the latest

I know I ended the last post with a serious cliff hanger and you are anxiously waiting to hear about your excursion to Las Vegas.

However, it seems like there is not much to tell. We didn't want to spend much money, but we debated the whole time about whether or not to try to get tickets to a Cirque de Soleil show (because I have always wanted to see one). We were really really close to buying tickets, too. I can't exactly remember what happened, but we didn't see a show. I think we were just in this daze of "What are we doing in Vegas?" and we never got out of it. We even stayed in the MGM Hotel, but I didn't know until we got back that they have live lions in the hotel. Basically, we spent lots of hours wandering the strip, walking through the mazes of shops and casinos, wondering why people bring small children to this place, and trying to find food that wasn't greasy.

We took pictures, but they are nothing special.

Advice for Vegas goers? Stay in a hotel that is at least 10 miles from the strip. We did. Amazingly nice and just as expensive as a dinky little room on the strip. And plan to see a show beforehand.


In other news...

As alluded to in the previous post, Aaron and I are undergoing a "food revolution." With the start of my new blog about becoming more green, we have watched a couple movies about food. Though I am definitely more passionate about it than Aaron is, I think he is still onboard.

So what is the plan?

Eat less meat
When eating meat, eat organic
Eat more veggies 
Eat more raw things (I actually just added that one today and haven't really told Aaron) 
Buy organic when possible and pertinent 
Eat the seasons 
Investigate "super foods" (Also added this one today)
Drink more water (for detoxifying purposes) 
Eat less to no processed foods (to decrease intake of strange chemicals)
Somehow overcome my addiction to sugar (nearly impossible)


Of course, these are the goals, not the immediate reality. Achieving this goal with take psychological and physiological determination. It will take me basically learning how to shop at the grocery store again and learning how to cook (or not cook) again. It will be hard, but I am determined.


If anyone out there has any wonderful advice, helpful blogs, or tasty recipes they would like to share, I would love it.


And check out my website!  
myownshadeofgreen.com/blog
(Even though something terrible happened this weekend and the pictures suddenly failed to load. Once Aaron has a free hour or two, he'll set to two trying to fix it; but that might not be until graduation in April.)

caramel apple pumpkins

I always forget about Halloween. Once my trick-or-treating days were over, I was never into dressing up and partying--or as the custom was in Madison, dressing up and then breaking windows downtown. 

My distaste for Halloween backfired, however, when last Friday I showed up to teach my Children's Creative Dance class and the room was full of 9 year old dressed up as witches and mummies and lady bugs. I had to improvise a few Halloween dance games and made sure to let everyone tell each other what they were really going to be for Halloween. If I were a good teacher, I would have brought candy.

I do, however, love this season. I wrote Aaron a text the other day that said "I'm falling in love with autumn." His response was, "No! Not Autumn!" The weather has been amazingly wonderful this past week, the leaves have finally changed colors, the air is crisp and cold, but the sun is still warm. It is a beautiful season. Plus, Aaron and I have decided it's time to bring out the Christmas music, so we are starting in on that cozy, warm, holiday feeling, too.

These feelings got me inspired to do something crafty--and all crafts are better if they involve food, right? So caramel apple pumpkins it was! Aaron got way into it. He said he felt his obsessive compulsive self emerging...that these really had to look like pumpkins. We got a few ideas from some websites and went to work. Somewhere in the dipping of the orange chocolate (which was flavored with traditional pumpkin pie spices), Aaron got discouraged. However, after everything has cooled and hardened, we both agreed that we did a pretty good job.

Don't worry...we didn't eat all 10. We wrapped them up and gifted them to neighbors and friends.

aaron's secret

Aaron has been long keeping a secret from me.

There is a lot about his mission that I probably don't know. A lot I probably don't care to know. A lot that I probably wouldn't understand.

