Keepin' it Real....Simple.

I love the magazine Real Simple. Love love love! If there was one magazine I would get a subscription to it's this. My favorite part of the whole magazine is there amazing recipes. They have really creative, easy and super yummy meals (Megan can attest to this). One day at the grocery store I saw the little guy and just couldn't resist to buy it, especially since it was boasting recipes on the cover. So Cody and I have decided to make one of these recipes each week.

This week: Turkey and Been Chili. They spotlighted a turkey chili on the show Biggest Loser (one of my favorite shows) and I wanted to try it out myself. Lo and behold this issue of Real Simple had a turkey chili recipe. Ground turkey is a super healthy substitute for ground beef and way cheaper (we college kids like cheaper). It was quite delectable (just ask Cody who ate three bowls) and definately going to be a reoccurring meal in our lives.

This Blog Is Dedicated to My Dad

It's crazy but midterms for this semester are already here. Our shorter semesters are nice but it's crazy how fast they fly by. By the time we get settled into our schedules we're out of here (or on to a completely different routine).
Just in case you think all Cody and I do is sit around all day here's some things we've been up to:

-Valentine's Day-
Since this year it landed on a Sunday we felt low-key V-day was best. I had a "special meeting" in my stake (wasn't a ward or stake conference, just a special meeting with Elder Costas of the Seventy) which was very good. Our stake president is a wonderful man and we got to hear from the Rexburg Temple president and matron. Cody just attended his regular meetings which was nice because it gave me time to get things ready. The previous day we had bought steak and lobsters (that were on sale!) and some asparagus for a quaint fancy at home meal. And may I say it was delicious! We exchanged hand-made valentine's cards and Cody lovingly got me a heart box of chocolates.



-President's Day-
I drew this. See if you can name all the presidents.


-Peking Acrobats-
A couple times a semester we get a couple big name shows that come to our school. This was by far one of the neatest shows I've seen here at Rexburg. When I was in China I saw the Beijing Acrobats so it was awesome that I got to the see the other company. They did some ridiculously awesome tricks that scared the crap out of the audience and left us sitting in our chairs with jaws dropped. If there's one thing Chinese can do well, it's put on a good show.

a little racist but we couldn't resist doing our best chinese face

-Cody's Birthday-
Long story short we went to the Hard Hat Steakhouse (best place for prime rib) for Cody's birthday. His mom had called ahead and arranged that we be brought virgin daiquiris and she gave them her credit card number to pay for it. We went and they had our reservation but didn't bring the drinks and didn't have her number down, but it was no big deal, because it was still a good meal. Well Cody's mom was really disappointed because she wanted to do something for her son's 21st birthday so she called and talked to the manager who apologized and said that it was a communication error. He told her that he would send Cody a $50 certificate and call and set up the whole deal to be done over correctly. Cody got a very nice and apologetic letter from the owner and we called to set everything up. Well we arrive to a pre-set up table (table cloths which no other table had) and in a private room. The whole night we were treated like stars. We had our own waiter, and the owner checking in on us constantly. He kept insisting on us getting appetizers, salads and after our meal dessert. (He really wouldn't let us say no.) At the end he told us that the meal was on him and we could keep the $50 dollars for another night. All in all is was the best dining experience of both of our lives. We were so grateful and were very appreciative to the owner who really didn't have to go to such great lengths to please us lowly college students. (sorry that wasn't that short).

and last but not least, the thing I have been getting crap for the better part of the last month the fruit of my labors:
The studio classes I'm enrolled in this semester are Creative Perspective, Figure Drawing and Ceramics.

Ceramics: This is the first piece I've been able to take home. I missed the 2nd day of classes because of a brain mix up thinking that I didn't have class that day so I had to whip out two pinch pots in an hour-ish. Craftsmanship isn't that good but oh well. Instead of glazing our teacher let us do this cool thing with our first pots which is called Raku. This is where you take your fired piece straight from the kiln and put it in a metal garbage can (or any other large metal container) and drop it into a pile of sawdust and cover it in sawdust. The wood ignites and causes the ash to stain the piece. What you're left with is a neat matte black ashen look as seen below.

Creative Perspective: This was our first assignment called Dream Studio. We could be literal or take a more fantasy approach. It was a one point interior space. Naturally being a northwest-er I came up with this:

Figure Drawing: I'm sorry this is a lot of pictures. But that's what we do. For 2 hours and 45 minutes we draw two minute poses, three, five, ten, fifteen, twenty and forty (with a break in between). The best way to get it down is just to do it a billion times.

bar hopping anyone?

