a glimpse of winter...from a few weeks ago

The other Sunday (about 3 weeks ago) the weather was pleasantly chilly and the skies were cloudy and I was getting really excited about Christmas coming. So I made some delicious pumpkin soup (yummy and easy to make, but very very filling - I couldn't even finish a whole bowl!) that we had with cranberry scones. If anyone wants the recipe I used, let me know. Super yummy.


After eating lunch I got this craving to go play in the snow. Probably because it still hasn't snowed down here yet and to me, in Utah, snow=Christmas. At least until January 1. Eric and I decided to take a little drive up the canyon to Sundance, where we found artificial snow...


...but really not very much. Still enough for Eric to try to start a snowball fight though. It was basically packed ice and stung when it hit the back of my knee. I missed him three times. I'll have to work on my aim...

After finding no real snow at Sundance, we made our way up to Aspen Grove and had much better luck! We walked a little ways up the trail towards Stuart Falls, but we both were wearing shoes without very much tread on the bottoms and it was pretty treacherous going. We made it though, don't you fret.

and now for something a little more positive...

THE LOVE LIST

1. Actor-network theory (and I’m not even sociocultural emphasis!)
2. Airplanes and flying in them
3. American Association of Museums
4. Animals
5. Banana Republic
6. Barack Obama
7. Bedsocks
8. Being successful
9. Blatant creepiness
10. Britney Spears
11. Brown rice
12. Café Rio
13. Cartoons that involve talking animals (i.e. Madagascar, Ice Age, Over the Hedge, etc.)
14. Catch Phrase
15. Catch-22
16. CFL lightbulbs
17. Chapstick
18. Christmas
19. Citizens of Humanity jeans
20. Clean laundry
21. Cloudy days
22. CNN
23. Coats
24. Coldplay
25. Cooking
26. CSI
27. Cuddling
28. Daybreak in South Jordan
29. December 27
30. Digital cameras with memory cards that can store more than 40 pictures
31. Discovering something new
32. Dollar theater
33. Dressing up
34. Dyeing my hair
35. Edward Gorey
36. Eric
37. Expressing myself
38. Fall
39. Flowers
40. Google and all its components
41. Horseback riding
42. Hot chocolate
43. Ikea
44. imdb.com
45. Inside jokes
46. InStyle magazine
47. Interior design
48. iTunes and my iPod
49. Jewel tone clothing
50. Laughing
51. Learning
52. Leopard print
53. London
54. Long pants
55. LOST
56. Ludacris
57. Making connections
58. Making lists
59. Most Disney movies
60. Museums
61. My bed
62. My bike
63. My family
64. My friends
65. Mythology
66. NAGPRA (not any paperwork that goes along with it though…)
67. Naps
68. National Parks
69. Native American cultures
70. New ways of thinking about old ideas
71. Oak cabinets and furniture
72. Oregon
73. Pasta
74. people.com
75. Photo Albums
76. Photography
77. Pillows and blankets
78. Planning
79. Public transportation
80. Pumpkin pie
81. Rain
82. Raspberries
83. Sex and the City
84. Slot canyons
85. Snow Patrol
86. Swimming
87. Sydney and Paris
88. Temples
89. The beach
90. The blog “Get Rich Slowly”
91. The Devil Wears Prada
92. The gospel
93. Trashy reality TV
94. Traveling
95. Vacations
96. Warm comfy sweatpants
97. When I’m not the tallest person around
98. Wooden spoons, bowls, or cutting boards
99. Yoga
100. Zoos

lindsay did it, now i am too. haha.

