GUH!

Here's the good pic of the caramel apples. YUM! See the post below and you'll know why it's here.

October Fun

Oh my goodness, y'all. JJ and I wake up on OCTOBER 12th and THIS is what's outside our window! Good for skiing, bad for just about every other reason.

I figured out something in the recent... hour. I have a handicap: I'm horrible at Blogger! So... here's pictures that were supposed to be in later that somehow ended up right here:


Caramel Apples with Peanuts for Punkin Carving Festival at our apartment. We also had worms and dirt (if you don't know what that is, your life is sad), and Roasted Chicken and Veg. DANG IT I JUST DELETED THE BEST PICTURE OF THE APPLES!!!!!! I'll post it later.

We went to PA October 15-21. The leaves were just starting to change colors and it was AMAZING! Here's what it looked like on the drive from DC-PA. P.S.: "We" (Marika) forgot our camera, so these were all taken on my phone....which is why we don't have many pics.

Next stop... GOLF! What else would we do? Brad (one of JJ's best friends... actually, probably JJ's bestie) was able to get us on to golf at the Hershey Country Club, where he works, for FREE! We loved it, even though both of us didn't play well.

It was such a beautiful old course. Thanks Brad!
JJ's parents took us to spend a day at the Renaissance Fair. Now, if you're reading this and dig renaissance fairs, look away, or go put on a costume and talk all nerdy, because that's what you enjoy anyway. I was surprised by how many of the people that went there were WEIRDOS! Well, now we know what happens there... so we'll never choose to go again :). Thanks anyway, in-laws! This pumpkin guy was the coolest part of the fair (for me). Besides the turkey leg that tasted like ham.


Last stop? Chinatown (DC), o'course! WHY? TO EAT, DUH! We had dim-sum, and it was delicious.

OKAY, now you get to see what we did today! The punkin carving fest:

JJ was very methodical in his carving. He drew the face on his punkin first, and then cut. Jaime and I had a different style: Jab and do whatever. Jaime thinks hers looks like it has a hat on. She demonstrated:

Anyway, I think all of our punkins ended up so cute! Jaime's has a unibrow,

Mine (Marika's) kinda looks like Shrek?

And JJ's is like a skull. Of course, methodical ended up more awesome. OH WELL!


It was a really fun thing, I'm glad we did it! It was the first holiday JJ and I have celebrated on our own (since we're not doing anything on halloween night, this was it), and it makes me realize how much I love being married to him. Starting our own traditions is so much fun, and I'm happy that I'll be able to do the same stuff every year, even after it gets old, because a tradition is a tradition, and we'll have to do them together every time!

Blogging is DUMB

I decided that blogging is dumb when all you do is school and work. Seriously. So don't look forward to anything new from us until we do something.

We'll be in PA from Oct. 15-21. Maybe I'll think of something to write then. :)

TTFN--Until we have something to blog about.

Crawdad Dinner

I somehow messed up and deleted this last part of the last post, but, you'll get the idea:


I was way happy that I got up, but mostly happy that I didn't feel like I had frostbite, and that a minimal amount of water got up my nose. Here's proof: We went ashore and had a crawdad dinner (again). Here's me and Micia being proud of my wakeboarding skills. And Stewart trying to make a Burt's Bee's commercial.

YUMMY YUMMY IN MY TUMMY!
It was such a fun time! Thanks Mish and Stew!

We Went Wakeboarding!

We had another adventure this weekend. We went to Scofield Reservoir (again) to catch crawdads and go wakeboarding. Micia and Stewart had been trying to get us out for a while, and we finally got to board! It was so much fun. Here are the highlights:


The morning was pretty cold, so we just hung out on the boat for a while. JJ's sister, Jaime, who lives with us now, got to come. It was super fun.

It warmed up pretty quick, so we decided to hit the (freaking cold) water.

Stewart went first to show us how it's done. He made it look super easy, so we all felt confident.

Then JJ flopped around in the water for a while, which made me and Jaime really really scared to try it... and he also made it pretty obvious how cold the water was, he started shivering.

Micia then took a turn, and she did really well! I think this made me want to go again, even though JJ didn't have such a fun time.

Jaime got the hang of it pretty quick! As soon as she got up, she lasted for a long time.

I was so scared of the chilly water! It was overcast as soon as I got to go, too. Micia gave me a little advice, though and....

After a couple of tries....

I got up! I couldn't believe it!!!! YAY!!!

Viva Las Vegas

This is us on our drive to Las Vegas for my 21st berfday. It was a very fun weekend--Here are most of the highlights!
We stayed at Treasure Island. When we arrived, we got a complimentary upgrade to the top level, and since we're "obviously newlyweds", we got a free bottle of Martinelli's, haha.

For our first meal, we decided to eat dim sum. However, restaurants don't really serve dim sum at 9 PM, so we ended up just getting "Modern Chinese food" at a restaurant in the Palazzo called Mainland. WORST SERVICE EVER, even worse than at Carvers in Sandy, Utah. Our server took a long time to come get our drink order, then said that the bar tender was too busy, so our drinks would take a while (bad idea to say when you can fully see the bar from your table), then our entrees came out probably a real-life 15 minutes apart. The food ended up being good, but we wouldn't ever go back, and don't recommend it, unless you can see that it's completely empty, therefore, not busy.
This was the view from our window. AWESOME!

The next night, after a long day at the pool, we decided to eat at the buffet at the Wynn. This was the line we waited in,
And this was the copious amount of crab legs that we consumed :)

Lunch the next day (after, once again, hanging out at the pool) was at Mesa Grill (by Bobby Flay). No sign of the chef, but I did learn a new fact... JJ can not aim a camera.

Then we went to the "Bodies" exhibit at the Luxor. It was super cool! I liked the siamese twins fetus, and JJ liked the body of veins. If you get the chance, see it! I hear it's coming to SLC in the fall.

We then went to Craftsteak for dinner. We had the Wagyu (American Kobe) Tartare (yes, we like raw meat) and shaved fennel salad, followed by JJ's New York (perfect) and my braised rib (most awesome), with sides of han-shi meiji mushrooms and a great blue cheese potato gratin. It was very filling!... and then we ate a free birthday cheesecake. BEST MEAL EVER! We don't even care that it beat out our other meals for most expensive, it was SO good.

All in all, it was a great vacation! I was glad to turn 21 with JJ around. I feel strange being a "real adult", and, to answer everyone's burning question, yes... I gambled. I spent a whole dollar on slots and won back... $0.00 . Oh well, I just did it to say that I did.

Crawdads, Aug 16

My family has been meaning to go fishing for crawdads for a long time, but we finally did it on Saturday Aug 16th! Mark that day in history, I think our lives have been changed--We're going to go a lot more now!


Micia's boyfriend, Stewart, brought his boat out just for fun. It was great to get out on the water, even if JJ's head got really sunburnt (it's peeling now, I swear it's not just dandruff).

JJ looks really cute on the docks :)
My dad bought some traps for us to use... This is how many were on the traps the first time we put them in. We soon learned that tying a piece of chicken to a string is actually the better plan.

Just drop the string into the water (avoiding mating bugs, ew).

Leave it for a few minutes, then pull it up (keeping in mind how awesome my mom's hat is),

AND TA-DA! Okay, it took a few pulls, but we did get a TON of them.

Boil 'em up with potatoes, corn, sausage, and spices

Dump 'em on the table (or into a box to be more sanitary)

and then comes the best part... these guys were YUMMY! and huge.

Sadly, all good things come to an end. I think we've got the next date set already, though, and I'm excited! It was so much fun.