goin' to the chapel...

May as well get the big news over with first, even though you all know anyway.

Dusty and I are getting MARRIED!!

It's such an odd feeling.  I seriously never really felt OLD (okay, okay, like an adult, is probably a better way to put it) until this happened.  My mom said something to Dusty about me being his wife at this time next year and I think that's when it just dawned on me that I'm an actual adult.  And everyone keeps asking about wedding details, and it's just...weird. You picture everything in your head and start to plan, but can never really start to imagine to actually being able to legitimately put it all together! In less than a year (likely) I will have a different name. I think one of the strangest things is going to be changing the address on my drivers' license and officially having a different "home" than my parents house.  And having to split holidays between families.

an alright picture of the ring

There's not much to the engagement story--which, of course, is not to say it wasn't absolutely perfect, though! I am home right now for my week-long fall break.  I wanted to spend the day at CSB/SJU on Saturday, to watch his sister Val's soccer game and just hang out at my other home. We walked down to the lake at SJU and, after a few minutes, he pulls out a letter/poem he wrote for me.  And afterward, he gets down on one knee and asks me to marry him.  Sigh.  And I responded with "I suppose".  Really.  The funny thing...he asked me later if I knew what he was going to do while he was reading me the letter.  And, honestly, I had a feeling, but I wasn't 100% sure. Because he is freaking amazing and does stuff like that for me all.the.time.  And I also wouldn't be surprised if he would completely make me think he was proposing and then just not.

The details we have right now, since I know you'll ask anyway :)
- We will get married in Grand Rapids.
- Late September or October of 2013.
- We will party 'til the cows come home.

I can already tell planning from Utah is going to be a bit difficult.  Staying on track with school is probably going to be the bigger challenge, though!  The rest of my semester from here on out is going to be incredibly busy (although not as busy as the first month, which i shall get to in a bit) and I really needed to be productive during this week break.  Ha. DID NOT HAPPEN!! I am sitting here on Friday morning, writing a blog post instead of planning the class I need to teach on Monday and writing the paper for my project proposal that is technically due on Monday as well. And with no plans of actually being productive anytime in the next two days.  Too much on my mind!  Honestly, though, this break has been wonderful -- I am dreading the catching up I will have to do next week (and just about every week after that!) but right now I am just enjoying the time with my FIANCE, my family, my future in-laws, and of course, my best friends.

Dusty and I have appointments to check out possible reception venues today. I have a feeling there will be a big decision to be made right away. This also makes me feel old. Like I have to be responsible or something?

Oh yeah, and I turned 25 just over a week ago. I'M ALMOST 50!! (right, Samantha Lea?!)  I had an awesome day.  Helped teach a class how to can tomatoes, went to class, and then went out for the best sushi ever with a the best bunch of friends. And drank some wine. It was grand. Once again, I am just so thankful for the wonderful people I have met out here.

Schoooooooool...
The first six weeks of the semester were definitely a challenge, although that was not unexpected in the slightest.  Lots of hours for my capstone experience internship hours and my faculty assistance on top of a load of full time classes. In a nutshell: planned and taught  a few nutrition clinics.  Talked with a couple youth soccer teams about nutrition. (And was so impressed with how much they already knew! I guess they're actually teaching nutrition in middle school and high school now?! Who woulda thunk?!) Taught a class/led a discussion on basic and sports nutrition with the freshmen in the Modern Dance program at the U.  Lots of hours in the clinic doing body composition and RMR testing.  Took a test on lipid metabolism that just about made me quit school. The usual.

My capstone hours should slow down a bit the rest of the semester. I have three more classes to teach and an "Eating for Your Age" talk planned with a group on campus scheduled right now.  I have really enjoyed teaching these classes and giving these talks, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that nothing else comes up in the next couple months.  I really need to work on my project that has been completely put on the back burner because of all of the more short-term projects I've been working on!!

The good news: Next semester should be waaaaay more relaxed. I cannot wait.

Hmm, what else has been going on?!

