New Years in Seattle

We were fortunate enough to be able to see both of our families over winter vacation. Christmas in California and New Years in Seattle. We got there EARLY Monday morning and left that Saturday. It was such a quick trip that we didn't do a ton. When we got there we were pretty exhausted so all we did that day was go to 5 Guys, which is Dan's favorite place in the world, and go to the amazing Sound of Music Sing-A-Long that our family friends put on every year. This is seriously one of my favorite things. No pun intended. Our friends rent out an old, crappy theater to play the movie and sell tickets to cover the cost of renting, unlimited small popcorn and sodas, and prop bags. There are rules to this sing-a-long. Of course you must sing, but during certain songs you use your props like, wave your white flowers during Edlewisse, bark like a dog when you see Rolf, hiss when you see the Baroness, boo when you see nazis, pop your poppers when Maria and Captain Von Trapp kiss for the first time. It's really pretty great. We aren't usually a musical watching family but when we go to the Sound of Music Sing-A-Long we get pretty obnoxious. Yelling at the movie, over-participation if there is such a thing, operatic singing, we don't hold back. 

Unfortunately, that night and the next day (New Years Eve) Dan and I got food poisoning which pretty much ruined us for having much fun. I was 95% after like 2 days but Dan stayed pretty ill for the whole time. That didn't stop us from going to the city, or meeting up with friends, playing mexican train, hiking, duthie-ing, shopping, or going to Alki beach. All it stopped us from was eating too too much (except when we went to Indian lunch buffet) and overall that's probably good. 

It was a fabulous trip, too short but Dan had to get back for school and I had to come back and be unemployed. 

Just a few pictures:

We went to the Seattle Aquarium and this beautiful Pacific Giant Octopus was giving us a show. Loved it

Maybe I should consider being an aquarium janitor like this guy... just SNUBA and vacuum gravel. Sounds alright 

Skip to our last day, about an hour before the airport when we went to Alki. Love this place so much!

Some days I really kick myself for leaving this beautiful place but then I never would have met the love of my life. 

Welcome 2014, these Waltons are ready for it!

Christmas in California

Definitely one of the hardest part about being newlyweds is family time. My family is very local to Provo- I have grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles all within like 30 minutes of where we live. On top of that my mom came down at least once a month last semester for recruiting at BYU so we definitely spend more time with my family- not because we like them more or anything, but because it's just easy. 

This year was our first Holiday season being married so we had to divvy up time between the two families. We decided Thanksgiving in Washington, Christmas in California, and New Years in Washington since Thanksgiving is so short. 

Thanksgiving was great and we're still married so I think we'll call that one a success. Dan is a good sport and puts up with my crazy family and I think he even likes it most of the time. That or he just does it for the mountain biking. 

We spent Christmas in California with Dan's family. It was my first Christmas away from my family and that was definitely a little sad but it was so great spending time with my new family and getting to know them better. Also it was California so it was warm and that was a pleasant change from Provo's 10 degree weather we'd been having. 

It was so relaxing, we went to San Francisco one day and just walked around and got some Vietnamese food. We usually slept in until 10 and just lazed about and made Christmas treats and then ate too many of them. We read books and watched movies and just sat outside. It was fabulous. I'm definitely missing that California sunshine right now. 

I'm excited to go back and spend more time and holidays with the in-laws but I'm also really happy that this Christmas we'll be with my family. 

Pictures:

Beautiful San Francisco day and a crappy camera

The view from dad Walton's office is pretty great

Oh Christmas tree

And a Christmas pup!

If we had sent out a Christmas card it might have looked like this...

We went to the Hunger Games. UW vs BYU... it's embarrassing how bad BYU is sometimes

Happy Hunger Games and belated Christmas from the Waltons!

Our Apartment: Living Room

Finding housing in Provo is not always easy, especially when you have to find "married" housing. I realize this is really only a thing in Provo but it really restricts things. Also, because every day it seems like someone new is getting married or engaged it's like a battle to the death to get a good apartment. THIS is why Dan and I settled on our cute and very little basement apartment. To give some perspective on how small it really is our entire apartment could fit into the living room/kitchen area of my parents house. We think it might be 700-800 sq feet but we're really not sure. Good news though: we pay like $500 a month + utilities.

Anyway, this place is old. Faux wood paneling and disgustingly awful couch in the living room, awful wallpaper in the kitchen, it definitely needed some fixing. Unfortunately because we're renting and only going to be here for 5 more months we never really cared about making any dramatic changes. But because we do have a lot of stuff and also we like things to look nice we have redecorated some to make things look... presentable. 

