Yesterday I learned...

Yesterday I learned that you can find out a lot about a person by looking through their stuff. I had the riveting assignment as an intern to take the RD (registered dietitian)'s stuff out of the moving boxes and into the office. The old RD took another job before the big move to the new central kitchen and so all his stuff was still in boxes (TONS of boxes). As I was organizing all of his "things" I found these things:

• A keychain fingernail clipper and swiss army knife combo. Practical, no?
• 5 (yes, five!) screwdrivers. It makes me wonder if he was the fix-it man around the office.
• A package of yellow plastic chain links. What?
• A calculator from at least 1983. It's literally the biggest calculator I've ever seen. Why get another one if the old one works?
• At least 600 paperclips. I can just see the scenario: he's trying to find one, doesn't see one right away underneath all the pencils and pens in his drawer, so he goes and gets another box of 100 from the supply room. Before you know it, the guy has hundreds!
• A necklace badge holder contraption. I guess he wasn't the type of guy that liked to hook the badge on his belt loop.
• 4 aprons. It seems like he didn't like to ever put those in the wash, kinda gross. 
• Tons of empty, unused plastic folders. Maybe he had some great plans for those things that no one will ever get to see happen.

Anyway, the list goes on. It was fun to get to know this person I've never met through his stuff. It makes me wonder if someone would get a good picture of who I am just by going through my stuff. 

Lake Blanche Weekend Trip

Paige only had to work half-uh-day so we decided to take an impromptu trip up to Lake Blanche of Big Cottonwood Canyon. We threw some ramen noodles, oatmeal, our sleeping bags, and a tent into our backpacks and jumped in the car.

Here we are at the trailhead. The hike was only 3.1 miles so we were still smiling even at the top. We hiked through some nice aspen groves and saw a plethora of snakes along the trail (after the first one Paige made me hike in front).

 The canyon we hiked up is a glacial valley so we enjoyed all the cool geology. Here is a picture of some glacial striations (the lines running from the bottom of the picture to the top). Rock fragments drug along by the ice scrape along the bedrock and cause these striations as the glacier flows over them. These striations can be used to determine which way the glacier was flowing. Paige just laughed at me as I ran along the rocks following the striations and pretending I was a glacier (don't kick it till you try it).

Here are a few highlight pictures of the rest of the trip. Some of them are rather artsy-fartsy if that's what you're in to.

Paige made me include this picture (above) because according to her it was the best scenery of the trip.

If you want to see all of our pics from this trip you can find them here: kaching!

Oh, the trees weren't too bad to look at either.

A real live quilt!

I decided to try my hand at a quilt. Thanks to Grandma Henry for the fabric scraps for me to learn on!

Advice from Grandma when I asked her how to make a quilt: "There are no rules. Just use your imagination!" So there you go. I used my imagination :)

P.S. Did you see that Billie did his very own first blog post about fall?

Fall is Coming!

We decided to go for a leisurely hike up Emigration Canyon this weekend. Shortly into our drive up the canyon we started to notice little flashes of reds, yellows, and oranges in the trees and realized that fall is almost here.

We hiked up a small side canyon with a little creek running down it. The canyon sides were fairly steep and the trail was unmaintained so the going was slow but we didn't mind because we were just out to enjoy the scenery. We found some really fuzzy caterpillars. So fuzzy in fact that Paige couldn't help but pet one to see what it felt like.

We also happened along some chokecherries to munch on. There were some large raspberry patches but unfortunately we were a week or two late. All the berries had shriveled up. I was hungry for something more substantial so I checked out the creek. Much to my delight there was some good sized trout so I decided to try some hand fishing... with no success.

All in all it was a great little trip to an area we had never been before. We'll definitely be going back in the coming weeks to enjoy the fall colors as they come into full force.

Canning Peaches

What a great weekend adventure we had! We went up to Pocatello, ID to visit my Grandma Henry. We stopped by Brigham City on our way up and picked up a TON of peaches for canning. We've had grandma's canned peaches so many times and they are absolutely delicious so we wanted to learn the art of canning and we also wanted to have some good laughs. You always have good laughs when you spend time with grandma.

Here's the video we made of the instructions for canning and some of the hilarious things Gma did during the canning adventure. I hope you enjoy getting to know Grandma!

