Stocking and Camera Love

Last day of school!! For David, that is. We went bowling with his Tau Beta Pi Chemical Engineering Honor Society.  We got to bowl two games, both of which David scored well over 100!  We won't mention my scores, but let's just say I was happy to have a strike each game :)

The past few weeks have been like early Christmas.  David and I bought a new camera for our Christmas present, since we are going to have cute children to record now.  It got here about a week ago and we have had lots of fun playing with it ever since!

We've also been getting baby gifts in the mail! And, I've been making my own gift for baby-- her stocking!  I thought of sewing her a stocking several weeks ago, and it didn't occur to me until recently that she won't even get to use it for like 12 months. Oops!

Anyways, I found a cute quilted pinwheel stocking design on Pinterest, bought the pattern, and had lots of fun picking out the fabric.  It is almost done-- I just need to add her name on the top cuff, but I'm waiting to do that so it will remain a secret until she's born.  Since I can't control my pride (this is my first time piecing AND quilting something of my own), here is a picture of the almost-finished stocking. Taken with our new camera, too!

(Front)

(Back)

Turkey and Baby

We're back at school after Thanksgiving break... but not really.  Now we just can't wait for Christmas!  This very minute David has a Christmas Pandora station playing in our little apartment.  We've also hung up our few Christmas decorations, and I plan on putting up the Christmas lights today!

Thanksgiving was wonderful!  We played lots of games, talked to family, baked, and saw movies in the theater.  We also had a baby shower! That was probably the most exciting part for me!  David was the best husband ever and helped a TON with the preparations, and even agreed to stick around for the party, since it was open house style and we weren't doing any goofy group games or a mass present opening.

The theme colors were red, pink, and white, with snowflakes and "It's a girl" decorations.  We had a big buffet of yummy food, and also collected a bunch of family baby pictures to hang int he living room for people to enjoy.  We also had two games available for guests to play, a "Guess the name of the Baby Animal" game, and a "Wishes for Baby" game.  "Wishes for Baby" was my favorite, because I got to read them all afterwards. It's a fill-in-the-blank type of game.  Some were really sweet, like the one David wrote, and some were very funny, like the one our friend Daniel wrote.  Here's Daniel's for your enjoyment:

Wishes for Baby
I hope that you... are awesome.
I hope you aren't afraid of... your dad.
I hope you love... uncle Daniel.
I hope you get... a brother.
I hope you laugh... at Westley.
I hope you never forget... how awesome your parents are.
I hope you ignore... stupid boys.
I hope you become... a mom.
I hope you respect... your parents.
I hope you [insert DON'T] grow... facial hair.
With love, Daniel Mason

Even more photos can be viewed on our Photo Stream (link found under the Photo Albums tag).

Colored

Last weekend we went to St. George to celebrate Grandma Joy's 80th birthday with the Parkinsons.  Well, the fun actually started when Julie came to stay with us the previous Sunday.  She was here in Provo to help McKay through hand surgery that he had on Monday, November 5th. So, our little apartment was full of Parkinsons all week long! It was fun.

On Friday we finally headed down to St. George to meet up with more Parkinsons! We drove more than half the way in a giant snowstorm.  Yikes! Luckily, we made it in one piece.  Saturday morning David and Shaun ran in a "Color Me Rad" 5K in St. George.  It was a cold, windy morning, and those poor boys only had on shorts and t-shirts.  They warmed up while they were running, though.  In short order, they were caked in colored chalk/powder, too.

It was pretty special surprising Joy for her birthday.  It was great to hang out with the grandparents/aunts/uncles/cousins.  We played games, talked, and ate lots of food!

While in St. George, we were able to retrieve the hardware to put together the crib we are borrowing from Scott and Julie.  Interestingly, once we got back to Provo, we realized we had no instructions for how to put the thing together. All we had were four sides, some springs, screws, pins, and long skinny poles.  Of course, David LOVED that fact.  It was like a big engineering puzzle for him.  Since I can't remember ever having a crib in my house growing up, and not really know how they work, I was all for googling SOMETHING to find directions.  But no, David wanted to figure it out by himself. And guess what?  He did, and it's awesome. The crib looks great :] Although we haven't had a baby (or even a mattress) in it yet, it appears to function properly, too.  We have already filled it with 2 boxes of stuff (story of our lives-- stuff, stuff, and more stuff!).

