The light at the end of the tunnel....

We are getting SOOO close!! Tuesday night I registered for my LAST semester of college! Wow. What am I supposed to do once I'm done with school?!

Here's some of the numbers....

19 total days until we are finished with this semester.
8 days of class.
7 days of work.
2 reading days.
5 days of finals.
and about a million assignments, papers and projects to go.

I am so stoked to get a break from Provo and to head to Portland for a little while.

Now I need to make up for being a slacker and update the blog as to all that has happened in the last month, or at least the important things. :)

About 3 weeks ago Andy, Julie and Brayden came to Provo for the weekend and it was SO much fun to catch up, meet Brayden, go out to eat, and sit around playing games.





We love you guys!! and LOVED holding Brayden!







In my family there has always been the tradition of eating a green dinner on St. Patrick's Day. I couldn't handle eating normal colored food (even if Dallin was a little weirded out.) We enjoyed a green "breakfast" for dinner. Green pancakes, eggs and avocado-banana shakes. I thoroughly enjoyed it. YAY for tradition!

We also celebrated the Cougars making it to the Sweet 16 by having a big ward get-together to watch the game. Everyone brought snacks and watched the game in the multipurpose room. We brought blue and white cupcakes to show some school spirit.

Dallin creatively arranged the cupcakes to form a Y (can you see it?) We did frost them, but they were whisked away before I was able to snap a picture. Even though BYU lost, we still had a blast watching the game and cheering/booing along with our ward family.

Our good friend Brandt Jensen is in the band for Young Ambassadors and he was able to get us tickets to one of their shows. It was amazing! Dallin and I were so impressed that those guys can sing and dance at the same time. One guy even did a back flip while singing a solo!! Pretty impressive. Thanks Brandt and Liz for getting us the tickets!!

I got an internship for the fall. It was a huge relief when I got the call saying I was accepted. An internship is required for my graduation, and since I only have one more semester I have obviously put it off until the very last moment. I will be working at Curves. I am so excited. I am even "forced" to work out 3 times a week at the facility... darn. :P I think it'll be a great opportunity.

And yes... I will most likely be leading Zumba classes. haha!

Anyway, that's about it for us. We wrote our To-Do list of all the things we need to finish before leaving for Portland. We're going to try and check-off at least one thing a day until we are done.

Wish us luck!!

SUCCESS!!!!

As Cassie mentioned about a month ago, we started a diet for one of her classes. Though most of the time it consisted of me complaining about not being able to eat the sweets/meats that I wanted, I was grateful for what she was helping me do. Take a look of some of the wonderful things that we were able to feed on during the past 4 weeks!

Most of the snacking consisted of, but was not limited to, these wonderful foods....

And Cassie was even nice enough to let me get some of these....
(Whole Grain of course)

Fruits and veggies were always a must...



Breakfast was sometimes cereal, other times some fresh squeezed orange juice and toast. YUM!



We had some amazing dinners! Including roasted potatoes, asparagus, veggie pizzas, chicken, quiche, and so much more!!

Overall it was a wonderful experience that we both enjoyed. The results? Cassie lost five pounds and I was able to lose eleven!!! Needless to say, we'll be sticking with this diet (although I am going to allow the occasional red meat).

And as a surprise and promise to my love that I'll keep up the healthy lifestyle, I'm giving her my word right here and now that this summer in Portland we're going to at least run 10K. There... I said it. And everyone can me hold me to it!

Birthday-ness!

Well... a week ago was Dallin's 23rd birthday!!

We were both extremely busy so we had to hold off on most celebrations until the weekend. But, we found a little time and ate a delicious dinner, opened a few presents and ate cake. (yes, I allowed a little diet rule-breaking.) I tried a new recipe and made Cinnabon Cake. It was quite delicious... especially since we haven't had sweets in a few weeks.

Thanks to everyone who sent Dallin texts, messages, stopped by and called to chat and sing to him. You made his day. :)

So after a very hectic week, the real birthday celebrations began!

Friday night we went out to dinner at Zupas. One of our favorite restaurants that also allows us to eat within the limits of the diet. Except for the free dessert they were giving away that night.... oops! Because of the free dessert deal the restaurant was packed! We ended up letting another couple share our table with us because so many people were standing around with no where to sit. (People were actually going outside to sit at those tables!!)

After dinner we went out to the movies. We decided to splurge and went to the REAL theatre. We saw Rango... neither of us can decide what we think of it. It had some funny parts, but I don't think I would watch it again. Oh well, it was still extremely fun.

Saturday was another fun-filled day. We started in the morning by picking up our Bountiful Basket.

Then we were off to work, next we watched the BYU basketball team become Champions!!!

We did a whole lot of bargain shopping, our fridge is literally FULL of fruits and veggies. (I don't think I've seen a fridge this full since I lived with 5 other girls my freshman year. The only difference is our food is all healthy! lol) Almost every item we bought was either on sale or we had a coupon... it was great!

One of my presents to Dallin was tickets to a Vocal Point concert.

The concert was awesome! I am always blown away by their talent, and by what those guys can do.

OH yes, we decided we didn't want to make dinner after the concert so... we went to Zupas again. haha! We will need to have a little more control this week.... but we just use the excuse that it was for Dallin's birthday and then we don't feel guilty! :)

Last night, to finish off the week, we decided to finally open up our coconuts and figure out what we are going to do with them. It was quite an adventure!