For those who would rather have things written out, here are the instructions for canning peaches:

• Buy as many peaches as you want. Make sure they are very ripe and freestone peaches.
• Buy jars with the lids that "pop." If you have old lids and jars, you can use old jars, but be sure to wash them out well, and go out and buy new lids so that they will seal right
• Get a pot of water to boiling temperature. Submerge a few peaches at a time in the hot water for about 2 minutes in order to peel of the skins. (I recommend dunking them in cold water after the boiling water but Grandma wouldn't let me do this. To each his own.)
• Peel peaches and but in half, remove the stone. Immediately put halved peaches in cold water with a little lemon juice squirted into the cold water.
• Put peaches in the jar (we used pint-sized jars) with the cut part facing down. You can pack about 4-5 halves in the jar on top of one another.
• Once you have peaches loaded into your jars, drain out the water and add your "simple syrup" as Gma calls it. This syrup is made with 1 part sugar, 2 parts water and is boiled until the sugar is dissolved.
• Add the syrup into the jars almost all the way to the top but not quite to the top. Screw on the lids (but not too tight because the jars might explode)
• Use a big pot to boil. Put a rag at the bottom of the pot so that the jars won't break while they boil. Only do one layer of jars. Place jars on top of the rag and fill the pot with cold water just over the tops of the jars. Place pot on high heat and cover with the lid. Once the water starts to boil, turn down heat and let it boil for 20 minutes.
• Scoop out boiling water and bring out jars. Let them cool on counter until they seal.
• If you have more jars, make sure you drain boiling water from the pot and add cold water again, just as before. 
• THAT'S ALL!! Have fun!

Yummiest, easiest key lime pie

Everyone: this is the best pie ever. My cousin's husband raved about it and he made it for a family get-together once and it was as yummy as he said it would be. Billie is now obsessed too, and he's gotten his whole family on the bandwagon. So if you still don't believe me, just try it. You'll be hooked.

What you will need for the CRUST:

• 1 package Graham crackers
• 6 T melted butter
• 1/3 C sugar 

What you will need for the PIE:

• 3 egg yolks
• 4 oz cream cheese
• 1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 C Nellie and Joe's Famous Key West Lime Juice

Mix together Grahams, butter, and sugar and press into a pie pan. Blend the yolks, cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, and lime juice in a blender until smooth. Add filling to crust and bake at 350* for 15 minutes. Chill for a few hours and then enjoy. YUM!

Tennis Twins

Billie has a new obsession. I tried to get him to blog about it but he turned me down. So I'll go ahead and take care of it.

All summer long, we have been playing tennis a couple times a week. We have a high school just a few blocks away and a pair of rackets to play with. We started with 3 balls that we bought and we have found enough in our time playing that our collection is now up to 9. These are the things we get excited about!

I have only won one time. (And I think this helps us to be able to keep playing!) We've gotten a lot better as time has gone on but we were absolutely RUINED the other day when we played with $125 rackets compared to our Walmart-who-knows-how-old-they-are rackets. The sound they make when you play with good rackets is like "ping" instead of "thuuuud." So we'll have to add that to the list of things to invest in when we are making actual money! But for now, we're having lots of fun with the sport we both wish we played in high school.

A short history

About two years ago, this boy

And this girl 

Met on a hike with a group of friends. This picture was taken on the break we took for lunch while hiking Mount Nebo. Notice how Billie is surrounded by all the girls. I will say, though, that Billie was the one to snuggle in with me in this picture, and I didn't mind.

At this very lunch break stop, Billie has his first memory of what I was like. As he was putting his back of trail mix away I yelled, "Who has that trail mix? I want some!" (silence), then "I KNOW someone has trail mix!" Billie then politely pulled out his trail mix, handed me some, and said, "Ok I guess we are all friends here and we're sharing. You could have at least said please!" I felt bad at that moment, but look at us now!

A year later, Billie took me back to Mount Nebo to propose. It was perfect!

And a year after that, two years after we met on Mount Nebo, we finally made it back to the place we met and got engaged and hiked the mountain with my cousin Ashley and her husband, Justin. We didn't get a good picture of Billie and I but here I am with Ashley. We love Mount Nebo and the memories we have there!

Sew what?

I have two weeks off before I officially start my dietetic internship and I've been keeping busy. Here is my latest creation, inspired by my friend's blog post. It's super simple, easy, cute, and comfy! And I feel accomplished. More to come!