Now we get to look forward to Thanksgiving, which is less than a week away.  Yaaaaay!

Cheese Bread and Cheesiness

This weekend Clark and Joanna came to visit us on Friday night!  We ate lots and lots of pizza, cheesy bread, and dessert pizza.  It was so delicious, David and I felt like hibernating at the end of the night.  We also enjoyed a planetarium show at BYU, where we learned about creation and destruction of stars, and other wonders of the universe.  We also learned about constellations in the November sky.  After the presentation we got to look through some telescopes on the observation deck.  It was all very intriguing and inspiring.

Saturday we got to RELAX!! Oh my gosh, for once we had nothing set in stone for our Saturday.  Those are the best days, ever.  We went shopping together, did homework/study, and finished reading Cheaper By the Dozen together (one of my all time favorite books).

Today, we went to a stake conference for church, where we heard from Tad Callister, of the Presidency of the Quorum of the Seventy.  He is an excellent speaker, as is his wife.  Then we came home and David made Cheese Bread, or Pao de Queijo for a dinner get together that we are about to go to.  Pao de Queijo is a Brazilian food.  It's a ball of bread with a cheesy center-- so delicious!  I can't wait to scarf them down!

Early Halloween

Yesterday we celebrated Halloween!  We kicked it all off by waking up at 6:45am to pick up our Bountiful Basket!  Ha, but really, that's how our day started.  Then we bought bagels at Einstein Bagels for David's Tau Beta Pi (Engineering Honor Society) Trick-or-Can activity.  When we finally got to eat them 2 hours later, they were so delicious we decided if we ever work in the food industry, it will be at Einstein so we can bring home lots of free bagels.

For the Trick-or-Can we collected canned food at the student housing just south of campus.  We quickly decided that was not the best idea for two reasons: 1) students aren't awake at 9:30am on a Saturday morning and 2) they don't own any canned food (I guess they haven't figured out how cheap it is, and they have no year supply yet, which would be FULL of canned food).  Anyways, we had little success, but it was still fun.

Later in the day we went to the women's soccer game, which BYU won 5-0.  Then we went to our ward's Trunk-or-Treat/Halloween party. That was sooooo fun!  We were too cheap to buy real trunk decorations, so we used newspaper.  And, we are already over on our food budget so we couldn't buy candy and instead handed out Snickerdoodles and Vermont Molasses cookies (which turned out to go well with my costume of Little Red Riding Hood)!  I got to carry the cookies in my basket to hand them out.

David bought his wolf mask on Amazon and I sewed my red hooded cloak.  We were pretty excited about our Halloween costumes!

Also at the party we had apple pie and hot cocoa.  Amazingly, I won the "Guess How Many Candy Corn Are In This Can" contest (I've NEVER won one of those before, and I LOVE candy corn), and David almost won the "Doughnut Eating Contest" where you had to be the first to finish eating your doughnut off a string.

It was a great "Halloween!"

Pie!

Yesterday I made Key Lime Pie.  We've made it once before with a recipe from Emeril, and it was  delicious!  It didn't disappoint last night either.  It's a pretty easy recipe, except for the zesting and juicing of the limes.  Zesting takes forever because you generate such a tiny amount at a time.  Then, I had to juice by hand, and boy was it tedious!!! I had a few tiny cuts on my fingers, which burned like crazy, and I splattered some lime juice on my shirt (prior to donning the apron) which resulted in tiny bleached spots.

The other thing about pies is that there are so many separate steps with waiting in between.  It always seems to be quiet the process.  Of course, I've only made pies by myself three times now, so maybe I just haven't mastered multi-tasking and using that down time productively.

