Paris... of the West

DISCLAIMER: When I was uploading pics from my camera to my dear old mac, something happened which I thought only happened to other people -- the pictures DISAPPEARED! Seriously. Okay, not all of them, but all of the best ones! Of course I still have random pictures that I took from the LaQuinta in Cheyenne, WY but about every third photo vanished. So after pouting to Jason for the better part of an hour, and verbally abusing my computer/camera, I have put on a stiff upper lip and decided to post the pictures I do have. In other words, I hope you have really low standards for this post.

As of last week, Jason and I have become Parisians.

In a way.

Last year, Jason and I decided we wanted to get out of Utah and take a little adventure. I hadn't gone on a study abroad for over a year and was just itching to get out of the 801.

SECOND DISCLAIMER: I really love Utah. I love the people, the landscape, the temples, the grid-system, the fry-sauce, everything. I really can't say enough good things about Utah. And if you say anything negative about it expect to hear an angry tirade with the phrases, "greatest snow on earth," "zion," and the definitive "this is the place" multiple times.

That being said, I am a creature who thrives on change. Consequently, growing up in one city for the majority of my formative years, going to college there, and then going to more college there is just a little much. I want to explore. We decided that since Jason is a much more marketable individual, he would apply for internships during the summer and we would just go wherever the wind would take us. Except we had ruled out the extremely-rural winds. We wanted an adventure, but not an episode of The Simple Life.

Hank's fav position: breathing in my face.

When Jason was offered an internship in Cincinnati helping professional athletes put on summer sports camps, we were all for it. Then, whenever I was too sick of editing diet pill articles at work, I would look up things about our soon-to-be-home. Did you know Cincinnati has the 4th most accessible parks in the nation? Well, you do now. And, more importantly, Cincinnati was dubbed "The Paris of the West" because of its exceptional architecture.

Guilty picture of Hank after he whined the. whole. night. long. in Cheyenne.

Now that we are out here, I must admit it is amazing. While it cannot rival the beautiful Wasatch front, Jason is so happy to be back in a place that is green again. Apparently the thriving populations of sage brush and tumbleweed in Utah don't do it for Oregonians. But the riverfront is so fun, the downtown is one of the cleanest I've ever seen, there are beautiful, old homes everywhere we go, and our apartment is 18 minutes from everywhere. Seriously -- a geographical oddity.

Beautiful Bella, the goldendoodle of Omaha.

It is definitely an adventure, though. Our apartment is on the border of two very different neighborhoods. One is absolutely gorgeous and full of well-manicured, historic homes. The other is less so. The Kroger in that neighborhood has full-time police escorts, and there have been multiple prostitute sightings. The drive shaft in our car just happened to break off (just a couple blocks before we got on the freeway #tendermercy) in that sketchy area and let's just say we wished we had Hank to be our chaperone.

We also did some pretty cool things before we got to Cincinnati.

For my birthday Jason got us a gourmet cooking experience.
That fire was intended. Double chin was not. 

It was a monumental birthday for Jason! He turned 24 on April 24th and so I forced him to have a golden birthday party.

He also rented a puppy. Because he is perfect.

It was mainly an excuse to eat good food while outside -- Jason's favorite things! -- but we even had an appearance from a real-live hobbit!

I was really happy.

But I had just gone to the dentist, so I was having trouble expressing the right emotions.

Also, we got to eat gold cake for weeks since I made multiple practice cakes because I'm kind of neurotic.

After the third leg of our drive out to the great Mid-West, we stopped in Chicago and had a little time to explore the more dog-friendly parts of the windy city. Let's just say you would never know how many wild bunnies there are in Millenium park before you are walking around with a born predator tied to your wrist. Somehow Jason and I managed to keep our arms attached to our body. Loose-leash walking is a myth and anyone who tells you otherwise is just trying to make you feel like a bad dog-owner.

Pretending to be Cubs fans. Except for Marin, who is a legitimate fan because she looks great in all Cubs gear.

Then I was a really terrible wife and let Jason go on to Cincinnati by himself while I had a weekend with some of my best friends from my London study abroad.

We don't mess around when it comes to food.

