Tulip Festival

(by Aubree)


On Thursday, I picked Jeff up early from work and we went down to the tulip festival at Thanksgiving Point. Neither of us had been to Thanksgiving Point before and I have been asking Jeff to take me to the tulip festival for years. For anyone who doesn't know what Thanksgiving Point is, it's in Lehi, Utah. It has gardens, a golf course, a cinema, and they offer many classes including cooking, horticulture, kids classes, etc. Anyway, they said they only had about 15% of the tulips up because the weather has been cold, but I don't know if they even had 15%. But because we had never been there, it was still worth it because it's about 55 acres of beautiful scenery that we really enjoyed. It was nice just being outside in the sun.

This cliff is made of concrete! It looks so real. I bet it took a long time.
The Italian Garden
The secret garden

Indian Food

(by Jeff)


Aubree and I love Indian food. We have eaten at a couple of great Indian restaurants lately, and we decided to see if we could make our own Indian food at home. So I got on the Internet and got some recipes.

For our first meal, we tried our favorite: chicken tikka masala (chicken cooked in a spicy red cream sauce). It turned out great! Not quite as good as the restaurant version, but a lot better than I was expecting for our first try. (We were going to take a picture, but we were so hungry that we forgot.) We also tried making naan bread, but the recipe didn't turn out very well.

Yesterday, we attempted our second Indian meal. This time we made tandoori chicken (chicken marinated in a mixture of yogurt and spices and then grilled). It was pretty good, but not nearly as good as the chicken tikka masala. We also tried a new recipe for naan, which was 100 times better than the first one we tried. We also cooked our naan on the grill, which made it even better. Here's a pic:


Here's the recipe for the naan (from Cooks.com):

1 package (.25 oz) active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 egg, beaten
2 teaspoons salt
4 1/2 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons minced garlic (optional)
1/4 cup butter, melted

1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes, until frothy. Stir in sugar, milk, egg, salt, and enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead for 6 to 8 minutes on a lightly floured surface, or until smooth. Place dough in a well oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and set aside to rise. Let it rise 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in volume.

2. Punch down dough, and knead in garlic. Pinch off small handfuls of dough about the size of a golf ball. Roll into balls, and place on a tray. Cover with a towel, and allow to rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

3. During the second rising, preheat grill to high heat.

4. At grill side, roll one ball of dough out into a thin circle. Lightly oil grill. Place dough on grill, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until puffy and lightly browned. Brush uncooked side with butter, and turn over. Brush cooked side with butter, and cook until browned, another 2 to 4 minutes. Remove from grill, and continue the process until all the naan has been prepared.

Our modifications: In step 4, after we roll out the naan and butter it, we like to sprinkle on a little salt and put on some fresh cilantro leaves.

Next time we make chicken tikka masala, we will add a picture and the recipe!

Easter

(by Jeff)

We're a little bit late posting about Easter, but better late than never. We had an enjoyable Easter in Aubree's hometown of Grace, Idaho. Aubree was asked to sing in her parents' home ward, and (as always) she did a beautiful job. We spent the night before Easter dying Easter eggs with Aubree's niece Rohbi. Rohbi had a lot of fun (but I think I had more fun than she did). Here's a picture of us displaying some of our creations.

Exausting Knitting Project

(by Aubree)


I learned how to knit a little over a year ago. I've done a few scarves and hats, but I decided last fall it was time to tackle a bigger time-consuming project. I saw a picture of a blanket similar to this in a Pottery Barn catalog, and I thought it would be easy to duplicate. Well, the stitch was easy to duplicate, but it took a long time to finish. Although I didn't work on it consistently, it took me about 4 months to finish.
It took about 7 balls of yarn. Because it took so long to do and was starting to get expensive to make (it's almost $6 per ball of yarn), it's shorter than I was hoping it would be. It's really comfy though. It doesn't look exactly like the one in the catalog and it has many flaws, but I am proud of my first big project, especially because I didn't use a pattern!

Vegetable Garden and Lilies

(By Aubree)


For as long as I can remember, I helped my parents with their vegetable garden. I would help them plant the seeds, water and weed it, and pick the beautiful fruits of our labors. I admit that there were times I was less than excited to help out, but I mostly remember spending time with my family and eating from the garden. You have to admit, nothing compares to fresh vegetables straight from your back yard to the kitchen. Not only did it teach me hard work and nutrition, but it instilled in me a passion that I hope to enjoy for as long as I am capable of doing it.
I haven't been able to grow a garden at any other place that we have lived, so I couldn't wait to start my own vegetable garden. I decided I wanted to get a head start, so I planted seeds inside first. Although I haven't had as much luck as I hoped, I can't tell you how excited I was to see this cute little baby tomato plant pop up. I have since planted more seeds in hopes of having more success, so I guess only time can tell what is to come. Either way, I'm so excited to experiment with my little garden this year.

My lone Roma tomato plant.

I also love flowers. My wonderful husband knows that my favorite flowers are lilies, so he surprised me after work with these beautiful Easter Lilies.

Aubree's birthday and a wedding

Aubree's birthday was last Saturday (March 8th), but it was also the day that Aubree's sister Amber was getting married. Because we were going to be spending the majority of Aubree's birthday helping with the wedding, we decided to celebrate her birthday one week early. We went out to dinner at the Mandarin in Bountiful (the best Chinese food in Davis County). Aubree ordered the entire meal: won ton soup, three taste shrimp, and spicy garlic lamb. It was awesome food! After eating, I took Aubree shopping. She bought a shirt, a sweater, and a necklace. We finished off the night by watching a "chick flick" at home.

