Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Cafe Rio in Virginia

One thing I really miss living in the east is any good Mexican food...especially Cafe Rio. When I first moved here I started making and rolling out my own tortillas. For Christmas, Tim got me a tortilla press and found some homemade Cafe Rio recipes which we tried out last weekend. They just aren't the same, but everything did turn out pretty delicious!

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

It's been a while

I've been so busy lately, but a few weekends ago Tim and I went to the National Gallery Art Museum. I love impressionist art, so we went to the pre 1900 building and saw Monet, Renoir, Degas, Surat, and more. Last weekend I took a trip to Utah for my good friend Lindsay's wedding in SLC. She made a beautiful bride, and it was so much fun to have some of the high school group together again. Best Wishes, Lindsay!

The other half of my weekend in Utah was spent with family. I stayed with TJ and Kristen and had a wonderful time with their adorable kids! My parents even drove up to see us. As you can tell, Kate cheeses it for pictures, and Jonas is just adorable. In the mornings when I got up, Jonas would stand up and raise his arms so excited to give me loves while Kate yelled "Tanaya!" I love those kids!

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Christmas Celebrations

It's been a while since I've posted, but we celebrated a lot for Christmas this year...
The Larsen siblings (and spouses) had a Fondue party and gift exchange!

Tim got a nice work shirt for when he has to wear big kids clothes, and I got some nice kitchen stuff.
We also had to go see the temple lights. The DC temple is actually pretty well know for their Christmas lights and programs. They have some type of program in their visitor center every night of December. We got to see piano player Marvin Goldstein. It was really neat!
They also had nativities from all around the world.

At home, we had our own celebration and opened some gifts we couldn't take on a plane. Our favorite gift is a new TV thanks to both sets of parents :)
And my favorite: Christmas in St. George! We almost didn't make it with all the airline problems, but it made me enjoy it even more once I was there. We had a great time playing Wii and making a gingerbread/graham cracker house, but I mostly just enjoyed time with the nieces and nephews! We got Kate and Makayla hair glitter for Christmas, and the top picture in the collage is of Kate putting some in Tim's hair...so pretty!

Before leaving, we visited the Dinosaur track museum. For those of you who haven't been there, a land developing company found raised prints when turning over some large rocks in deep soil. What happened is that when dinosaurs stepped in the sand, their prints were filled in with water and sand that hardened, so it is like a mold of their feet. They are really helpful for paleontologists, and St. George is now a cool place for them.