Auntie Candy and Chels came out to visit a couple weekends ago!  I had so much fun. Chels got in on Saturday morning and we went out for lunch and got caught up on so many things. Then Aunt Vicki flew in on Saturday evening.  We spent Sunday hiking around the Uintas.  In the breathtaking fall colors. The crazy winding, narrow, barely-enough-room-for-one-car road with long dropoffs, psychotic drivers who think driving this road in their gigantic Hummer is okay, and idiots walking on the road was soooo worth it. Unfortunately, I dropped my camera in the middle of a hike, and it finally died on me.  I haven't yet gotten anywhere to get the pictures off said dead camera, so I don't have many to share.

Dusty came out over Labor Day weekend. He was given Friday off as well as Monday, so he was out here from Wednesday night all the way through Tuesday morning.  We ended up driving 12+ hours up to Glacier National Park, picking my friend Lindsay up in Bozeman on the way through.  While it was a great trip -- beautiful drive, breathtaking park, hiking and camping -- I don't think we would EVER do that again.  It was just too far to drive to stay in the park for about 36 hours.  Glacier is definitely a park you need to stay in for like a week anyway! (I don't think my constant panicking about school was helping either!)

Oh, and my weekend trip home in August was fantastic.

Good news:
I wasn't sure if I was going to come home for Thanksgiving or not (plane tickets are so freaking expensive right now!!), but I think one of my classmates convinced me that I should just skip class ;)  I have one class on Tuesday that I really don't care if I go to or not and then a class on Wednesday afternoon, which it sounds like at least three other people are skipping out on.  Soooo, I think I will be home for a full week for Thanksgiving!!

Yay :)

back to school!

I am now officially done with summer rotations.  Unreal.  While there have definitely been days (or weeks) I thought would never end, this summer has just flown by overall.  We start classes next week, so no real break for me.  In the words of a true Minnesotan: Oofda. 

After I was done with the clinical portion of my rotations at Primary Children's Medical Center in June, I just moved down to their food service department for my Management/Food Service rotation.  I essentially followed the three administrative dietitians and their executive chef around for four weeks.  The first couple weeks were pretty frustrating, honestly.  Seemed as though one of the dietitians wasn't cooperating -- "too busy" for a student, which was absolutely ridiculous as during the whole 30 minutes I spent with her she told (and showed!) me that part of her official job description is to act as a preceptor and mentor to students.  She then proceeded to tell me that was one of her favorite parts of her job and that she does "whatever [she] can" to make it a worthwhile experience for the student. Ha. What a joke. Because of that, I ended up spending two full weeks (when I should have only spent about 4 days) with my primary preceptor who is the "Safety and Sanitation" manager and dishroom supervisor -- she doesn't actually do much with dietetics!  It was definitely necessary and interesting for the first week, but by the second week I was feeling like I was wasting my time (and money, since we have to pay up the wazooooo to do these rotations!!).  BUT my third and fourth weeks were great -- I worked with one of our new grads, who is their new administrative dietitian in charge of the retail side of things, and the new executive chef.  I worked on putting recipes into the food management program, did an allergy audit of the menu, and made general suggestions for the menu, developed a patient-satisfaction survey, etc.  In the end it turned out alright.

For the past three weeks I've been in my community nutrition rotation at a WIC clinic in a suburb southwest of Salt Lake City.  For those of you not familiar with WIC, it stands for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/WIC-Fact-Sheet.pdf).  It's a federal grant program that "provides nutritious foods, nutrition education (including breastfeeding promotion and support), and referrals to health and other social services to participants at no charge. WIC serves low-income pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding women, and infants and children up to age 5 who are at nutrition risk."  I have really enjoyed my hours there -- I have done a lot of counseling, researching of other nutrition-related support programs, teaching classes, and creating bulletin boards and nutrition education handouts.  The population is great -- I love the moms and the little kids.  It was definitely an eye-opener as well -- the differing of attitudes of clients are just crazy.  It seems like most are so incredibly thankful for the program and the help given to them, while you can just tell others simply feel entitled and don't want to hear anything we have to say, but rather just get their food vouchers and get out.

Dusty came out at the end of July for a visit -- we spent the weekend around SLC, finally going up into the Uinta Mountains just southeast of the city. We went hiking and just drove for awhile.  Just incredible.  Except when we locked the keys in my car and Ranger Awkward of Mt. Timpanogos Cave National Monument had to break in.  First time I've locked my keys in my car in probably four years.  Oops.