THE HATE LIST

1. “In America, we have…”
2. 2-carat engagement rings
3. 6th floor girls
4. Aeropostale
5. Army National Guard commercial
6. Basketball
7. Big moles on people’s faces
8. Birth control
9. Blisters
10. Blizzards
11. Burglars
12. Burnt out lightbulbs
13. Caked-on makeup
14. Cancer
15. Car commercials
16. Cat hair everywhere
17. Caveman Geico commercials
18. Cheap extensions
19. Class
20. Clear bra straps
21. Cougareat
22. Crazy foreign roommates
23. Creepy Clearisil commercials
24. Crying
25. Deal or No Deal
26. Deforestation
27. Dirty cars
28. Ditzy girls
29. Driving in the snow
30. Eating one’s burrito in under a minute
31. Emo Polaroid pictures
32. Emotions on reality TV
33. EZ Cheese
34. Fake people
35. FaMOUSE people
36. Fishnet shirts
37. Fresh papaya
38. Girls with 8000 best friends
39. Glenn Beck
40. Guns
41. Hot Topic
42. Huge tattoos in Old English font
43. Hunting
44. Idaho
45. Ignorance
46. Interrupted naps
47. Kevin Federline
48. Kids in sacrament meeting
49. Korrie
50. Lace-trimmed clothing
51. Lurking
52. Man bands (like Daughtry, Lifehouse, Finger Eleven, Nickleback, etc.)
53. Matching outfits in engagement pictures
54. Melting ice caps
55. Mormon celebrities
56. Mormon movies
57. Mud
58. Nancy Grace
59. Onch
60. Paramore
61. Pastel colors
62. Pawn shops
63. People who stare into your car as you drive by
64. People who text while having a conversation
65. People who travel all the time
66. People who use Macs to be trendy
67. Provo all-stars
68. Puddles
69. Scene kids
70. Scion xB’s and Honda Elements
71. Scrunchies
72. Shirts with one sleeve
73. Shouting in commercials
74. Skinny jeans
75. Slugs
76. Smog/Pollution
77. Sound Warehouse commercials
78. Sparkling vampires
79. Spencer on the Hills
80. Stallions
81. Stray hairs everywhere
82. Striped polo shirts on girls
83. Stupid jokes
84. Subway
85. Tacky people
86. Temecula
87. Texas
88. The Home Shopping Network
89. The pictures on the walls
90. The Shark
91. The Wendy’s girl
92. Tila Tequila
93. Twilight superfans
94. Utah drivers
95. Utah Lake
96. Utah Valley
97. Waking up before 9 am
98. When holiday job employers actually call your references
99. Wind
100. World of Warcraft

veteran's day

I just finished reading this article on CNN about a medic who fought in WWII and was put in a POW camp for a few months before it was liberated. I think his story is amazing, not because of what he survived, but because of what he did while he was there. He felt it was his duty to record everything that happened to him, and even after the war, he wasn't allowed to say anything about it.

I am so grateful for those people who have served and do serve our country in any capacity. I obviously don't agree with war, but I am grateful that there are people who are willing to put others before themselves even if it means they will lose their own life.

"You only live once. Let's keep trucking. If we don't do that, who's going to do it for us? We have to be happy. Why hate?" he says. "The world is full of hate, and yet they don't know what they want.

Thanks to those veterans.

paris does more tricks.

We don't have children, so I am forced to write more often about my cats. Yes, it's true. Especially Paris, who actually does things. This is her latest trick (it might be sideways again):

a glimpse of oktoberfest and the ghoulie madness

mark, chris, and eric eating the fondue. i don't know why i don't have any pictures of lindsay and me there. weird. i also don't have any pictures from oktoberfest. i do have this video though...chris, don't kill me. at least it's not on facebook! (and yes, you'll have to watch it sideways. that's the way i took it on my camera.)

after oktoberfest we went searching for the ghoulie tree.

when we spotted the ghoulie tree, chris pulled over and turned off his lights. eric and mark made a mad dash for the tree and grabbed as many ghoulies as they could in a three-second period. mark even went back for one he dropped.

mark and eric were proud of the treasures they had just captured...

more wildness ensued.

lindsay and i found time to take a picture of ourselves where we only look mildly terrified of what was going on around us

fly, ghoulie, fly...

ghoulies love apple beer

eric depositing the ghoulie on a car at the end of the night.

a short update until i can post with pictures later.

I am bad at updating my blog, I know. But not as bad as some other people...

On Saturday we went over to Lindsay and Mark's for a little fondue party. Lindsay and I dressed up in authentic dirndls (we looked amazing, and for some reason I don't have a picture of just us in the dirndls...not sure what happened there) and made the fondue. Chris came over too, and that was fun. After fondue we went to an Oktoberfest party that is put on annually by one of the apartment complexes here in Provo. It wasn't very well-publicized so there weren't that many people. The boys spent the majority of their time there playing pool, and Lindsay and I played the piano "like wild beasts of the jungle." Nice. We finally left, shined Chris' huge hunter headlights on the party, then we tried to find the State Hospital deer so we could chase them again, but we couldn't find them so we went to THE GHOULIE TREE. I love whatever family lives in that house, because they unknowingly supply us with such a good time every Halloween. We took some ghoulies and cavorted in the canyon with them, finally depositing them on some unfortunate and (probably very confused) people's cars.