So many good things happened as a result of that study abroad -- like starting this dear old blog -- but the absolute best thing was the people I met there.

So hard to get a decent pic from a stranger.
As we learned very well in London.

I still can't believe what a miracle it was that we could have 16+ girls share one bathroom and we would not only still like each other by the end of 4 months, but we would love each other so much that we come together from all different parts of the country to laugh at the same jokes, eat bucket loads of calories, and go through anthropologie and J-Crew sales racks like there is no tomorrow.

Vegetarian hot dog.

Real hot dog.

Seriously, though. Fall, 2008 was the most magical 27 Palace Court has ever been. I know there are many from other semesters who would beg to differ, but I just don't know how semesters like ours could happen twice.

So much love.

Those who weren't there were dearly, dearly missed. Just keep putting that money aside for when we all go back to London together. I've already packed my nighties!

Oh and here's a bonus pic of me being really embarrassing to reward you for making it to the end of this really long post:

Party like the Oscars

If anyone knows anything about me, it's that I like to party.

And by party, I mean eat fancy food, wear fancy clothes, be with cool people, eat more fancy food, spill fancy food on your fancy clothes, and wrap it all up by midnight.

I know. I'm pretty hardcore.

So when my invitation to the Oscars went missing (somehow I think it is related to sequestration...) I thought we had to bring the Oscars to Provo. After all, the only thing better than beautiful celebrities in all their fineries is a bunch of Mormons in old prom dresses chowing down after a long day of fasting.

The best thing about living in my dad's basement -- besides the free rent and reliable heat -- is a TV with plenty of seating. In our last house we had our TV in what we called "The Dark Room," because it had no windows. But it was also small enough that when we put our couch facing the TV there was not enough room to play the Kinect. And since you know I've got to get my Dance Central on, that just wasn't an option.

Poor Jason realizing we didn't have enough room  by breaking the light fixture. With his head. On our second night in the house.

So, we did the only other sensible thing and we positioned our couch so it faced a blank wall. While that left us room to shake our groove thang, it meant we had to do all of our TV watching from pillows on the ground. Even though this set an awesome, ethnic mood, we had a max capacity of about 4 people for TV-watching unless you weren't afraid of non-spousal-spooning.

But to get back to our Oscars party... my dad's basement not only has enough room for classic family room fixtures like an air hockey table, darts, and something that involves basketballs, but also plenty of people to enjoy the Oscars without bursting their personal boundary bubbles. There's even room for defunct exercise equipment! Yay!

We took advantage of all this space and invited some of our favorite people to watch the festivities with us in their black-tie-finest. To make sure they didn't feel out of place in their haberdashery we laid out the red carpet and set the celeb mood.

 

 

Seriously. I dare US Weekly to pick a worst dressed from these people. They are all pretty stunning.

Apart from sparkling conversation, my favorite part of any party is the food. Initially I wanted to take this opportunity to make only food that is fancy and really hard to pronounce, but since no one likes to eat that kind of food except me, I stuck with more traditional appetizers and just tried to fancy pants them up.

I made buffalo chicken strips with blue cheese dressings and celery shavings, fried chicken and waffles, smoked BBQ pork sliders on brioche buns, garlic parmesan popcorn, pear and pecan gorgonzola salad, brie and peach crostinis, chocolate peanut butter cake balls, and white chocolate marionberry cake balls. We also had delicious homemade oreo cookies, brownies, and a full mocktail spread brought by delightful guests.

Since the Oscars can be kind of boring, especially when you are on the media slow track and waiting for movies to come to the dollar theater, we had bingo sheets to keep people interested. Congrats to Hanna for winning the illustrious $10 iTunes gift card for getting the first bingo!

Jason always stresses out when I tell him about the parties I'm planning because he knows that there will be at least one or two freak-outs in the ensuing days when I clean the house from top to bottom in the middle of the night. Or I will spend hours cutting and taping logos to make a backdrop. Or dipping and breading endless chicken pieces. Or jumbling words for bingo.

But he has now realized that he can't fight it any longer. I only have two speeds: turbo or hibernation.



So thank you everyone who made this Oscars party unforgettable.