However, my month-long sickness plus magically getting him to come to Sunflower Market with me, caused one secret from the Dominican Republic to surface. He disappeared from me while I was looking at the boxed teas and I couldn't find him for 5 minutes. When he came back, he had found lemon grass, mint leaves, and ginger--essential ingredients to making tea, he says. Though he spent much of the evening bashing the lousy leaves that didn't even constitute as adequate ingredients for tea, he added some cinnamon sticks and who knows what else and started the water boiling. That night we drank delicious tea like no tea I had ever had before.

On his mission, they would simply pluck leaves off the trees and use them in their teas. The Dominicans would teach him which leaves cured which ailments, and how to properly brew the tea. As Aaron taught me, it's all about your feelings. There's no recipe, there's no correct boiling time, there's just your intuition.

Aaron's intuition was really tasty.

one year

Sunday was our one year anniversary! Aaron had a busy week so it was up to me to plan. I couldn't make any decisions, though, so instead, I created a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book so that Aaron would have to make all the choices.


Aaron's adventure had us work out in the morning, then head off to the Farmer's Market in Salt Lake. Unfortunately, it was a cold and cloudy day...not the best for meandering through the market, but at least it was much better than the Provo Farmer's Market. Tons more produce. We sat and at a chicken kebob sandwich while we listened to some lady explain how to properly can food.

Next, we went to Liberty Park, which is where Aaron proposed to me. Since we couldn't decide exactly which tree was the tree we sat under last August, we sat by the little "lake" instead. Luckily, there was a blanket in the car, big enough to sit on and wrap up in as we ate our bread, cheese, and raspberries, purchased from the market. There were a ton of geese down by the water, so, of course, Aaron started throwing bread to them. And they came to us...quite close to us. Some ducks even got in the race, too. It didn't take long for them to get so close that I started barking at them, so Aaron took some bread and lead them the other way. He was their leader, and they were his geese.

From there we had a little bit of free time to kill, so we wanted to go to Hatch's Family Chocolates and be forced to only choose one chocolate. We magically drove there without really knowing where we were, only to find that it went out of business! Or it moved locations...

So instead we walked around the Visitors Center on Temple Square and Aaron decided he wanted to have a photo shoot outside the Conference Center, since the clouds had parted and the sun was shining. I didn't get any pictures of him, though. He was a camera hog (for once).

Dinner was at The Copper Onion. Though we were skeptical at first by the fancy menu that we could barely understand, and the almost unbelievable English accent that the waiter spoke in, the food was delicious. We loved the decor of the place too, but I forgot the camera in the car. Except Aaron thought the peanut butter ice cream tasted like cigarette ashes, so we got some Red Mango to supplement it as we drove home.

Hooray for one year!

aaron's eats

Aaron loves pizza. He says ideally he would eat pizza twice a week. He doesn't even care about the quality of the pizza--a 5$ Hot and Ready will do. That doesn't really cut it for me, so I decided I need to adopt the practice of my parents and always have pizza dough on hand in the freezer, and pizza toppings around. Our first (actually second) batch of homemade pizzas were a great success, and a great failure. The first pizza was a success because it slid off the pizza peel onto the stone with no problems. Tomato sauce with homegrown tomatoes from Grandpa's garden, chicken leftovers from Aunt Julee's delicious Sunday dinner, cooked spinach, slices of more tomatoes and mozzarella. The disaster was when the pizza did not slide off so easily, and when I accidentally assembled the pizza on the counter instead of on the peel. Whoops!

Also, unlike the majority of the American population, Aaron has decided he is done losing weight and wants to start gaining it. I wish I could say that. This knew desire means mostly that he has to eat a lot more (and work out a lot) so we have been having fun thinking of ways to pack in the calories and protein to his diet. We made two batches of protein shakes, consisting of ingredients such as Chobani Greek Yoghurt, Whey Protein Powder, raw oats, bananas, peanut butter, chocolate powder, wheat germ, flax seeds, and other random things Aaron threw in there. I made granola that is also packed with protein, and have those steel-cut oats ready in the fridge. I also bought cottage cheese, but Aaron doesn't know if he likes it, and hasn't tried it yet. I started putting extra pieces of turkey on his sandwiches for lunch, and when I made broccoli Alfredo, I also cooked some chicken so he could throw that in his pasta. Aaron also has an unlimited source of milk and ice cream and work...yet somehow he always forgets about the ice cream. I don't know how that is possible.

