tgiving

happy thanksgiving! how was your thanksgiving? i am still full! i have been eating leftovers since yesterday so that might have something to do with it. we started the day with a nice walk through bellefonte, it is still pretty here even with the leaves gone and it has not been too cold besides that freak storm last month, which i am very happy about it being a freak.

we had a great meal with our friends the hancocks who are a fellow law school couple and are in our ward. we split the cooking down the middle and i had a great time making some thanksgiving food, which i've never done. historically i've played the role of spectator/consumer. my proudest creation was the pumpkin pie. i made it out of a pumpkin. also it is the first pie i've ever made. i was not sure how it would work out, but i figured it could not be too bad since there is more sugar than pumpkin. it was actually really good. and i used my mom's great pie crust recipe too so that helped.

before:
after.

here are some pics of us i stole from lauren :) i need to get better at taking pictures of us, it seems like i only take pictures of random crap like pumpkins and ducks. but here we are watching the cowboys win.

lauren and joel, awesome hosts and cooks!

king midas

ryan and i got a cat from the spca about a month ago. his name is midas. i am not really a cat person and have never had one, but i am home all day and thought i could use a buddy. he's been really fun so far. i am kind of nervous after the dog fiasco (ryan having to sell his dog before we moved to PA, and he is still really bummed about it/blames me even though it would be impossible to drive a doberman across country and then find a place where we could have a house and yard and train her to not be psycho) to have another pet. so. we'll see how this goes.

midas thinks he is a human. he tries to eat with us, study/work with us, watch movies with us, go out with us, he does not want to be left out. i also think midas is a human. i talk to midas a lot, we have some really great conversations. when i walk around the house now, i look like i am marching, because midas likes to walk right in front of my feet, so i either step on him or trip unless i do the march. he is a fun cat and mostly just wants to sit on one of our laps all day. we thought i might be allergic to him so ryan shaved midas to see (i am not allergic, turns out i was just getting a cold), so now he looks more like a raw turkey with a cat head--see below. but fortunately it is growing back quickly. his most favorite place to sit is my computer. yesterday i left the computer for a minute and when i came back he had written ktyyyyyyyyyyy in the email i had open.

our house

grandpa gary called me out today for saying that i was going to post pictures of our house and never doing so. really, i have wanted to, but i want to post pictures of when it is clean and the lighting is good, and it also took us a while to get all the furnishings. so even though some of these do not depict how it is set up today, at least you can get an idea. and at least it is semi well lit and semi clean. the above is the window outside the bathroom. i won't show you the bathroom, just imagine one arm's width by two arms' widths and then put in all the normal bathroom stuff and you have it.

this is the kitchen table. in the last post you can see what the living room looks like now. red couch and a tv and the table on the side. but our table, isn't it pretty. we don't eat there anymore though, it is filled with law books and my sewing machine (!) so we eat on the coffee table.

fridge and mudroom.
kitchen. this is the best room i think and where i spend all my free time. just baking away.
this is the hall/office. ryan studies here and i work here. this area is typically disheveled and not much to look at. someday there will be nice offices for us but today this is just fine.
here is the staircase that goes up to the bedroom. which i won't show you either because it's just a mattress on the floor and a dresser. the ceiling is so low above the staircase that we can't get any other furniture up there.

so i hope that was exciting a little. was it?

we drove out here only with our two little cars and whatever we could fit in them, so we left/sold any big stuff in utah. so we've still got a ways to go decorating wise but that's ok.

this month has been ok. i am finishing off my second cold for the month and ryan is just getting started on his second cold for the month, so we've been keeping it pretty low key trying to recover and not to infect other people. ryan's finals are just around the corner now so stay tuned to see whether we survive the first semester.