This week's highlight was on Friday when it was Cody's 21st Birthday!! We can now not only vote, and smoke but now drink and rent cars (hopefully not all at the same time)!!

School is keeping us both very busy (and by both I mean I'm doing hw or in class while Cody ends up just waiting for me). But we appreciated the break from the regular routine. Thursday night I went and got all the supplies for Cody's birthday which started off with a train-inspired happy birthday sign and some cheesecake. I had classes at 9 so I gave him something to look forward to upon waking up. Later I gave him my present which consisted of some gems from the dollar store which included a robot hat and shield, large army men and firemen (to battle), little toy dinosaurs, and some battling spinning tops. The cashier told me while ringing up my items that her nephew loved them. I just nodded and smiled not wanting to reveal that these were for a little boy trapped in a 21 year old boyfriend's body.
After classes we had a reservation at the Hard Hat Steakhouse.
Cody's family are prime rib connoisseurs, therefore it was his mission to find the best prime rib place in town. Upon arriving to the restaurant we found out idaho folk enjoy their themed restaurants. The hostess and door-lady both wore bright yellow vests and hard hats, as did the waiters. I think they took everything a little too far, but hey it was fun.

This is me trying to sneak a picture of one of the waitresses

The prime rib was good. I got the 16oz while Cody tackled the 24oz.

The waiter stared at us wide eyed when we ordered, and they were even wider when he came back to find that Cody had demolished his plate (I kept mine for left-overs).

Unfortunately I also had a game that ended up being at 10pm that night. Being a good sport that he is, Cody accompanied to my game which ended up lasting 2 hours and 15 minutes due to a girl dislocating her knee. We had our game in the field house that is known for it's less than ideal floors, definately not suitable for game play. But I felt very blessed as I sat on the bench and got to see a couple priesthood leaders hastily assemble and give her a blessing. An ambulance came and took her away, leaving the rest of us a little shaky but knowing she was in good hands. We ended up winning our game 75-52 with #30 (me) dominating the rebounds for the night. :)

So then at 12:15 we went back to Cody's apartment for cake and ice-cream. Just some roommates and a girl friend and a triple fudge cake topped with kit-kats spelling your name is really all you need to make a good birthday. Oh, and I can't forget the mormon bubbly (martinelli's) because of course, it was a 21st birthday party.

A New BYU-Idaho

As most of you know, or could have assumed I have began yet another semester of higher learning. I was absolutely dreading leaving my family and home of fun and games and relaxation to go to freezing temperatures and assignments but i am here to report that I have indeed survived the first week! This I completely give credit to my new help meet, Mr. Uskoski. Yes! It's true!! Finally Cody is up here in Rexburg with me! This has been a long anticipated event and finally it is happening. Words can't explain my elation. This is going to be one hectic semester so having someone to help me not get too stressed will be much appreciated.

Events of the week:

• To celebrate we made a fancy dinner, steak with sauteed mushrooms and onions.

• Saw the movie "the box" with cameron diaz and the guy that plays corny collins in hairspray. I want everyone to see it just so they understand what I'm talking about when I say wiiiierd wierd movie.

• Those $1 whopper jr's were calling our name one day at around lunch time
• I changed into a skirt for devotional (I have a class that gets out 15 minutes before it starts) and left my pants in a bathroom stall in the spori. Luckily they were right were I left them when I figured it out 2 hours later
• Cody got a hair cut because it was long enough to do this with it

• It's been warm!!! well cold warm which equals dry ground and ice melting. We know it won't last but we enjoy it while we can
• Went out to applebee's for a roommates birthday
  
• We're both going to do competitive basketball, with tryouts being this week.

thanksgiving break part II

Thanksgiving break for me this year was a loaded week. For the first half of the week my goal was to soak in as much as home and family as I could because came Wednesday the Uskoski's swept me away to Bend, Oregon (much to my mother's dismay). We, being Cody's family and their close family friends the Levenon's, stayed in a town called Redmond in a nice little house.

