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!

Food for Thought

I am taking a little break from the current and crushing stress of a group project for my senior seminar to write a little post and relish in the fact that we are almost completely moved out!!! I say almost because there is a little bit left to be done, but...we have never been closer. I'm sitting here in the library reflecting back on the last two weeks and all its craziness and just thinking about how weird life is...it's weird to me that we can be so settled in our lovely apartment, then pick up everything we own and move, and within a short time so much is different, but life still continues, and then really I guess, a lot is still the same. Like Mckay's mustache, still the same. still there. maybe a little worse than last week but still there. I thought I would let it last through March, you know, "Mustache March", something I'm sure Mckay made up himself. But with April 1st just around the corner I'm not so sure I want to see it go, maybe I find his ugly mustache calming, and endearing, a source of stability in the midst of all this chaos. wow I'm tired. What a day. Can you tell I've been at the library for the last 3 hours?

ANYWAYS...on to the real reason I'm writing this post...this packing/moving/cleaning process has spanned the last two weeks and we have found ourselves back and forth between Provo and Orem almost daily. I'm not sure really why but dishes and silverware were one of the first things to get packed so we've often found ourselves in Provo, starving and with no way of eating. I cannot even guess how many Betos sausage breakfast burritos we have consumed but let me tell you its been A.LOT. Nothing like a burrito the size of your forearm and a pepsi to fill you up. We also took the opportunity to try a couple of restaurants in downtown Provo we haven't been to yet. 2 really. Diego's Taco Shop and Sammy's. so here's our review:

Diegos: (45 West 300 North)

Tasty. They have refried black beans, which we had never sampled, or knew existed, but felt good eating them, cuz somehow we feel refried black beans are healthier than normal refried beans. I got a Chile Relleno, which had raisins and olives in it, I never expected that but was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. I'm picky about my enchilada sauce, like really picky, and theirs made me happy. Mckay had some burrito with green sauce, which was also delicious. The inside of the restaurant was fun, there's a whole wall of flat screen tv's so we got to witness the horrors of dog fighting courtesy of Animal Planet, something I wouldnt want to watch ever, let alone while eating Mexican. Besides that fact we really enjoyed it!

Sammy's: (27 North 100 West)

oh boy did I love this place. Not only was it a perfect warm sunny day but the food was really good! I admit me and Mr. Rytting do enjoy a good burger and this place did not dissappoint. I cant remember what burger we got, but the main thing is they had sweet potato fries. Those did us in. And they have shakes, lots and lots of shakes, we were too full to try one but they have "pie shakes", we will definitely be going back for one of those. They even have HAPPY HOUR, where shakes are half off. Not a bad idea.

**photo's courtesy of the iphone.

We love finding and trying new places to eat, and it was fun trying one's so close to our home. We're always on the lookout for some place new to try so if anyone has recommendations please fill us in :)

On tHe MoVE

OUR life is in a current state of TRANSITION. or so Mckay calls it. I call it chaos. The Rytting's have moved, or are moving.... was moving earlier today, not so much right this second. I'm tired. Saturday we started the move out of our sweet and much beloved apartment in Provo where we have spent the last 2 years and have moved up to North Orem to live with Mckay's family. At this exact second our material lives are spread between Provo, our storage unit, and our new home. Like I said, Chaos. There was a time I couldn't find my deoderant... Anyways we don't have to be moved out until the 4th of April and with work and school we knew we would have to space it out over a couple of days, maybe weeks but wow would I love for this to be over already! There's nothing like moving to realize how much crap two people can accumulate. I think we've filled at least 6 bags designated for the DI.


So why the sudden move? There's a mountain of reasons most of which involve $$$.

Reason 1:

Ol' reliable Debbie is not so reliable anymore. Despite her pretty looks our sweet car has been a serious financial troublemaker. I've stopped looking at her as our getaway car for so many fun trips and now see her as a bottomless black pit that we keep throwing money into. We have spent literally THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of dollars over the last few years trying to maintain her, so needless to say we need a new car. Now money that was spent on rent will go towards a new car.

Reason #2: School. We are finally seeing the light at the end of a very long tunnel that is the Chemical Engineering Degree. This major is so intense poor husband hardly has anytime to work, now he has to worry about publishing and research on top of school work and later this summer he will be applying to grad schools. So now there's less financial stress and we can start saving for grad school..... being an adult is hard sometimes.

So thats whats new in Ryttingland. We are so grateful to be able to stay with family, its going to help out so much. Hopefully it lasts....we moved in with Mckay's family the first year we were married and I only lasted 2 1/2 months, I just love having our own little place to take care of.

Other than the move the only new bit of news is Mckay's mustache, which I really should get a picture of. That too might not last. I'm tempted to shave it off while he sleeps...

March so far...

The morning after Adam came home we woke up to find this outside:

inches and inches of snow that was so unbelievably pretty but my goodness am I sick of this stuff! We Ryttings are getting so antsy for Spring.

With the family all together, except brother in Australia, we made our way up last weekend to Pei Wei, where we definitely did some damage. I think we ordered about 12 dishes and I'm proud to say we cleared each one of them.

After Pei Wei we headed up to the Jazz game....

Last minute tickets meant we watched the game from here:

Which is fine, but I'll be honest we were so high I was getting dizzy. Nothing some banana split dip n' dots couldn't fix. :) by the way what are dip n'dots? I hadn't had them in years and they are such a curious thing. strange but kind of tasty.

This Friday our sweet brother Chrissy turned 18. To celebrate we headed up to a family favorite in Midway.

If you love Mexican food you have to try this place it's authentic and oh so tasty. We've come here so many times and I have never had anything I didn't like. They have a salsa bar, a major perk. If you ever decide to give it a try feel free to invite us along :)

Happy Birthday Chris! (we missed you Mairin!)

I made some minor changes to our blog in celebration of the upcoming holiday. basically just changed the color scheme. but Happy St. Patty's Day :)

brother.

brother is home from the Netherlands. We are so excited.