Everything Pumpkin.

Pumpkin is the new bacon. Apparently.

Thank heavens because I do not like the other! A fun little article for your culinary-reading pleasure. Here are a few fun tid-bits:
“This year is on track to be one of the most active years for seasonal pumpkin menuing” and could top the 2011 record, when more than 60 pumpkin-related dishes appeared on the menus of America’s top 250 chain restaurants.”
“The weird thing about pumpkin’s rise to baconlike ubiquity is that pumpkin, on its own, is not a very appetizing food at all. A dense and stringy fruit, it needs the accompaniment of a lot of sugar and spices before it becomes particularly palatable. As a marketing tool, however, pumpkin is perfectly pitched for today’s eaters. The fact that it needs that extra flavoring? That’s a bonus, not a bug, as far as the restaurant business is concerned.”
Well I’m happy to admit we’ve been adding to this pumpkin craze. Who doesn’t love pumpkin-y things?? I mean really.
1. Eating Pumpkin Pie – it’s just so dang good! (would you like some pie with that cream??)

2. Carving Pumpkins – we were impressed by some of our friends’ carving skills!


This is a fun group!!
 
Brad’s was my favorite though – look how awesome it is! Plus the baby pac-man pumpkin, the whole head comes off! My pumpkin is pretty cool, however a little evil….

3. Pumpkin Pancakes with buttermilk syrup! This put us into a conference-watching-pancake-coma. :)

The other pumpkin-y things I’ve concocted:

• Pumpkin Bread
• Pumpkin Maple Cinnamon Rolls – yes these were as amazing as they sound.
• Pumpkin Smoothies
• Pumpkin Oatmeal

And no one has even complained that I’m over pumpkin-ing! And next up in my queue of pumpkin-y things:
Pumpkin doughnuts
In other sad news… Lance. One of my heros, one of the untouchables has been really brought down lately. As of this morning he has stepped down as chairman from the LiveStrong foundation so the company doesn’t suffer from the negative allegations against him. AND Nike has terminated their contract with him. This is devastating news. He is still one of the Greats in my mind and that will never change. Lance’s efforts are being tainted by these accusations. His company is doing amazing things and he as a person is incredibly inspiring. I hope that he will be able to keep his dignity and the cycling world will retain his legacy.
So in light of that- I’ll take one of everything in that Nike black and yellow before it is all gone!!

AND PS my little brother is awesome. Parkour!

Brad's Birthday & Update

 Well Brad turned the big 2-3! Wahoo! We both have been looking forward to his birthday for a while :) Unfortunately we both had class/work until about 9pm on his actual birthday, so it was celebrated over a few days instead of the day itself. But it all started with a yummy breakfast and a few little (cycling related) gifts in the morning to tide him over until that night!

I picked up some dinner on the way home from class and Brad and I had a late night meal of his favorite thing on this planet: Chipotle. Haha.

And it was also time to give him the gift I had been so excited about for the past few weeks! Brad got this awesome portrait of Portugal while he was on his mission.  And ever since it has been rolled up in the closet with a twisty-tie. So I kind of stole it and wanted to get it framed for him! The framing places were all asking a ridiculous amount of money because it was oversized and with odd dimensions, so I took matters into my own hands :) My Dad's buddy Andrew does a lot of wood-working as his hobby! You see where this is going... we went out and got all the stuff to build our own frame! And I have to say it turned out awesome. I don't know who was more excited- Brad or I! It was really cool to make it from scratch.  Given, Andrew did a ton, but I helped with all of it and got the matting glass and all that good stuff. Brad was so surprised and so excited! Success :) Now we just have to get it on our wall.... 

And somewhere in the birthday week we went to see the Hunger Games! WooHoo! We are big fans and this movie did not disappoint.  Loved it!

 And then it was conference weekend! What a wonderful weekend.  We relaxed watching the first session on Saturday and then we went a little crazy and did our first sprint triathlon! Are we crazy? Yes, a little bit, but it was a lot of fun.  Now our bodies know what it feels like and now we also have A LOT more respect for Tri-athletes. It was hard!

Us and The Schoumans, they killed it.

 And once the swimming, biking, and running was all over it was finally time for the second session of conference and Brad's traditional Birthday Dinner! Burgers with all the fixins, Cheddar Cheese Ruffles, Lemonade, Potato Salad and of course- Chocolate cake and plenty of milk :) What would this boy do without his milk when he has desserts?? That is a Brown thing, the Schaap thing is ice cream! Haha either way it was delicious!

I loved Brad's birthday celebration week.  We even extended it more by going to Buffalo Wild Wings the next week with The Curtis' and Blackners (Basically the Blackners :) ).  And apparently didn't have time to take a picture in between wings. haha.

 So now we are just doing a lot of this....

 And making a lot of these...

Oh and my new found hobby- Gardening!! I am almost done with school and don't quite know what to do with spare time! My real hobby is cooking (bet you never guessed that), so why not extend that and grow my own ingredients?? I am pumped. Really though.  Cutest garden ever! Now we will probably plant our warm stuff this weekend. YES! 

 AND Happy Easter! Here comes Peter Cotton Tail... Here is an example of what looked like a cute Easter treat. WRONG! Talk about frustrating.  These were the hardest eggs in the world to peel. Tweet Tweet Chomp.

My thoughts exactly.

XOXO

Lyssa's Wedding and Christmas Time!

 Well the day finally came that these two got married.  Alyssa and I have been good friends for a while and also wrote missionaries at the same time.  It's our sad little bonding saga.  Haha.  Just kidding.  Lys and I were roommates at Utah State and she's one of my very best friends! Let's just say that through it all- her and Jake have been a long time coming.  They were married in the Draper Temple on December 3 and it was a beautiful day!!

Mr. and Mrs. Poulson

(stole this off Felicia's facebook- thanks!)

Keep in mind it was FREEZING this day. Oh. my it was cold. She's in short sleeves!

 Congrats Lys!! It was also really fun to see a bunch of friends we haven't seen for a while! Wedding receptions are great for that reason! 

Also....
Brad and I got our first Christmas Tree!! Woohoo!! We found this cute little guy and knew it was perfect :) Nothing better than the smell of that tree when you walk in your house!
(Cough, Cough BLAKELY!) haha 

 And tada! Now it feels like the Christmas season :)

 AND (this is a post with a lot of great things in it) 

AND we got to go to the First Presidency Devotional last weekend! We were lucky enough to get the invite from our great friends (Curtis & Lindsey and Tim & Tim's date Ali) who we never get to see anymore! So we were very excited to go!

 And yes, Brad and I were freezing so we came all bundled up!

 So much fun! We had a blast!

Sidenote- Brad and I came to the First Presidency Devotional 4 YEARS AGO!! Crazy.  We were not dating then, but I think we both wanted to be :) Here's some throwback pics for the fun of it... 

Haha this picture sums it up- Crazy-eyed Matt and Tai in the background!

How young do we (by we I mean Brad) look? Haha this in 2007, if we only knew...

Now B & I are 5 finals and 3 days away from Christmas break :) Bring it on!