Some Pictures of Some Pretty Flowers

Zak got me a pretty bouquet the other day. I love this color combination, pink, orange and white. And now we have some pretty flowers in the house as spring hits Moscow. :)

Belated Valentine's Day Post

I know this is a week late, but I still wanted to write it.

Our Valentine's Day

I woke up early last Monday and starting work on breakfast. Since Zak didn't have to go in until 1, I thought we could have a nice, leisurely breakfast together. I started frying up bacon (splurge, yes), and cutting up strawberries (splurge number two, couldn't say no) and then got to the crepes. As I was about to get Zak up and start making them, I decided that I should make them pink. My family has a history of adding food dye to many holiday meals. Well, initially it started out as you know, green milk for St. Patrick's Day or pastel colored something for Easter. But then it got weirder and weirder and there have been reports of purple tuna sandwiches my father has made for Jenna. So I am just used to that and thought it would be fun. It was fun and breakfast was delicious. Especially considering the fact that strawberries, bananas and nutella make the ultimate crepe. Perfect.

Zak went into work at 1, at which point, I cleaned up a bit. For his gift, I got him some neat posters that I thought he'd like. And I had the cute idea of putting them up along the kitchen/dining room wall while he was at work, and taking down the previous pictures I had put up when we moved in. After that, I lazed around for a bit, got all pretty, and then started in on dinner. We decided on salmon, and the package for it had a recipe for honey-mustard sauce that I thought would be good. Except that the salmon was supposed to be broiled and the skin was still on half of it, so needless to say, I was a bit freaked out that it wouldn't work out right. The potatoes and broccoli were fine, but I was most worried about the fish, because I've only cooked fish like, one way before: on top of the stove, not in it.

Well, once Zak came home, we had a lovely candlelight dinner, on our traditional heart plates I've had for a few years. The fish was great, as was everything else. For dessert I tried a recipe that was like simplified bananas foster. It was essentially bananas caramelized in butter and brown sugar, drizzled with caramel sauce and topped with coconut flavored whipped cream. It was delicious but so, so rich. It was like, a once a year kind of dessert.

Zak got me a cute plush talking doll from Hallmark (Yoyo, of Hoops & Yoyo farme. They are brilliant). And this awesome print from the comic I love. It's called Extra Ordinary Comics, and it's just the cutest comic ever. I really love it. So I was thrilled, and put the print over the hamster cage so I can admire it all the day long. So we had a great Valentine's Day together, despite it being awful and snowy outside and Zak having to work. :)

all three posters

the print Zak got me, 'SPACE SHARK'

this is Yoyo :)

Update.

Sorry for the lack of updates, we have been pretty busy, and will only get busier these next two weeks before Christmas. Things of notable interest include:

-I was sick from last Sunday through Thursday. I went home early from work on Tuesday and called out on Thursday. I had a really bad head cold, sore throat, congestion, dizziness, etc. It was not fantastic, especially regarding work relations. I went through an entire box of Kleenex, several tea bags, and almost two bags of cough drops. Needless to say, I am thoroughly happy to be relieved of it, and am doing everything to not get sick again.

-We have wrapped presents under the tree, which is exciting. We have almost everything ready to send out to our families, and hope to do that within the week.

-Our work schedules are getting crazier. For instance, I work six days in a row this week, with shifts ranging from 8 to 10 hours. I'm not excited, but will be pleased to receive a much heftier check on Christmas Eve. Zak is hoping to work a bit more than usual, so we will have some extra cash, which is always great.

-Christmas decorations are just about done. Zak might do some more drawings, but I got creative and ambitious today while walking around Michael's. I would like to be more creative or artistic, but it takes me a bit longer sometimes. But I ended up with some really cute decorations that I am proud of! I got some glass cranberries on a stick, 'Christmas moss' (green moss with an obscene amount of glitter), gold ribbon, and three square glass vases. Here is the result:

without flash
with
arranged on our book shelf, cute, huh?

