Dog Boot Season!

I'm working on a post about our AMAZING trip to New York City with Sue, Will, and Amanda, but in the meantime, enjoy this year's first dog boots:

Caroling Caroling

Andrew and I have been singing in a community choir, practicing since September, and our holiday concert was this past Thursday! With only a couple minor slip ups, the whole thing went really well. Sue drove up from Grand Junction to see us, and Martha and Jill made it as well, and a contingent of our friends from the Aviary were also able to make it. We had almost the entire Libby Gardner Concert Hall packed! Not bad for a first concert!

And this is what happens when a good chunk of your friends are bird nerds.

It sounds like we'll have another concert in May, after taking a month off from practicing. I already am a bit sad that I won't have a weekly place to go sing for a little while, so I can't wait for us to start back up again.

Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree!

We have already started to assemble gifts at our house, but hadn't picked up a tree yet... high time!! Andrew and I took a walk to the grocery store and found the perfect little guy for our apartment. He came home right away.

Andrew experimented with several different methods of carrying a Christmas tree. We settled on my carrying the top, and him carrying the bottom.

All set up with some lights and garland!

Merry Grootmas!

Cheater's Duck Confit!

Edit: I decided to turn this into a real blog update!

The past couple of weeks have been a bit of a mad dash. Like I mentioned a bit ago, Andrew and I joined the Salt Lake Avenues Community Choir. The practices have been going really well-- we're learning 14 pieces of music, and as to be expected Andrew is a bass and I'm a soprano. I'm certainly not the best in my section, but I think Andrew is likely the best in his. In terms of the general demographic of the choir, we're both a bit outliers-- most everyone else is over the age of about 50 (there are a handful of other 20 and 30 somethings), and I think the majority of the choir comes from the same ward, whereas Andrew and I aren't LDS. It's not stopping us from jumping right in feet first though! It is SO nice to be involved in an artistic pursuit on a weekly basis again. I'm really excited for our performance in December, and I'm secretly hoping I might be able to snag a solo/small group parts in one of the pieces.

On the 3rd was the Great Salt Lake Audubon annual fundraiser. Andrew went and brought our friend Eric, since I was on event duty all night. It was a small but entertaining fundraiser (and wouldn't you know it, most of GSLA is over the age of 60... I guess we're just really good at getting involved in things that are mostly attended by senior citizens) at the Organ Loft, which has a Wurlitzer organ. I didn't really understand the significance of the organ before a part of the fundraiser where the Loft's organist played to Winged Migration, a bird nature film. Basically most of the room was a part of the organ. There were bells and whistles, clackers and (it feels like this could turn into a Dr. Suess story really quickly)... needless to say, very neat. A poor comedian (boyfriend of the girl who put the whole thing together) had a 15 minute set of bird-related jokes, cloacas included, and even had a small segment about the ridiculousness of how John James Audubon used to talk (using thees and thous and what have you). The older folks in the crowd didn't appreciate it, but it had Andrew, Eric, and I in stitches. Andrew and I even won some dog beds and tickets to Les Ballets Trocadero from the raffle!

Andrew submitted his veterinary school applications too! Whoopee! It was a lot of work for him to put it all together. It involves writing several different essays, some small, some short... some repeats of others, with prompts worded just differently enough that he has to write something mostly new for them. I think his application is a lot stronger this year than last year, and we both have our fingers crossed for the results.

Which brings us to today. Today we had a slow morning with a breakfast of eggs and bacon, and then we went to the Body World & The Cycle of Life exhibit. Andrew saw it the last time it came through town, but I wasn't able to attend. It was fascinating! We were able to see all of the body systems in very different, unique ways, and from a lot of different perspectives (literally, the exhibits allowed you to walk 360 degrees around all of the pieces). Since Andrew took Anatomy this summer, he had a totally different take on the exhibit than he did last time, so I think it was especially fascinating to him. We're both biology nerds, and ultimately it ended up being a great little outing.

The topic of dinner came up, and at the grocery store we came across some reasonably priced duck legs (gasp!). We've been wanting to try confit for a while, so it seemed a good opportunity. Thankfully Tony Caputos had two containers of duck fat left, which we picked up, and then went home to prep everything.

So we DID have duck fat, but we didn't have eight hours to cook the confit... thankfully THIS recipe gave us meat-falling-off-the-bone duck legs in 3 hours, and boy was it yummy!

What else could we do when we found duck legs like that? WE HAD NO CHOICE.

 My Fall Break camps are coming up this next week. We're short staffed, and my educator and I have to do both the full day camps and Little Chick classes (both programs require 2-3 people to really run correctly). I've roped in a few volunteers, including Andrew, so I think we'll be fine, but it's been a rush coming up to it with so much going on at work and not really enough man power or time in the day to get it done. I still feel little pangs of frustration when I think back to how close I got to the Reddit position, but I am grateful that the way things worked out allows me to have holidays with my families, and to have a significant break around the holiday season. Plus, with Andrew applying to vet school, who knows what the next year will look like? Hopefully we will, at the very least, be heading up to Logan, or maybe we'll be headed to Colorado? It's nice to have some prospects, even if they seem interminably far away.

I'm starting to get the hang of this TV thing!

I'll be honest, I thought all was lost with this interview... but I think it turned out ok!

Cabin Pt II, this time with nicer photos

We enjoyed our weekend up at the cabin so much we decided to do it AGAIN, as soon as possible!

Everybody got to wear seatbelts this trip, so exciting! (Definitely not wanting to squirm out of them).

The leaves were already changing color, meaning there was a lot to sniff and roll around in.

 Lucy fell in love with the shag carpet the last time.

So retro!