I feel like I finally figured out something about food that gets Aaron excited. Unlike me, who loves to eat for pleasure, he loves to eat for purpose. When confronted with a salad, he thinks, wouldn't I be able to pack in a lot more if this where all blended up? It was exciting for me to see him excited about food...even though it wasn't exactly what I would call food.

The tricky part is that I am still in the category of Americans that would enjoy loosing weight. How will I survive having all this food around me intended for Aaron's use and not want to gorge myself as well?

Will power? It has been proved that I have very little of that when it comes to food. Hot fresh cookies out of the oven? I'll take three.

9:15 a.m.

I feel wonderful this morning. Why? Because it is only 9:15 a.m. and I have already done the following:

-Made Aaron a sandwich to take to work for lunch
-Went for a quick jog, which included running up and down the stairs to BYU three times until my lungs burned
-Watered the lawn
-Took a shower
-Cleaned the bedroom which had piles of clothes everywhere due to the recent removal of our dresser for re-painting
-Did about 45 minutes of article writing work
-Made a delicious breakfast of steel cut oats with buttermilk, brown sugar, cinnamon, and flax seeds while I swept the kitchen floor, put the dry dishes away, and got myself ready for the day
-Ate the delicious breakfast with a glass of OJ
-Read my scriptures
-Brushed, flossed, and mouth-washed my teeth

How long will I be able to keep up all these positive, healthy habits? Who knows.

What is the plan for the rest of the day?

-Continue article writing work for a few hours
-Perhaps pull some of the weeds that are growing outside our window
-Bike to Riverwoods for the first day of Yoga Teacher Training Certification
-Buy a yoga mat, and some yoga books, and get really excited to learn more about yoga and be able to do headstands
-Take a yoga class
-Bike home to Aaron
-Eat leftover Cafe Rio that I made last week which we have been eating every night since
-Wash the dishes, relax, lay on the couch while Aaron does stuff on the computer, and go to sleep

dinner

What do you make for dinner when there is "nothing to eat," according to me?

Steamed turnip greens with lemon juice and olive oil

One leftover chicken breast with salsa over leftover rice

Roasted baby carrots with the quarter of a red onion from the fridge with olive oil, thyme, and rosemary



And Aaron was still satisfied.

reasons for feasting

last weekend aaron and i went up to visit his family and celebrate an early father's day. we decided to make a delicious meal for the family to show our love. sadly, i forgot the pie dough i made at home in the fridge. not a big problem, i just made some more. (happily, that means i am currently making a blueberry pie with the forgotten dough.)

it was a busy saturday getting everything prepared, but I had lots of needed help from kaye and kaili. It was all deliciously worth it in the end.

on the father's day feast menu:

Three Bean Salad with Oranges, Cilantro, and Lime Juice

Chunky Guacamole

Grilled Asparagus with Grilled Lemon Halves

The Best Burgers Any Of Us Have Ever Had with Garlic, Chipotles, and Scallions (which we topped with the Guacamole and Sliced Tomatoes)

French Fries That Didn't Get Too Crispy--both salted and spiced versions

And a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie with Homemade Pie Crust and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (not pictured)

it really was a great success. even with the spontaneous run to the store for more propane after everything had been "cooking" (maybe not really cooking) for a few minutes. we were all stuffed to the max after dinner. so we played a few games before we ate the pie. toffee, the new robison puppy, wanted to play, too.