Last weekend, we went to Aubree's hometown of Grace, Idaho for her sister's wedding. The night before the wedding, we made several batches of brownies (for the wedding lunch) and set up tables, chairs, and decorations at the church. Amber and Eric were married the next morning. After the wedding ceremony, we had a wedding lunch at the church. We then cleaned up the chairs, tables, and wedding decorations and, of course, decorated the bride and groom's cars. We had a good time visiting with family and celebrating Amber and Eric's marriage.

Here are a couple pictures of the wedding, although we don't really have any good pictures because we were busy helping with everything rather than taking pictures.

Eric and Amber

Amber and Aubree

After the wedding, we still had some time to celebrate Aubree's birthday (again). We drove to Logan and ate at the Indian Oven (chicken tikka masala, shrimp coconut kurma, and lots of naan). We also stopped at the mall so that Aubree could buy herself some more birthday presents: several bottles of lotion and soap from Bath & Body Works.

While we were driving from Grace to Logan, we saw this unbelievable sunset (the picture doesn't do it justice). Aubree was happy to have such a beautiful sunset for her birthday.

Baby Wes

My brother Ben and his wife Amy had their second baby a few weeks ago. They named him Wes Jon Gittins. Last weekend, we were able to visit Baby Wes for the first time. Here are some pics:

Baby Wes (showing off his hat that Aubree knitted for him).

Me holding Baby Wes.

Aubree holding Baby Wes.
Kelsey (Wes's big sister who takes good care of him)

Playing catch up

Well, we have really neglected our blog the last few months. Between the bar exam, moving, starting new jobs, our computer crashing, and just staying busy, we haven't done a good job of keeping up to date. So now we are playing catch up. This entry will hopefully summarize the missed months.

July 2007
Jeff spent most of July studying for the bar exam. Luckily, his firm was willing to pay him full
salary while he studied, even though he didn't work at all during July. On July 24th and 25th (yep, he was stuck in a room taking an exam on the 24th of July) he took the Utah bar exam. It may have been the worst two days of his life.
July was also spent finishing up our home purchase. We got the house (pictured in the previous post) in Farmington, Utah. We closed on the house two days after the bar exam and moved in a few days later. We owe a big thanks to both of our parents for helping us move on last minute's notice.

August 2007
Throughout the month, we slowly moved in to our new home. Aubree transferred to the Shopko pharmacy in Bountiful. Jeff started his job at the Utah Supreme Court.
We also took a short trip to Seattle for the annual Basque Elders Reunion. Every year, Jeff gets together with some of his missionary companions from his days in Basque Country. This year, we traveled to Seattle to the home of Jon and Emily Burnette. It was a lot of fun visiting the Seattle area and visiting with friends.



























September 2007
We sold Aubree's Chevy Lumina for a whopping $600. We felt lucky to get that much out of it. It came without hubcaps but with lots of dents (courtesy of an unfortunate deer that got in Aubree's way a few years ago). For the first time in our marriage, we purchased a new car (at least it's new to us)--a 2005 Toyota Camry. It's a big step up from the Lumina!



























October 2007
Jeff found out that he passed the Utah bar exam and he was officially admitted into the Utah Bar.

November 2007
We celebrated our five year anniversary by taking a short trip. We went to Utah County and spent the day doing "activities of compromise": Aubree agreed to go golfing with Jeff at Hobble Creek during the day, and then Jeff agreed to go to a musical (Thoroughly Modern Millie) with Aubree at night. We also spent Sunday visiting our niece Katelyn. Also, to celebrate our anniversary, Aubree made Jeff a cherry pie. This may seem insignificant, but ever since we got married, Aubree has been promising to make Jeff a cherry pie because it's his favorite dessert. Finally, after five years, she made good on her promise!

December 2007
We enjoyed decorating our home for Christmas. We hadn't had a Christmas tree in four years, and we never really decorated our apartment, but since we had a house, we finally figured it was worth getting out all the decorations and getting a tree. We had a great Christmas and were able to visit both families. We spent Christmas morning opening presents with Jeff's family, then spent Christmas afternoon eating and playing Guitar Hero with Aubree's family.

































January 2008
Just work and more work. Jeff decided he needed something more to do, so he took a part-time job teaching night classes at Utah Career College. He teaches two paralegal classes on Mondays and Wednesdays.

February 2008

Two weekends ago, we took a quick trip down to St. George to get out of the snow. We had never been to a session in the St. George temple, so we made sure to do that. We also went on a tour of Brigham Young's home, went to a movie, went shopping at the outlet stores, and just relaxed. It was also a good opportunity to several people from Jeff's mission. We had lunch in Cedar City with Stan and Barbara Shakespeare, a senior missionary couple Jeff served with in Las Arenas. We visited Jeff's mission president and his wife in their gorgeous new home in St. George. We also visited one of Jeff's companions, Jared Cope, and his wife Arianne in Cedar City. It was Jared and Arianne that introduced us to Settlers of Catan a few years ago, so it was only appropriate that we played a game of Settlers with them (Aubree wants it noted that she won). On our way home, we stopped and spent Sunday with Jared, Ginger, and Katelyn in Aurora.






















There, now we're up to date! We'll try not to fall so far behind in the future.