there is superstition

i know the date says it is christmas day, but this post is not actually about christmas. this post is about our adventurous hike in arizona to the superstition mountains. now, by adventurous, of course i mean taking a group hike with a tour guide and middle-aged people using walking sticks. oh, and it wasn't really a hike. it was more of a pleasant stroll around the foothills of these pretty awesome looking rocks.


the desert has its beauty though. this wasn't exactly the most beautiful time of year, but i always love the classic saguaro.


the point of this hike, as was advertised on the inter-webs, was that during the hike, you would be able to observe the beautiful sunset. of course, they can't really guarantee that. the evening we went, the sky was covered in clouds and the arizonians were fearing a sprinkling of rain. so, at the point in the hike where the tour guide is used to pausing and pointing out the beautiful sunset, this is all we saw. it was a bit poorly timed, the sun wasn't even really setting yet.


at some point towards the end of our hike, the group decided to pause and talk about birds or something, so aaron and i attempted to take pictures of ourselves. notice aaron's scruffiness. kind of weak, but he's working on it and i am fertilizing his facial hair with love.


just as the hike ended and we were getting in our car, this was the sunset. a little bit better than before...


a definite highlight, however, was finding this glorious institution established in the desert regions of the country. we thought it only existed in the holy midwest. behold....


mmmm. we felt satisfied and greasy for at least a few hours. but those butterburgers melted in our mouths like.... butter.

mesa, az or salt lake city?

yesterday, aaron and i ventured to mesa, a whole 20 minutes away, to visit the arizona temple. we were hoping that since we didn't exactly know where we were going, we would be lead by the angel moroni statue that is atop the mormon temples. well, we forgot that the mesa temple is actually more like the roman pantheon than like most mormon temples, and there is no angel moroni. but we did find the temple, thanks to the spacious grasslands in front of the visitors center.



what do you think: Greek/Roman classicism, or Mayan/Aztec flare?

when we got out of the car, we notice that the sidewalks were bordered by strings of lights, still unlit. then we saw that the trees had lights, and then that almost everything we passed was covered in lights. we got really excited to come back when it was dark to see the light show, when suddenly, as if some friendly old senior missionary in the visitors center could hear our thoughts, the lights flicked on!

we thought we were transported back to temple square in salt lake city, where the lights are a holiday attraction. some of the pluses about mesa, however, are: it is warm, there are still flowers in bloom, they have orange trees covered in lights, and they have purple lights. we did think, however, that the amount of flashy lights somewhat detracted from the brilliance of the temple, which isn't much of a problem at salt lake. still, it was a great surprise to discover that our night would be more exciting than just walking once around the temple grounds.
not super impressive in daylight, i know, but my camera died when nighttime came. we also saw a sign that said "live performances nightly 7:00." we decided to wander around to try to find some food, then come back to see the lights in the night, as well as watch the mysterious live performance.

wander we did. first, past a shady mexican yerberia that we thought might be a restaurant. next, to pete's fish and chips, but they only took cash and though there was a wells fargo right next door, neither of us had our bank cards on us. so we wandered a bit further, to downtown mesa, and found a nice little mexican restaurant to get fish tacos and enchilladas.

once we were fully satiated, we walked--and elongatedly ran--back to the temple to see the show. we were a bit early, so we walked through the display of nativities they had set up in the visitor's center. when we got outside, the brass quintet of old men was just setting up and getting ready to start. they played a few jolly christmas tunes, then we got a little bit tired of the brassy, humpty dumpty sound (don't get me wrong, brass players, i had dreams of playing the trombone in my youth), so we headed home, full and happy from the many surprises we found in mesa.

pre-christmas

saturday december 18th served as pre-christmas this year. why not celebrate when three siblings and their significant others are together in warm, tempe arizona? there were plenty of presents to go around, as well as carrot cake for all.


even paul (the dog) got a new beaver toy, which already is missing a section of tail and sprouts of white fluff are springing forth from its neck.

we were bestowed with some wonderfully unique smelling candles, our first porcelain goose head, some funny books which will probably be subject to future blog posts, and the bible--aka the new best recipes cookbook from cook's illustrated. we still believe in the king james version, as far as it is translated correctly.

our merry pre-christmas only got us more excited for the real christmas that is soon upon us! two more "eves" to go!