The Olympics definitely got in the way of my productivity the last few weeks -- I'm sure Dusty is glad they're done as I think I have been very distracted during our Skype dates, ha.  I think this is the first Summer Olympics I have truly paid significant attention to since Atlanta in 1996. It was fun to think back on that -- Nise and I stayed up late as we possibly could watching the gymnastics (because everything else was boring then!!) at Uncle Steve and Auntie Sandi's.

Because of my lack of productivity, I'm definitely a bit nervous to start the fall semester. A friend and I were talking to one of our professors today and she just kept reassuring us that this semester is going to be easy compared to last year.  I am thinking NOT.

My class schedule won't be too horrible, but it's my Masters project, internship, and graduate assistant hours that will really get me.  We have 320 more internship hours to complete.  Typically those hours are done in the second summer of the program (as in Summer 2013), but I have mine scheduled for the school year.  I will be working at PEAK Health & Fitness, (http://www.health.utah.edu/PEAK/) which is essentially a workplace wellness clinic run through the Department of Exercise and Sport Science. Clients are employees of the University of Utah, as well as the University Hospital and Primary Children's, which are just up the "hill" from school. I'll be doing a variety of work for them -- a few hours each week of body composition testing and blood work (cholesterol, blood glucose testing), counseling a couple hours each week, nutrition clinics twice a month, random nutrition talks when groups ask for them, blog posts, creating nutrition handouts, and essentially anything else that they ask me to do.  Right now I'm a bit overwhelmed -- I've got a  heck of a lot scheduled in the first month of school.  I hope I can handle it.  Overall, though, I'm excited for everything.

I've decide on a topic for and got a small start on my big project that is required for graduation.  Without going into too many details, I'm adding some modules/curriculum to our graduate-level Pediatric & Adolescent Nutrition course to help better prepare students in our program for rotations at PCMC and other pediatric-focused rotations, such as WIC.  I'll be designing the curriculum -- adding a couple lectures, creating case studies and other assignments, etc -- and then will help to teach lab sessions when the class is offered in the spring.  It's going to be a lot of work, but it should be a good experience, especially since I am keeping my mind open to one day teaching at the college level.  I had another project lined up that I was so much more excited about -- I was going to design and teach nutrition education classes to a group of low-income teens working on a community gardening project -- but the timing was just so terrible.  I wouldn't have been able to graduate until probably December of next year.  The way things are set up now, I'll be heading home in May! So hard to believe. 

It amazes me how I can be so torn between these two places. Every day I look around -- at the mountains, my neighborhood, the university, everywhere -- and am just amazed that this past year has gone by so quickly.  Sometimes I get somewhat frustrated with the fact that I don't really have much of a choice as to whether I stay out here or move back to Minnesota after I graduate.  Definitely not frustrated with any certain individuals--Dusty has told me many times he'd move out here in a heartbeat if I really wanted to stay--but just with the situation, if that makes sense.  All of the people I love the most (well, except the couple best friends who are in places like, say, Texas and Arizona) are back home.  And home is where I want to end up anyway, so I feel like it might not make sense to get a job out here that I don't plan on staying at for the long-term.  Not to mention Dusty would also need to leave his job. 

But then I have nights like last night -- we had a welcome potluck for the new students -- and I get so sad about leaving these amazing people.  I just need to make sure I make the most of it.


Anyway: I'll be home for the weekend on Friday!! I'm so excited.  I wasn't going to go home at all until October because of timing and money issues, but I couldn't wait that long. I've only been home twice in the last eight months and I haven't seen Dusty's family in literally six months.  Not fun.

Mom and Dad are throwing me a BBQ on Sunday (August 26), so if you're around, free to stop on by!! ;-)  So excited to see everyone in the same place again!

update on the past 6+ months

Well, I guess this calls for an update on an entire semester and nearly half of my summer. And a WEDDING!  I apologize.

