New Experiments

This week has been an experimenting kind of week. And when I say experimenting, I mean in the kitchen.

On Sunday I we had 12 people (yes you read the number right) over for dinner. We invited a few couples and before we knew it out living room was full! Everyone brought a dish (I'm not cooking for twelve!) and we had a good time laughing and talking the night away. I made chicken parmesan "bites" (they kind of looked like chicken nuggets) and home made sauce for dipping (just a basic tomato paste base sauce). I've discovered the joy of making things at home and saving money, yippee!

Last night I made actual parmesan chicken over noodles and steamed broccoli...I cooked the noodles differently and they were so freaking good. I will definitely do that again. It was also our relief society activity night and we got to make cake pops for our husbands. I didn't actually make the cake part, they had already done that, but I did the rest of it. It was a lot of fun and it's the perfect treat for a birthday party, or any occasion! I will admit, I ate some of Anthony's cake pops. He isn't a huge fan of frosting but he enjoyed a few;)

They don't look all smooth and perfect like all the pictures we always see, but they were good. Trust me.

Today I came home from class really wanting to bake something. Google has become my best friend when cooking so I turned to the Internet. I wanted to make muffins at first but since we don't have a muffin pan I had to find an alternative...which is when I decided on scones. I have never in my life made scones so I was getting a little intimidated at some of the recipes. I stumbled across a pretty easy one and decided to just do it. The recipe was super basic and didn't have any fruit or anything so I decided to add some frozen blueberries.... I am happy to report that they turned out and I'm afraid I will have to hide them from Anthony! I actually had a lot of fun making them by hand too!

Its always fun to try out new recipes and test them on my husband, but sometimes I am afraid he is just being nice when he tells me something I made is good....hahaha. oh well, if I don't like the taste of it, chances are it will never show up in our kitchen again.

Sorry I have been so bad about blogging! I will do better! It's one of my resolutions.

Blessed

Well........

We moved. haha again!


Every time I post it seems to be when we move.....I need to be better about this or we need to stop moving so much! We were worried about affording (actually knew we couldn't afford 1,200 a month right now) so we had been praying for help and to miraculously get into TVA (the on campus married student housing). We were searching everywhere for somewhere cheaper. One particularly hard night I decided to check the off campus housing page on facebook and literally, THE FIRST POST on that page was someone looking for a couple to sublease their TVA apartment. I cried I was so happy and Anthony called them right away (even though it was 10:30 pm). Everything worked out beautifully with them and we are now very happily living in TVA. At least until April 18. Such a wonderful blessing and we are so grateful to our Heavenly Father for being so mindful of our little lives over here in Hawaii. We are hoping to permanently get into TVA in April though, since a lot of people are graduating and leaving then. Crossing our fingers for that one:)


Other than moving and going to school we have been having fun! I am having fun experimenting in the kitchen and making dinners for the two of us. And treats, lots of treats over here! Anthony has been having a blast in his music classes and starting up a small bike business with his buddy. We are both loving it here and have finally been able to relax a little with knowing we won't have to move for a few months! Unfortunately we haven't been able to go to the beach much with school consuming our days and the weather not being super awesome. We know we will have p-l-e-n-t-y of time to play at the beach so it doesn't bother us too much:)


I do have some pictures to share, actually, lots of pictures to share.

My favorite- Anthony telling me he will wait up for me and I walk in to see this:

This is what we had for dinner last night. Anthony said it was so good he wanted me to make another one today haha 

I have gotten bad at taking pictures and I am planning on changing that. Promise. 

For now though I need to go do laundry, finish some homework, and go to the gym. Really eventful Wednesday night, I know.

Anthony and I love you all! 

Hopefully we see some of you in Hawaii soon:)

probably time to post again...

I feel like it has been forever since I last posted. Time to play catch up! Since my last post so much has happened!

About two/three weeks ago my parents called Anthony and told him they wanted to fly us home for Christmas-and keep it a surprise for me. So, without me knowing, Anthony talked to the manager at Kahuku Grill about our schedules AND talked to Jeanne/Jess about having someone new come in for the week I would be gone. (He's the best:) Anyway, he got the work situations covered and my mom bought us tickets! No one could keep it a secret so I found out a few days in advance. When I found out I literally cried tears of happiness. It was the best Christmas present ever. I was so excited to spend the week with my whole family under one roof, one last time for at least 3 years.

We were scheduled to fly the red eye on Sunday the 23 and arrive around 10 am on Christmas Eve. When we got to the airport the nice man at the counter got us on a 9:50 pm flight since our 11:55 flight had been delayed til 1:15 am (yikes)! We then got to change our connecting flight from San Francisco to San Diego to one a little earlier as well. We really lucked out! When we got to my parents house we were pretty darn tired but so happy to be with family. The whole week was full of fun and family! The list of things we did included caroling, hiking, eating, bowling, staying up late, playing with Easton, eating some more, visiting Anthony's mom's family, and all kinds of other fun activities! It really was so nice to be with family and just enjoy the time we all had together. Even if Anthony didn't talk to me for a whole night after beating him multiple times at bowling:)


Since we are now home, we have a lot to keep busy with! There is still unpacking to do (we moved AGAIN right before going home), books to buy, jobs to work, and fun to have! I guess not that much has really happened since my last blog post, but it sure feels like we have been around the world twice! haha. As sad as we may be that we are so far from family, it's nice to be back and finally settling into a life together. We have been on the move since we got married, living out of suitcases, so its nice to have a "home" together. I am enjoying setting up our little apartment:)


I have been feeling so blessed lately. Even though Hawaii may be a struggle sometimes (yes, hard to believe... I know) I know we are in the right place, doing the right thing and everything will work out the way it needs to be. We thank our Heavenly Father every night for the opportunity we have to be here at this University, together, and for the beautiful place we get to call home for the next 2 years. Time moves quickly and I remind myself every day to enjoy right now, not to look too far forward. 2012 is coming to a quick end this evening and I am so grateful for all the trials and blessings this last year has brought into my life, they have only made me stronger. As we look forward to 2013, I hope it can bring us just as much, if not more, happiness than 2012! Here's to an awesome 2012 and an even more awesome 2013 ahead!