It was a good night.

In more serious news, I voted for the first time! On Monday I went to the Provo administrative building and waited in line for about 30 minutes to do my duty as an American (even though it doesn't mean much here in Utah) and cast my ballot. I don't have to tell anyone who I voted for...as anyone who knows me already knows that little tidbit of information. I'll be honest, I only knew who I wanted to vote for for president and for governor, but the rest of the candidates didn't mean a whole lot to me. Neither did the proposed state constitutional amendments, because I don't really care about when the State Senate meets or how they define replacement of the Lieutenant Governor when he or she becomes unable to serve. But I voted! And I got a sticker.

i made this for lindsay...

...and she loved it.

i love fall.

Last weekend we went up to Logan, which was pretty fun. We went to the football game on Friday night. BYU won, but I don't think they played very well. Too bad. We went and saw Chris at the game, and we was taking lots of pictures. So I'm stealing one from him.


It was Eric's birthday last weekend (and Eric's dad's birthday about 2 weeks ago, and Julie's birthday this last Monday) so we had a little lunch and birthday party on Saturday at Corey and Julie's apartment. Eric enjoyed the Jello cheesecake.


We've both been really busy with school and work lately and haven't had a whole lot of time to do fun things in the meantime. I put all of my fall decorations up last week, and I love it. Maybe I'll take a picture of it later. We're planning on going to the Haunted Forest sometime...and we'll get to carve pumpkins eventually too. Yay Halloween!

i lied, i know.

But our internet was down last night so I couldn't post! I know, excuses, excuses.

I just got back from watching the VP debate with Lindsay and Kirsten while Eric played pool with Mark. Good times all around. We even played Palin bingo, which was a blast.

Anyway, I promised pictures from Disneyland, and so you're going to get ALLLL the pictures from Disneyland. Which means I'll have to put them on another website that you can go look at, since I'm not about to post them all on this blog. Mostly I'm posting them all so anyone who wants any of them can take what they want. I won't be surprised if I see a few them on People.com tomorrow.

Notes: So it actually takes a really, really, REALLY long time to upload pictures on Picasa. I got about halfway through them and it's almost midnight. I promise I'll post the rest later. Here's the link for those of you who just can't wait: http://picasaweb.google.com/adrien.mooney/CaliforniaTripSeptember2008#

Also, Eric and I took a drive on the Alpine Loop on Sunday since the trees are starting to turn all pretty and fall-colored. We may have been better off going this weekend as a lot of the trees hadn't changed yet, but it was still really nice to be out in nature. Bonus! It rained a little while we were out there so it smelled really nice and forest-y too. I love the smell of trees and fresh rain.



We are going up to Logan this weekend for the BYU/Utah State football game, so maybe that will be fun. I know Eric at least will have a blast. Plus it's his birthday tomorrow. Happy Birthday Eric!

a new layout for fall

Thanks to the help of Lindsay and The Cutest Blog on The Block, we're all fancied up for fall! I love this new design. I promise (and it's not an empty one this time!) that I will update later on tonight with all of our Disneyland adventures!

so

This has nothing to do with Disneyland, which I thought would be my next post. But today I got my awesome boots delivered to me, and I'm so excited! They were featured in InStyle which obviously makes me very trendy. Maybe someday I'll post a picture of me in all my trendiness and subsequent popularity.

They are these ones:

Or, that's what one of them looks like anyway. The right one. Yes, it's suede.
Ok. I promise I'll try not to post anymore about random clothing purchases I make. No promises about Eric though...he'll probably make hundreds of posts about his fashion decisions.

Next time...Disneyland. For real this time.

PS: I think this is hilarious. You all should check it out.

the happiest place on earth!