A brief summary of the Spring semester: It went pretty well.  The workload was a bit different than the fall, mostly just because of the classes I was assigned to TA for.  Between classes, TA office hours, lab testing, and shopping for and helping with labs, I felt like I was on campus all.the.time. Definitely a lesson in time management.  I was fortunate enough to be excused from one of our required classes -- Food Service Management -- because I had taken the classes at CSB and had quite a bit of work experience (camp, the hospital) in that area already. I was the TA for that class, and I became more and more thankful that I didn't have to take it as the semester went on.  Lots of busy work involved, to say the least.  I also took the chance to take an elective -- Pediatric Nutrition -- which I enjoyed thoroughly. It was nice to have a class focused on one specific population.

I was also a TA for NUTR 4440, a senior level undergraduate class on Advanced Human Nutrition.  The students in this class were the most entertaining (and also frustrating) part of my semester.  I was constantly amazed at the excuses they came up with week to week.  So many of them seemed to think we owed them something; like they were entitled to a good grade without doing the work necessary.  Some were so irresponsible and pulled crap that I would have never, ever gotten away with in undergrad.  It's like, you're in a freaking senior level class in college and you're expecting me to give you allow you to re-do an assignment for full credit after you turned in a sloppy, incorrectly done assignment five minutes before the deadline without ever emailing me with questions regarding the (very clearly written) directions and seemingly ignoring the five explanation/reminder emails sent out the week of the due date?  That's the kind of crap I was dealing with all semester long.  Really makes you wonder just how easy it is to get a bachelors degree these days.

I was also lucky enough to be given a TA position for this summer as well.  Definitely nice having the extra few dollars, although its obviously made my summer a bit busier.  I was assigned to a sophomore/junior-ish level class, a clinical nutrition class designed for pre-nursing majors.  It's almost been worse than the spring semester!  I was definitely a bit frustrated when their first assignment was due -- seriously half of the class didn't turn in one part of the assignment and I have no idea how they didn't know it was required. The professor and I each emailed them all and sent out multiple announcements in the two weeks leading up to the due date, not to mention it was very clearly stated in the assignment directions.

These classes certainly fulfill my need for drama in my life.  

I do have to say, though, that the majority of the students were not this way; it's just that those students do what they're supposed to do, when they're supposed to do it and therefore don't stick out the way the others do, ha. 




Dusty came out to visit during my week off at the beginning of May.  To have almost eleven full days to spend together with (almost) no commitments in Utah?! Amazing.  He got to come out early enough to come to our end-of-the-year banquet and met all of my wonderful classmates and most of my professors.  We went out to eat with Kellie (my roommate) and Sina (her boyfriend) and had a pizza/game night with my friend Brittney and her boyfriend.  The highlight, though, was the trip we took down to Zion National Park in southern Utah, about a five-hour drive away.  We spent a couple nights camping in the park and hiked during the day.  I may have a new favorite park.  

dinner!

I am "stuck" in SLC for the summer to do our "Supervised Practice" rotations -- 7 weeks of clinical, 4 weeks of management/food service, and 4 weeks of community.  It's so strange not being at camp. First time in three years.  Or within a two minute walk or drive of a lake to jump in when it's unbearably hot.  I actually just finished up my seven weeks of clinical last Friday at the children's hospital here -- Primary Children's Medical Center -- which is just up the hill from campus, a 10 minute train ride away from my apartment.  Before starting the program, I was absolutely convinced that I was not going to enjoy clinical dietetics.  My interests definitely lie more in the area of community, especially working with actual food (and gardening!) and doing food-based nutrition education with various populations.

However, I thoroughly enjoyed my internship at the hospital.  I liked working with the health care team as well as the critical thinking and calculations involved.  I learned a ton, too. My favorite floor was the ICS (immunocompromised service) unit, which was mostly kids with cancer.  I also enjoyed the two weeks I spent on the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) and saw lots of interesting cases there.  PCMC is the children's hospital for Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, and Montana so they get some of the most critically ill kids and lots of rare, unusual diseases and disorders.  I think I could definitely handle working at a children's hospital when I'm done with school.

Tomorrow I start my management/food service rotation with the food service administrative dietitians at PCMC.  I'll be there for four weeks and then I will spend four weeks at a WIC clinic for my community rotation.