Love you all! Pics of our trip home will be up later :)

xoxo
The Ellsworth's

Watch this!

Yesterday at church we watched this video.

I absolutely love this and I think you all will too.

Crock pot + bike basket = .......

This weekend was full of Christmas parties! It was fun to be with friends and get a little Christmas spirit going here in Hawaii! Friday night we went to our ward party where they had a WHOLE pig, head and all, on the table...to EAT! hahaha I couldn't stop staring at it because the HEAD was still there! ha! Not used to that. Apparently I will get used to it since its completely normal here. The food was good, we met lots of awesome people in our ward, and even got to see Santa! After the ward party we went to see the movie, Life of Pi. It was a pretty good movie, lots of floating around the ocean. Anyone who knows me knows that I would probably rather die than float around the ocean all alone for 200+ days. The open ocean is a bit terrifying in my opinion. Anyway, it was a good movie! It had some really nice messages too, which is always refreshing in movies these days.

Saturday we went to the beach with Meg and Marcus. The boys went body surfing while us girls sat on the beach and read our books in silence! It was perfect. We then headed home and just hung out until it was time to go to our second Christmas party of the weekend! One of the girls who works at Jeanne's house (Jeanne's main caretaker) lives in the apartment above Jeanne's 3 car garage with her husband. Jessica (Jess) is actually married to one of my brother and sister's really good friend, Dewey. That's how I got the job at the mansion. Connections, obviously. Anyway, the party was at Jess and Dewey's house. I made a pudding cake/lava cake thing in the crock pot for the party only to realize the only way to get it to the party was to put it in the basket on my bike...Yeah, didn't think it through too well. hahaha. We made it all the way to the house without any spills or accidents but when we parked our bikes by the front door I turned away from my bike (for literally 2 seconds) and my handle bars/front tire turned due to the weight in the basket. You can probably guess that I didn't get there in time to catch it... So, we had lava cake all over and were standing at Jess's front door. Oops. Good thing that recipe makes a lot! The party was good after that little fiasco and we met more really nice married couples! Everyday it seems we are making more friends. I love it!

( Jenga was the game of choice for the boys last night)

Today we didn't do much. We went to church and now we are sitting around waiting for dinner to be done. Drew Toolson and Heidi Poppleton (younger, fun, friends from home) are coming over to eat with us tonight. It's the last Sunday of the semester so I thought it would be fun to have them over before they go home:) Everyone starts to leave this week so it will be pretty empty next week at church. It seems everyone we meet is going home for Christmas! There isn't a whole lot going on this week besides work for both of us. Jeanne is having a little Christmas "party" on Thursday and she invited everyone who works at her mansion and their spouses/significant others too. It will probably be a very blog worth afternoon. haha. Oh! and we move on Thursday! Thats exciting for us! I will post pictures of our new home next weekend:)

We hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas spirit wherever they are and remembering what this season is truly about!

Love you guys!!



P.S. Singing Christmas hymns at church is THE BEST!

Pictures!

Here is my beautiful bike before its full makeover....

I want to ride my bicycle!

We have a new toy and I am so excited about it! I GOT A BIKE! Wahoooo! It's definitely a fixer upper, but lucky for me I married a man who knows A LOT about bikes (Ellsworth Bikes-duh it's in his blood).  I don't have a picture of it right now, but its an ugly purple color (it will be red by next week) and has lots of rust. Our friend Marcus works at Ace Hardware and hooked us up with a really awesome discount on some stuff to fix up my new ride:) I am so excited to finally have my own little cruiser! I can't wait to have it all fixed up and pretty. Thanks Anthony for the early Christmas present:)!

For some reason the previous owner had put pegs on the back of the cruiser, so we have been putting those to use! Anthony literally begs to ride the bike and I then get the wonderful opportunity to stand on those teeny pegs while holding on for dear life. Yeah, it's an adventure. Tonight we got a basket for the front and went grocery shopping. We started on our way home with me on the bike,  some groceries in the basket, and Anthony following on foot with the rest of the groceries. We didn't even get halfway before Anthony was on the bike, I was on the pegs, and all the groceries were tucked away in the basket. Somehow he always weasels his way onto MY bike while I stand on the back. I still don't know how that happens every time we are out. haha. Oh well.

We haven't been up to much lately, other than work and sleep! It's been really fun having jobs and hanging out! Today we worked our first shift together and I really liked it!! Not sure how Anthony enjoyed it, but I thought it was fun. Anyway, we are both really enjoying our jobs and the people we work for/with. The family that owns Kahuku Grill is awesome! It's a big family of boys who run the place along with their father. We both really enjoy working there.


Well, school is set to start the 7th of January (I think) and Christmas is in 18 days! Crazy! We will miss our families this year but are excited to start our own family traditions together! The holiday season is a wonderful time to remember what really matters in this life. It's a great time to reflect and think about how we can be better, more Christ-like. It really is one of my favorite times of the year!

We love you guys and hope everyone is well! Sorry this is a long, wordy post. I will put up some pictures of my new bike soon:)


xoxo
The Ellsworth's