Moving Forward

This has been an awesome couple of months. My OPI and WPT scores are more than good enough to teach Spanish in any of the 50 states (Advanced Mid on both if you were wondering). My student teaching assignment came and we are moving to Las Vegas after I finish school in July (I'm visiting my school in April). I walk July 23rd and then we are leaving Rexburg forever (please don't say I jinxed us by saying forever). Huzzah!

Where dreams come true!

Phase the Next

My how I have neglected my post. (Ba-dum-CH!) Terrible pun, especially for a lead-in. I blame being married to my husband.

After much deliberation, I have decided that I need to start writing on our blog again, because while pontificating my thoughts in a different forum is fun, and I will of course continue, life in the Walrath family is about to make a change and I want to keep everybody updated on us.

Now you know!

Prayer Rocks

Did you ever have a prayer rock? You know, those little stones that you paint at a church activity and take home to place on your pillow during the day to remind you to say night prayers and on the floor when you go to bed, to remind you to say morning prayers too? In theory, great idea. In actuality, they tend to breed resentment towards prayer. "Oh, gosh. Not the prayer rock again!" Often times I shoved them just a little under the bed or placed them out of sight so I wouldn't have to be reminded of what I felt I could get done on my own.

I can't even tell you how many times a prayer rock went forgotten in my room.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I think the best part of mine and Casey's birthdays being so close is that I get all excited setting up for Casey's birthday and then the excitement just kind of extends over to mine. At least, I hope the excitement buoys me until my birthday.

Casey's birthday (today!) was a lot of fun even though he had to go to work a little before 1. I woke up before he did (which is unheard of) and put together all the stuff I got for him, resulting in one (1) awesome Zombie Apocalypse Survival Kit, complete with multi-tool, first-aid, reading material, some food, and all of that stuffed into a Camelbak. I didn't take a picture of it.

I did, however, take a picture of our Swedish Pancake Picnic right before he went to work.


Swedish Pancakes!


The fruit! Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and mangoes.


My happy 26 year old hubby :)


We're just the best, aren't we? (Don't tell anyone else)

All I can do now is sit here and think about how lucky I am, even with Casey off at work, I'm so lucky I have a wonderful husband who loves me and only wants to support me. I'm lucky to share a last name with him, I'm lucky to share anything with him.

Happy happy birthday again and again to my wonderful, amazing, fun, adorable, witty, intelligent, hard-working, loving, sweet, happy husband.

Exhaustion

It's getting nice and late and I am super tired. Desperate Housewives is nowhere near as entertaining as Lawrence and Julie & Julia was, even with the baby robbers, AA, and everything.

I'm never very good at Thursdays. Thursdays are the days that instead of either of us working during the day, Casey works from 1pm to 11pm. And I sit here waiting for what feels like days instead of hours for my amazing husband to come home to me. I miss him lots when he is gone. Coo coo gross love lovey dovey stuff.

Other note: today my sister helped me find sour belts. I LOVE SOUR BELTS SO MUCH. They were also selling Venus Fly Traps, I seriously considered buying one.

So, Meaty Manicotti went really well:



So did Chicken Fried Rice:



Maybe I'll come up with the good sense to give you recipes, but right now my husband should be somewhere within *hopefully* about 5 miles of me, and I'm dying to pour myself into bed with him. GOODNIGHT!

Also, I'm super excited about going to California next week. Excellent.

Chicken Divan

Food is so wonderful. I'm not freaky obsessed with it like Julie Powell (of Julie & Julia fame). I don't find it comforting that cocoa, eggs and whatever else make chocolate cream pie like her. I do find movies comforting though. Like I know that no matter how many times I watch Emma, Gwyneth Paltrow will always end up with the hot guy and NOT Ewan McGregor with his nasty orange hair. Also, Nightcrawler's wife will always be super annoying and the crazy/awesome mom from Little Miss Sunshine will always be just a little slow. Ha!

Life is grand. I love my new job, I love seeing my husband every night and waking up with him every morning. I love my little apartment. I love my own kitchen. I love my new phone, I love that I'm going to California in a couple of weeks. I do not love being alone in my apartment on Thursday nights for what feels like ages, but it is a small sacrifice.

So, I love Chicken Divan. I made some on Sunday, and I imagine it was super good, I actually didn't have any... Casey did though, he said it was super good.