I've only been able to get home twice since Christmas -- for my spring break back at the very beginning of March and just last weekend for Bud & Lacey Lou's WEDDING.  I went over three months without being home or seeing my parents or sister or brother, which is by far the longest I've ever gone.  Dusty also didn't get to come out as often as the fall because of busy season at work.  It's been tough to say the least, especially the week following a trip home.

The wedding last weekend was so nice.  Everything went off without a hitch, as far as I know.  So many people!  It was disappointing not getting to spend as much time with people as I would have liked, but amazing to see everyone in one trip. And not have to go anywhere.  Usually I go home and stress myself to no end trying to see everyone I possible can, running back and forth to the cities, St. Cloud, etc.  Essentially I just wear myself out to the point of not being able to enjoy what is supposed to be a relaxing vacation at home.

Pictures here, on the Mums Photography Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Mums.Photography



I have some pretty exciting news (at least for me) regarding the rest of my internship hours and my masters project.  But, honestly, I'm getting sick of writing and will just skip talking about that for now.  The biggest news is that I will almost surely be done in May of next spring rather than August as originally planned!!  (Although, it does make me a bit sad at the same time -- I really like SLC and would love to stay here if the most important people in my life weren't back home...blah)

may your days be merry and bright

Mom is giving me crap about not keeping up with this. So here it goes, Mama. [Who turned 53 yesterday, by the way!]

My previous post was somewhat depressing, talking about the bad few weeks I had in October and all. This one shall be quite the opposite :)

I'm not exactly sure what happened, but after a few weeks, things just got better.  [1] Classes got a bit more challenging. [2] I think I finally accepted that I'm in grad school, at a different university, and things are going to be run a little different than CSB/SJU.  [3] I was only halfway through my first semester of grad school. I can't base my judgement on just a couple months.

Like I said before, that little meal planning service project helped, too, as well as a conversation I had with the program director about some possibilities for a thesis project.  She unintentionally reminded me of the conversations I had with my nutrition professors at CSB/SJU when I was trying to decide where to go to school -- grad school is what I make of it. I could be at the best program in the country on paper, yet it may be the worst place for me if I don't do what I can to make the most of it.  So, long story short: Overall, my first semester of graduate school went well!

A [fairly] quick run-down of the last couple months in SLC.

napoleon in the mountains

-  My cousin [and one of my bestest friends], Chelsey, has been visiting a lot!! She's a flight attendant for Mesaba, a connecting carrier for Delta, and one of their main hubs is in Salt Lake City.  She joked this past summer that we would see each other more when I moved 1400 miles away than when I was an hour away in St. Cloud. Guess who was right? It's been so nice having a familiar [almost 24 years familiar!] face around every week or two.  And we've been exploring the amazing "diners, drive-ins and dives" of SLC.

-  The family [minus Bud + Dusty & Gramma Dar] came out for Thanksgiving! And I successfully cooked a full Thanksgiving meal by myself! You'd think that with the crazy love I have for cooking and all the time I do spend cooking, it wouldn't be a problem at all. And, it all went perfectly, but I was still nervous. They were only out for a couple short days, but it was so nice. My parents never do anything like that, and my sister has not traveled much at all, so I'm hoping it was worth me whining like a baby to get them to drive out...I think everyone [especially Mom and Gramma] feel a lot better about where I'm living now, too.

And, I'm HOME now. I have been for just over a week. What a crazy experience it was getting home, though. Geez. First of all, I had a final from 9 to a little after 10 on the morning I flew out [Wednesday, December 14]. Rushed out to catch the train back to my apartment only to have it come and leave about three minutes early. So, I missed it. [Not really a big deal since they run every 15 minutes, but still, just annoying]. Got back to my apartment, then ran around SLC picking up some last minute gifts for a couple people. Cleaned my room, bathroom, and the rest of the apartment. Kellie [my amazing roommate] came home from work to bring me to the airport. Got through security and everything just fine; or, until I realized I had lost my ID somewhere between security and the gate. And no one had turned it in in the hour that I was sitting at the gate. Ugh. Just my luck, huh?

