The latest...

Nothing too eventful has happened in our lives lately. We have had several good weeks since my last post. Tyler came to stay with us for the weekend. We had a nice, relaxed time with him despite the lack of groceries in our house. We visited Amanda in Wyoming and saw her very cute apartment. I am so excited for her that she has such a nice place to live! She seems to be enjoying her year. Jason gets to work more hours at work which we have been hoping for, so that helps solve some money dilemmas for us. For the past several weeks we have been in sort of a money rut. Now, with two nursing paychecks under our belt, we are able to really buy groceries! We have again had some delicious food adventures. We made pretzels for the second time and ate them with bratwurst for a real "Oktoberfest." We played our own "chopped challenge" which is a little game we modeled after the Food Network show Chopped. Our challenge left us with some delicious chicken, sweet rice and fried ice cream complete with a flambee! I would say we have settled in to married life quite well. We have developed a weekend routine of cleaning and laundry and if you saw our bedrooms before we were married, I am sure you would be impressed with how clean our room continues to be.

I started my new job over a month ago now and it is going well. It is fairly overwhelming and there is lots to learn, but I am enjoying it. Jason is still enjoying his classes and has his first round of exams coming up soon. Perhaps my greatest accomplishment over the past few weeks (and quite possibly my lifetime) is the fact that I have a 3-0 record on my fantasy football teams. Yes, my husband taught me all I know but I feel quite proud of my ability to continually win each week. I am currently ranked in the top in both of my leagues :) Some of you may have never thought you would see the day that I would even know what 1st and 10 means...but here it is folks. Really, I still have no idea what is happening half the time but I at least know if I am going to gain or lose fantasy points which is really all that matters in my football world. The best part of the whole thing is I have earned aout 1000 wife points which is pretty great :)

A real nurse

Finally, after 4 years of school and a busy summer I have begun my job as a "real nurse." I am now a perioperative nurse and, after completing my week in sterile processing, will begin in my OR classes next week. There is so much to learn and I am excited to take it all in! Also, I would just like to add that a job where I get to wear a hat all day was clearly made for me :)

Jason began his grad classes last week. He likes all of them so far and is thankful that his books finally arrived from Amazon. He has lots of reading to keep up with, but he seems to be enjoying the format and structure of his classes.

Today, our BluRay complete series of LOST arrived. Jason, clearly, is thrilled! It came in a really neat box with special features, a game and a mysterious blacklight (use still TBD). Also eventful this week was a plumbing situation. Last night, our toilet sprung a leak. The head of a bolt rusted through and came apart, leaving a hole in the toilet tank. Jason quickly jumped to action and turned off the water, so after saturating about 5 towels all was well. Today he made a trip to Lowes to repair our toilet, I am very proud of his handyman skills!

Foodies

After hearing Nancy Pelosi call herself a "foodie" on The Next Food Network Star last week, I have decided that Jason and I qualify also. Urbandictionary.com defines a "foodie" as a person that spends a keen amount of attention on knowing the ingredients of food, the proper preparation of food, and finds great enjoyment in top-notch ingredients and exemplary preparation. Seems to me that we are morphing in to foodies. In our married life so far, we have cooked almost every day and eaten out only on a couple of occasions. I am really enjoying cooking in our kitchen and especially using our excellent dishwasher! This is quite a change from our usual eating out trips. We have really made some very tasty things! For the past few days, I have been wanting a soft pretzel. So, yesterday Jason looked up a recipe for soft pretzels from Food Network's Alton Brown. Today we walked (yes walked!) to the grocery store to buy a couple of needed ingredients to begin our pretzel adventure. The dough was very easy to make, then it had to rise for an hour. When the dough had risen, we shaped it in to nine pretzels. Then, to make the authentic pretzel crust, we boiled each pretzel in a water and baking soda mix for 30 seconds. Jason was the boiler, I was the shaper.

Once all the pretzels were boiled, we brushed them with egg wash and put on the salt. Jason made a cheese sauce while the pretzels were baking. Clearly you must have a scrumptious cheese sauce to go with any pretzel. The pretzels baked to golden perfection! They were so pretty and delicious! I must say, we were quite impressed and already have ideas for things to try on our next pretzel adventure.

Before baking...

After baking...