Like Lindsay mentioned in a similar and very recent post, we are all headed out to California next week for a little break! On Wednesday night, Mark and Lindsay and Eric and I will all pile into the car for a weekend getaway to Disneyland (and Fallbrook, of course). So, here's 20 reasons I'm so excited for this trip:

1. I haven't been home in almost a year and a half and I can't wait to be home! (If even for a little bit)
2. I get to put my feet in the ocean and walk on the pier
3. We're going to Disneyland AND California Adventure, which are both amazing
4. We have dinner reservations at the Blue Bayou inside Pirates of the Caribbean. Yum!
5. I haven't been to In-N-Out in forever and we're stopping in Vegas or St. George for that purpose
6. I get to show Lindsay where I grew up, finally
7. Things are going to get weird in the car ride down, since we'll be driving straight through the night
8. I may have an excuse to get a new weekender bag since Delta employees ripped mine on the way back from Portland...
9. Hospitality provided by my wonderful parents...thank you!!
10. They're also cooking us a barbecue
11. I love Disneyland and always have. I know how to work the Fast Passes and cannot wait for the following rides at Disneyland: Indiana Jones, Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, Jungle Cruise (I've always loved it), Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, Autopia, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Basically I just love Disneyland.
12. Also the following rides at California Adventure: Soaring Over California, California Screamin', Hollywood Tower of Terror, Grizzly River Rapids. Yay!
13. Possibly running into a few people from home? That might be fun.
14. Nice hot weather (it'll be a nice transition into what's coming for Utah in a couple of months...)
15. Relaxing time away from Utah
16. Lots of animal life in Fallbrook...Lindsay and I are sure to have a field day
17. Pedro's Tacos...oh I'm going to get around to eating there!
18. Swimming in the pool and sleeping in all day Thursday
19. Did I mention how much I love Disneyland?
20. And yes, the big Disneyland Gift Shop on Main Street. I'm bound to get something there since I didn't last time.

Alright, knowing how unreliable I am at updating this blog, I probably won't post again until well after we're back from California. But I'll be sure to post plenty of pictures!

actually, i don't even know why i'm doing this...

So I wasn't even tagged to do this, but I was reading Emily and Tyler's blog and came across this. Since I'm bored, I decided to do it...and I promise I'll make a real post within the next week.

20 years ago:
- I was a year old!
- Megan and I probably took a lot of cute pictures together
- George H. W. Bush was elected president...
- There was lots of political tumult, according to Wikipedia
- I'm not really aware of anything else that happened in 1988.

10 years ago:

- I was 11. I was finishing 6th grade and about to start 7th grade at Potter...yikes
- I broke my wrist less than a week before school started, and I was really upset about it. (How am I going to open my locker?!? How will I participate in P.E.?!?! I know, important questions)
- I got my ears pierced for my eleventh birthday. Ashley got hers done for her twelfth and I felt really cool.
- I also had a joint sleepover birthday party with Ashely (since her birthday was the day after mine) and there was lots of sixth-grade drama. Oooh boy.
- Also, I loved Beanie Babies.

5 years ago:

- I finished my junior year of high school and was about to start my senior year.
- I somehow managed to become one of the drum majors for Fallbrook High's marching band, and although that sounds really dorky, it was actually really awesome. During a pretty good portion of band camp, Cory and I would just find a shady place and go to sleep. Hah!
- I was a relatively good student and wanted to be done with school so badly. I was starting to itch for college.
- Megan moved to Utah so I finally had my own room. I painted it green, even the ceiling. That may have been a bad idea. I think Maggie and I also got partially high off paint in an enclosed space.
- We also went to Hawaii for 2 weeks during the summer. That was a fun trip, but a really long trip.

3 years ago:

- I met Eric in August and we started dating in October. I was freaked out at the time, but man that turned out to be a really good idea.
- I worked at Legoland over the summer and then started working at Cafe Rio where I got free food everyday and possibly gained around 15 pounds. Not a surprise.
- Lindsay made the big decision for us to live at Glenwood instead of the Colony. I'm glad she put so much thought into that, because I couldn't have cared less where we lived.
- Lindsay and I got even creepier than before, and things got really weird. Haha.
- I went to the hot tub at Glenwood a lot with various people. But mostly I just worked.

