Sushi

As I mentioned in the last post, we bought our own sushi gear as an anniversary gift. We tried it out tonight with great success! It was so yummy and fun (and less expensive) to make ourselves. We actually just used vegetables tonight-- no fish. I'm allergic to the good stuff (crab, lobster, shrimp etc.) so we kept it simple. I am a fan of tuna so maybe we'll have to try it next time. Tonight we used avocado, cucumber, carrot and green onions. We also made a few rolls with cream cheese added in and they were delicious!

I had never made sushi rice before. I used this recipe and it turned out great. Make sure if you try this recipe to use KOSHER salt. If you don't have kosher salt, modify the recipe to 1 tsp. regular table salt. Also, we highly recommend Unagi sauce for dipping if you can find it-- It tastes like teriyaki. I bought most of our stuff at Many Lands in Provo.

Happy 5th anniversary!

Today is our 5th anniversary! We actually celebrated yesterday and it was the best we've had yet! Usually we are driving across the country or setting up a summer apartment, but this year we were home and I loved it.

Sean's classes ended earlier this week so we got to spend quite a bit of the day together. We planted some stuff in our garden and went out to lunch. After dropping Jackson off with my sister, Sean and I went to The Roof restaurant in Salt Lake. It's in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and overlooks temple square. The tulips were out and they were beautiful! The view from that restaurant really is incredible and we were lucky to get a window seat.

Sean surprised me with a wedding band!! It is BEAUTIFUL and I absolutely love it. It really was a complete surprise and so thoughtful. It means so much to me that he took the initiative and picked it out on his own. When we got married we decided not to buy a band because we didn't have much money and I had no idea what I wanted. I think the band he chose is so classy and timeless and it looks great with my ring-- I couldn't have picked it better myself!

Sorry the pictures of the ring aren't very clear. Dinner was awesome and as you can see, so was dessert:

You'd think that was the plate of dessert we were sharing-- but no, that was just MY plate. Yep, it was delicious, and yep, I had to run an extra 10 minutes this morning to help myself feel a little bit better about it! In my defense, I did not finish all of them!

My gift to Sean wasn't nearly as cool but I did tell him he could pick out a roll bar for his car so he can start taking it to the track and let out his inner racing demon. I know I will feel a lot better about him driving on the freeway also. Finally, as a gift to both of us, I bought stuff to make sushi at home. Our neighbors had us over last week to make sushi and it was so fun and so good. If you're up for it, let us know!

So here's to five great years and many many more to come!

Our first attempt at a garden

The weather has finally taken a turn for the better! Our neighborhood offers garden plots in the community and since we are going to actually be around this summer we are taking the plunge and trying our hand at gardening! I am SO EXCITED. I have seriously wanted to do this every summer but haven't been able to. Our plot is pretty decent size-- 8x15 or so I think. Mostly I am dying for tomatoes, but we are going to try out a whole bunch of things: beans, peppers, jalepeno peppers, carrots, squash, etc. So far all we've done is worked in a few bags of compost, but this week we are going to mix in fertilizer (thank you Jessica!), make rows and plant our carrots. Wanna know what the best part is? It's hooked up to an automatic watering drip system! Booyah!

I put Jackson in his tractor tee that says "Ricks" on it so he could feel like he was contributing. Mostly though he just spent his time sleeping and chillin' in the sunshine (don't worry I put SPF 50 on him-- if he has my skin I will feel really sorry for the kid!)

If anyone has any suggestions on what to grow in our garden or what grows well in Utah soil, let me know! If it works out I am willing to share our goods! ;)

Happy Easter!

We had a great day and hope you did too! The Easter Bunny left us some goodies-- candy for mom and pop and books and a mini Spiderman kite for the bambino :) Bunnies and candy aside, we are especially grateful for Christ on this day and feel very fortunate this year.

We had a great time dying eggs with my sister and her family Saturday night. Sean and I started a new tradition a few years ago dying eggs with silk ties (info here). We hit up the D.I. to pick out new ones each year and it is something we both look forward to. Apparently the word is out because there were a few other people checking out ties at the same time. No fights over ugly old ties broke out that I know of. Here are some of our eggs from this year:

This was also our first Easter on our own. I felt it was my appointed duty to make my first traditional Easter dinner-- you know the ham, potatoes, Jell-O, etc. I don't know if I was just starving or what (our church doesn't end until 4pm) but I'm pretty sure I ate enough to last me until at least Wednesday. But really, I am still planning on capping off the day with a brownie sundae-- I might as well be honest! Hope you had a great Easter!

Spring project

We've been saying we were going to finish our garage since we moved in two years ago. Thank goodness we have some good neighbors and friends who decided they wanted to finish theirs at the same time and offered to help us with ours! I honestly don't know if we would have gotten it done without the help of Sam. He taught Sean how to texture the walls, helped paint and provided almost all of the materials so it cost us next to nothing. Muchas gracias to Sam and also to Kristol for being cool about your husband kickin' it at our house so much last week :)

Before:

After:

Our first photoshoot

We got Jackson's pictures taken a few weeks ago while we were up in Idaho for spring break. I think they turned out awesome!! I was so worried about figuring out which outfits to take, whether or not Jackson would cooperate, etc. It was kind of stressful and I was just glad when it was over! Anyway, I couldn't be happier with how they turned out. We even got a few family shots which was cool since I realized we have very few pictures of all three of us together. After the session I was a bit nervous since Jackson had been a little fussy, but now I realize there was no need to worry. Our photographer was Chantri from Studio CK Photography and she was amazing (I have a link on the right if you want to check her out). Sean and I put together this little slideshow of our favorite pictures-- it gave us a good excuse to try out the video editing software on his computer. Now I just need to figure out which of these photos to blow up and frame-- any suggestions? :)