(this meal was brought to you entirely by the best new recipe cookbook, known in the clark family as "the bible")

i want

playtime and chocolate waffles

aaron spent a lot of last saturday reading about random financial things on the internet. due to the hours of time spent staring at a computer screen combined with his ever guilty conscience that he isn't doing everything he should be with his life, both in the immediate and long-term sense, he went bonkers for about 20 minutes. he had been asking me to "play" all afternoon, and i told him if he figured out something to "play" to let me know and i would do it. the only thing he really vocalized was playing a card or board game. i guess i'm a terrible wife who doesn't keep her promises because i shot that idea down by saying that i didn't know where the games were at my grandparents house (which was where we were, doing our laundry). and it's not like i could have asked or anything...i know i sound terrible, but i'll make up for it, just keep reading.

so then aaron imploded, sat in the laundry room with his head on a pile of clean shirts, and stared out the window. we ate beef stew with my grandparents, which had been crock-potting for several hours (my grandparents weren't crock-potting...the stew was). then my grandma and i ate some ice cream and the men turned their noses down to such a silly dairy dessert. seriously, what is it about ice cream that men can turn down and women can't resist? i think ice cream beats just about anything else on my list of tasty treats.

then we got in the car to go home. this is where i repented for my former misdeeds. i told aaron to take a detour, go down the hill and around the corner, where we ended up at a park. it was kind of chilly out, we only had t-shirts on, but we got out and ran to the playground. we swang/swung/swinged for a while, aaron jumping off at the top of his highest swing, me jumping off at the low point of the curve so that i pretty much just walked right off. we had some handstand competitions. i think i actually held my handstand for just shy of 3 whole seconds! we ran through the playground and slid down all the slides in under 15 seconds, then we talked to each other through those silly "telephone" poles that go under the ground and come out in triangular speakers. we secretly told each other it was cold and we should go.

isn't it kind of funny that children learn so much from "play", and yet we "mature adults" play so little? i guess that proves our superiority to children. we don't need play. we already know everything that play has to offer. (i hope everyone--or should i say anyone--reading this understands my sarcasm in those last sentences.) one time aaron and i were "playing" on a playground and a father came with his two children. he kicked a soccer ball around with his son and told his little daughter to go play on the playground. when he finally gave in to her requests for him to come push her on the swings, he was on his phone texting while he pushed her. he missed a few swings, obviously, and what the heck! play, man! get on the slide with your kid. i could be a total hypocrite. i have no idea, and i have no kids.

on a completely different note from play, but on a very common note for this blog, i have some more observations about aaron's eating habits. sometimes, right when he wakes up, he'll walk into the kitchen and if there happens to be a chocolatey treat laying around, he will have more desire to eat it then any other time of the day. i have seen him eat cookies and chocolate cake while he is still basically half asleep. yet, this morning, when i asked him if he would want waffles for breakfast, he said yes, but with the tone that he was only doing it because he suspected that that is what i wanted. i finally got him to admit, in almost these exact words, that waffles are good, but if they were chocolate they would be better. so, i made him chocolate waffles.

when i asked him to get the syrup out of the fridge, he also grabbed the chocolate syrup. chocolate waffles weren't enough?

i have realized that since aaron doesn't write on this blog and i do, most everything is about aaron and food. yet, i believe you--the potential reader--may in fact be geting a greater look into myself as well by reading what i write. but if anyone wants to know a little more straightforwardly about my life, i'll try to give a few highlights here:

--i was in moscow, idaho for a dance festival last week. i took lots of amazing classes, a few weird ones, saw some amazing dances from students at other universities, and plenty of weird ones, and got to perform a group piece and my solo piece at the festival.

--i am plowing my way through my classes, with the end in sight. only 18 or some days of classes left! i have decided to go to graduation, at least to the ceremony where i walk across the stage and take some awkward pictures holding my diploma.