So far this year:

- I finished my fourth year of college
- Eric and I went to Portland and ate at one of his favorite restaurants
- I successfully put together a good portion of the kachina exhibit at the museum without killing myself or going insane
- I got SCUBA certified with Shannon! Yeah!
- Um...I've seen Batman twice?
- My life isn't interesting, apparently

Yesterday:

- I went to Cafe Rio for lunch...I will never get enough.
- I went to Macy's with Lindsay so she could spend her wedding money
- I watched at least 3 episodes of CSI
- I got to hang out with Lindsay for a long time and talk for a long time. Love it.
- And then...last night...Eric and I bought a new TV! Ah! It's beautiful. And hard-earned.

Today:

- I went to work
- I had a meeting at work
- I had granola with raisins and almonds for breakfast. Yum.
- I watched another episode of CSI before going to work. I may be addicted.
- I tried to pump up my bike tires a little but apparently I am inept at this because after several pumps my tires were no different

Tomorrow:

- I will go to work again
- So will Eric
- It will be Wednesday
- We will feed the cats some wet food. They are spoiled.
- We'll possibly either go to the temple or have dinner with Lindsay or Mark. Stay tuned.

In the next year:

- I will finally graduate! And then what? I don't know.
- I will get a new pair of boots, yellow pillows, and new slipcovers for the couches.
- We will be out of this apartment and into one of our own!! At least, that's the plan anyway.
- I will win a game show and have more money than I know what to do with. You just wait, I'll be the second million-dollar winner on Deal or No Deal.
- Eric will have his birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas will come, and I will have my birthday. And lots of fun things will happen in between. Like Disneyland in September and Coldplay in November!

Yay! Something of more substance next time. Til then.

panthera pardus orientalis

Wow, it's been a while. Summer's almost over (meaning that I go back to school full-time, as Eric never really had a break) and I'm sort of glad about that. All I've been doing is working and it gets kinda boring not doing anything else. Plus, I'm graduating in December and kind of just want to get this all over with.

We had the chance to go up to Portland last week for Lindsay and Mark's wedding. We had such a good time up there, and the wedding was -in my mind anyway - pretty much perfect (although, there could have been tons of things I wasn't aware of). The reception was beautiful, Lindsay and Mark looked so happy, and the ceremony itself was wonderful. I couldn't see Lindsay's face during the ceremony, but I could see Mark's, and if Lindsay looked anything like that then she probably looked like the happiest girl alive at that point. And she probably was anyway. Haha. We had a really good time up there. Of course, I barely took any pictures of anything, but I'm sure Lindsay will post some so that anyone who cares can look and see how everything was. But it was all beautiful.

On Saturday, the day after the wedding, our flight was scheduled to leave around 4 pm for Salt Lake. So we decided to spend the morning at the Oregon Zoo! I know, typical of me, right? We had a really fun time, and I did manage to take tons of pictures there. Apparently we see where my priorities lie...anyway, we had a really fun time up there and can't wait for another chance to go back to Portland.

one of the three pictures i took at the reception

enjoying the zoo - it was a nice cool day

eric has the wingspan of a bald eagle.

this leopard shared a tie for my favorite animal at the zoo along with the tigers and the ocelot. i love me some big cats with pretty fur coats.

the big read

I think I've come across this list before, but usually I've just looked at it in passing and thought, "hmm...I haven't read as many of those books as I thought. I should read more." But this time, I'm actually going to do what it says! Here goes...

The Big Read says that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read
2) Italicize those you intend to read.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë (although I only vaguely remember this...I should read again)
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (I know I've read part of it for school, but I doubt it was the whole thing)
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams (I've always wanted to read this...the evil bunnies!)
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell (I think I've read this. Maybe it was just a children's adaptation...maybe not!)
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden (maybe)
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

23/100...not bad I guess. Plus I intend to read several more. I was surprised at how much Roald Dahl they have on this list...I don't think he's that great, but he's ok. I feel pretty good that I've read 7 of their top 10 and that I intend to read the other 3. Maybe I'll get one of these (or more...?) read by the end of the summer. Right now I'm reading The Devil Wears Prada...haha. I think I need more enlightening reading material, and now I've got a list. What are your thoughts on this list?

fluffamuffagus

So here we are, sitting watching TV. Law and Order SVU is on, but it's not that interesting this time. We've pretty much just been going through the daily grind of work and school (especially for Eric), and we try to find interesting things to spice up our lives a little bit. The other day I went to Good Earth and bought wheat bran and flax seed and made some delicious Cranberry Bran Muffins. They are super. I'll put the recipe at the end of the entry in case anyone is interested.