A Sifrit Adventure

This past weekend, we went on a road trip to Iowa with Jason's family to celebrate his grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. The drive was long, humorous and filled with a wide array of music choices. Tyler's dance moves definately enhanced the drive for me. On Saturday, we went out on a big pontoon boat with the whole Sifrit clan. It was a very nice day. It was hot, but minimally humid. The state park we were in was beautiful! We floated around the lake for a couple of hours, stopped to grill for lunch and then hopped back on the boat. We rented some little boats that held two people and took turns riding and switching drivers in the middle of the lake...slightly trecherous. We had a great time! At the end of the day, nearly all of us jumped in to the lake for a little swim. There was a little "salad"(in Jason's words) in the lake, but a little algae never hurt anyone. I really enjoyed getting to spend some relaxed time with the whole gang. In the evening, we ordered a TON of pizza to feed our hungry stomachs. We did some serious damage to three jumbo taco pizzas...good work everyone. Jason also got to eat some cinnamon rolls and kuchen that his grandma made, definatley one of the highlights of his trip! The next day, we attended the Lebo family brunch. It was fun to share our wedding pictures and meet some more of the extended family. Jason and I both enjoyed the time with his family this weekend!

On another note, my family has been on a New Mexico vacation for the past couple of weeks. I missed them! My mom sent us a postcard from White Sands and I remembered how much I love visiting sand dunes. Sledding, writing your name in the sand, finding huge beetles crawling on the sand...so much fun! I can't believe Seth will be in high school this year. He is turning out to be quite cute and I am really enjoying him more and more as he gets older. Love ya little bro!

Seth, Jason and me when we first started dating almost 4 years ago.

Seth, cousins and me a couple of weeks ago.

Our Favorite Little Munchkins

This past weekend, my parents were out of town. Jason and I went to stay at their house to water their many plants. We decided to invite our favorite youngsters over for a sleepover! Together with the Henricks' kids we pulled out all my old dress-up clothes, my dolls, Seth's remote control cars and made quite the mess. Meredith and Maddie put on a fashion show for Marky and me. Jason and Michael played with cars and tractors. The girls played the Pretty Pretty Princess Game and Meredith won twice and was quite proud to wear all of her princess jewels.

We ended our evening with a baseball game with our friends Kelsi and Erik. Once the sun set, we made the biggest s'mores in the history of the world. We had these HUGE marshmallows. There was marshmallow everywhere! Sticky, but delicious! Everyone piled in to the basement to end the night in a movie and eventually sleep. Thanks for a great night kids, we love ya!

Blood and Guts!

Last night, while cutting a freshly made meatloaf, Jason cut his finger. After a few expletives and a blood trail around the kitchen, Jason finally put his finger over the sink. I proceeded to run water over it to determine the extent of the cut made by our new sharp knives (thanks Aunt Jack!). It was deep, but not really deep enough to warrant a trip to Urgent Care. After Jason held pressure for several minutes and I wiped up the trail of blood on the floor (and on the dishwasher and the calendar) it finally seemed to be clotting. Then, I created a very impressive bandage for his fingertip utilizing my nursing knowledge(see above pic). It was probably a little much for the size of the cut, but hey...why not play it up? This morning it is looking much better. Being a nurse has made me a little bit hardened and slightly non-sympathetic. There was no "Oh honey, I'm so sorry about your finger." There was "buck up and hold some pressure on that sucker." This could be a bad sign for our future children...they will not be staying home from school for a fake illness.

On a happier, less gruesome note:

My aunts and grandma sent me a beautiful bunch of gerber daisies in honor of passing my nursing boards. I love them! My family and friends were definitely troopers during the whole nursing school process. Yes, I know, sometimes I was a little bit psycho. Thanks for loving me anyway!

Kringla

Today I broke out my new KitchenAid mixer! I love it! Now I want to bake every day which would only lead to a growing waistline, so I will refrain. Today I baked Kringla. It is a recipe shared with me by Jason's grandma Darlys. When Jason and I were first dating I remember him having a huge baggie of these little puppies. Thanks to his mother and grandmothers he had more baked goods than anyone I knew in the dorms. I found these Kringla to be strangely irresistible. Only slightly sweet, with a delicious texture. This was my first attempt at rolling the dough and shaping it into a pretzel which was much harder than it looked. After a pan full of misshapen, yet tasty cookies, I got the technique down. I must say I earned a new respect for all of the rolling and shaping Darlys does before each trip to Colorado to ensure that all of her grandchildren will have their fair share of this treat. Now, after several rounds of baking, I have a huge tupperware full of Kringla. Jason will be pleasantly surprised when he gets home from work. Enjoy these photos of my inaugural baking experience as a wife.

Blogging...

I have decided to write a blog. My decision was based on 3 things:

1. I have had many thoughts recently that I think are worthy of sharing
2. Our family will be able to keep up with our newlywed lives on our blog
3. No School = No studying = Boredom

So, although it may not have many readers I think it will serve its purpose quite well.

Keep reading,
Sarah (& Jason)