Turkey Day!

So Thanksgiving break found Cory and I staying in Provo for the holiday.  My parents came into town as well, and Brett and Kyle Anderson joined us for our turkey dinner.  It was a total success.  Cory nailed her first official Thanksgiving dinner.  I was more than impressed at how organized and prepared she was.  She had an exact schedule printed out for us to follow, so that everything was made on time, and nothing was forgotten.  She even made appetizers before the actual dinner.  Some spinach and artichoke dip, sliced apples with caramel dip, and chocolate covered pretzels. 

So the only thing we didn't plan out very well was actually documenting through pictures the events of the day.  We have no pictures of the whole group, or the full spectrum of food we made, but these will have to do.  Here are the sweet potatoes, green beans, and cream corn.  It was delicious.

Here I am carving the bird.  First time...only cut myself four times.  Told everyone that it was just cranberry sauce on the meat...

And here is the last of the pictures from the day, when the turkey was fresh out of the oven.  Cory did pretty much everything, but I will say anyway that we are the perfect team.  It definitely felt like a rite of passage cooking our own dinner and hosting family and friends.  And on my honor I promise my parents, and Brett and Kyle were there, despite visual evidence.

What Happens in Vegas...

...lasts forever.

Over the weekend Cory, Buzz, and I headed to Vegas to attend Justin and Kasidy's wedding.  We headed down Saturday morning and made it in plenty of time for their 3:00 sealing in the Las Vegas temple, which is beautiful by the way.  It was a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be.  The sealing was awesome, and it made me think a lot about mine and Cory's.  There are a lot of amazing blessings promised to us.  Their reception had a picture timeline of their relationship and gave a shout-out to Cory as the one who introduced them, clearly establishing her as the most important and influential person in their lives...or something like that.

After the sealing as we waited for the happy couple to emerge we got to catch up with some good friends we haven't seen in a while.  Kylie is actually living in Vegas, and Steph is in San Francisco, and both are working real jobs...living in real life...

I have purposely only chosen pictures to post that show me from the ankle and up, because after 5 hours in the car I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to pack my dress shoes.  I had to wear my Nike's all day with my suit.  It wasn't that bad, (Cory was really bothered that my shoes were black and my belt was brown) and I didn't have a problem with it, but I just really didn't want anyone to think that I did it on purpose, so I tended to go out of my way to explain to people what had happened.  

Buzz did a REALLY great job at quickly snapping this photo even though the professional photographer was pretty adamant that there was no time for personal pictures because the sun was setting and their window of opportunity with the lighting was closing quickly.  No one tells The Old Buzzard when and where she is or isn't allowed to capture precious memories...

There are those Nike's...anyway, the reception was really nice, wasn't too long-wasn't too short.  The food was delicious.  I was eating like a king!  I may have eaten more than my fair share of pulled pork sandwiches.  The cake was...well...huge.  They will have plenty left over to live off of for the next few months.  The base of it is really where the volume was concentrated.  

A really fun part of their reception was that they had a photo booth set up to take pictures in, and everyone's pictures went into a scrapbook type deal for them to keep.  They also send a copy to your email account, which I greatly appreciated.

Here was our final product.  It is now hanging on a bulletin board in our apartment.   

So overall it was a fun trip, that mostly centered around Justin and Kasidy (appropriately).  However, we did end up with some time after the reception to grab a quick bite to eat.  My old roommate Joseph served his mission in Vegas and when I asked him if he could only eat one meal in Vegas where would he recommend, he didn't hesitate in saying "Raising Cane's".  We had never been, so we checked it out.  The whole place is dedicated to chicken fingers.  It was pretty good.

Vital Signs

Anna had her dance ensemble performance tonight.  It was called "Vital Signs".  I am not going to pretend to understand exactly what all of the dances meant, seeing how this was only my second time ever witnessing a contemporary dance performance (the first was another one of Anna's performances in March) but I like to think that I got something out of it.  For example, there was one to the music of the Pink Panther that I was laughing through the whole time.  I wasn't entirely sure if I was supposed to be laughing, and Cory elbowed me a few times, but afterwards Anna told me that it was supposed to be funny.  I am slated to be a guest judge on So You Think You Can Dance pretty soon.  Anyway, Anna nailed it!  She demonstrated strength and power, moving slowly, crisply, and deliberately. While in motion she showed amazing grace, strength, and flexibility. She even choreographed one of her performances, and may I say that it was flawlessly performed with passion and emotion, as she and a fellow dancer portrayed a couple moving from tenderness and passion to anger and hostility, failing to reconcile before the end of the piece.  Moving.

Anyway, here is a picture of us after the show.

And if any of you have doubts about Anna's talent, or the review I wrote above, feast your eyes on this!  Eat your hearts out America!

What amazing lines! (I actually don't know if there are any lines in this picture, or if they are amazing, but that seems to be a common/appropriate compliment to give to a dancer)  Great job, Anna!

Needs vs. Wants

This is a record of a conversation that took place between Cory and me. It illustrates well our ever changing and evolving perceptions of life.

Cory: *muffled noise that I wasn't paying attention to*...look at these!

She then showed me a picture on her phone of a black shoe.

Me: Yeah, nice, you want those.

Cory: No, I NEED them!

Me: Oh...you need those?

Cory: Yeah I need a close toe black pump before winter.

Me: oh...ok