colors of the fall

yellow leaves
red leaves
yellow squash
orange squash
orange cat

intercepted

this is part of a painting in the MOMA in nyc and it depicts where i was last week.
i was so happy to hear that mia was coming out for a big city visit so of course i had to intercept that. and then i was so happy to learn that bianca was coming out for a stopover on the way to the rest of the world so of course i had to intercept that. and above all, they would be here at the same time, so only one drive for me into crazy nyc! triple!
the blurry man is not, in fact, about to steal maria's camera. he happens to be her "travel companion" on this trip.*pic stolen from mia, but i'm not the only one
we just played in nyc for the day and then left that night when maria went back to utah :(. and me and bianc continued tooooo BOSTON.
bianca is a boston native and an expert tour guide. i think in the beautiful warm fall we were both ready to unpack our bags and live there forever. what a great city! we went to the aquarium and museum and mapparium, to harvard square and general walk abouts.


thank you so much for visiting the east side mia and b! anyone else who comes to this general area i will come to you and i will hang out with you! unless it's during the week because now i have a job.

holgayear

i bought a holga camera a year or so ago and i never remember to take pictures with it. also i forget how nerve wracking it is to take pictures with film, and have no idea how they will turn out. but it was really exciting to develop the film and not know what the pictures are of! here are a few of my favorites:
san diego, aug 08
bald eagle state park in penn, aug 09
lavender days in mona, ut june 08
windmill fields in nebraska, aug 09
taco bell parking lot in illinois, aug 09
san francisco, march 09

not ready

last week we got dumped on, snow wise. i was not aware that is even something that happened here. especially so early. and they did not cancel anyone's school. a girl can hope.
we also happened upon tickets to the penn state game on saturday. we are not technically psu fans but i was excited to see what all the fuss was about, and feel what it was like to be in the biggest football stadium in the country. well. it was cold. that's all i'm sure of. and "we" won the game. which we looked up later since if we stayed the whole time we'd've needed our fingers, toes, and noses amputated from frostbite disease.

puzzle clouds visitors

we had our first visitors last week! mom and dad made a stop on their east coast tour to come inland for a bit and pay a visit. it was great to see familiar faces and to catch up and be taken out to eat :). It also helped us realize how boring central PA is. and on the off chance that anyone else visits us, we really need to figure out what exactly you can show people/do here.
me and ryan made this puzzle during watching conference. it was the cheapest and hardest puzzle we could find. there was a lot of "can we work on this puzzle now?" "yes we can!" "do you think we'll be able to finish this puzzle?" "yes we can!" going on. you'd be surprised how long it takes for that phrase to get old. or would you...

the colors are barely starting to turn here. be prepared for many more pictures of the colors turning because i think it's going to happen around here in a major way and i'm really excited. also, there's something about the clouds here, maybe that there is weather. but the clouds are spectacular really frequently.

washington's town

we decided kind of last minute to go to d.c. for the weekend. it was a great idea! we left after ryan's friday noon class. we went to the temple first, the d.c. temple is so big. it is actually our temple, i had no idea you could even live in this country and be 4 hours from a temple! guess it's good i got out of the west coast.
so. in d.c. the next day. we started at the capitol and made our way down to the lincoln memorial. it really is the perfect place to travel. and so nice that all the museums are free dollars. and public transportation. and international food. yes.

maybe you can't see it in this picture of the capitol but there's a dude looking around with binoculars with a huge gun around his neck. cool!

you might recognize this rotunda from "the lost symbol"
you might recognize this aerospace museum from "night at the museum 2"
you might recognize this constitution from "national treasure"

you might recognize this spider from your nightmares. just kidding

unicorn monument

ryan reenacting his 1986 fall into the reflecting pool.

honest and giant
justin and lindsey and annabelle live in d.c. now, and they were so nice to let us stay at their cute apartment. they moved to d.c. like 2 weeks before we moved to pennsylvania -- it's nice to have some family that is in the vicinity!

showing off the new crawl:

hanging out in the national archives for a bit

for stace

today is sister stacey's bday. she is having a party tonight and everyone was asked to bring a song or poem that they love and share it with her. if i was there i would like to sing this neil young song to her. but maybe it is better that i am not there because his voice is like 1 mil x awesome. (he is the singer from tv on the radio)

also, i don't recommend this movie (rachel getting married) but i really liked this part and i cry most of the times i watch it.

happy bday dudu you are the unknown legend.