Grandma's Rolls: 
Unbelievable and Life-changing.

Is your mouth watering yet?

I've been hearing about Grandma Pixton's rolls for years now. The first time I met Ryan's family I had her cinnamon rolls, but I had yet to have her famous dinner rolls. Finally at Christmas I got to taste them, and as soon as I did, I realized how much I needed to learn about making good dinner rolls. AMAZING.

So when I was in Utah last week and had some extra time, my sister-in-law and I went over to Grandma Pixtons and took copious notes --step by step on how to make Grandma's rolls. We learned a ton (42 separate steps!!) and got to laugh and enjoy the wonderful company. We now have a list of things we want to learn from Grandma: raspberry jam and grape juice high on the list.

Here are a few photos. And yes, I took an entire pan home with me to share with Ryan!! So delicious.

Isn't Grandma the cutest??

 

Before they go into the oven.

Just out of the oven.

The bottom should look like this!! YUM.

JIMMER.
Need I say more? 

He looks 12 feet in the air in this photo!

Since I have been married my interest in sports and especially BYU sports & the Utah Jazz has increased. This 2011 BYU Basketball season has been especially exciting with our favorite bball player, Jimmer Fredette. He's such a rockstar and I have to admit my favorite song of the season is "Teach me how to Jimmer" -- if you haven't seen it, google it-- it's worth it (ESPN has even been showing it). 


There has also been a lot of chatter around BYU for their Honor Code decision with Brandon Davies-- all you have to do is google it and you'll know what I'm talking about if you don't already. All I have to say is I am proud to be an alumni of a University Institution that is known for LIFTING UP college sports and abiding by its morals and principles. BYU and the BYU Basketball team have become a light to the world of college sports and although not all understand the BYU honor code, many respect it and BYU for standing by it. There's more to life than a National Basketball Championship (although we would love to see BYU win it this year!). 


Let's just say I feel like my BYU pride has climaxed as I wore my BYU t-shirt today just to show my BYU/March Madness pride. 

Go COUGS!

The Royal Wedding
{The Royal Utah Wedding.}

We had the opportunity to join Jason and Lauren Osmond on their wedding day in Salt Lake City, Utah. We love being around family and it was such a great opportunity for us to be in Utah and see both sides of Ryan's family. It was a short and very sweet trip and we can't wait to get back to Utah for more fun family time. 

Lauren and Jason got married on a Monday, and I somehow talked Ryan into getting up at 5:30am so we could catch an endowment session before the sealing. It's a new goal of mine to attend the temple in Utah when we got back to visit. I want to see all of them! They are each so unique and beautiful. Glad we could start this tradition with the Salt Lake City Temple.  The spirit was so strong that day in the temple. Both Lauren and Jason looked so happy in the sealing room, we feel so honored to have been invited to attend that special ceremony. 


The rest of the day was a blur, but included seeing Matthew, attending a wedding luncheon, and then the reception that night at the Provo Library. Such a fun day!!
 

Waiting for the happy couple to exit the temple. We had a little photo shoot- thanks Megan!

 

It started to rain...

How cute are Nanny & Popsie? Love them. 

I love the temple. This temple gives me goosebumps to think about the love and dedication it took to build during those 40 years.

My favorite phrase listed on every temple.

How sweet is this?! Ryan and Nanny.

I know I already posted about my brother, but you gotta love this photo.

At the reception.

Us with Nanny & Popsie.

Love this picture of Ryan's Dad & Cousin Kaylee! The band was awesome that night! Lots of dancing.

End of the night in front of the Provo Library.

 

St. Patrick's Day Parade & Da Bulls
How many drunk people can surround us in one day?

Chicago celebrates St Patrick's Day early-- the Saturday before the Holiday. So when Ryan's cousin Cameron decided to visit us that weekend, we were so excited to show him all that Chicago has to offer. Unfortunately the good came with the bad :)

Friday night we spent in Wicker Park walking through the boutiques & eating at Piece (BBQ and Mashed Potato Pizza=YUM!). We even got to spend some time with Shaniqua, one of my young women :)

Saturday we walked the entire city. From the Bean, to the Green River, to Grant Park for the Parade to River North to meet up with Cameron's old rommate for lunch. It was a little more challenging to get around with the extra thousands and thousands of crazy St Party's Fanatics flooding the streets. They were dressed in all kinds of Green-- it was awesome, but also smokey, yuck. Check out some of our good times below:

After a day of walking we rested up and hit up the United Center for the Jazz vs. Bulls game. The only time this year Ryan's team would be playing in Chicago. Sadly, the Jazz played terrible and the Bulls played spectacular so it was a rough night for Ry. We also had the pleasure of sitting in front of a group of 16 people there for someone's birthday... let's just say they couldn't hold their drinks or their tongues. The 2nd half of the game was much better after they got kicked out.