I probably won't post again until after Christmas, so from both of us, we hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

Christmas Decorations!

On Monday, Zak and I got our first Christmas tree! We wanted to go chop one down somewhere, but it was going to be too expensive, and we don't have a truck, so that planned got nixed. Luckily, there were live trees at RiteAid, so we got a nice one from there. I suggested that we put the tree in some trash bags and put it in the backseat, since Zak didn't want to have to tie it to the roof, etc. The plan worked perfectly, and now we know our backseat can fit a tree up to four feet!

We also got some stockings, a wreath, and I made some snowflakes to hang up. Zak did some drawings, and will probably do some more tomorrow or so. And we got a cute little poinsettia, and now our house is all cute and Christmas-y! Here are some pictures.

Our 2nd Halloween

Yesterday, Zak reminded me that this was our 2nd Halloween together (as a married couple).  So, whoo, made it to a second holiday!  We had a pretty fun weekend, despite the water issue we encountered yesterday morning.

Friday was the mall trick-or-treating, so we got to dress up for work.  I decided to go as Zak/lumberjack.  I wore his flannel, jeans, green knit beanie, and even slid my shoes into his.  I clumsily walked around all day at work in them, until the last hour, and then proceeded to be really off-balanced.  My manager at work went as the Macy's star.  One of the employees made him a star costume out of red felt.  It was very funny/embarrassing.  I had a great idea for Zak a few days before...a guido (one of those guys from Jersey Shore).  So we got him some awful sunglasses & a shirt from Ross, and some cheap dollar tree bronzer.  I taped fake rhinestone things on his ears and put lip gloss on him.  He kind of fought me the whole way, but I told him over and over how awesome it was going to be.  By the end of the day, he agreed that it had been a great costume.

 pretty perfect, it was hard to get him very orange without taking a marker to his face

 here is a reference picture, for those of you who don't know about guidos..they are terrifying

My shift at work was over right as trick-or-treating started in the mall.  So I headed over to Zak's work and somehow ended up handing out candy for almost 2 straight hours.  But it was ok, the kids were really cute.  My favorite was a little girl in a shark costume with a shark basket for candy!  After that, I ran home to change out of Zak's clothes, and to put on my new cute outfit I got from work.  My friend let me borrow a set of pink cat ears.  So I just wore that with my new dress and tights.  Lame, I know, but it was a cute last-minute costume.  Once Zak was done with work, we went to a party with our friends.  There was a room with some black lights, and we discovered that some of my diamonds fluoresced, which is apparently pretty rare, like only 1% of diamonds do that.  So that was neat, I had about 6 or 7 of them glow in the dark!  Then we came back to our friends' place and watched a Star Trek movie.

 I needed to include a pretty picture of me

Nothing happened on Saturday, except I got sick at work and came home, where Zak nursed me back to health.  Yesterday afternoon was nice, once the water was all cleared out.  I decided to make us caramel apple cider, because I had gotten some at our new favorite place, the European Breakfast House, and had to duplicate it (recipe is here).  It was delicious!  We had done pumpkins on Thursday, when we both had the day off, so they were all lit up for the evening.  I had gotten a bunch of bulk candy from Winco, and we so ready for trick-or-treaters.  We only got a few.  I was kind of sad about it, plus now we had a ton of candy in the house.  So we ended up just watching cool shows on Netflix all night, and made caramel apples.  We have yet to taste them, because we had so much sugar with the cider, but we will eat some today!  All in all, it wasn't a bad Halloween, I just wish more kids had come to get candy.  Well, next year I won't get so much candy...or candy at all!  

 Zak carved our pumpkins, his (left) is a jack-o-lantern, mine (right, duh) is a shark. LOVE it.

 Zak drew most of these, I cut them out!

it doesn't matter that the astronaut isn't 'Halloween-y', it was just cool

our door

this is on our hamster cage