Oh, but it got better. Our plane was supposed to leave at 5:00 PM.  However, after a late arrival to the gate, refueling, and deicing, we finally took off at 6:20ish.  My layover in Phoenix was only supposed to be just over an hour. So, 62 minute layover - 80 minutes late taking off = i'm going to miss my connecting flight to MSP = that plane better hurry the heck up.  We got into Phoenix at 7:41. My plane to MSP was scheduled to take off at 7:56. The flight attendants basically told everyone on our plane that we were just outta luck if we missed our flights. Nice, huh? Especially since the next flight to Minneapolis wasn't until 9:45 the next morning. AND I didn't have my ID to get back through security in the morning. What the heck was I going to do?

Well, after a sprint across the airport [because, of course, why would my departing gate be right next to my arrival gate?], I made it on to my plane to MSP.  And so did my bag! Woohoo!

Now I'm home. Relaxing. Or trying to. Spending lots of money on Christmas presents ;-)

Tonight with the college best friends and the associated man friends. Sometime SOON with the high school best friends [why, oh, why does the real world have to make things so hard to plan?!].  Christmas Eve with the Gates family. Christmas Day with the Goodells. Next Friday with Karla/Jack/Megan/Peter/Dusty,  New Years with the Clintsmans [WEDDING!].  It should be a good break.

Oh, and pray for snow, please. SLC has NONE, so I was incredibly excited to come home to below zero weather and a winter wonderland. but no. Minnesota's Mother Nature, you disappoint me.

sunset over the great salt lake

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! 

It's been almost two months since the last post. Yes, I suck at this.

A quick overall update on life.  Lots of excitement has been had.

I will be completely honest and admit I was having a pretty tough time back in October. Poor Dusty had to deal with the brunt of it. I was just missing Minnesota in general -- the familiar surroundings, my family, my friends, everything.  Graduate school is definitely different than undergrad.  Both academically and socially. CSB/SJU was definitely a close-knit community; like living in our own little world -- physically and emotionally. As freshmen, we went in not knowing anyone. Everyone made friends, found his or her own "family" away from home.  Our classes were in buildings just a two minute walk away and our friends just across campus or even next door.  I can't imagine being a freshman here, though. Hardly anyone lives on campus, intro classes of 200+ students, etc.

my wonderful birthday flowers :)

Many things contributed to the bad few weeks awhile back.  I think the most difficult thing so far has just been dealing with the loneliness. First of all, I spent my birthday alone for the first time in what seems like forever -- even though I tend to not like the attention, it was fairly depressing to be alone pretty much all day (I had one class in the morning) with nothing to look forward to in the evening.  My amazing roommate and her boyfriend, though, brought me four gigantic slices of cake from a local bakery, and a gift card to Target and a cooking magazine to exacerbate my addictions. Definitely made up for the lonely day.  Then, we got a week off for fall break back at the beginning of October, just two weekends after Dusty came to visit for the first time.  I drove to Denver on the Friday before break and Dusty flew there that night to ride the rest of the way home with me.  The week was great -- got to see most of my favorite people (and animals!!). A bit more hectic and stressful than I wanted, but I learned I just need to go with the flow instead of trying to cram too many things into so few days.  A big step for me (or maybe more so my Mama, Grandmas, aunts, and Dusty) was that I drove the entire way back by myself! Split the drive into two -- stopped in Rapid City, SD to spend the night -- and it went a whole lot better than I had anticipated.  No issues at all, thank goodness.

School had also not been going as well as I had anticipated. I was in as far as considering a transfer to the University of Vermont or U of M.  However, that is an entire issue I won't go into, ha.  My classmates are awesome. We just seem to mesh and get along so well.  We don't have a purely (near) evil girl like we had at CSB, which is incredibly nice. We also aren't insanely competitive with each other and actually seem to want each other to do well, which is, again, a nice change from much of my class at St. Ben's. However, most, if not all of my class, already has connections to SLC and/or Utah.  They grew up here, they went to the U for undergrad, they have family here, or they moved here with someone else.  Even though there are quite a few students from out-of-state, I sometimes feel like I'm the only one.  Much of that is my own fault, too, I realize. I hate moving outside of my comfort zone, so I tend to prefer spending my weekend nights watching Grey's Anatomy on Netflix and having game night dates on Skype with Dusty.  Instead of going out with people I barely know yet.  Such a change from the last five years when I've always had my best friends to hang out with basically whenever.