The highlight of the game was the halftime show when they honored the 1991 Team who won the World Championships -- Scottie Pippen and MJ were in the house.

Thanks for the great visit, Cameron!! Come again soon.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!
Chicago likes to really celebrate this holiday. 

For starters, they dye the RIVER green. Like lime green. Check it out.

Add caption

 

I had big plans to cook a traditional irish meal and make Shamrock Sugar cookies but I just don't think its going to happen this year. Enjoy the Holiday!

SLC
There are perks to serving a Mission in Salt Lake City. 

We were lucky enough to fly to Utah for a few days to attend a family wedding this week. The wedding was gorgeous and it was SO GREAT to spend time with our wonderful family. One of our favorite memories & the one I want to post about first is getting to see my my little brother, Matthew while he is serving in SLC! His new area is downtown SLC, so he got permission to meet us at the temple. He is such a stud & it was so great to get to see him, even if it was just for a few minutes!! We got lots of photos, but here is the one from Ryan's phone:

Also, here is an excerpt from his last letter:
The work is going well when we started working together on Wed we had no people on date and now we have two people on date for baptism. The work is really moving forward. Both were miracles. Last night i finally met Chanelle and wow she is prepared. She has been taught before and when we told her that she could be baptized in two weeks she was stoked!! Its truly amazing to see how the lord works and how he prepares people. My companion is young but amazing he is a great missionary and we are working hard. We get along great and work well together so its just a great fit. 

Yesterday in church they had a speaker fall through and asked me to speak last minute i didnt really know what to say until i stood at the pulpit and the spirit told me what to do. It was a faith building experience. I taught of Christ rejoiced in Christ and testified of Christ. I know it touched my heart and those who listened because the spirit was the speaker. What an amazing experience to be an instrument in the lords hands. I hope we all can have similar experiences this week.

i am going to see kiley at 12 and excited it will be great to see her. The work is going great and getting even better. We added 5 new investigators this last week. That is one per day since i came into the area what a miracle. It wasnt me but the lord. All i did was put for my faith. My companion did as well and we pushed each other. I cant wait for miracles to see because i know they are on their way.

March=Spring.

March 21 is the first day of spring. Well, we are only 2 short weeks away from that and it is NOT spring! On Saturday it was snowy and freezing and resembled nothing of Spring, so I decided to buy my own spring. Yes, I just said, BUY. I saw some Tulips and I just couldn't resist. They make my little heart smile every time I look at them. They remind me that Spring will come. One day.

Spring Tulips- Day 1

See how brutal it looks outside?

By Day 4 they totally opened up.

Don't you just hear them screaming "Hello, Spring!"

Loving these tulips. Can't wait to find Ranunculus at the store next ...

History.
So maybe we're a little nerdy on the weekends...

With our recent addiction to Netlflix, we looked up cool documentaries about Chicago. Unfortunately, we learned there really aren't that many to choose from. We found one about the early start of Chicago and rented it. Little did we know it was 4 discs!! Slowly but surely we made our way through each disc (disc 3 was by far the best) and we found ourselves learning so much about this city we live in. Such as, Who is Jane Adams? And why are there diagonal road all over the city? Also-- why is Little Italy, Little Italy, and what makes Greek town so Greek? Don't worry--- when you come to visit us we'll share ALL of this insider info with you.

We also got hooked up with a Museum Pass for the History Museum, so it was really cool to see some of this history we were learning about come to life. Check it out:

Ryan's favorite part of the museum was the dioramas. They are actually a part of history themselves--- they've been teaching about Chicago for 50 years!

The Great Chicago Fire.

One of my favorite parts of the museum-- a steam engine!!

Inside one of the original "L" cars!

A few other modern-day pieces were cool too:

MJ's shoes.

Life-size hot dog!

Gotta love a Chicago-style Hot Dog!