the lemon chicken penne incident

I used to think I was a pretty good cook. Okay, so let me rephrase that...I knew I was a pretty good cook. The only disclaimer is that I'm only a good cook with the four total recipes that I have mastered.

Other than those four recipes, I ain't got nothin.

You can imagine how this is a rather large problem since I am now cooking dinner almost every night and using the same four recipes can be a little tiresome. 

So I decided to branch out. 

"It can't be too hard" I told myself "it's just following a recipe"

turns out,
it is hard.

I will now recount to you the lemon chicken penne incident of last Sunday:

I was super pumped because in my search to branch out I had found a recipe online for a lemon chicken penne. 

The pictures looked delicious,

The instructions were simple enough,

"Why not?" I asked myself. 

So I ran down to the grocery store, gathered up the ingredients and was good to go. 

I had to marinate the chicken for 24 hours in lemon juice, among other things so I got right to work. 

Soon the marinade was ready and the chicken went into the fridge.

All night I thought about what a delicious meal we were going to be having the next day, I might have even dreamed about it. 

I was going to invite my cousin and his love interest over for dinner because I was so confident in my meal, but somehow that didn't end up working out.

So Sunday rolls around, we get out of church and I rush home to get started on my masterpiece. 

I followed the directions exactly and before too long it was finished!

So we set ourselves a pretty table and dished up the piece de resistance (I don't know how to spell in French, but you get what I mean)

After one bite and some thoughtful chewing, we looked at each other.

After the second bite we gulped down some water real fast after swallowing,

and after the third bite, the whole bowl of pasta went right into the garbage can.

Bummer.
It had potential, it really did. But holy cow, talk about lemon. Waaayyy too much lemony goodness for our liking.

Luckily I had stuck some biscuits in the oven, so our Sunday dinner (you know, that one you look forward to all week) consisted of biscuits. And they weren't even homemade.

ohhh, I am a failure.

walking in a slushy wonderland...

That is the epitome of Rexburg, Idaho at the moment. Holy cow! The first few days of school the sidewalks were covered in snow (and were very slickery) and the roads were covered (seriously, completely caked) in this nasty, brown, wet, slushy junk. (which was also pretty slickery, by the way) 

nas.ty.

This problem was especially made worse by the fact that I was wandering around in the nasty slush-land not knowing where I was going and getting lost at every turn. Seriously...this campus was/is beyond confusing for me. I still get lost a lot, much to Kolton's dismay (He must not have known that he married a girl with absolutely no sense of direction and an even less affinity for reading a map, poor guy).

No, he's actually been very patient with me calling him up every five seconds asking where this building is, or what that street is. He even drew me a map! (which actually wasn't that nifty considering the above mentioned problem of mine)

However, I do have one little thing to be grateful for amid all the slush. (well, actually I guess it's technically two things...) and those are.....

These babies.

(they literally rock my socks)

They have saved my life (and my socks) as I've wandered around campus these last few weeks. I just lace em up nice and tight and I'm good to go! I can walk a.n.y.w.h.e.r.e.- especially on slushy, snowy, wet roads and sidewalks and neither my socks nor the bottom of my pant legs get soggy and wet.

I think everybody needs a pair of these.

i'm a married woman

and couldn't be happier, even though these last couple weeks have been mucho crazy.

to do a little catch-up

-i finished all my finals (and passed) all my classes before i bid goodbye to BYU

-(this deserves it's own bullet point) my very last final was marriage prep and i was freaking out just a bit about it because i hadn't studied nearly as much as i should have but as i walked out of the testing center and looked at that little screen i gasped to myself and maybe might have laughed a little bit out loud because i got a 98% that is the highest i have ever gotten on any college test! i had to call kolton and tell him not to worry-we can get married because i passed my marriage prep test.

-i packed up all my junk, said goodbye to my sweet roommates who helped me pack up all my junk and made the 4.5 hour drive for the last time.

-i was busy busy the rest of that week making sure all the loose ends were tied up

-then on Saturday the 18th i went through the temple. it was such a sweet experience, if not a little overwhelming.

-that night my sweet friends threw me a bridal shower and we had so much fun catching up

-on tuesday, the 21st, the day i got married (holy cow!)  i was up before the sun getting my hair done. then kolton picked me up and off to the temple we went! a couple hours later i walked out of the temple with a handsome husband on my arm.

-after some pictures, and a luncheon, we were off to the reception 

-i had so much fun standing in line and  chatting with all of the people who came to see us.! as i was standing there i realized that all of these people were there for us!  really i do feel so blessed for all of the support so many people have shown us.

-we spent a few days in island park before we came home for christmas.

-after christmas we were off to vegas! where we spent a few days seeing all we could see. vegas is a funny, funny place we decided.

-however, before we left for vegas. literallly-like an hour before our flight left, we ran into idaho falls and bought some furniture. so exciting! we bought a beautiful bed, mattress, and a kitchen table! we kind of felt silly buying the first things we saw but we liked 'em and the price was good so we figured, why not!?

-when we got home from vegas we moved into our apartment and spent a few days organizing and re-organizing everything in our new home.

-then we started our winter semester here in freezy rexy. the first day was a little stressful but it's been uphill from there (meaning it's got better and better. maybe uphill is not the right expression)

whew! talk about a crazy couple of weeks!

but things are starting to settle down and we are just putting our noses back to the grindstone. it seems crazy that we have been married only two weeks. i feel like i can't even remember a time when we weren't  married. is that weird or what?

p.s. i apologize for the lack of pictures or details or anything else that might have made this post interesting. stay tuned for that kind of stuff. okay? okay.