We went to the Fourth of July parade and it was actually pretty enjoyable. We got to sit in a shady spot, in chairs on the grass; it was kind of cloudy outside, so not too hot; and we didn't get squirted with water by any obnoxious firefighters or politicians or their little friends. And! There were llamas! Of course I took a picture because I love them.

We're going camping somewhere this weekend with Eric's parents. I'm not really sure where it is though. Somewhere by Manti maybe? All I know is I'm getting a one-day fishing permit and they're going to make me fish! Hopefully I'll actually catch something this time, instead of the pathetic fishing performances I have given in the past. I'm kind of excited to use our tent a second time this summer (we really should use it more often...) since we didn't get to use it at all last summer.

Oh! I went to Tammy's going away/birthday party last weekend and won a little George Foreman grill! And it totally wasn't even rigged...maybe...

This is the most schizophrenic entry I've written in a while. Here's the muffin recipe:

Cranberry Bran Muffins:
1 1/2 c. wheat bran
1 c. buttermilk (lowfat)
1/3 c. applesauce
1 egg
1/2 c. brown sugar
2+ Tbsp. honey
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 c. white all-purpose flour
1/2 c. wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
dash nutmeg
2 dashes cinnamon
1/2 c.+ Craisins (or whatever else you want)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
2. Mix together wheat bran and buttermilk; let stand for 10 minutes.
3. Beat together applesauce, egg, brown sugar, honey, and vanilla and add to buttermilk/bran mixture. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Stir flour mixture into buttermilk mixture, until just blended. Fold in cranberries and spoon batter into prepared muffin tins.
4. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

finally, a new post.

It takes a couple of weeks before enough interesting things happen that I can blog about them. At least in the summer, anyway. Last week Shannon and I started our summer classes, which included Geology 102 and Beginning Scuba Diving. We hiked up Rock Canyon for our first geology class, but then decided we didn't want to write reports all the time, we didn't want to suffer in the hot sun hiking at someone else's pace, we didn't want to ride in 12-passenger vans (bleh), we didn't want to be exhausted after 6 hours of hiking for our 4-hour scuba class right afterwards, and I would be able to go to work on Tuesdays. So we dropped it. I don't feel bad about it. Oh, plus we'd both already taken geology so it was sort of a waste of time...

We had our first actual swimming part of scuba last night, since the first night we just sat in the classroom and they talked at us and we got out early (fortunately). Last night our class actually went over, til about 10:30 pm. But it was a lot of fun. We learned mask clears and regulator retrievals, and I felt cool wearing the whole scuba getup. My tank was really heavy and I almost fell over backwards. That's fun. Oh, and I float like crazy. Yay. I think I'm going to enjoy this class.

Last Thursday morning, we (Eric and I and Shannon and Zach and Kelly - Zach and Kelly in their own car...) left to drive to the family reunion in Oregon. It ended up taking us about 12 hours to get there, even though it's only about a 10-hour drive. We stopped in Boise (read: meandered around lost for an hour looking for the elusive Albertson's) so Shannon could see Kaitlin at work and we stopped just enough times for gas and food that it tacked on about another hour. The reunion was good though. We were a little sad the tram was closed, so we sort of brought our bikes for nothing (tried to make up for it by riding around the campground - not quite the same as riding down a mountain), but we still rode horses on Friday morning and rented a paddleboat for a while on Saturday evening. Fun. I got sunburned during the softball game standing out in left field, and for once I didn't do anything for the talent show. That's ok. We left on Sunday morning after breakfast but before the testimony meeting, hoping we'd get back at a reasonable time. We still got back at about 12:30 because there was all kinds of construction traffic in Ogden. Boo. It tooks us an hour to go maybe 3 miles. Maybe. Lame.

I'm sick for some reason. Also lame.

Our pictures from the reunion: http://picasaweb.google.com/adrien.mooney/FamilyReunion

i love pitas so much...

