Merry Happy. 2nd Edition

Girls Night Out.

12:36 PM

On Saturday night, while the men were all at Priesthood Session, the girls went to dinner at Gloria's Little Italy.

Not only was it a blast to catch up with some of my cousins and my grandma and Aunt Lisa, I also got to cross something off my BYU bucket list!

Thanks everyone for the fun outing!

Food.

Poppyseed Chicken.

7:47 AM

I've definitely been expanding my repertoire of recipes lately and I have been having a ton of fun doing it. In years past it's always been hard to make decent meals: 1. Because it's not very much fun to cook for one person, and 2. I've never had a kitchen of my very own. But now that I cannot hide behind either of those excuses...I must say I enjoy making meals quite a bit! (And Stephen is an excellent meal-preparing-assistant.)

I figured there was no better way to keep track of my cooking adventures (both the good and the bad) than to blog about them, so I'll probably start posting recipes/food pictures more often from now on. (Plus, I've always been obsessed with taking pictures of food so now I have a real reason to do so.)

Without futher adu:

Poppyseed Chicken Casserole!

One day (in the last month or so) Stephen commented on how he, "loves casseroles." I thought that was a very funny and relief-society-sounding thing to say. haha. It's amazing the things you learn about a person you thought you knew after you're married. (haha just kidding.) Anyway, he said that his mom makes a delicious Poppyseed Casserole that he loves. We texted her and asked for the recipe that she uses, but she was at the store and couldn't send it right then, and we were impatient, so I just googled one and decided to give it a go.

This is the recipe I used.

It was good! When the ingredients consist of: chicken, sour cream, butter, ritz crackers and cream of chicken soup....how could it be anything but good? haha.

My mother-in-law later sent us the recipe she uses and it was pretty similar, but looked even better because it has rice baked into it which would make it a lot more filling. (Her recipe also called for less sour cream and butter and cream of chicken which is a plus.)

Positives: Stephen was one happy husband and was singing praises to my name. It was delicious!

Negatives: Let's face it. It's not the most healthy recipe. ha. And, it wasn't super filling.

What I would do differently: Try the other recipe. (I'll post that recipe when I make it.) Also, I wish I had shredded the chicken instead of cutting it into cubes (which is something that the new recipe says to do).

SO, ya. I'm not sure how to end this post now. haha.

[Also, I recognize that it's weird I'm posting about a full meal and it's barely 9:00 am on a Saturday. Next time I'll try to post more appropriate foods for the time of day, I'm just currently at work and biding my time until General Conference starts!]

Everyday Life

Haiku

4:56 PM

The other day I was going through some "notes" on my phone and I came across one that had me laughing out loud. On July 24 at approximately 11:38 am Stephen wrote me a haiku poem. We were in the car coming back from Grace, Idaho. I was asleep and only semi-coherent at the time and I completely forgot about it until stumbling across it just recently.

Knows my every other word

Pebbled freckles like a sandy beach

Won't you be my wife?

Toast over buttered bread

She toasts my heart with her stare

Eating cheese on top

Hahaha. I can't help but giggle every time I read them. Haikus have this weird way of being perfectly profound and ridiculous at the same time. And now I'd like to take just a second to brag about the sweet man of mine that composed the literary works of genius you see above.

A few weeks ago, Stephen went to great lengths to have dinner all ready for me when I got off work at 7:00. Unfortunately he forgot that on Thursdays I have class until 9:30 pm. When I finally got home after a very loooong day, he was at his intramural frisbee game but had left the table set for me (with some DELICIOUS chicken alfredo pasta) and his laptop was open on the table with a little video for me to watch. While I watched the short video he made for me, eating my delicious pasta, I couldn't help but smile and think that I might have married the best man in the whole world.

Yesterday wasn't a great day for me. I didn't sleep well, I didn't feel well and it was just BLAH. Stephen had been asking for a haircut for a couple days (okay...weeks. I was really liking it long!) so I finally relented. And then in a careless moment....

Snip snip snip snip OOOPS!!!!!

Dripping dropping tears fall fast

Hugs. Kisses. Laughter.

Unfortunately The Incident is still too fresh for me to think it is funny. I accidentally gave him a bald streak for crying out loud!!!!!! I felt terrible. (I still do.) Stephen, however, was nothing but the perfect gentleman. He reassured me probably a hundred times that everything was okay, and when the tears just kept on pouring, he patiently held me and started telling me about other (worse) haircutting experiences from his childhood. (He probably made half of them up just to make me feel better.) Again and again he reassured me that in just a few days or weeks this will be a memory to laugh about. He even suggested I blog about it. hahaha. He's the greatest.

Always smiling at me.

Eyes as blue as the bright sky

I am so lucky.

LOVE

Marry Happy.

11:38 AM

On the perfect August morning, Stephen and I were sealed for time and all eternity in the beautiful and majestic Salt Lake Utah Temple. I couldn't have asked for a better day, or a better groom.