Needless to say, just when I start to think that I need to make pies more often, I remember how much work it takes, and reconsider!  However, there is no denying that pies are extremely delicious and make the husband very happy :]

The College Life

Last night was "Seps" homework night at our apartment.  "Seps" stand for "Separations," one of David's engineering classes.  So while I was watching the vice-presidential debate, reading a novel, and browsing Pinterest (not all at the same time), these poor boys were slaving away in the living room:

Highlights from the night:

"Take that Math Cad, DUMB HEAD!" -Greg

"Guess what my sister's doing this weekend?" -Desta
--Discussion about renting puppies, huskies, and cat litter fumes--

"Desta you're pregnant!" -Greg

"Why do you have to multiply it by something else?" -Brad
"'Cuz this is what's left, so if you want to know..." -Greg
"Listen to Brad, he's doing it right." -Lindsey

--Face time with Rachel--
"Rachel, did you know Desta's pregnant?"- Greg

"I'm having a baked potato, anyone else want one?" -Desta
"Is anyone else weird like me and like the potato skins?" -Brad
"Yes, they're the BEST!"-David

"Desta's pregnant!!!!" -Greg

"Wait, you're having a GIRL?" -Greg
--Discussion about baby names and cool initials--

"Do you notice how we get nothing done when the women folk are around?" -Greg

Thanks, Greg ;]

Brazilian Dinner

Last night we enjoyed a Brazilian dinner!  And, it was fairly healthy.  Here's how it all came to pass...

A few Saturdays ago we got collard greens in our Bountiful Basket. We have come to expect receiving at least one rather bazaar fruit or vegetable each week in our basket, and have actually enjoyed learning how to prepare new foods.

However, I groaned within (and out loud) when I saw those collard greens.  We have actually tried them before, because we once learned how healthy they are for you.  As is the unfortunate truth with most healthy foods, collard greens are NOT tasty.  They are very bitter and take forever to chew and choke down, at least when they are raw...

Hence, I scavenged Pinterest and the internet until I came across a recipe for couve, a Brazilian dish made from collard greens!  What luck!  We love all things Brazilian, and this recipe instructed you to cook the collard greens with salt, garlic and bacon, some of my favorite ingredients.  So, we learned how to make decent couve (minus the bacon, unfortunately, because we also pinch pennies around here), and on Monday when we went shopping, we actually ELECTED to buy collard greens.  Never saw that one coming, huh?

So, last night David cooked some more delicious couve for us, and we also had black beans and rice.  Even David agreed it was very Brazilian!
 

Park City Quarterly Anniversary

We just got home from our great adventure this weekend at Park City, UT. We were there for a quarterly anniversary trip (because one anniversary a year is not enough to celebrate our awesome marriage)! But seriously. It's a really fun tradition.

We had a great dinner on the little Main Street in Park City on Friday night. We also enjoyed walking up and down the street and stopping in the shops and galleries.  We stopped at some clothing boutiques, an olive oil shop (free samples!), and some art galleries.  We loved the galleries with photos of nature-- many photos were from places we'd been, and were simply stunning!  We were also lured into one gallery by the smell of tea and apple cider.  It was delicious and perfect to sip on as we perused the gallery before stepping back out into the crisp fall night. We topped it all off with a trip to Rocky Mountain Chocolate factory-- I had chocolate dipped frozen cheesecake and David had a Butterfinger caramel apple-- followed by Pride and Prejudice at the hotel (yes, my husband rocks).

Today we hiked all over the Park City mountains.  We had picked out a trail to hike, but sadly it was closed for construction at one point, so we had to improvise.  That made it even more fun!  The leaves were incredible, and the views were breathtaking. We met friendly people and had lots of fun in general hiking in the beautiful forest/ski slopes. We could smell fall in the air, and David got really psyched for snowboarding in the winter.  We look forward to visiting Park City again!

Yes, these are REAL pictures of the leaves, taken by US!

This is what the trail looked like most of the way-- FALL IS HERE! And it's gorgeous.

We also hiked on some back roads.

Me, being pregnant.

David, being handsome.

At the top of a lift.

Joining the World of Blogging

We have finally joined the world of blogging!  I have put off this day for a long time.  The rebel inside me did not want to join the blogging craze, and I certainly don't need one more thing to remember to update.

However, last night David and I came to the conclusion that a blog is the best way to chronicle our family's life (since I am not too keen on delving into scrapbooking, and David is not too keen on piling up paper photo albums, journals, etc). We also realized that our current "Parkinson Family website" on Weebly is definitely unsatisfactory, and yet we still need a way to keep in touch with family and friends around the globe.

Thus, as much as I hate to admit it, we have turned into amateur "bloggers."