...that I'm never going to buy them again! Yes, that's right. Last night, I made pitas from scratch - and oh my goodness...delicious! I sort of can't believe I didn't do this earlier. Yum yum yum. They didn't puff quite the way they were supposed to on all of them, so half of them are more like flatbread than pitas, but they're still good. I like to use them as a pizza crust and also just eat them plain with (homemade, of course) hummus. Everyone should enjoy it. I used the recipe from this website and it worked out pretty well (I used 2 cups all-purpose flour and 1 cup wheat flour - read the comments on the website for variations that work). If you like pitas, try it out.

the pita pizza. yum.

the little fur family

It's been a while since I've written on this blog, mostly because our internet has been sketchy and our lives haven't been very interesting lately. We've mostly just been working, which is thrilling as always, and not really doing much else. We had a little barbecue on Saturday and some people came over and it was fun. Katie and Kelly and Zach and Megan and Jared and Nathan all came, and of course Eric and I were there. Since it was at our house. Hmm...what else...I did get to go up to the Salt Lake temple on Tuesday because I had a friend getting her endowments, and it was really neat to do a live session. I enjoyed it a lot.

Oh, how about a few pictures from le bbq since I don't have anything else to say:

yum

taking care of business...

i seem to love pictures of people stuffing their faces

fly baby fly.

the cats smell like litter and all kinds of other distasteful things.

It's true, they do.

It's been a relatively eventful past week, with plenty of rain, Indiana Jones, and just enough biking to get us through the Memorial Day weekend. Eric and I got to go see Indiana Jones 4 at the midnight showing on Wednesday night. It was a fun movie, but kind of weird. Not exactly what I was expecting, but lots of fun nonetheless. We also just got back from Megan and Jared's where we watched Temple of Doom. They're going to be watching The Last Crusade soon, so we might join. We bought the first 3 Indiana Jones movies from Target just before we went to see the fourth one since they were only $10 each (yes!). I'm excited. I love those movies, silly though they may be.

The weather wasn't as nice as we had hoped for this weekend. We wanted to take advantage of the 3-day weekend and go camping but since it was cold and rainy we decided it would have to wait. Goblin Valley isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and it will still be there later in the summer. We didn't want to just sit inside or stay in Provo all weekend, so we did go down to Nine Mile Canyon and do a little biking there. There is a fairly maintained dirt road that runs all the way through the canyon, so we drove about 25 miles in to a small day use area and then rode our bikes about another 5.5 miles in, and then back. The canyon was really pretty, and not what I was expecting. There was a lot of rock art there that was really interesting to look at. Of course, we took a few pictures for posterity.

Saturday evening we went out with Eric's parents to Eureka - a place I had never been to nor even heard of before. Apparently it was a mining boom town in the late 1800s which consequently lost a great deal of its population once they weren't finding a whole lot of silver there anymore. We drove on some back roads to this really remote area because Eric's dad wanted to do some shooting, but we ended up just walking around and looking in some old mine shafts. And Eric tried to help a lamb through a fence to its mother but it found a way before he could get to it (there were a lot of sheep there...). We were afraid Mick (the dog) was going to fall in a mine shaft. We also saw a mummified rabbit in an abandoned shed. Interesting.

It was a pretty good week/weekend. We bought a huge Utah atlas thing today at Border's so we'll be able to do even more exploring this summer...or at least as is possible in our little Malibu. What luck!

the weekend.

This last weekend Eric and I had a pretty good time (of course involving going to Cafe Rio for dinner one night). On Saturday, we decided we wanted to go hiking but not have to drive very far, so we went hiking up in Rock Canyon. It was really pretty up there, and the hike in the canyon was a lot further than I expected it to be. We didn't do the whole thing - less than 2 miles in, we decided we were done and turned around.

chilling our water in the snow runoff...it worked!

we found a sweet cave on the way back. we didn't have any light so we didn't go very far in...but we're definitely going back.

It was such a nice day on Sunday (almost hot even) that we took our bikes to go ride on the Provo River Trail. We left around 7 when it was cooling off a little and did a nice easy ride of about 10 miles, getting back just before it got dark a little after 9. We had a really good time.

safety first...yeah!

mischief managed

I have just completed re-reading the entire Harry Potter series, and I did it in about two weeks (minus the conference). Pretty good, I think, considering I still have to go to work every day and I can't completely ignore everyone around me. I noticed a lot of things this time around that I didn't recognize before, and I was a lot less sad when I read the seventh book. I got a little choked up reading "The Prince's Tale" chapter, but that was about it. I was already anticipating everything else (the deaths, surprises, etc.). So now I'm done. I had been planning on reading these books this summer, and now I don't know what else to do! Guess I'll just have to find something else to read. I think it's going to be "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" next. I've been wanting to read that again. Any other suggestions? Anyone read anything really great lately that I shouldn't miss?

