Looting

We were sitting the fence on whether or not to put up a tree this year as we would be so busy to enjoy it very much.  However, since my office is moving this Friday, I didn't bother setting up the tree there only to have to take it down for the move.  Also, the office is shut down for the week of Christmas, so it wouldn't make much sense to set it up at the new space either.  

I figured the office tree and all of it's decor needed a good home this XMAS, so we decided to loot and to adopt it this season =)

 

The only problem once we brought it home was that this 10' tree was way too tall for our itty-bitty house. So we were crafty and took out the middle segment of the tree and decided to use the top and bottom half to make our first little Xmas tree. It's wobbly if you touch it too hard, but it's just great for us!  

Niels is like a little boy in this picture

                    

Ta Dah!

 Well, I learned here, that pictures of trees never do justice because you can't see all the detail.  

Only in Utah Part II

Christmas Goodies

So, this is my (Niels's) firsts post on our little blog. I thought I'd spread the love and post a few Christmas songs. This year I've been listening to more "modern" Christmas tunes, so here's a few that are pretty hard to come by.

Good times, good times.

We are always happy and very willing to escape the cold and the snow. Last weekend we traded Utah's first snow day, for a heavy weekend of rain in Arizona! We flew down along with the rest of the family to celebrate the retirement of Dave Colton, Niels' step-father. It was a great and relaxing time filled with late-night girl talk among the sisters, and lots of sports watching among the brothers (and grandpa, of course).

Niels and I have been fairly spoiled the past three weeks with complimentary, fancy schmancy dinners. We have eaten at Sundance, La Caille, Ben & Sara's (my sister-in law who is in culinary school), The resort where Dave's retirement dinner was held, and Bambara at Hotel Monaco, SLC. Not too bad for newlyweds, eh? We have struggled with our transition back to normal people food this week. =)

A VERY Rare Occasion: The Colton/Jensen Crew Minus all the grandchildren at the dinner.

My mother-in-law treated the girls to pedicures! (oh yeah, and my my brother- in -law Dave too!)

Usually wives get baby hungry before their husbands do . . . These pictures of Niels and our niece Abby make me wonder if that will be the case for us.

Only in Utah . . .

A bumper sticker I saw in the Target parking lot tonight.

Domestic Woes

This is in response to my sister-in-law's blog entry where she talks about how she melted a frozen ziplock bag of soup to the bottom of her pan. As she puts it . .bottom of hot pot + plastic bag = big hole and ruined soup.

I had a similar domestic casualty. I made some pasta noodles, strained them, and decided that it would be fine to rest my plastic strainer back on the stove while I finished making the other stuff. (We have the old school coil burners stove) Niels and I ate our entire dinner without realizing what I had done. We soon realized this destroyed burner when we started to clean.

Human Tetris

This is hilarious! Crazy Asian game shows.

Our Wedding Album

Our wedding photographer was incredible. If you know anyone who needs a good one, you can visit her site at mkimagery.com. (No, we didn't get a discount for saying that, although we probably should.) Here is the link to our wedding album.


http://www.mkimagery.com/weddings/susie_niels_book/

Skymiles!!

Niels and I experienced the beauty of flying free on Delta Skymiles for our first time last month. I was gifted some miles from my office back in May, and we have since been toying around with many cities that we could travel to that would be fun and relatively inexpensive.

My theory is that when school and work are involved in travel planning, there is never really an optimal time to take a break. Things will always be busy, so the best thing to do is just pick a time and place and then go!

After considering all of our options, we settled on Washington DC. Niels and I have both been before, but it has been at least 10+ years. We stayed with our amazing step-grandparents that live in Bethesda, MD. Their house is over 40 years old, and everything within it has some sentimental value and tells an elaborate story from their lives. They have traveled pretty much anywhere cool you can think of , and have been to all 7 continents! Crazy.

Our highlight of staying at their house was getting to see them use the "torture chamber" , a.k.a. the best business concept ever! The "torture chamber" is a mini-semi truck that is equipped with a full-blown gym in the back of it. It comes to your home along with a personal trainer 3 days a week. Wouldn't that be nice!!

Our two favorite sites from our trip include were Mt.Vernon (George Washington's Estate) and the newly opened International Spy Museum. It was fascinating to learn about the history of espionage! They had several exhibits that dispalyed recording bugs and hiddent cameras in everything you could possibly think of. (Even artificial dog poop!) We spent almost 3 hours there. It is a must see if you are back east.

Our friend Stephanie works for the Ohio Senator on Capitol Hill. She arranged for us to have a staff guided tour. We felt pretty cool going through all the back doors and underground tunnels and shuttles that all the senators and congressmen use to get around. We were most impressed by the amazing architecture . There are authentic frescos and beautiful domes all over the place. One cool thing about the Capitol is that there are statues all over the place. What happens is that each state gets to submit two statues to the Capitol. There are strict guidelines for them including: the chosen person has to have done something really relevant for the particular state, they have to be bronze or marble, etc. etc. So basically you have to be really special. We came across one of the two Utah statues on our tour, Brigham Young. We never found the other one, but my guess is that it is likely Donny Osmond ;)

It's About Time

Well, we have conformed to craze and have decided to start a blog. It's something we've wanted to do for a while, but our lives have been non-stop work, school, and dental school applications ever since our wedding in May!!

We think our little newlywed life is pretty fun. We hope to have enough interesting things and photos to keep you all entertained. With that said . . . on with our blog.