Anyway, enough of that. The last few weeks have been great.  Much of that has had to do with the visitors I've gotten, but school has also been going a lot better.  I suddenly feel like I'm a graduate student and I'm being challenged.  I got involved in a couple projects that I really enjoyed and actually had a passion for, including planning and serving a healthy meal for underprivileged families of young elementary students.

This post is getting long. I shall continue with the GOOD post in a couple days.

baby, you're my sunshine

Ahh, the end of a fantastic weekend.

Dusty came to visit :)  We made it a whole five weeks without seeing each other.  Unbelievable, I know ;-)

A rundown of the weekend:
Picked him up from the airport around 11:30 Thursday night.

Friday was pretty relaxed -- we got up fairly early. Dusty had to put in about six to eight hours of work and I was (somewhat) productive with homework.  After a couple hours of work, we drove up into the mountains, an area called Emigration Canyon.  There's a diner up there that I've been wanting to go to forever.  It was on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives awhile back:

It definitely lived up to the hype. I just had to try the biscuits and gravy.  Wow.  Definitely a bit different than what my mom makes.  No sausage in the gravy, but it was flavored with Italian seasoning, I believe.  It had a slight sweetness to it, too.  All over the fluffiest, tallest biscuits I've ever had.


Dust had their fresh asparagus omelet -- oh my, it may have been the best omelet I've ever had.  Asparagus and tomatoes with smoked Gouda cheese, then topped with hollandaise sauce.

Bear Lake, UT/ID

Went out to eat Friday night -- we were going to go to P.F. Chang's, but didn't exactly want to wait the 40 - 50 minutes they said it would take to get a table. And at about 7:30 at night! We ended up going to the Macaroni Grill just down the block.  Delicious, but nothing too exciting since we have those at home, ha.  After dinner, got a bottle of wine and a movie (No Strings Attached = HILARIOUS) and went to bed fairly early.

First Utah liquor store experience was a bit crazy.  First of all, contrary to popular belief, you CAN buy alcohol in Utah -- no need to smuggle it across state lines! However, alcohol laws are somewhat stricter than elsewhere, especially Minnesota.  The big differences: 1. The beer you buy at the bars is 3.2% alcohol. Some bars have full-strength beer, I believe, but you have to ask for it specifically, and it costs a bit more.  2. Grocery stores and places like Target have a fairly good selection of alcohol (as in an entire aisle or even two), but it is only 3.2 beer and similar-strength wine-coolers.  3. The only place you can buy off-sale wine and liquor is at state-run liquor stores.  You can also get full-strength beer there, I think.  There are no privately-owned liquor stores.

When we got to the liquor store, it was crazy busy.  They had three or four cashiers open and probably four or five people waiting in each line.  There were signs all over the door that warned about no minors being in the store.  However, when we got up to the counter to pay for our bottle of wine, the cashier just took a fairly quick glance at my ID and hardly looked at Dusty's.  I don't think he even would have asked for his if he hadn't had it out and handed it to him.  Weird.  At home, especially in St. Cloud, everyone in a group has to show IDs.  Chels, April, Edwina, and I had an interesting experience senior year -- one of the cashiers at a liquor store in St. Cloud wasn't going to let any of us get anything because Edwina's ID was foreign.  I guess I just expected them to be even more strict here.

Saturday...

We took a drive up a canyon in northeast Utah.  The Logan Canyon Scenic Byway.  It ended at this gorgeous lake, Bear Lake, very near the Utah/Idaho border.  The water was an incredible turquoise color and SO clear.  Had a picnic at a beach in the Bear Lake State Park, waded in the water (didn't even think to bring swimsuits), took some pictures, and then headed back to SLC.  Just spent the evening relaxing -- got dinner, ate it at a huge park about four blocks from my apartment and talked about Dusty's experiences with ducks at the golf course he used to work at, ha.

He left early this afternoon.  Definitely a weird feeling -- the weekend went by so fast. Doesn't even feel like he was here.

