of backcountry powder skiing. It was incredibly fun, even though we all had varying levels of success. I think David’s hooked. Despite his lack of proximity to snow (about 6.5 hours drive to anything decent), he’s already started to purchase ski gear from where else, but steepandcheap.com.

Jeff decided he wanted to take a break from skiing powder quite suddenly.

Luckily the powder was really fluffy and soft.

After our first run down through the powder with no falls and great turns, Shane decided to whip out the video camera to catch the next one on film.

Tragically we used up all our talent on the first go around, and our second round was only marginally better. What we lack in skill we make up in something else. We’re not sure what that “something else” is yet, but we’re bound to find it, eventually.

Check it out:

And an even more glamorous take two:

December = Month of Family: SLC Edition

After a wonderful weekend down in Zion and St. George, we headed back up to Salt Lake for my family’s first time in the city and first time at our new home. We decided to show them around town on Christmas Eve. It was great weather… in the mid 40s and sunny. We hit up a few of the must sees (our list is probably different than most everyone elses’): lunch at Pho Saigon, the backcountry.com / steepandcheap.com headquarters, and the massive asian and mexican markets in West Valley City. Nothing disappointed. David was nearly breathless when he arrived at his version of mecca. Really, we’re quite easy to please.

We headed towards downtown to see the city a little after lunch. Parking at the Gateway mall, we walked over to TRAX and waited for our trolley to Temple Square. Figuring that it is the landmark of Salt Lake, and that we actually had never been there yet, we wanted to check it out. When in Rome, I guess. The weather took a sudden turn for the worst while we were waiting the 3 or so minutes for our trolley. The sky clouded over, the wind picked up and the temperature dropped a good 15 degrees. Not exactly dressed for the weather (hey, it was really nice that morning!), my family got to see what winter is really like.

We waited in the visitor’s center of the temple for about 20 minutes for our “30 minute” tour. Apparently they had to switch the tour guides from Texas for ones that were decidedly more asian (one from Hong Kong and the other from Kiribati, a small island by the Marshall Islands). They barely spoke English and repeated everything the other one said. Normally this would be helpful since there was such a large language barrier, but the repeating sister’s accent didn’t assist in our understanding at all. It just made the tour last twice as long. While waiting for our tour to start, the weather took yet another turn. The rain turned to sleet and then to snow. Our tour was by far the most miserable, yet most memorable part of the day. We were able to take a break from the weather inside the tabernacle and pose for a picture that our guide insisted she take so we could remember our tour of Temple Square.

Luckily we were able to embrace the winter weather a little better the next day at Alta, where all the kids went skiing and the parents locked themselves inside our house, afraid of the mysterious white stuff that apparently was too cold for the Santa Barbarian lightweights.

December = Month of Family: Zion Edition

One of the great things about living in Utah is its proximity to absolutely amazing national parks and other attractions. We met my family down in Zion the weekend before Christmas. It’s a pretty easy 4.5 hour drive south from our house which culminated in my first van camping experience, per Shane’s insistence.

And despite the fact that it was in the 20s at night, it wasn’t that bad (please don’t tell Shane… It’s not like I really want to partake in that adventure again). I was warm and toasty but slightly disheveled in the morning. We met up with the fam at the Zion visitor’s center after a wonderful breakfast at a really local cafe in Virgin, Ut. And we were off exploring!

Zion in the winter is beautiful. We took several small hikes, risked our lives on the inch thick ice (we’re gripping the railing for dear life in the picture above), again risked our lives under the icicles of death, had an ill-advised picnic in the sun (the sun was only marginally warmer than the 30 degrees in the shade), and enjoyed spending time with my family. We hit up special meetings in St. George the next day and headed back up to Salt Lake that night for a white Christmas. And it sure was white.

December = Month of Family: ND Edition

Well, 2007 came and went, and I barely noticed since we were so busy. Christmas and New Years really snuck up on us this year. And now that it’s January, I had better remember our excuses for being so busy in the month of December.

It started out with a trip back to visit Shane’s family in North Dakota in the middle of the month. The week was spent watching a lot of hockey (both Tyler and Aunika’s varsity teams had several games each), visiting with siblings, parents and grandparents, pheasant hunting, the usual science experiments and eating, cooking, and all things pertaining to food.

As it is at my house, nothing is “normal.” On one of the errands that we ran, Mitzi (Shane’s mom) and I filled up the large dewar with liquid nitrogen (only $10!!) per Tyler’s request. And that night we had liquid nitrogen ice cream.

And going against everything I’d ever learned in school about proper liquid nitrogen handling, Tyler took a gulp of it in his mouth and shot the vapor out his nose. It’s no wonder he’s not able to properly smell or taste anything really well. Such a mad scientist.