Ice Cubes of Oranges

rachel is a very detail oriented person. she likes to plan and is also very organized. I have known this for a long time. I've observed her comb through her itunes library and meticulously assign an album artwork to each of the albums in the library. Ive seen her color coordinate books. Ive seen her many lists and her urgency to check as many things off as possible. the list could go on.rachel took it to a new level recently. A week or so leading up to us leaving for arizona, rach began to ration our level of juice and milk intake. She was set on us leaving to arizona with no liquids left in the fridge. At first I thought we were trying to draw out the life of the juice and milk, in order to avoid an awkward trip to the store one or two days before leaving the state; however, on the day of our departure I quickly realized we had a surplus as I see Rach leaving to the car with a giant filled-to-the-brim glass of juice and milk jug in hand. oh.... all after also having filled our ice tray with remaining juice. so we began to chug on our drive out. the fridge is clean.

our first christmas tree

in all its glory...

ta da!

a bit belated

for his birthday, my parents sent aaron an edible arrangement, aka a bouquet of fruit that we ate for breakfast. along with the bouquet came a mug, which was desperately needed for hot chocolate use, and a helium balloon. i tied aaron's birthday balloon to one of our kitchen chairs and let it fly, proclaiming that as long as the helium lasted, his birthday would continue.

well, it lasted quite a while. we left for thanksgiving, and when we came home, it was still flying. another week went by...is it really normal for these balloons to stay full all this time? i thought they began to deflate within a few days.

finally, we were doing some spring cleaning in the middle of winter, in hopes that a clean apartment would help us study for finals better, and aaron decided to kill his birthday.


that's right. though his eyes in the picture look more like he was tripping on something, he was actually a little bit insane...determined to kill his birthday. and so he took a knife to his balloon, swallowed some helium quite unsuccessfully (he just started laughing instead of speaking like a munchkin as long as possible), and thus ended the 22nd birthday of aaron robison.

rest in peace.

it snowed!

it snowed! it snowed! it snowed last night! honey, let's play hooky 'cause it snowed last night!

curse you finals...getting in the way of playing hooky...

i guess it wouldn't be hooky if there wasn't anything to skip, though

bedtime stories

aaron and i are reading "a christmas carol". not only does reading it in a british accent make it infinitely more fun, but it honestly helps us digest and understand the wordy descriptions of charles dickens. when i read in my normal voice, it quickly puts aaron to sleep.

plus, you never know when your british accent will morph into something even more exciting, like an indian maharaja, a redneck booby trapper, or a beautiful southern bell.

blender mania

after returning from madison with a few more target gift cards, aaron and i decided to go romp around target and see what we could find. we found ourselves in the blender aisle for quite a while, seeing as a blender is about the only kitchen appliance we did not receive from our wedding.

there were the classic osterizers on the shelf, kitchen aid, hamilton beach, but my eyes were drawn to the ninja. as seen on tv, the ninja doesn't only have one set of blades at the bottom of the jar like your typical blender, but two additional sets going up a rod through the middle of the jar. this, i thought, would solve the problem of making thick smoothies that get stuck all that time. we pondered and thought and debated and giggled about the ninja, but for some reason, we went instead with a hamilton beach wave action blender, which professed that it never gets stuck. so, we went home with blender number one.
however, after a day to think about it, i decided i wasn't satisfied with little hamilton. plus, the instruction manual said that you needed at least a cup of liquid to guarantee a non-sticking blending process. i didn't like that. i like my milkshakes and smoothies thick. so, i quite easily convinced aaron that we should go back to target and trade in hamilton for the ninja. monday night, done. we come home with blender number two... the ninja. hi-ya!
well, what do you know, but the next day, as i'm sitting on the couch doing some homework, there arrives a box at our door from macy's. aaron isn't home, but i open it and to my surprise...a blender! my parents sent us the kitchen aid architect as a christmas present. well, this was quite the predicament...which blender should we keep? let me as you this question: if a ninja and an architect were to battle with only a few metal blades, who would win?








you guessed it! the architect! after reading several reviews that didn't really convince us either way, we took the two beasts out and examined them. the ninja had a great locking container, pouring spout in the lid, and of course the multiple blades. the architect, however, was much sturdier, had the bent blades which are more effective, and had mom's review behind it. so we finally went with the kitchen aid.
winner!