 It was pretty stormy most of the time we were up there, but the rain was intermittent.

 And I like helicopters

 Quite a bit, apparently.

 It smelled like rain and woods the whole time, super relaxing!

The temps stayed below 60 pretty much the whole time, so we made sure we had a nice fire going whenever we were in the cabin.

The Sunday night we stuck in and played Zeus and Hera, our new favorite card game.

 Lucy spent a lot of time on the porch.

 Linus was absolutely KOOKOO for marshmallows! He got a taste of one, and then fixated on it for the rest of the evening.

Speaking of marshmallows, we can't have a fire without s'mores... sorry keto.

Mmmm, marshmallow roasting!

The sun came out long enough for a peek at a rainbow!

 The weekend was full of cuddles.

Plenty of lounging.

Breakfast of bacon, eggs, and berries the next morning!

Bear Lake stained glass above the door.

Andrew and I started off on a mission the last weekend we were up to compare all of the raspberry shakes in town that we could. This time, we were dismayed to find that all of the shake places but La Beau's were closed, possibly for the season. Thankfully, La Beau's was our second favorite shake in town, and had the best fries, so we were happy to pick up a snack before going to the lake.

Speaking of which, we picked up life vests for the dogs before coming this time, because last time Lucy fixated on a gull that kept flying further and further out into the lake, drawing her to her death. Thankfully she swam back before she got too tired, but she was far too far out for my liking, so this time she was released with a floatation device... that happened to be bright pink. Linus' was a little too small for him, but was also adorable.

This was just before Lucy ran way too far out chasing a gull again, but thankfully was content to float in the water for a few seconds whenever she got tired.

It was chilly and rained on and off, but we did get some really beautiful weather for about 10 minutes at a time.

Linus' favorite stick.

After we dried off, we all relaxed a little bit.

The La Beau's shake the first day was delicious-- they were fresh raspberries with good vanilla ice cream. It had an excellent tartness to it. Merlin's, from our last visit, had the worst shakes. The ice cream was thin and melted funny, and the flavoring was definitely artificial. The local Chevron boasts having the best raspberry shakes, which isn't true, but they weren't half bad, and this is the shake above. The ice cream was thick and had smooth texture, and these raspberries were definitely frozen, but were pretty yummy. It was more sweet than tart, though, and I prefer the tartness. Overall, Andrew and I agreed that Home Town Drive In had the best shakes-- we had them last visit, and they were the most freshly tart, had the best ice cream, and the best texture overall. Unfortunately their fries weren't as good as La Beau's. Quick n' Tasty was closed both visits, so they didn't get judged.

(This was a last La Beau's shake, because Andrew and I apparently have impulse control issues).

It was a really lovely visit, nobody died in a lake, and many board games were played! We also read The Princess and the Queen, a novella by George R. R. Martin within the A Song of Ice and Fire world, and caught up on plenty of sleep with naps by the fire. A rejuvenating weekend for all, in the midst of an otherwise busy few weeks!

As a non-trip related side-note, Andrew has submitted his applications for vet school officially! The waiting begins! We also have joined the Salt Lake Avenues Community Choir, and are co-Music and Attendance secretaries for the choir. We'll be performing a concert at the Libby Gardner Hall at the U's campus, on December 18th. We're pretty dang excited!

Perfect porch times

We forgot to pack in eggs, only to discover that the Texaco in Garden City is the only place touting groceries that is ALSO open on Sundays. 

Somehow we escaped with not just eggs, but butter, cheese, AND ham! Oh happy day!

Breakfast was quick, and now we're enjoying the porch.

Easy mornings.

Hoping maybe the dogs will return home someday...they keep disappearing together to tromp around the woods around the cabin and then show back up to relax in the sunshine for a bit.

Bear Lake!

Andrew and I have a slightly longer weekend because I'm shifting schedules, and we decided to pay the Bear Lake cabin a visit! 

The drive was gorgeous, as always, and seemingly endless...not in a bad way, but I did start to wonder if we had been caught in some sort of a time paradox. Trees are already starting to change color! Most of the oak and aspen stands are still green, but the wayward individual here and there was dancing around in the wind with bright red foliage.

Once we got here and figured out how to get the water and electricity on, priority #1 was getting raspberry shakes and fries and heading to the shore of the beach. We went to La Beau's, because Quick n' Tasty didn't sound as refined...no, only kidding, because that's the one Andrew remembered going to. 

The dogs LOVED the shore! Lucy rolled in a dead thing. Linus peed on a bunch of plants. Andrew and I found a dry patch of sand to eat our shakes and fries, and the dogs ran in the lake.

We got to see a beautiful pink sunset, and headed back to town before it got dark. Our original choice for dinner was Lakeside Pizza (we are taking a vaca-keto-break, as one might tell), but they were mysteriously closed, so we opted for Bear Lake Pizza. Chicken Alfredo and supreme pizza! And lightly garlicked French bread! The internet may say it's Garden City's second best pizza, but it TOTALLY hit the spot. 

We also picked up s'mores supplies, and got the fire lit up when we got back to the cabin (sorry Sue!) I am obliged to highlight how careful we were, though- such a very small fire, just one log at a time! And the marshmallows were SO yummy. Oh god, where have they been these past two low carb years? (Though truly, we are being so fire- safe, I promise, even this one log we have in the fire is keeping only the tiniest of flames!)

Time for board games! I CREAMED Andrew in Carcassone, and then he absolutely crushed me in Dominion. Very equitable, ultimately ;) 

We remembered the uke as well, so plenty of music is happening, in between breaks to look at the stars, since it's so dark up here. 

I personally really needed this break, what a relief to be able to run up here even just for a night... back to ukulele and singing :)