Recipe! This is the small version that I made, I normally make it in a 9x13, this was in a 9x9, so I'll give you the 9x9 version.

2 cooked chicken breasts (I prefer boiling for this one)
1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
1 c shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 c sour cream
1/4 c Miracle Whip
(or 1/2 c Mayo instead of the sour cream/miracle whip combo. I prefer my way though)
Broccoli
1 tsp lemon juice
4 tbsp butter
4 tbsp bread crumbs
Rice!

Okay, easy peasy. Steam enough broccoli to cover the bottom of the pan and drop it in. Mix the soup, cheese, sour cream, miracle whip and lemon juice. You can add a little water if it's too thick. Add the chicken (once cut) to the mixture and spread it over the broccoli. Melt the butter and add the bread crumbs, mix until it's back to a crumby manner, and sprinkle them over everything else. Put the pan into a preheated oven at 350 for 15 minutes. Serve hot over cooked rice.

I've been snacking for hours now. I should probably go eat some real food now.

One more thing first though: How can you not love this face:

kitchen's log

So, despite protests from a certain Greek on a very strict lent diet right now, I'm afraid I can't resist sharing some more food with you guys. Apparently, food is popular. This would be my Butter Chicken Curry from last night, complete with rice and salad (to pretend I eat healthy for my Mom, who reads my blog... I actually eat fairly healthy though, I kid I kid). It was divine. A little spicy, as indian food tends to be, but sooo good.

I dare you to resist this, Greeks.
It was so good in fact, that my rather full husband got a bit exhausted and crashed on the couch while I finished the dishes. Okay, it wasn't just the good food, it was also the new schedule at work. We wake up at 5:10 am on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays now. Fortunately, he likes it much better than swing shift (and so do I), so we're all happy. And admittedly tired.

Awwww...
Then while I made the muffins for the next morning (forgot to take pictures, they're from a just add water package anyway, so who cares?), Casey insisted on taking my picture. :P

You can put the camera away now, love.
Today was good, waking up a challenge, but the blueberry muffins we woke up to were totally worth it. I like watching my tired husband try desperately to wake himself up that early, he's so cute when he's tired. But yeah, tonight when I got home from class, it was LASAGNA TIME!

Bask in it's baked glory!
All in all, a successful day, and good food all around. I just used the recipe off the box for the lasagna, I'll use a little more sauce next time though. Not quite as good as the Manicotti I make from the box recipe. But the corn helps. I love corn. I could eat corn every day. Especially sweet corn. Canned veggies are so good. Canned meat... not so much. But hey, when I absolutely have to be eating meat out of a can due to troubled times and such, I'm sure I'll have a decent recipe for it. :)

Oh! Almost forgot, I picked up some frames at IKEA today (LOVE that place), and I have some hack plans for one of them. If it turns out, there will be pictures.

Lost and Found

I've been watching Lost. I told myself I wouldn't start watching it until after the series finale, and now that it's been over for a bit, I'm up to season 2. All of the questions and crap... I'm glad I don't have to wait days or worse WEEKS between episodes.

(collegehumor has the right idea about it)

Today we helped our friend Cory with some shopping stuff (he's all carless and whatnot), and afterwards the three of us plopped down in one of my favorite places.... smashburger! I had a "Sin City" smashburger (without the bacon, and pepperjack cheese instead of the cheddar). Something about a friend egg on a delicious burger with a side of smashfries is just downright fantastic. (Mmmmmm... smashfries...) Well, when the girl brought me my burger, she said, "I'm so sorry! We don't have any haystack onions right now, so here's something to make up for it." And she gave my a coupon! On the back it says "OopsCard." Haha! I get a free smashburger next time we go eat there. Huzzah! I'm on a streak in terms of eating out. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that when we went to P.F. Chang's I got TWO fortunes in my cookie! And Casey's said something about how well he does in computers (too true). Plus the waiter gave us three cookies, so we opened the last one together. Four fortunes in one meal... not too shabby!

Good times.

So, for the record, marriage is my favorite thing ever. And I found this awesome quote today.

"There is no greater risk than matrimony.
But there is nothing happier than a happy marriage."
--Benjamin Disraeli, 1870

Even back then, some people just had the right idea. No one ever told me that marriage was so GREAT. Okay, maybe they did, but I think they were severely lacking in the proper stress of the greatness of it.