Use #40, Photoshop Diva

About a month before we got married I was walking on-campus. While I was walking, I stumbled upon an outdoor sale of books on clearance. I hardly payed any attention to it; however, just as I was passing the last disordered table of books, something caught my eye. It read, "39 uses for a wife." I stopped. It was the contrast that caught my attention. Nestled between piles of pale computer programming books from the 90's sat this colorful book. I picked it up, and read. As someone who would soon be getting married, I figured it wouldn't hurt to catch up on all of the 39 uses for a wife. I realized that the author was stretching his imagination for additional uses at about use #12 when it showed the couple in a canoe and the wife's use was "ballast." Well, needless to say, "uses for a wife" and "uses for a husband" quickly became a joke between Rachel and I, especially when I asked her for my potential uses and she couldn't even get to use #2 and immediately forgot what she had in mind for use #1.

For my birthday this year, Rachel must have felt bad about leaving me hanging at use #2 and getting to claim all 39 wife uses for herself. She made me my very own book to register my hubandly traits. It's titled, "22 uses for my husband." She downloaded a trial version of photoshop and went to town creating the beast. When she gave it to me, I couldn't stop laughing. Almost every page featured me doing things in my wedding suit, from mowing the lawn to doing the dishes. One of my personal favorites is use #3 "Masseur" -the page has some random lady's legs photoshopped onto the scene. The lady at the copy center helping Rachel put the book together complimented her photoshop abilities, I agree... Use #40 Photoshop Diva.

happy birthday!

today, 22 years ago, aaron was born. i haven't heard really any birthing stories about aaron yet, except for the whole incidence with his left arm--and that is probably enough of a story, at least for his parents' well beings. but as far as what time of day, whether it was snowing or not (i was wishing it would be snowing this morning, but unfortunately, i think aaron and i are the only people in provo praying for it to snow), whether he was a quick delivery or hours and hours of labor...i really don't know. those are usually the kinds of things that get talked about annually on birthdays, at least at my house, and i think for good reason. a little reminiscing is always good, even if it is the same story every time. plus, this was the start of your life, the single most important and vital event ever for your existence, since your existence was dependent on your birth. so why not know your birth story like the back of your hand? perhaps when we head up to the robison's this weekend, i can get the whole story of aaron's feeble beginnings.

well, i'm not going to post a list of things i love about aaron in honor of him. i'll just tell all those things to him, instead of make him read it through the internet. but suffice it to say that i'm glad aaron survived the journey from the blissful state of womb-living to the harsh, not-nearly-as-gooey world of the developed human beings.

and yes, we will be celebrating with magleby's chocolate cake.

"this deserves stomach acid!"

aaron got accepted into the strategy program! this is especially amazing, since when he applied for the business major when he got home from his mission, he didn't get accepted. a few weeks later, they--those hoity-toity business know-it-all's--realized they made a terrible mistake and came begging on their knees for aaron to accept them. aaron glared down his nose at them and said yes.

next, he applies for the strategy emphasis, which only takes 40 students a year. there were definitely over a hundred other students hoping to make the cut, but they were just pretending. aaron's the real deal. he wrote his application essay inspired by an article from a BYU professor (brown-nosing? maybe a little. but his aim was unique. it wasn't your typical this is why I'm great, sell-yourself essay). then, his interview a month later was with the same professor who wrote the article! they just shot the breeze for the 15 minutes they had scheduled together, and now aaron is official one of the 40 strategy students!

another awesome thing--aaron applied, technically, as a sophmore, but he'll be graduating april 2012. finishing school in three years. we are all about efficiency.

anyways, i decided we had to celebrate by getting some of our favorite foods from various places. okay, maybe this was just my attempt at avoiding having to eat mac and cheese for dinner. first, we got sweet potato fries from guru's--best in town. in the meantime, we ordered peshwari naan from the local indian restaurant, bombay house, and picked it up right after we got our sweet potato fries. we sped home, downed our fries, ran out of the delicious sauce, made dulce de leche hot chocolate, and ate our peshwari naan. mmmmm.