Now I can officially start my next countdown: 13 days 'til I'm home for fall break!

It's definitely going to be a long two weeks though. So much to do.

A couple randoms for the day:

• Incidences like these are subtle hints that I may actually be an adult now: I got really excited last Tuesday when the box that was outside my apartment door contained a water-proof mattress topper for my new bed. Thank you, Dusty.
• It drives me absolutely crazy when people write reviews for recipes they've never even tried.  Hmm, I'm going to give this stir fry sauce recipe four stars and then comment "HAVEN'T MADE IT YET, BUT IT  SOUNDS AND LOOKS DELICIOUS!" Seriously? Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.
• I also don't quite understand when someone takes up two seats on a full TRAX train in the middle of a university class day.  No, I don't think your backpack needs to have its own seat. ESPECIALLY when there is an older woman standing up right next to you. GEEZ.

And, an update from the last week or so:
- School is getting much busier.  And my desk and floor under and around it is definitely an indication.  It's mostly "busy work" than anything, really -- doing modules for HIPPA and the Institutional Review Board (IRB) so we can do research, completing necessary forms for a "mock" research proposal, grading tests and assignments for the classes I TA for, etc.  I actually get somewhat frustrated at times.  After the third or fourth module on ethics in research and in health care, I definitely feel like my time could be better spent on something else.  Oh well.

- Dusty drove up to my parents' house yesterday and brought them a webcam! So, I got to talk to them on Skype yesterday for the first time since I've been out here.  It's going to make things a whole lot easier.  I know I definitely wouldn't be doing so well if I didn't get to "see" and talk to Dusty every other night. Got to "see" my "babies," too - aka, MamaCat, Arby Cat and Lucy Dog.  Lucy was so funny -- she actually recognized my voice and knew it was coming out of the speakers and then kept looking at me on the screen.  Oh, I miss her.  She was quite the handful when we first got her, but she has matured into an awesome little girl.

the best raspberries i've ever had.
they were gone within two days.

- Volunteered at the Murray Farmers Market yesterday with Utahns Against Hunger.  Great experience -- we gave out about $100 worth of tokens for clients to use at the market.  LOVE that farmers' markets are now accepting the EBT benefits. So much better than buying $100 worth of frozen pizzas, right??

It was an interesting morning for other reasons though:

cucumbers!

...There is definitely not enough parking for the number of people that come to the market.  Witnessed a couple parking disputes. I just don't understand why it is so dang important for people to get a parking spot right up front. Even better is when people see someone walking, possibly toward a car, and then wait for what seems like five minutes for them to pull out, just so they can have that parking spot. Seriously, just park a bit further away and spend an extra 30 seconds of your life walking.  Is it really that bad? I love when it all turns into a honking war.

...I witnessed an argument between an older lady and one of the farmers.  The lady asked whether or not the  20+ boxes of peaches he had at his stand were "fresh-picked."  He responds, saying that they picked them the previous evening.  She then says something about not buying them because they're not fresh-picked.  He then tells her "Well, lady, you better plant your own tree then."  And that proceeded into an argument about how he should have picked the fruit before he had to drive an hour to get there by 7:30.

edamame!

...then. The guy that was working with me left for literally three minutes to go hang a banner and about thirty seconds after he left, a couple guys came over to the booth and wanted to trade in their tokens for cash.  Well, we can't do that.  Once they buy tokens with their EBT card, they cannot get cash back -- that'd just be cheating the system.  Well, when they finally understood that they could SPEND those tokens at the market, they were okay with it.  Not happy they didn't get the cash, but they left me alone. Ha, what can you do except laugh?

tart cherry jam...SO, SO, SO GOOD!

Finally, a quote from one of the assignments I'm grading.  These students have an online "grocery store" that they need to shop at every week and meet certain nutrient goals.  At the "checkout", it gives them a breakdown of all of the nutrients from the foods in their "cart."  They are then supposed to go to the actual grocery store, buy those foods, and work them into their diet for the week.

There have been some interesting responses.  

This one definitely caught my eye though.

"I noticed that my poop was really weird, I believe it's just my body getting used to the healthy food that's coming into it, which is great!"

Really looking forward to responding to that one...