Later on we experimented (more technical term than “played”) with cornstarch and water, vibrated at around 120 hz. Dad had given Tyler an old dental machine used to get the bubbles out of impression material, and after some creative methods of figuring out exactly how to know when it was at 120 hz (which involved using the piano), we were in action. Check it out:

For more videos about the non-newtonian fluid, check out youtube. Nerds of a feather flock together.

A White Winter and A White Porsche

Since we now live in a city that undeniably has winter, we have decided to embrace it whole heartedly. After the first really good storm, Shane decided to test out the slopes. He grabbed his gear and in 20 minutes, he was on the lift at Brighton.

For the first time in his life, he was able to sleep in his own bed the night before, ski all day and then be home in time for dinner. No van camping this year! Thank goodness.

Our entire neighborhood was covered in a beautiful white layer of snow, so we decided to make the most of it and went out and played in it. There isn’t really any wind here, so the snow just clings to the tree branches and looks like vanilla frosting. We share the backyard with the older couple upstairs that had 10 kids. TEN! They now have about a million grand children that live in the area that come over and play on the very large and well stocked yard. There’s an elaborate playground with swings, bars, etc., a tether ball pole and a full on merry go round. Shane was tempted to go down the snow covered slide but decided to leave that joy for one of the kids. We did find out where a good sledding hill is in the area, so I think we are going to have to make a visit there sometime soon. Here’s Shane in our backyard, in the shadow of the mountains he just skied down earlier that day.

One really nice thing about Salt Lake winters is that (at least so far) the storms don’t last very long, and it clears up beautifully in between. It was sunny and warm the next day. The roads are well salted and plowed and so far I have not had to drive in any bad conditions. This is from our front door looking down our driveway.

Since Shane had such a great time skiing the weekend before, he was more than excited to go again the next weekend, especially when he saw the forecast for FEET of more snow. So on Saturday morning, Shane, Jake, Emery and I hit up the slopes again in feet of fresh powder. Jake’s parents were going to join us but were intimidated by the freshly falling snow and decided to stay home. Poor decision. It was a blast!

A few days later we had our first special meeting worker company since we’ve been married. We stayed up way too late and got to know our workers well. On top of all the other interesting things we learned/did that evening, I’d have to say that the most amusing one was discovering what car our workers drive: a white Porsche Cayenne S.

Tears of Sorrow, Tears of Joy

I was too efficient at work last week, finished my project early and worked myself out of a job. Well, not permanently, but since I’m on contract per project, I have a few days off until the next one. Brynne also had the day off, so she came over and we made Ina Garten’s chicken chili. We each decided to make the full “party” amount (12 servings… it was from her Parties cookbook, after all), and were overwhelmed by the amount of onions that we had to chop. SIX onions EACH! Luckily, neither Brynne nor I are particularly dramatic, so we hardly noticed.

The chili turned out DELICIOUS, and Shane and I will be enjoying it for six more meals. (I did freeze half of it. No matter how delicious it is, I think I’d OD on it pretty soon). Here’s what 24 servings of chicken chili looks like:

I spent the rest of the evening doing very domestic things like laundry, dishes and blogging (?), since Shane was gone at volleyball. No girls allowed volleyball. Hmph. Brynne and I are still trying to figure out something that we can do on Tuesday nights that will make the boys jealous. You know, activities that do not involve scrapbooking or stamping, the regional pastimes.

I went outside at around 8 pm to go get the mail and was greeted by the most beautiful sight: SNOW!!! This was the first time that I have ever experienced snow in my own front yard. Oddly enough, I was quite giddy. I think all this altitude has gone to my head. Just look at my little Saabaru all covered in snow!

EDIT:
This is what it would look like if you had black and white night vision goggles:

Giving Thanks by Snugging Pups

Although there was a small threat of having to learn how to cook our own turkey for Thanksgiving, we ended up heading up to Huntsville to have Thanksgiving with the Stacks. They recently moved here from our area back home, and we are actually not so distantly related through marriage, so we really did feel like we were celebrating the holidays with family. They live about an hour north of the city in a nice house with views of Snowbasin from their living room. Not too bad, although I think it was a little torturous for Shane and Bryan (their youngest) to be that close to be able to see the runs but not be able to go skiing because of a lack of snow. Besides the wonderful food and company, the Stacks’ mini dachshunds had puppies. PUPPIES!!!! My favorite was the little one with the purple collar named Nurple. They made me miss Linus and Rigby, if you can believe that. I don’t know if there is a correlation or not, but ever since Jeff started taking 33 units, the dogs have blogged significantly less frequently.

The rest of the long weekend was spent relaxing, eating, reading books and scouting climbing routes in the freezing (literally) Little Cottonwood Canyon. Shane is a little heartier than I. Check out the ice on the rocks in the creek that we had to cross. Yes, the red fleece hat made yet another appearance. Mollie, I hope you destroyed the matching red gloves after ice skating when you were here. Shane mentioned that he wanted to wear them the other day. This has got to stop.