culture shock

we saw signs for the Japanese festival when we were in Salt Lake Friday night for the jazz game. (sidenote: we went to the Jazz game!! it was such an amazing game and the crowds were going crazy! I was brave enough to jump and yell with the rest of them, we got sooo into it, five rows from the very back and we loved it! I'm proud to say I walked away from that game a much more devoted Jazz fan.) anyways, we saw signs for the Japanese festival on Saturday and thought it sounded fun. We took along Nick and Chris (a major Japan enthusiast) and boy were we in for a treat.

The street was p.a.c.k.e.d., filled to the brim with people. and let me tell you, there's nothing like a free outdoor festival in the city to make you realize how normal you are.
Case and point:

Everywhere we looked there were people dressed up in traditional Japanese Kimonos

and others that were not so traditional: dont ask me what she's holding or what its made out of, we had no idea, but loved it just the same

Link and Zelda took a break from their adventures for some photos


We walked around the different booths, listened to these amazing drummers,

we bought a sweet set of chopsticks for $2, and mckay bought this little gem, a water bottle holder, i wonder if he'll use it....

we saw lots of umbrellas, fans, anime goodies, origami

we learned from a cute old man how to grow your own bonsai tree, plans are in the works for the Rytting boys to start their own...(its like a 20 year process, i'll let you know how it goes)

The only thing we didn't do was taste the food, which smelled amazing. the lines, were not however. maybe next time. It was such a cool and different atmosphere, we definitely had a good time and are on the lookout for more fun festivals this summer!

On another note....

Spring is here and so are Mckay's allergies. despite the sneezes we have been enjoying the warm weather, and also the freedom from school! a little school udpate: I finished my final senior seminar this semester. exciting! i would love to be posting graduation pictures right now but sadly i'll have to wait a little longer. i find it incredibly ironic that the only thing keeping me from graduating is a lousy french class. two in fact. but they have caused quite a stir in my college career. i wish i had known five years ago coming home from france that i should keep going with my french studies, but i didn't, and thats lame. so my plan is to take them independent study. these are upper level french classes, and those of you who know my history with independent study will appreciate my major reluctance to do this. thats the plan for now anyways.

as for mckay he kicked butt this semester. he has a short week off and thenwill be starting spring classes. He's applying for grad school this summer/fall, which is really exciting and somewhat nerve racking... we love thinking/talking/dreaming about our life next year when we can hopefully (cross your fingers) get into grad school out of state.

Thats all for now! Go Jazz!

is there anything better?

than a lazy sunday drive. sunday's have to be my favorite day for things like this: relaxing drives up the canyon with husband and brother chris. we went up for some camera practice, hopefully we can take some classes this summer. despite the gloomy sky the day was beautiful.

proof hubby's mustache is alive and well:

a penny saved...

Me and Mckay have this tradition. Throughout the year we throw all our loose change into a little green box. slowly but surely this box gets fuller and heavier with our precious nickels and pennies. When the box is filled to the brim we head over to the nearest Coinstar and trade in these pesky coins for cold hard cash. Cash that we use for something fun.

Our most recent Coinstar trip awared us a whopping $53 dollars! (Though we left Albertsons with closer to an even $50 since Mckay was coerced into buying a much needed box of girlscout cookies :)

This last weekend we decided to use this money to treat ourselves to this little gem:

Stoneground. One of our most beloved restaurants in Salt Lake City. Since we had to venture up north for a school thing last Friday we took the opportunity to go on a hot date.(I'm realizing that the last thee posts involve us and food.... reason being our life lacks excitement right now, so eating out is sort of a thrill. plus we love food, good food. it makes us oh so happy.)

***sidenote ***I had to post the above picture only to show you part of Mckay's hideous sunburn. You can kind of see it on his face, the rest is hidden under his shirt. I say hideous because I just got through peeling large chunks of skin off his back, shoulders, neck and ears... The burn was a result of a 'not so smart' decision to snowboard all day, topless... he did manage to smear some sunscreen on his nose, so I have to give him credit for that. But besides that and his goggle marks his entire upper body was burned to a crisp. really, it was one of the better sunburns I've seen in my time. His skin has been the brightest shade of red for the last 5 days or so. poor husband. and I mean it, the poor guy has been experiencing quite the pain and discomfort these last few days.

Good food like this makes us happy. I think Mckay said it best when he said (more than once) "It was the best freakin' salmon I've ever had". Thanks Stoneys for another wonderful meal.

perks.

After two weeks we are fully moved out. It feels sooo good. Conference today was so wonderful. I love conference, it's like a holiday for me. I'm sad it's already over. cannot wait till October conference. We've been at the Ryttings for two weeks now and we've been having lots of fun :) There are some major perks with living where we do. We got to enjoy two of them last weekend:

This lovely is basically our backyard. we are so grateful. so much fun. We spent some time here Sunday afternoon, playing frisbee and lounging around. boy do we love the few blessed days of sun we've had so far! I wish they would come back.

perk number two. we now have access to a barbecue, something I'm really excited about. the extent of my grilling knowledge goes as far as an indoor grill pan, so it will be fun to use a real, outdoor grill. Last Saturday we grilled steaks and artichokes. mckay actually did the grilling and they turned out great for our first try :) it's a learning process. we also roasted sweet potato fries and made a salad. we cannot wait to keep grilling and enjoying the warm weather. hopefully sooner rather than later!

Happy Easter! We hope everyone had a great Easter and Conference Weekend!