I'm crap at titles.

I promise our lives involve more than food and our animals... but those are definitely the more entertaining parts (for us?) of our lives. (Andrew adds "Apart from class and work, that might actually be all we have...", but I am unwilling to admit this, however true it may be).

Not helping my point, have a bunch of photos that prove how much of a cuddle ninja Lucy is (realize, though, that she puts herself into all of these positions; Andrew and I don't move her or alter her position to look weirder. Even as I type this, she is laying underneath the computer chair with her head resting on my shoe like a tiny, hard, leather pillow):

(Ben, you're going to have to bring out the big guns over Christmas)

We've had a pretty awesome day. Got up at 7am for some reason, drove to the top of the Avenues to see if we could get above the inversion line to see the lunar eclipse (we couldn't), stopped at Tulie Bakery, walked the dogs at Tanner Park, made lunch AND a lemon meringue pie, I met with a woman I'm going to be doing a poetry reading for and tonight we're going to have dinner with our friend Kristine. Go us!

I have no say whether she cuddles or not, but frankly Roman gets what she wants.

A Bald Eagle Visitor

A Bald Eagle Visitor, a photo by Curlew and Gudolph on Flickr.

I finally had my camera at work while the bald eagle visited. We had an eye-to-eye encounter...through the lens, anyway ;)

Christmas treats

I want to eat these really badly. Oh so badly.

Food!

Andrew and I have been making some neat dinners recently. One of my favorites was lemon and dill salmon with black rice. Also had barbeque salmon with zucchini and cauliflower mash, which is absolutely delicious. I'm a salmon fan.

Tonight we made personal pizzas with dough from Whole Foods, mozzarella, sage sausage and a ton of vegetables. We ended our meal with some homemade chocolate chip cookies.

I've also realized that I am incapable of cooking truly healthy food if it isn't an integral part of the recipe already or a tablespoon of butter wouldn't make it taste better...the latter being impossible. So you see my dilemma.

Unrelated to food, there was a wild bald eagle in the trees at the aviary today. Amazing!

Lucy's cuddling issue continues

Hot Air Ballooning

Hot Air Ballooning, a set on Flickr.

Last Christmas I gave Andrew a voucher for he and I to take a hot air balloon ride. This weekend, over Thanksgiving, he realized we still hadn't used it (and it needed to be used before the 30th!). So this morning we went! It was AMAZING, here are my favorite pictures from the ride.

Thanksgiving Pet Portraits

I don't know that I am capable of ever eating again (until 1pm today, when we get to have even MORE delicious Thanksgiving food with the Cook clan!). I woke up this morning in physical pain, but this is the sort of dedication Thanksgiving calls for. I might not be the food eating champion Thanksgiving wants, but I'm the food eating champion Thanksgiving needs. 

I forgot to get good pictures of Thanksgiving at my parents' house last night. Something about serious food distractions. I have vague memories of eating stuffing right from a duck and I have recurring flashbacks of mounds of fluffy whipped cream, but it's all bits and pieces right now.

The ride home from Utah County was abominably long, though. Long enough to be of note. We got into I-15 at Lehi and it took AN HOUR to get to Bangerter just across the point of the mountain. This drive usually takes 3-5 minutes. Finally we decided we had to abandon the roads (great practice for zombie invasions anyway) and drove city streets all the way home. All told, it took about an hour and 45 minutes to get back to the apartment.

Andrew is finishing a pumpkin pie for this afternoon. I was going to brave a mall on Black Friday (more for the experience than anything else) but we have decided against this as a foolhardy notion. 

Lucy has a cuddling problem...

And I have been documenting it.

Prime example:

Let there be banana bread!

Things have happened!

I made a hat!

Tim came to visit!

And other things, but later because the dogs are begging for a walk.

Andrew is awesome, particularly at Chemistry.

The whole class was given the chance to retake the test and turn it in the next time they met because of this.

A slightly bizarre proposal

Saturday afternoon, after two full girl scout camps, I helped with a proposal!

A guy contacted me about two months ago to see if we could have an owl fly in with a ring for his proposal to his girlfriend (who is a big owl fan, apparently). Unfortunately, because our birds can only be used for educational purposes, we couldn't offer this to him. Instead we decided on a tour through Owl Forest and a private meeting with Barney, the Great Horned Owl, culminating in his finding a ring in a fake owl pellet and proposing to his love. All of this had to seem like it was just happenstance, though.

(The owl pellet idea came from a goofy conversation between Helen and I and was more of a joke than anything, but the guy really liked the idea. I felt a little nervous about it, since it would technically be almost entirely my fault if she said no because she thought the proposal was disgusting. He was positive that she would like it, though, so we went along with it).

I met them at the entrance of Owl Forest after my last camp, pretending like I had never met the guy before and certainly wasn't there to talk to THEM specifically. I was speaking with another group (carefully corralled into talking to me so the whole thing would seem more natural) and when they came up I casually offered to walk them through the forest since I was at the end of my shift for the day. They agreed, she was none the wiser and we went through the exhibits until we 'stumbled' upon Barney and Helen waiting at the end of the forest.

The soon-to-be fiancee was enthralled and launched into asking questions about Barney, who was being really territorial and hooting up a storm. Helen subtly introduced the topic of owl pellets by discussing how to find owls in their territories in the wild, but struggled to really describe an owl pellet...Jenn to the rescue! I pulled out the tupperware container holding the fake owl pellet and offered it to the guy to pull apart, so that they could see the bones inside.

Only there wasn't a bone inside, there was a diamond engagement ring. He went on one knee, she started to cry and she said yes.

Here is a real owl pellet:











Here is my fake rendition, made of dryer lint, stuffed animal fur, diluted Elmer's glue and some dirt on the outside:

Something new every day, folks! Something new every day.

Beautiful fall

The weather has dipped it's head just below 80 degrees during the day time now. Absolutely perfect! I've been biking to work most of the summer and right now I am REALLY enjoying it.

Andrew and I are working really hard to not just eat at home, but eat respectable foods. yesterday we made a sort of improvised chicken-garam masala and rice dish. the four days before that were the pasta marathon. I made spaghetti, linguini and ravioli (which rocks!). Tonight is panko breaded yogurt chicken and haricote verts.

hurrah for fall!

Uh oh, what's this?

Yesterday's kitchen:

And the day before:

But wait, what is this?

Increments, ladies and gentlemen, increments.