--if you have forgotten what i look like, here is a picture.

i have been holding spoons a lot lately. and pointing them at people as if holding a magic wand. i didn't notice there was hair in my mouth until aaron showed me the picture. he said there is always hair in my mouth.

5 months

yes. aaron and i have been married for five whole months. not really a landmark, i know, but why not make it one?

a few weeks ago, i decided that in order to manage budget expenses and calorie savings, i would only ask aaron for ice cream once a month. well, tonight was the night. 5 month anniversary and a banana peanut butter cup milkshake from the malt shoppe that was over flowing. it wasn't our favorite combination, but there is always next month to experiment again!

cottonseed oil + hair = monster

last night, aaron and i did something we don't usually do. we went to the grocery store. when all that is in your fridge is half a loaf of homemade bread, a little bit of milk, and eggs, you know it's time to do whatever it takes to make time to go to the store.

aaron has a serious grocery-store phobia. he claims it is a combination of the fluorescent lights, the innumerable decisions that need to be made between almost similar products, and the sheer amount of time spent mindlessly walking up and down aisle looking for things that cause the trip to the store to suck the happiness and life out of him.

for me however, the grocery trip is like an efficient microcosm of life. it starts with me making a list. i can check so many things off that one list in such a short period of time. it is quite satisfying. plus, i like to dilly-dally, looking at all the strange products i didn't know existed and dream about what delicious food could be made with them, if only i had an endless amount of money to spend on food, and an endless amount of time to make it all. and so it is with life--i like to dream about all the things i want to learn and do, but then continue forward with checking off my list. i should really break out of the list mind-set. i think it's holding me back. i should just go for it, live my dreams, and buy the spice apple bran muffin mix.

i always have this goal that i only want to go to the grocery store once a month. i don't think it has ever happened, but i keep trying. i planned out about eight legitimate meals, thinking that would last us the whole month of march, also knowing that we always have a few illegitimate meal options as well when time or resources fail us--namely tuna melts dipped in hot chocolate, kraft macaroni and cheese that we scored at a white elephant party, and oatmeal. hopefully, i got everything i needed for all the legitimate meals. what i am not so good at planning out is when the tomatoes and lettuce will go bad (it's not even tomato season), and if aaron will end up eating all the cheese before i get to use it for the designated meal. aaron's new job gives him free cereal and milk every morning, so i'm already afraid that the usual two gallons of milk rule will end in rotten milk this time around.

anyway, back to the grocery store. as we were looking for minced clams and clam juice (to make clam chowder), we found that they neighbored a dear friend of mine, smoked oysters. i decided it was time to initiate aaron into a clark family tradition of eating and enjoying smoked oysters, which we do at least every christmas eve (not to mention the waning tradition of oyster stew on christmas eve). since i didn't see the brand that my family usually buys, naturally we went for the .99 cent option.

i'll just let the pictures display aaron's feelings about eating the .99 cent oysters...

mmmmm.....

now, to explain the title of this post. let's just say that the cottonseed oil that the oyster were bathing in ended up dripping almost everywhere. combine that with the omnipresence of my hair almost everywhere and aaron decided we were creating monsters on our kitchen floor. he liked the oysters, in fact he said he might even be able to get addicted to him, but the cottonseed oil repulsed him.

a delicious duo

i'm actually sure this has already been invented, but i thought it was my own stroke of genius. it all started with hunger, and my natural urge to make cookies. i had left over white chocolate chips and butterscotch chips from making seven layer bars for my old roommate's bridal shower, so i thought cookies would be a perfect way to use them up. well, as i was making my cookie dough, the limited counter space in our kitchen forced me into close proximity with the little-bit-hard caramels that my visiting teacher made me. hmmm, i thought. these caramels are too hard for me to eat right now, but what if i put them inside my cookies? the result was quite delicious, and if you ever get stuck with hard caramels, i might suggest trying out the same. i first made a batch with no chips, just caramels on the inside, but then after tasting how good they were, i made my final sheet with butterscotch chips and caramel inside. they are in the oven as i type. i can't wait to eat one. (technically, i'll just eat half and give aaron the other half. sometimes sharing is the only way i'll get him to eat sweets....and allow myself to eat more halves than i would have wholes.)

