spring is in the air

found here

But if you think that that means it's getting any less chilly up in here, you are wrong-a-rino!

A good indication of Spring being right around the corner....(or around the block is probably more appropriate time-wise) is the blustery wind we have been having lately.

Holy moley, it's been nasty the last couple days. Spring really might have been in the air, but pretty sure the wind blew it away. It was almost fifty degrees the other day. (heat wave!) and soooo lovely.

But yesterday and today that ole wind picked up and I have not enjoyed it one little bit. (Never been a big fan of the wind. It's ruined many a sun-bathing experience for me)

 
But I do believe the worst part other than: a) my hair being a mess all over my face and stuck in my chapstick every time I leave the house,  b) freezing my poor little ears off, and c) getting blown every which way all over the sidewalk is that our windows in our apartment aren't totally workable and don't totally shut all the way so the wind howls all day and night.

It's kinda eerie to wake up to that in the middle of the night (just so you know). Good thing I've got my buddy to protect me. :)

We've got some serious draft problems as a result of the window thing. When the wind is especially moving the blinds get to swaying. Pretty sure that's bad.

So I guess Spring isn't exactly right  around the corner. But here's hoping it's coming soon to a town near me.

while i'm on the subject....

I feel so badly about my blogging absence/neglection (is that a word?) so I figure that while I'm putting off my homework I may as well just write a little more about the daily happenings in the Hansen household. I'll keep it short, promise.

First, Saturday was a lovely day. Seriously. I don't know about all ya'll, but we live for Saturdays in our house when we have nothing to do and all day to do it.

This Saturday was so wonderful because we didn't have anything planned and we weren't in a rush to go anywhere.

So we spent the morning scrubbing the house. (Whenever I tell my mom I'm cleaning she always says, "Well, that'll take ya about five seconds" because my "house"/living space is actually very smallish)

Well, it took us a little longer than five seconds.

Kolton took the kitchen (what a guy, huh?) and I took.....the rest of the house. While I was scrubbing the bathroom I see Kolton walk past with our wedding gifted fancy new drill (if I had a quarter for every time he's told me it is his favorite wedding gift....) I don't know about you, but in all my experience in cleaning the kitchen I have never felt the need to bring out the big guns (the drill) so, naturally, I was concerned.

As I nervously followed him into the kitchen I saw that he was disassembling our microwave to clean in all the nooks and crannies. I'll tell you what, when you tell that boy to clean, he cleans.

After we finished scrubbing (and re-assembling the microwave) I got started on my next project.

making our favorite dinner of all time.......CHICKEN BALLS!

 (the official  name is actually "chicken cordon bleu rollups, but chicken balls is so much less of a mouthful)

We don't have them very often because they are pretty time-consuming (though extremely easy) to make. But luckily I had some more help from my little buddy who was trying to find an excuse to get away from homework (it's a problem around these here parts, obviously) so we got to cookin!

Lastly, I made these babies (please don't be offended)

Obviously these are not mine. Mine did not look nearly as yummy or sassy as these do. (still working on that cooking thing)

I found them on a blog and just thought they were so hilarious and couldn't resist! Such a fun valentine treat for you and your hubby.

After that, we cuddled up and watched The Bourne Ultimatum. We had spent the last two nights watching the other two (because I had never seen the whole series) so we ended our weekend with a bang.

Here's hoping we can have some more chill Saturdays in the near future.

back when we were your age...

Yesterday we paid a visit to good ole Monteview. (I sure love that place). We went to church and then had dinner with my family (a GOOD Sunday dinner) and were going to celebrate Little Ty's birthday later that afternoon.

So while we were coming out of our Sunday-dinner-stuff-yourself coma (wait-you thought that only happened on Thanksgiving? Not around our house. Thanksgiving dinner isn't actually that exciting because it's pretty remniscient of the Sunday masterpiece dinner my mom makes every week-I digress.)

ANYWAY-back to the day of rest.

My mom has been converting some of our old home videos made with those huge, chunky, video machines to small, fancy, tech-saavy dvds.

