Bunny Nuggets & Chubby Chirps

Continuing in what may be a very long love affair with Rebecca Danger,
I constructed two of her "Bunny Nuggets" and a "Chubby Chirp" for my Mam for Easter. 
No bunnies were harmed in the making of the monster.....even though I did have some pretty humorous daydreams of the monster coming to life and me coming home to a bunny massacre.   It only makes sense that monsters would eat bunnies.

I'm having so much fun with her crazy ideas that I downloaded the pattern to THESE GUYS thinking they'd be a pretty great baby shower present.



Also knitted lately:  A sweater for my darling niece Hadlee.  She's pretty much the cutest thing there ever was.  Even more so in her birthday sweater :)

MONSTERS!

I was mindlessly perusing etsy.com the other day, and came across the genius that is Rebecca Danger.  Seriously, this girl is like a knitting rock star.  I heart her.
I found myself laughing at all her little "monster" knitting patterns. I had to make one.  This one was my favorite, so I started there :)

 I think she's adorable, and she makes me smile. Yes, I made her for me. Maybe one day I'll make them for other people and share the monster love :)


Check out the rest of Rebecca's amazing patterns here

Simple pleasures

Does anyone else effing LOVE mac & cheese with hotdogs?!

OM NOM.

After a post about some really marvelous food, I leave you with this:

PURE. GENIUS.

That is all.

Wasatch Brewery + MacCools = LOVE

For Valentine's Day, Me & Manny, Erica & Brad and Matt & Breanne went to MacCool's Wasatch Brewery dinner. It was five courses of deliciousness, something I hope we'll do again someday.
Not only was everything good, but what made it cool was having the chef and Wasatch Brewery's Brew Master there to talk about everything on the menu. Getting to ask them specific questions was really neat.

I apologize for the crappy photos, they don't at all do the food justice :/


Soup Course: Acorn Squash Soup

Oven roasted acorn squash soup; highlighted with hints of fresh Jalapeno and sweet potato flavors. Paired with a Brew Master Matt Beamer's Wasatch Jalapeno Ale.
Review: I could eat this soup everyday, and I'm not a soup person. It had the perfect amount of heat and flavor and was delightful mixed with the cilantro whipped cream. The beer, amazing. If you've never had a spicy beer, I highly recommend trying one.



Intermezzo One: Pretzel Fingers

A baked Bavarian style soft pretzel with Utah's own Bee Hive Cheese Co. apple smoked cheddar created into a dip. Paired with MacCool's Black & Tan.
Review: EFFING AMAZING.  Pretzelmaker can suck it. I don't know if I can ever eat a normal pretzel again. This dinner is ruining me.



Entree Course:Kurobata Pork

Snake River Farms roasted pork with an apricot sauce drizzled with pomegranate reduction; herbed red mashers and tri-colored carrots. Paired with a Hop Bandit Cask Ale.
Review:  Everything was incredible. I'm not typically a pork fan, but this was really great. The biggest surprise was the beer.  Oh muh lord.  I can't even describe how good it was. The biggest let-down was also the beer. They hiked around park city picking fresh hops to use. Usually hops are dried and used in beer.  The fresh hops and the wood cask method used made this beer incredible. Using only fresh hops means that this beer is only made once a year :/



Intermezzo Two: Bananas Foster

A baked goat cheese mousse with citrus flavors and a banana essence. Paired with Wasatch Hefeweizen.
Review: Everyone knows how I feel about goat cheese. I could marry it.  I was pretty excited to try this, but the sweetness of the bananas was overwhelming. I only ate half... but if no one had been watching, I totally would have dissected it and licked all the goat cheese off the rest of the bananas.


Dessert Course: The Devastator Cake

A moist, rich double bock cake topped with vanilla toffee ice cream and a Devastator malt caramel sauce. Paired with Wasatch Devastator Double Bock.
Review: The cake was good, the ice cream was awesome (also made locally, apparently by a woman that uses the PTO on a John Deere tractor to churn it) 
We got to talk to the chef, which was very interesting to pick his brain and listen to how he came up with the recipes for the pairings, and exactly how much beer (4 per 9x13 pan!) he used in the cake.

Las Vegas :)

This year for Christmas, James & I bought our boyfriends each a plane ticket to Las Vegas.  It was horrid keeping it a secret for so long because it was so exciting! Guy had never been, so it was fun showing him all the craziness that is Vegas.



After we landed and got checked in to our room, we headed down to Freemont Street. I hadn't been there in like 10 years, so it was something I wanted on the list of must-dos.
Freemont St. is the "original" Vegas. There's still a bunch of old casinos and they've blocked the street off so you can just wander along checking out the pretty lights. And the hobos.

