labor day.

guess what’s a kind of fun game that we were forced into? having no money. no, seriously…no money.

when we got married, we joined our financial forces (…my bank statement was -33 cents…oops…!) and opened up a new bank account. we ordered fancy new cards and set up secret passwords and signed a bunch of papers…and then two weeks later, we found out that our cards were sent to a random person who 1. guess our passwords and 2. spent $600 on philly cheese steaks and other some such things. long story short(er), our bank account is now frozen and under investigation…great password, no?

so for labor day, we were in search of something free. and mildly entertaining. but mostly free.

after much internet-surfing, we decided on oktoberfest at snowbird; a festival centered almost entirely on sauerkraut and bratwursts…my type of party!

two hours and some serious wrong-turns later, we weren’t at oktboerfest. or even snowbird. but we were in pretty brighton, utah and brighton, utah has public restrooms so brighton, utah it was! we determined there are about three things to do in brighton, utah for free (brighton, utah is a firsty-lasty, don’t you think? kind of like joss stone or jay zee). using the restroom is one of the three.

so romantic drive through the canyon it was! and oh! was it romantic! we were hand-in-hand, reminiscing about our shotgun courtship and old arrested development episodes…

and then a wasp flew in through the window and landed in my cleavage and stung me repeatedly.

the end.

p.s. happy one month to jeff and i! what a feat, no? we had a waffle feast this morning to celebrate! …and also to eat seeing as we really only have bisquick left in our pantry. fingers crossed our account unfreezes!

p.p.s. is jeff’s new haircut kind of hilter youthy? morgan told him so and i am kind of on the fence. except for i am more on hitler-youthy side.

p.p.p.s. happy labor day!

we’re off!

…to (hopefully) sunny southern california! we are going for jeff’s best friend’s wedding, to see his family, and to finalize some of our own wedding details (three words: funnel cake tasting…!). although we have a long drive ahead of us, i am looking forward to it! i have my well thought-out road trip snacks to munch on (pictured above) and the new norah jones’ album downloaded…plus a pretty good-looking driver, too ;). happy thursday!

solar eclipse extravaganza.

when jeff marched (with such masculinity!) into my kitchen on sunday afternoon and announced that we were going to the solar eclipse extravaganza in cedar city, i packed up a containers of berries and melon, grabbed my camera, and followed him out the door. 300 miles later, we arrived! i figured that we were the only people that were going to be at this extravaganza but, oh, how wrong i was! cars upon cars upon cars were parked on the side of the road with hundreds of people holding handmade eclipse-viewers and welding masks up tho their eyes. there were telescopes and overpriced hot dog stands and police men to oversee everything. we decided to park up at a church on top of a hill and watch this ‘once in a lifetime event’ (sadly we learned that eclipses happen annually…but, still…we won’t see it here till 2023!). it was…anticlimactic? nonetheless i screamed and cheered with jeff because he was so, SO into it (he was just having a particularly nerdy day; on the way there he explained to me the entire lord of the rings trilogy and on the way back, he reenacted the first three star wars’ movies…). three cheers for eclipses and adventures with the top person on my ‘list of favorite people whose names start with j and end with f’ (it’s a very extensive list).

utah.

…let it be known: utah is beautiful!

the midwest(ish).

utah to nebraska to colorado to wyoming and back to utah in a mere 40-something hours…exhaustion, exhaustion, exhaustion…but well worth it for a mediocre ribeye sandwich at nebraskaland diner and overdue quality time with my nikki friend.i’d never been to the midwest before and found it really pretty with all the wide open space and trees… but so flat! (…insert widely understood prepubescent joke…) i had definitely been taking my utah mountains for granted! i am excited that my nikki friend is here and that i get to be her little tour guide around provo for the next few days!

bruges waffles and frites.

something that i noticed about jeff early on (and loved!) was that he shared my love of adventures and food and adventures for  food. we love to look up ‘cheap eats’ around utah county and try them out (rules: both meals must be roughly under 15 dollars, drink must be shared, bread basket encouraged). on thursday we finally, finally tried out bruges waffles and frites in salt lake city and it did not disappoint! (we actually had to make the trip to pick up a chinese kung fu man suit…? ha. jeff is in his friend’s movie and is an emperor!)(i was cast in it too! as the floozy party girl who hits on the emperor, makes out with him, and then leaves…and, action!)jeff ordered the waffle monster, a leige waffle stuffed with delicious speculoos spread (umm, hi! cookie in a bottle!), vanilla bean ice cream, and fresh blueberries…he almost shared. i ordered the frites with andalouse sauce (it’s like fancy mayo) and was in starchy-goodness heaven.

we ended the day watching some adult-league kickball in the park (on accident) and developing major crushes on the flamboyant pitcher…he was just so cute!

…and that was our thursday :)

our escape to portlandia.

after finals week, all we wanted to do was unwind, unwind, unwind…no alarm clocks, no hygienic obligations, no studying. and unwind, we did! our weekend in portland was incredibly relaxing although we adventured around for most of it! some highlights were going to the saturday’s market, learning to cook TWO dishes (we can live off of fried chicken and spaghetti forever, right?), watching newbie comics in a comedy club downtown (…some were so awkward; dear aspiring comic lady: joking about drinking from mason jars…not funny), and finally, FINALLY trying the highly recommended voodoo donuts (jeff ordered me their most inappropriate donut shaped like a…rocket ship. i had to tote a few blocks and even got stopped by an old woman who cooed “that looks DELICIOUS! where do i get one?!” … i think her husband got the point that she was a bit deprived. ha. only kidding), meeting up with my brother living in olympia, washington and gorging ourselves with p.f. changs, and lounging around at my grandma’s house that’s always full of the best junk food (mint chocolate oreos, pistachio ice cream, frozen heath bars…!).
(keep trying, mr. church-preacher man! the punk kids will eventually listen!)portland, you are weird. thanks for having us.