So we popped in a few and it didn't take long till we had tears streaming down our faces because we were laughing so hard.

First, we watched a video of my parents on their wedding day. Outside the temple, taking pictures with the family, at the reception, and (my favorite) their "interview".

The guy making the video pulled my parents and their parents into a room to ask them all sorts of questions.

We were laughing at my mom's giggly almost ditzy-like giddiness (I now know where I got that from) and my dad's younger voice, studly-attitude, and perma-grin.

But the funniest thing was the mannerisms! Holy cow, twenty years does not change a THING!

The way my dad told the story of how they met was EXACTLY how he tells stories now. He goes back and forth and forgets parts and adds them in later-I love nothing more than listening to him tell stories.

The way my grandpa hunched over while he talked and folded and unfolded his fingers while he was giving his piece. Even just the things that he would say, just funny little sayings/stories that I have no idea where he comes up with.

For example-the Sunday before we got married, my grandpa walked up to Kolton and I at church and said to us, "You know what the monkey said when he got his tail caught in the lawn mower?"

Of course we didn't.

"It won't be long now..."

So cheesy, but so my grandpa and so funny.

After the wedding video we popped in some of the videos of us when we were little. Oh my, we were the strangest children. I don't even know how my mom dealt with us all day.

In one of the videos my mom had us each sing a song, tell about ourselves (what grade, teacher's name, how old we were) and then we each got to do a trick.

We each tried to do a cartwheel or a somersault.

"Tried" being the key word in that sentence. Not a lot of coordination around our house.

After we finished that hilarity and my makeup was all smeared on my face because I had been laughing so hard, we headed over the Kolton's house.

After a little digging, we finally found a video of he and his brother freestyle wrestling in '96.

It was amazing to me how many moves they knew when they were still just little guys.

But we got a kick out of watching them do the "Russian roll-over" freestyle move. Lots of points scored with that one.

And the way that the singlets were falling off half of the kids. Kolton's mom had sewn the shoulders of his brother's singlet  till it had little tabs on the top so it would fit him decent.

The Hansen's actually got more of a kick out of it than I did. I still don't fully understand high school wrestling, let alone freestyle so some of the things that they were laughing at I was intently staring at the screen to figure out what exactly was so funny.

Must be a wrestling thing.

I'm sure I'll find all of that kind of stuff out one day when our children become wrestlers.

Kolton informed me last night that he started wrestling when he was four years old. (four!) and that he intends for our future children to do the same.

Ohhh....heaven help me. :)

tidbits.

-I finally conquered an "online" recipe! Yeah, it was an exciting day. And very delicious. Baked Potato Soup was it's name. (we're potato people)

-I grated my finger. again. In almost the same spot as last time. Kolton is now the official cheese grater of our household. 

-Kolton got a new toy for his truck and he made me get in the pickup and rev the engine so he could "listen to it". Our neighbors love us.

-Wednesdays are my favorite (after Fridays) because my family always comes in to visit with us and Cousin Austy gets to sleep on our couch.

-I just finished reading....no wait, devouring this book.

Holy cow, it was SO good. I don't know if it's just the time period that was so interesting, or that Kolton could pronounce some of the Russian words I didn't know, but it was probably one of the best books I've read in a while.

-We are so ready for some warm weather. like, more ready than we usually are. I have been asking Kolton if we could PLEASE escape from this place and go somewhere where the sun shines and it is actually warming. I'm sick of this sunny day/-20 degree weather. Seriously.

-On a whim, I took a trip to the DI. And bought three movies. For six dollars. Video cassettes to boot. Talk about a great purchase! (I don't know what it is, but for me there is just something so charming about watching a movie on the VCR. I much prefer that to a DVD.)

-I mentioned to my dear friend Andra that I desperately need to start working out. The next day she sent me a workout routine list. We had our first "session" yesterday morning and this morning I thought I was gonna die as I got out of bed. Talk about being sore!

And that's about all I've got for ya for now!

Oh and it's Wednesday, which means it's ALMOST the weekend! Wonderful!

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.