I think Eric's glad I'm done with Harry Potter, now I'll actually give him some attention during our free time.

P.S. Nobody better recommend "The Celestine Prophecy"... or my mother will have your head.

happy mother's day...yesterday

Saturday was the Block Party at the Museum (to culminate Utah Prehistory Week). I worked for a couple of hours in the gallery, reading stories to kids and giving tours. It was pretty fun. I was almost sad I didn't get to be outside doing one of the booths, because it was such a nice day out. There was a family of Native American dancers who came to put on a show (they're called Morning Star), and they were really good. One of the kids especially was really talented. He finished the show with his hoop dance, where he used 21 hoops to make different formations while dancing. Awesome. After the dancing, I got interviewed about the exhibit by BYU Weekly, so maybe I'll be on TV sometime...

After the Block Party, Eric and I went to dinner at this new restaurant in Orem called Pizzeria 712. It's a cute little place with really eclectic (but delicious!) pizzas. We got one with goat cheese, olives, eggplant, onions, and chili flakes. Yum.

Oh, and on Friday we saw 10,000 BC in the dollar theater. It's a good thing we waited til it was in the dollar theater...that movie was terrible. And I usually can find things to like in really bad movies, so that's saying something. I don't know if it was the narrator or the mammoths (manak?) or the Jamaican accents or the dreadlocks or the screeching bird-dinosaur things in the jungle, or what, but it just wasn't very good.

In other news, Coldplay is coming to Salt Lake in November and Vegas in July...Eric's pushing to go to BOTH of those. We'll see...

owl on books

So. It's been a while. After classes the last semester, I worked fervently on getting the exhibit ready for opening on April 22. We were working until about an hour before it opened on finishing everything, and we managed to get it pretty well done. Not that many people came, which was actually a little disappointing (only people who work at the museum and their family/friends came). But whatever. My mom, Megan, Nathan, Eric, Eric's mom, his grandma and her husband, and my grandparents all came. That was kind of fun. A few pictures:

The case I worked on

The day after the exhibit opened, Eric had to go up to Salt Lake for a conference for his work from Wednesday til Saturday. He helped lots of people with their systems...at least I guess that's what he was doing. I wasn't there. I went up and stayed with him on Friday night, and there was a Sleep Number bed. Eric liked it, but I didn't really. Then on Saturday, I drove to Denver with my boss and a few other girls I work with for the American Association of Museums' annual conference. It was really good. I loved most of the sessions I went to, which basically gave insight into all different aspects of working in the museum profession. I especially loved one called "Stories are Serious Business," which talked about this program that this cooperation of museums was doing where Native Americans tell stories of their heritage in association with exhibits to help visitors better understand the collections.

After the sessions were over every day, we were able to walk around downtown in Denver and eat dinner. On Monday, we went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science for this dinner thing and to walk around and see the exhibits. I had a headache all night, so it probably wasn't as fun as it could have been, but it was ok. Tuesday we went to this Japanese place (kind of like an upscale Panda Express) called Tokyo Joe's, and on Wednesday the museum paid for us to go out to dinner at this Mexican place called Croc's. Yummy food.

The blue bear looking inside the Denver conference center ("I see what you mean")

Dancing people sculpture outside the conference center

At the capitol building - the mile high marker!

A neat sculpture thing outside the Denver Art Museum. It was all about grievances of the U.S. against Native Americans, and includes all sorts of events (AIM movement, Dawes Act, etc.)

After dinner, downtown on the 16th street mall

Yesterday Eric and I went up to Ikea in Draper and got a new bookcase! Now I can actually fit all of my books on one place...without them being strewn all over the living room. It's a pretty color. I love it!

Waiting in line for Iron Man. We were about the 30th people in line, and we got snacks to hold us over while we waited...

Eric wants me to mention that last night, on our way from getting gelato to going to the movie theater to see Iron Man (which was awesome), we saw this guy in a fat sumo wrestler suit riding a longboard down the street. It was so weird...and really hilarious. We tried to get a picture, but he skated away too fast. Surprising for a guy in a sumo suit.