Homemade Spaghetti Night

Last night Paul and I made homemade spaghetti! It was so much fun, and it was delicious! Paul's dad and step-mom were sweet and got us the pasta maker attachment for our Kitchen Aid mixer when they stayed with us, and I was so excited to use it but also a little intimidated by it. I was worried that it wouldn't turn out and that it would be a huge mess and a two person job. However, on Friday night, Paul and I were both home, and had no desire to go out for the evening. I had recently looked at the pasta recipe booklet again to see what ingredients I would need to have on hand to make pasta, so I knew that I had them all. We were talking about what we should make for dinner, and I suggested giving homemade pasta a whirl. Paul was game, and so the process began! Our pasta making attachments were initiated into use, and now, I can't believe we have been missing out on homemade pasta this long! It was so good, and really easy to make.

We bought some giant meatballs from Marina market and a marinara sauce that was from Italy that was amazing. We opened one of our fancy bottles of wine that we're always saving for a special occasion and put on the Alfred Hitchcock movie "Vertigo". It was truly a perfect night!

P.S. Homemade pasta is very long.
P.P.S. Paul's fun in the kitchen!

Just call me Betty Crocker

It took a lot longer than planned because we scheduled lots of double dates and birthday dinners for the past week; however, tonight Paul and I made our Chicken with Edamame, Corn, and Bacon dinner. It was really good! 2 for 2 so far, which makes the thought of trying another recipe even more tempting.

I was very proud of myself that I cooked chicken and bacon and managed to get both of them done! I have a habit in the past of having my chicken take forever to get done, and then not taste very good. But this recipe had a great method of cooking the chicken so that it stayed moist but also cooked all the way through. Yay no salmonella! I think Paul was excited about this fact too!

I sat at home all day today and worked on my dissertation. It was a pretty boring day. I think I'm going to do the same thing tomorrow, but hopefully feel like I have a little more to show for it. Today was a little unsatisfying for progress. I'm shooting to defend by August so that I can not be crazy while working at my new school. I need to kick some ass this summer in order to get this done. So far I'm doing pretty well keeping focused. Perhaps I could do a little more, but I somewhat feel like I'm still recovering from data collection, internship, and wedding planning. Keeping that in mind, I think I'm doing ok.

Home Sweet Home

Well, we're back from Fiji! The trip was amazing...more than we could have dreamed of it being. We relaxed, watched the sunrise, went snorkelling, drank fruity, mixed drinks with pineapple or coconut in them, read good books, sat by the ocean, watched some rugby, ate great food, talked to people from all over the world, enjoyed each other, and watched the sunset. Oh, and Paul took some bugs out for me...big ones! :) It was a great vacation!

Then, we came home to our new home. It's amazing how we had just moved in the week before our honeymoon, but coming home it really did feel like home. I love it here. We've got the place basically set up. Now it's just putting away the little things. I feel like we're playing house! And it still makes me giggle when Paul or somebody else refers to me as a wife! :P I'm too young to be a wife! Hehe. I love being one though. It's fun. :)

Last night Paul and I cooked our first real meal together! I know...we dated for how long? It's true. We didn't cook very much up to this point in our life. We had a blast last night though! We used our new pots and pans that my brother got us and made an excellent meal: Eggplant rigatoni with grape tomatoes, garlic, parmesan, and mint leaves! It was amazing, and we were quite pleased with ourselves. We already got the fixings to make tomorrow night's dinner: A chicken dish with corn, edamame, and some bacon too! We don't quite know how the bacon fits in, but the picture in the recipe looked good!

Well, that's the update for now. I worked on my dissertation since we got back into town trying to get my data entered into SPSS and tomorrow it's off to ASU to meet with my stats prof to run the statistics! Hopefully I find some interesting results! Big day!