I've been waiting for something before updating our blog.  But really, lots happens all the time, I just don't sit down to write it.  And then I think, 'Well, once I put the pictures on the computer I'll do it.'  Then I don't. Then the stories pile up and I don't want to start because I'm, afraid I'll forget a good story.  So I'm starting now!

So here is a little of what we've been doing:

 Evan has been watching College Football, and the US Open while playing The Legend of Zelda.  I came home one Saturday to this.

 We bought Dominion!  We have definitely missed game nights, and our friends in Richmond.  Evan traded in a bunch of his super nintendo games and got a surprising amount of store credit.  So we were able to get Dominion as well as TWO new Wii games.  Exciting.

 I've been baking- a lot.  Here is a carrot cake I made. From scratch. 

 It was delicious too.  This is an after dinner shot.  (We had the missionaries over, so don't think we ate that all by ourselves.  Though I would have.)

 And some cupcakes I made.  Again from scratch.  With buttercream icing.  I didn't like the icing, too light or something.  I prefer the thicker sweeter frostings. But still good.  Those would be vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate.  And it was a good excuse to use the cupcake stand we got for our wedding.  

 The biggest news since our last update?  WE HAVE FURNITURE!  We were waiting and waiting for the funding and to find something we loved- because, we plan to keep it for at least the next five years.  Hopefully longer.  And guess what?  I even did before, during, and after pictures.




BEFORE:

DURING:

AFTER:

I'll say, having furniture turns the whole place around.  All of the sudden we have a home, not a room.

A Saturday with the Andersons

As regular party people, we keep ourselves pretty busy- with all the partying and all.  Like, last weekend, Evan managed to shoot the ceiling fan with a Nerf gun and get three consecutive darts to stick.

I was impressed.  I was even more impressed that the camera was able to capture the magic.

 One Dart

 Two Darts

Three Darts.  Or it should be, one fell off before I got it on camera, but since two darts were on one blade and now they are on different blades I hope you can find my story believable.

You know, Evan is pretty skilled with a Nerf gun.  I never really thought of them as a weapon of accuracy, but dear Evan has made it into one.  I can't tell you the number of times I've come home to find all of our darts unloaded on a single target in a straight little line.  Especially once he mastered hitting the lamppost from across the room.  Six little darts evenly spaced in a column down the post.  Amazing.

Of course, we do occasionally do fun things.  Last night we went to the first football game of the season. GO BEARS! I didn't get any pictures of that unfortunately.  We also play volleyball on Friday nights with the spanish branch at church.

 Central Arkansas may not be the most progressive city in the nation (I mean, honestly, there is no law requiring any type of headwear for motorcycle riders, the ATMs still have black and green screens, and you can pump gas before you pay)  but it is homey!

New Things

I was reminded that I haven't updated since our AC was out.  Since then, the AC has been fixed, we've been staying every night in our apartment and we even got CURTAINS!  It is super exciting.  We still don't have any furniture, but that's ok.  It will come.

Evan started classes yesterday, and he said he liked it!  He is also working for the department as a graduate assistant, mostly making copies and shredding papers for now.  He will get to teach a few times (yay!) and he is looking forward to that.  Evan also wants to get into some research with another professor, so overall looking to be extra busy this semester.  I think he is just overjoyed to be back in school and not working part-time in a position where his day was dictated by the mood of the 14-year-old he was assigned to.

I have been just working with my family.  They get cuter every day.  Tonight is the birthday party of the second child.  She is now officially 8 years old.  And full of the diva attitude.  So I will be attending as designated ice skating adult.  Mom cannot skate, dad is out of town and girl #3 (who is just shy of three years old) is fearless and ready to run across the ice.  So I get to be catcher.  YEEHAW! I think it will be great fun.

We are settling into the area nicely, starting to make friends, and regular appearances at events.  It is wonderful to finally beginning to feel like we are home.

The New Place!

Ok ok, no pictures.  Whatevs.

We moved all our stuff in last weekend, and have finally been able to get settled.  We really like our apartment, aside from the fact that our A/C has been out for the entire weekend.  When it is continuously 100 degrees with a heat index of 110, it is not a comfortable place to be.  Plus, we don't have curtains in the living room yet so the sun just beams in from about noon til 4. 

We got home Saturday night and discovered it had not been working, and could barely sleep because it was so sticky.  So Sunday after church we called the landlord and he said he'd get someone over soon as he could, but probably not til Monday.  To escape the heat we packed some stuff up and went back to the Professor's apartment (we had been squatting there until we found our own place.  He's still out of the country so we just went on back over).  While there I experimented and made an eggplant parmesan.  Overall good, but I think I overcooked the eggplant, it was a little too mushy for me.

Monday we headed back to our place and worked on cleaning up.  We were hoping to have our first shot at hosting, so we were aiming to have everything put away, or at least out of sight.  They fixed out AC and we were running it on full blast to get the place cooled off before our friends came over.  Well, then, I walked into the second bedroom and a puddle of water came up under my feet.  Evan took a look and sure enough the AC thingy was leaking.  The whole closet was wet.  And back off it went!  After an hour the apartment was up to 90 degrees- and we left, once again, for the Professor's.  No hosting for now.  Thank goodness we have somewhere to go, because I don't know what we would do otherwise. 