This was to be my first skiing excursion, we meant to go Thursday and Friday but due to lack of snow we ended up just going on Friday. To make up for no skiing Thursday we got tricked into going on a "hike" to a waterfall close by. I put hike in quotations because normally you can drive up to the falls, but because it was icy the road was blocked off so you end up just walking down a slushy/icy/snowy road. The end result was pretty and worth it but we just wanted to play games in the warm indoors and drink cocoa all day. We would've been better sports had we been asked if we wanted to go but we got tricked into going. First it was a mile hike, then 3 1/2 then rumor that it was 5 1/2 .... we're not sure if we walked 7 or 11 miles.

this might've been a frozen pond that I tried to walk on that i might've dunked my foot into

Friday we set off early-ish to go to Mount Bachelor. I'm not going to lie I've had mini panic attacks everytime I thought about skiing for the last couple months. It's not that I didn't think that I could do it, I just have a very worse-case-scenario brain. All in all I had a really good time though. Cody was good and just stuck next to me the whole time and let me go my pace. I crashed a total of 4 times and it wasn't even by accident. I would just get going too fast and not know how to stop and just go down. I have mixed feelings about skiing because on one hand you're surrounded by GORGOUS scenery, the kind you feel blessed to be able to see but somehow gets a little ruined in the panic stricken/tense bodied experience of not wanting to crash as you fly down a hill. Cody and I stuck to the bunny hill for the first part of the day... mostly because my biggest battle in skiing is trying to psyche myself out. Some of those hills look REALLY steep!

i wanted a picture in front of this sign you can't read it but it says Marshmallow: Easiest Run Down... we found it quite entertaining

After lunch where I was called a wimp for not going on a run we decided to go on an easy one. So we went on the Marshmallow trail. Yes, I picked it on purpose. I just thought it was hillarious that they would give something such a fluffy baby name, especially when compared to devil's backbone! which was on the other side of the mountain. I feel twice, the last being my most epic which has left me the awesome souvenir of a huge wicked looking bruise on my right knee. It accompanies my skiing stories quite good.

I will definately go skiing again, but I don't think I'll ever get hardcore at it, I think I'll be more of a leisure skiier. After we got back from Bend I tried to spend a lot of times playing games with my family (it's what we taylor's do best!).

Now I'm back at icy/snowy Rexburg with a TON of work to do for the last two and a half weeks of school.

Now.......I just want Christmas.

fishes and knitted things

Fishes: These koi were inspired by a park we went to in China called Peach Tree Island Park. There was a giant pond and a bridge where you could feed all of these swarming koi. It was quite neat. I had this picture that was just full of brilliant color that I knew I wanted to use as inspiration. The technique? Paint, sand off, build it back up, sand off more if you choose. A lot of us had a hard time sanding off the painting we had just spent hours doing but it gives it quite a look. And as a treat you get an art term for the day, when you have everything out of focus, and kind of blurry around and then a center point of focus that is in detail is called a vignette, as done in the fish picture.

knitted hat: I was super stoked to do this painting. Megan had taken this picture of herself to show off her newly knitted saggy hat and I just had to paint it. I have never done a human in a painting before and it's one of the most challenging subjects (especially without taking head drawing which I haven't). But I just loved the picture a lot and so did my teacher (he has to pre-approve our photo reference). It's supposed to be our own picture but I was running out of China ones that I felt I could do cool paintings of...and I figured my sister is close enough to me, so I hope you don't mind that I took your picture, but I think it makes up for it that it's a picture of you. I've always felt Megan is the prettier sister and so it was really fun to capture her beautiful profile into a painting. And it's an ode to her amazing knitting skills which really is impressive.

The technique for this one was called photo copy mount down. You take a photo-copy of your picture, or line drawing (i did a line drawing of this). Then you use matt-medium or gloss-medium to mount it to the board and put another one or two layers of it on top and it's ready to paint on. We also used wet and dry sand paper to give it a neat texture, it's hard to tell from the picture but it really turned out neat.

enjoy.

the right way to spend halloween at college

I feel like I have been blessed up at college. I have gotten to be really good friends with my roommate Kristy. She's from Rupert, Idaho, which means she's heard of Almo and has been to the city of rocks!! She's possibly the nicest girl I have ever known (example our other roommate Jessica was struggling with her math homework and Kristy sat with her for like an hour helping her figure stuff out, I consider myself a nice person but I would've never done that).
So for Halloween I would've probably just stayed at home, but luckily we have these three guys in our ward that were our apartment's FHE brothers last semester. One of them called up Kristy and asked if we wanted to go to a haunted theatre in Shelley (a little outside idaho falls). We stopped by Dustin's grandparents house for treats (one should never refuse grandparent treats) and then we went to this old theatre that was turned into a haunted house. We definately were scared and I had Kristy death-clutching me the whole time. Afterwards we went to taco bell and just hung out at the guy's apartments and made balloons into creatures. I bragged I knew how to make a dog but somehow came out with a headless dog... I couldn't remember that part, I only knew how to make the legs... woops. Overall successful halloween free from slutty pirates and scandalous nurses. I just am thankful to have a good group of friends where we can have a good wholesome fun night of halloween.