besides delicious cookie making, our lives are pretty normal. that means we are stressed, busy, don't-know-what-will-happen-in-the-future students. being married, according to a university of michigan study, gives the average women 7 extra hours of work per week. i learned that little fact as i was preparing trivia for said bridal shower this past weekend. being married, also, i have come to learn, adds quite a deal of stress to my already busy husband. he got a new job, which he is quite excited about, but now we wake up at 5:45 so he can be to work at 7. then he works until 12 or 12:30 and goes straight to school until 5. today he came home and made me tacos before i got back. wonderful, right!?

he's studying on the couch now, learning stuff and putting information in his head in hopes that in the very near future he can "support a family" with that knowledge. (i don't mean very near future as in a "family" is very nearly on its way, but rather i mean the urgency that aaron feels to "support")

side note: one of my professors did, actually, ask me if i was pregnant today in a somewhat roundabout way. no, i'm not pregnant. i just burped up a little stomach acid in your class once, chewed a piece of gum to make the taste go away, and said i puked in my mouth when you asked me why i was chewing gum. i guess he took that for morning sickness.)

anyway, back to aaron studying on the couch. all i'm doing is making rather delicious cookies. but such is life. i need him to get me serious and thinking about what i want to spend my time in life doing, and he needs me to force him to breathe and eat more cookies than he wants to.

now for some epic countdowns:

4 weeks until my last dance concert at BYU ever! and simultaneously, the performance of my senior project. this also means my parents will be in utah. hooray!

6 weeks of classes. that's it. then i'm done. graduation. no more classes. no more homework.

7.5 weeks until aaron and i will be in cancun. yes, the destination is confirmed. cancun baby. then summer time. who knows what that will bring!

i. love. curriculum. vitaes!

yes. i, rachel louise robison, have been quoted to say, with excitement in my eyes that i love curriculum vitaes. that isn't actually the plural of curriculum vitae, it might be something like curricula vita.

yesterday was martin luther king jr day. it mostly consisted of homework for me, and homework, band practice, and group meeting for aaron. we had planned to go to midway to see the "ice castles" in the evening, which we did...but it was a pretty hilarious event.

the whole escapade began with a little song that i wrote on the spot. "we can take our pasta, to go, to go." it was funnier when i was carrying aaron around our kitchen on my back while doing the conga line dance.

we didn't actually take our pasta to go. we ate dinner at home, then left for midway. first we had to stop for cash. oops. aaron didn't bring his debit card, and neither did i. it's okay, chase is supposed to give us cash advances for atm withdrawals. that didn't work either. so we go home again and i get my debit card. by then, however, we figure we can find a bank up in midway.

boy were we wrong.

first we go to a gas station. the atm is out of cash and they don't do cash back. then we go to a grocery store. the grocers says they give cash back on debit transactions. we buy five chocolates for one dollar, i swipe my card, it goes through as credit. no cash back. the grocer, in fact, knows nothing. seven eleven? they also don't do cash back. finally we succumb to use an atm with a $2.50 fee. bah.

but finally we make it to the ice castle. a make shift area was set up in downtown midway where some man sprinkles water on structures and makes these ice-dripping things.

don't you think you could get lost in there? it looks like an awesome ice cave.... and these next guys on top of the structure, they remind me of the russian dancing flowers from fantasia. anyone remember them?

boogey men?

we really only walked around for about 20 minutes, mostly trying to set up the camera so that it could take a timed picture of us. we only really got one semi-success...the one posted above.

notice the grainy pictures? someday i'll be good a taking pictures...or maybe a better camera would do the trick. but that's beside the point. it was a fun evening in celebrating of martin luther king jr. and i had a crazy dream that night...

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.