I was trying to think what I did back when I didn't have AC. Well that was in Vancouver, and 1) it doesn't get nearly as warm and 2) we could open the windows at night because it cooled down.  Here, not so much.  Hopefully, we will get everything straightened out soon. 

PS- Happy August folks!!

Good News!

Good News #1!  I got a job.  YES.  It's not full time, it isn't with a school district, but it is enough to support us and I think I will enjoy it.  I will be a nanny for a family with five kids.  They are very active and involved in lots of extra-curricular and last fall brought twins into the family, so they are looking for 'extra hands' basically.  I feel blessed to help mom out with all of her daily mom duties and hopefully she will relax once we get started and see that I can do all the nitty gritty so she can do the fun mom stuff.  She still seems hesitant and I think she feels like she's handing her kids off on a stranger.  Dad described the position as "Alice from the Brady Bunch."  I think it will be a fun year.

Good News #2!  We found an apartment!  It's so close to the campus, we can see the football field.  It's small, only 16 units, and mostly occupied by professors and other upper classmen.  Pretty much, parking doesn't get any better than our parking lot.  Also, it's only two years old, and the landlord just LOWERED rent by 50 dollars.  2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, washer, dryer, open and spacious kitchen.  The landlord has been in the apartment business for almost 30 years, his family owns most the apartments around campus, but this one is his alone and seems to be his little pet project.  Everything is in great condition, and he shows a lot of care for keeping it looking nice.  Also, this isn't his sole income.  He has a job with the state forestry and his wife works for the university, so he's not looking at this like dollar bills.  We both feel he is very genuine in his intentions to keep happy tenants.  We put a deposit in it last night and can move in once he cleans the carpets.  Or, we can wait he said.  Good Guy.

To think, we weren't even planning to move down until next week originally.  Then we got the urge to move sooner and get ourselves down here.  We ended up sitting around a lot, and feeling a little uncertain, but then things just fell into place.  I know my humility was tested, and once again, I have seen that obedience opens the path to many blessings and opportunities.

Good News #3!  HARRY POTTER.  We are among the masses that have been awaiting this final installment.  We also have our first double date tomorrow (good news 3.5) to see the movie.  We wanted to go to the midnight, but passed that to go with some new friends.

Good News #4!  Evan's sister returns from her mission tonight!  He is excited to talk to her I'm sure.  I know he was very disappointed he'd be missing out on her home coming, but that's why we have phones and skype :)

The Andersons are starting to feel at home in Arkansas!

Celebrities

I don't knwo how, but somehow we got on the subject of celebrity look alikes.  So I ran to the computer to see who mine was.  And then Evan wanted to know his.  And then there was this cool morph video you could make.  And now you have, me morphing into Michelle Rodriguez and Evan morphing into Josh Duhamel.  It was fun.  Go check out MyHeritage.com to try it for yourself!



MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities


MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Ancestors - Familytree

Diary of a Pretzel

I love those big soft pretzel you get at the mall, so a while ago I looked up a recipe on my fav recipe website allrecipes.com and tried it out.  Super easy, super delicious!  Wehn we moved to Arkansas, we went to the grocery store, but ddin't get any snack/dessert type items, both because we don't really need them in the house, and because we are trying to keep a tight budget.  By Friday we were ready for a little treat, and we had to use whatever we had on hand, so we did sugar cookies.  Butter, flour, sugar.  They were good.  The next week I found a box of cake mix in our 'food box' so we made some cake.  This week, I got out my pretzel recipe.  I had been moving my yeast around whenever I looked through my spices, and it inspired me.

So, pretzels!

After mixing all the ingredients, (mostly flour, sugar and yeast) and kneading the dough,  it sits for a while to rise.  Then you get this!

 Okay, this is half the dough.  And it isn't as light and fluffy because it sat in the fridge all night.  But it still worked.

 Then I took a strip of dough and rolled it out long. This may look like it's sticking straight out, but if you look at the background it's just the picture on its side.  I haven't figured out how to rotate images on Evan's computer yet.  Mostly because I haven't tried.

Make a loop with a twist at the bottom...

Flip it up and press the ends! TADA- pretzeled.

A little bath in water and baking soda

Then put it on the pan and sprinkle with salt.

Bake it about 8 minutes and they come out golden brown like this!

These were delicious too.  Today I tried putting salt on the pan first to keep it from sticking, which it did, but it also absorbed all the salt from underneath in addition to what was on top, making them almost unbearable.  I think I'll go back to just pan and having to scrape them off.  They taste better even if they are more hassle.

Hopefully I get a job soon- then I won't be enticed to blog about every. Single. Thing. I. Do.  Until then expect to see more amazing entries about the excitement that is Arkansas.