 Hello, 99¢ Margaritas :)

 There's a canopy the length of five football fields 

that has a light show every hour at night. Pretty neat.

 Manny's friend Ryan that lives in Vegas drug us to this creepy dark hole-in-the-wall bar called The Griffin. I fully expected to be bitten by a vampire or sacrificed, but we made it out alive.   Juuuust kidding mom... I felt totally safe..... 

Note to self: No more visiting Freemont St. at 2am.

We happened to be there for Chinese New Year, so all the casinos were decorated accordingly. These were taken in the atrium at the Bellagio.

 It's the Year of the Rabbit, Manny's year!

We had to make sure we saw the fountains at the Bellagio. We usually don't do such touristy things, but Guy needed to be educated on the Vegas basics.

 

We took the boys to VooDoo on top of the Rio. It has a pretty spectacular view of the strip and the entire valley. Of course, the mandatory Witch Doctor made an appearance :)

Of course, there had to be an obligatory Youngs-posing-as-something-else photo. This is the Jelly Belly statue of liberty at the MGM Grand. And her imposters, of course.

After a couple days of crazy busyness, we chilled for a mellow night eating all-you-can-eat sushi and watching the 80's rock cover band "Yellow Brick Road". We also found $7  24oz. Bud Lights. Which is why we were drinking them. Everything else was like, a billion dollars. A BILLION.

Me and Manny spent the last day wandering around the outlet mall. Ok, I was shopping, Manny was mostly people watching. We were both worn out.
There WAS a pretty cool little Chinese New Year parade happening throughout the mall though.

 

Depression.

This time of year always makes me depressed.
I get spring fever like crazy and want to be outside in the sunshine. Except, there isn't any. I was telling Aaron the other day that I think I have a Vitamin D deficiency due to lack of sun exposure. He said "Does it make you ache?" I said, "No, it makes me depressed."
He responded "Oh, no, you're depressed because your life sucks."
HA. Funny bastard.
He went on to Google 'Vitamin D deficiencies', letting me know that I may get Rickets and skeletal deformities. Excellent.

A week has gone by, the sun has been out, I was feeling a little better about things, and then, it snowed.
Mother bitch.
I try to keep my head up and remember that in a few long, dreary, cold absolutely horrendous months, it will be warm again. My flowers will be budding, I can sit outside and putter in my yard. I can let my pasty limbs soak up that precious Vitamin D. If they aren't deformed by then.

It's just hard.
So.
I did something that hundreds of depressed people do every day.

I cut myself.


I've done it before.

It usually makes me feel better.

This time was no exception.

I'm not proud of it.




But damnit, I hate paying other people to do it ;)

   

Linkin' Stinkin'

Elementary School was cool. Or maybe I was cool in Elementary School?  Maybe that's it.
Elementary School is a magical place. A place where people can be friends regardless of race, religion, economic and social status and bad mom haircuts.
Remember back when none of that mattered? Before you learned how to judge people?  When the most important part of your day was lunch and recess and getting (name removed to protect the innocent) to notice you? And "notice" may have meant pushing you down in the "big toy" gravel or throwing mud at you.
Yeah. Those were the days.

I dare say I was rad.  My mom curled my bangs half up and half down. Sometimes I even had a side ponytail.
I wore obnoxious florescent colors and those shirt things that gathered one side.
I had giant glasses that tinted in the sun.
I had a Lisa Frank pencil case in mint condition.
My mom dropped me off in the morning with my bike so I could ride it home downhill after school.
I chased a girl into a brick wall during recess and knocked her teeth out.

There is no other place in the world besides elementary school where someone could have all those things going for them and still think they were a badass. Besides that last one, of course. That's badass in real grownup life, y'all.

Anyway, what brings about this sudden nostalgicism, is that my old elementary school was torn down last week. Both my parents and my Grandpa went there as well. It was the most giant, badass mother school around.

I went to take some pictures of the destruction, and didn't think I would, but I felt a little sad. I still have friends that I made all those years ago in that building. I still see teachers that I had and either smile, or cringe. A lot of things you learn that young are things you carry throughout your whole life, and that kids, is a damn long time.





During the demolition process, my parents got the idea to bribe a construction working into giving them one of THESE

 

They actually ended up with three of them  :)    What they plan on doing with them is undecided, but it's pretty cool that they have giant pieces (literally) of Brigham City history, and a great way to remember good old Linkin' Stinkin'.