Here is what we did to our living room.

So ignore all the crap we have and notice faux wood paneling and the awful plaid couch bottom left. Oh and the curtains on the window left and door.

From the other direction. 

Here's what it looks like now:

New couch, rugs, desk, wall art, table clothe on coffee table, and mini bookshelf 

From the other way: couch and other big bookshelf 

You guys, I love this couch. Yes it's inflatable but it is also suede and has cup-holder armrests. We haven't had a couch for like... 6 weeks and I was looking for jobs in bed for two weeks and it was AWFUL.

Black and white pillows from Ikea and heart pillows from Target dollar section over the years. 

Book case with so so many books and things. Russian banners courtesy of Dan's mission

My favorite wall: art by friend Lyse, venn diagram print from Etsy for our wedding,

scarf hanging- Target, and wedding pictures. 

Desk, wall art, etc.

Over all I'm really happy with how the apartment looks and the living room is definitely my favorite room especially now that we have a couch. The only thing I plan on maybe doing before we move out is fixing the curtains because they're awful. You may have noticed that I did change one of the curtains and that it looks really awkward. Well that's because it used to be a pillowcase and I made it a curtain using my very rudimentary sewing skills. 

Extra since you read the whole blog!

This really doesn't show much of anything except

 those are all boxes from moving and gifts. Piled above

 my head. It was ridiculous and moving is the worst. 

P. I. Z. Z. A.

As of yesterday I have been married to my best friend (cliche) for five months.

It has been the best 5 months of my life, even though it is not always sunshine and lollipops I wouldn't have it any other way. 

When we were dating one of my favorite things to do was cook dinner together. Generally the work was split about 35-65. I am kind of controlling when it comes to cooking so I would usually do most of the cooking but Dan always helped out when I would let him. Dan really is a good cook and the things he does when we cook together are absolutely essential. For example when we make orange chicken I usually ask Dan to thaw the chicken and make the orange sauce which he learned how to do on his mission. It's delicious to say the least. He'll also sometimes be in charge of breading the chicken or flipping the chicken while it's frying. All completely necessary things, especially the orange sauce. I could make it without him but it wouldn't be the same and it would be a lot more work. 

The one thing though that I think we are both completely equal in our cooking efforts is making pizza. My favorite food. We have been making pizza for about a 18 months now. 

Our first attempt was fine but it was also kind of a disaster. Edible but... well... here's a picture. 

You can't really tell but there's like 3/4ths of a inch of crust under the toppings. It was tasty but not quite right...

We now have a very specific way of making pizza. Dan is the dough maker- I don't touch it. That's how it goes. My only job is to dress the pizza. Sauce, cheese, toppings, seasonings. Dan doesn't touch those unless he's grating cheese for which I am always grateful. Together we make a darned good pizza. 

We tried a new recipe the next time we made pizza and that was a true success. This recipe made two full sized pizzas (in retrospect I think the other recipe did too... oops) so we were able to experiment with toppings. Our classic pizza was always a classic pepperoni (tomato sauce, cheddar cheese, pepperoni (extra), parsley, oregano, and red pepper flakes). Our first experimental pizza was a Jdawgs pizza. For those of you who don't know what Jdawgs is it is a delicious hot dog place here in Provo, UT. They make a delicious sauce that's kind of like a sweet and spicy light BBQ sauce. That's really the only way I can describe it other than delicious. This pizza used the Jdawgs sauce as the pizza sauce, pepper jack and cheddar cheese, polish sausage, pepperoni, and red pepper flakes. It was so so so good! 

At first I was a bit nervous basing a pizza off of a hot dog but it really is delicious. 

We stuck with those two over the last 18 months but we decided to make pizza tonight and we didn't have any Jdawgs sauce. We decided on another favorite of ours- chicken bacon ranch (but we substituted bacon for pepperoni). We mainly just didn't want to leave our apartment so it was our lazy man's pizza. Again, I was a bit nervous trying something new but neither of us were disappointed- it was delicious. Dan near perfected the pizza dough and the toppings were also amazing!

We still always have to have a classic (okay maybe that's just me and really as a safety precaution it's a good idea when you're making a new kind of pizza to know you have a good pizza being made)

This was the face Dan did when I asked him to show me how he felt about the pizza. I think it was a winner. 

Definitely love pizza and I even more definitely love this husband of mine. I think I'll keep him.