anyway, congratulations aaron!

home sweet home

so i am taking a class this semester called western political heritage. it fills a general requirement. we read plato's republic and learned about the allegory of the cave. basically, the idea is that people are stuck in a cave, chained down, and deceived that the shadows they continually see in front of them is the real world.

we kind of live in a cave. luckily, we aren't chained to the floor. it is pretty classic in these parts to live in a basement as a newly married couple, so we are serving our time down under, peeping out from out little windows. we, however, refused to simply succumb to our situation, and we got around to decorating the cave a little bit. there are still a few more things we want to do, namely putting up some more pictures, and getting bean bags for extra seating.

but without further ado, here is our humble cave.

confessions from a closet obsessive complusive

So Aaron is always pointing out my weird, obsessive, usually organizational quirks. Like needing to have the the fronts of the shirts hanging on hangers all facing the left. He got used to that one.

On Tuesday, however, I learned that Aaron is a closet obsessive compulsive. I brought home a bag of assorted chocolate candy and left it by him to tempt him to eat it. When I came home, I found that a lot of the Almond Joys were missing. Naturally, I asked Aaron if he loved Almond Joys. He said that he didn't especially love them.

That's when the truth came out.

He confessed that when eating assorted chocolate candy, he has this desire to keep the colors balanced. His candy of choice was Hershey's, but he found that the bag was lacking brown and was heavy on the blue, so he had to eat some Almond Joys. You can see how this then spread to eating more Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Kit Kat's as well.

I think it was all a ploy so he could eat lots and lots of chocolate.

live bands tonight!

Aaron had the chance to play at a local music venue in Provo called Velour--and this isn't just the corner coffee shop. My cousin Melanie's fiance is an aspiring young musician (keep your eyes open for Beau Stephenson), but he decided he needed a band to back him up. Thanks to my wedding reception, Beau met Ryan King, who is Aaron's faithful musician companion from the freshman dorms, and they enjoyed playing music together. They lined up a show at Velour for this last Saturday night. They really only had about 3 hours of rehearsal time all together with Aaron and their impromptu guitarist, Collin, but they sounded really great! Of course, I'm probably a bit biased, seeing as I'm in love with the drummer, the singer/bassists/guitarist/pianist is one of my best friends, and the other singer/guitarist/pianist/ukulele player will soon be a member of my extended family. Even without all the connections, you could tell they were all really talented musicians because they would randomly start improvise jamming while others were switching instruments and cords and such.

I tried to take pictures of my drummer husband, but he so easily hides behind his drum set...There he is, hiding behind his symbols. And that's Beau rocking it out on the ukulele.Ryan is singing the song he wrote about Aaron and I freshmen year. It was a crucial part of our wooing story.I think that's the best picture I got of Aaron...a blurry one. He wouldn't hold still!They really were amazing, and it looks like they have another show to play in a couple weeks! My Aaron will become a rock star...

meet garbanzo

Aaron and I carved pumpkins with some friends last weekend. Neither of us have ever really had an amazing time carving pumpkins. Yes, the activity is fun, but it is rarely topped off with a feeling of accomplishment with the final result.

This time was different. We spent probably a whole 10 minutes throwing ridiculous ideas back and forth of what to carve. Tony the Tiger? No, too hard. A baseball player winding up to bat? also pretty hard. A stiletto heel with a bat sitting on it? A possibility, but we thought we could do better.

By some sort of inspiration, Aaron claims I made a noise like a fetus. The idea of a fetus was golden, and I immediately went to work drawing a fetus on the newspaper we had spread out. Thank you anatomy and Body Worlds for giving me plenty of images of the little aliens.

The idea was golden. We also had the plan to do the infamous "shaving" technique, which also greatly enhanced our fetus pumpkin. I drew, Aaron shaved, and it was the best pumpkin carving experience yet.

Meet Garbanzo...

The experience was also enhanced due to the delicious pumpkin seeds Ryan King made. Toasted, caramelized, and sprinkled in sugar and pumpkin pie spice. Mmmmm...

I LOVE RACHEL

I am currently sitting in the courtyard of the JFSB. Rachel just made me move to the sunlight because I have a cold and am freezing. I stole her jacket and now her butt is cold.