Saturday.

Today started off nice and early. Dallin and I woke up around 6:30... something I haven't done in a while! Got dressed in warm clothes, grabbed a laundry basket and walked out the door into....


Yes. A Winter Wonderland. (I'm not going to lie, I'm ready for spring.)

We drove to Orem where we picked up our Bountiful Basket! We heard from some dear friends how amazing of a deal this is, so we decided we needed to try it out. You sign up at the beginning of the week and on Saturday, nice and early, you pick up a basket of fruit and a basket of veggies.
Here's what was in our basket this week....


2 mangoes
1 box of strawberries
4 Roma tomatoes
8 miniature pears
2 crowns of broccoli
1 head of romaine lettuce
1 bag of butter gold potatoes
9 bananas
1 bunch of asparagus
and
2 coconuts!!! (if anyone has suggestions of what to do with the coconut it would be much appreciated. haha!)


The best part-- it was only $15.

One last thing.

Happy 8 months to my hubby/best friend!!! I love you so much. Thanks for all you do for me; including doing this diet/exercise program. Even though you hate it.
You're the greatest. <3

New happenings

I know this is super late, but I had to mention the happenings of our Valentine's Weekend.

First I had to add a few more decorations to our home....

Yes, it's made out of cardboard.

Then the festivities began. On Friday night, we had 3 couples over for a Valentine's dinner. We made the entree (chicken alfredo) and everyone else brought something to add to dinner.

Dallin bought these beautiful flowers to "decorate the table." I know it's really because he just wanted to buy me flowers. ;)

We also bought a bunch of candy to decorate the table as is Hague tradition. We will definitely keep that one going! Sorry we didn't get any pictures of the actual table/meal. It was delicious and beautiful. :)

Our Valentine's weekend continued on Saturday when we went to the Stake Valentine's Dance; complete with chocolate fountain and lots of delicious treats to dip. MAJOR FLASHBACK TO HIGH SCHOOL STAKE DANCES! We had SO much fun singing, goofin' off and dancing, especially to Cotten-Eye Joe.

Sunday was one year since this....


We had a great day lounging around, re-reading The Blog (Feb 13th 2010) that started it all, eating a great meal (and candy) and enjoying time together.

Finally came the actual Valentine's Day. Dallin and I celebrated by using his free birthday meal to Tucano's. They had silk tableclothes on all the tables with flowers, ginormous chocolate covered strawberries, a rose to bring home, and a few extra delicious meats to celebrate the day of love. We ate too much, as always. But loved every minute of it!

That brings me to our "new lifestyle." (the term used by my professors.) I have quite a few fun projects in my classes this semester including going on a vegetarian diet, going on a weight-loss program each for about 6 weeks, and getting someone to do them with me (guess who the lucky individual is!!). So I'm killing two birds with one stone and getting both projects done at the same time.

The day after Tucanos was the start of all this madness. For the diet, we are supposed to eat mainly fruit, vegetables, whole wheat and occasional dairy and poultry/eggs. NO red meat, and hardly any sugar. After one day we realized there is not nearly enough food in our pantry that fits the diet so we did some shopping. Now we've got tons of deliciously nutritious foods around our home. YAY! For the weight loss program, we're supposed to do our best to balance how much food we are eating and how much we are exercising. It's started out a little bumpy as both Dallin and I have been sick the last week... but we'll get the hang of it! :)

With the new "lifestyle" I have been doing a lot more cooking. Which I have decided is my new favorite past time... as well as stress management. lol! I have tried lots of new recipes... here's a few of the things we've tried.

-breadsticks

-whole wheat muffins










-baked orange chicken

-breakfast taquitos with homemade whole wheat tortillas










-cilantro lime dressing with bbq chicken salad

-copper carrots

Sorry I didn't get pictures of most things... they were all so delicious that we just couldn't wait long enough to take a picture. ;)

One last bit of news.
Dallin got an internship with this fantastic company


and we will be spending our summer in this beautiful city/state.


Portland, Oregon!

We are so excited and can't wait to get out of Provo for a little while and to be closer to family.

Season of Love

I decided that since Valentine's Day is

a week from today,
our home needed a little lovin'

After doing some much needed cleaning,
I gathered these items...

and got to work.

This was the final product.

It adds a lovely touch.
I think more is still needed but that will have to wait as I have a test to study for.

Thanks to oneprettything.com for the idea! :)

xīn nián kuài lè

Okay so I don't actually speak Mandarin (surprise surprise)... I cheated and looked it up... and that's how you say Happy New Year!!!

In case you didn't know... today is the Chinese New Year. I thought it would be very appropriate to celebrate by eating Chinese food (with chopsticks) while listening to traditional Chinese music and finishing our meal with fortune cookies.

I must say it turned out to be quite a hit, and Dallin was pleasantly surprised. :) Although he was pretty hungry and had to switch to eating with regular utensils after the first 5 minutes.

Oh and I had to put these pictures up in honor of Dallin and his amazing sundae-making abilities.

Vanilla icecream ($3.99)
Toppings ($6)
Sundae glasses ($1 at DI)

Enjoying delicious sundae, with my best friend, while losing the game of Sequence (priceless)