The Johnson Clan

Tomorrow is our ward Halloween party, so we had to get cracking on these costumes. We blasted the Halloween playlist on Pandora while we worked, and we made brownies for needed boosts of stamina. It took a long time, but I think they turned out awesome!

We have found a new favorite restaurant! We were driving home from the Riverwoods last night when we drove by this restaurant on the side of the road named Spicy Thai. Thai food sounded really good at the moment, so I convinced Clayton to turn around. Gotta love spontaneity. Clayton's never been a huge fan of Thai food, but he hasn't really given it much of a chance. He ordered the spicy pineapple curry and I ordered the sweet potato curry. Both were so good that we agreed we would come back soon. The last time that Dani and I took a road trip down to San Diego to see my aunt Anna and her family we had thai take out. For dessert they had ordered sticky rice with coconut and mango, and it was so amazing that I'm pretty sure I ate most of it. So imagine my excitement when I found out that Spicy Thai has the same dessert! We were too full on curry to order a dessert, but I might make a special trip there just for sticky rice with coconut and mango. Today Dani and...

Back in Elizabethian days, acting and stage performances were very different from how they are today. There were no producers. No costume designers, so every costume was made of whatever the actor had on hand. The audience was very interactive. They'd cheer, boo, they'd converse with the actors on stage, etc.  There wasn't very much rehearsal time, most stage groups were brought together from a week in advance to the morning of the show and they would "rehearse". There was a lot of improvisation.  Well the Grassroots Shakespeare Company tries to make their plays as authentic as possible.  We had been to a Grassroots play before in Salt Lake, I think we saw McBeth that time. This time it was the tale of Doctor Faustus, a greedy magician willing to sell his soul to the devil for fame and fortune. It was an awesome play! The actors are so energetic and funny. We brought some blankets and hot chocolate, making it the perfect pre-Halloween date. Th...

Last night was our wards monthly temple night. Clayton got home a little late from work and found me still asleep from a nap that was supposed to end an hour earlier, so we were a little late. We drove to the church where we were supposed to meet up with everyone, but I guess they left earlier. So we just went by ourselves, which is just fine. You can't really ruin a temple date. Afterward we drove by Taco Bell because our cupboards are a little on the bare side.  Meal planning kind of stinks. It takes a long time, it's hard to find easy recipes, and cooking the food takes forever. The down side is though that since I haven't been cooking lately we've been eating like homeless people. I actually feel unhealthy.  As far as good news goes, I have an interview next Wednesday with Professor Birmingham. It's a social psychology research assistant position, which would be great to have on my resume. I guess we'll see how it goes. 

Today I went to the hospital to do my volunteering, just like every Wednesday night. Unlike the usual Wednesday night though, tonight was the Halloween Dance. It was supposed to be next week, but the program directors decided to move it up a week so that we could have a Halloween party next week. Working for a mental hospital sounds like such a party. Of course no one informed us that we were having a dance, so we were slightly shocked to see all the patients walk in with scary costumes on. Really scary. Actually, I'm not positive that some of them actually did dress up, which is my insensitive way of stating that some of the patients appearances gives me the goose bumps on a normal, non-halloween costume party day. Insensitive, but true. We danced for over two hours, they LOVED it. Some of them were copying what we were doing, some were off in a corner dancing by themselves, and some just stood around and watched. I mentioned my new friend Joe who is a patient at the hospital. We...

For weeks Clayton and I have been trying to think of what to be for Halloween. Our friend Nathan came up with the brilliant idea of getting a group of our friends to all be giant cereal boxes. He's going to be Mini Spooners, I'm going to be Life, and Mckenzie and Clayton don't know what cereal box they will parade around in yet. We needed some cardboard boxes to make our costumes with, so tonight we invited over our friends, drank some hot chocolate, caught up a little, and then we went driving around Provo to do what we do best. Dumpster Diving.  We hit the jackpot with this lovely blue dumpster behind a craft store. Huge cardboard boxes galore were stacked in there. Some of the smaller ones fit in the trunk, the others got to ride in the back. As did Mckenzie and I. It was pretty cramped, but I'm glad we found so many to work with. Now all we need is lots of paints and a free night to create our masterpieces. Or plan B is to use the printer in ...

On Monday we went to Outback for Dinner. We love Outback.  This is Clayton drinking his 'mini' shake. Tuesdays are my longest days. I have my first class at 8 AM and then I have work until 11 PM. I have a few hours in between school and work though, during which we had friends over for dinner yesterday. I am a volunteer at the Utah State Hospital. It used to be called a mental asylum, but they changed the name so that it wouldn't be as alarming. The patients there, although a little scary sometimes, are really fun. They all have such interesting personalities, and they're always excited to play games on Wednesday nights. One guy at the hospital is named Joe. The first time I met him he hobbled right up to me and said "Now that's a woman! I used to date a girl in high school who looks just like you!" (He's probably in his 40's now.) We raced motorized cars and airplanes tonight for about a hour and a half, and then they had to go bac...

We decided that it was time for some hair cuts around here. About a million inches later I have shorter hair than I've had in years! Shout out to my sister Dani, the amazing hair cutter! Before:  (We forgot to take a before picture, but we took this one a couple weeks ago when we went to a roof top concert with our friends Anna and Cameron.) After:

This morning we woke up for Clayton's volleyball game. Sadly, the other team forfeited so we left to go back home. It was our good luck though because there were free blue pancakes on the way home! YAY, for all the free things during Homecoming week at BYU!!!  The parade went right past our house so we got to watch the whole thing from our front windows.  After the parade is over we have to study for exams, go to Dani's to get hair cuts, and then I have work until 11 tonight. 

       Ingredients:  1 pound ground beef chuck 1 medium onion, chopped 1 garlic clove, minced 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme 2 tablespoons ketchup 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour 1 box (10 ounces) frozen mixed vegetables (no need to thaw) Coarse salt and ground pepper 3 cups mashed potatoes Dinner and re-run conference sessions Let's just say it was a success. 

From time to time I come home from work or school completely frazzled because I have so much to do in a limited amount of time. This is a pretty common occurrence considering I'm taking 17 credit hours of classes and working about 20 hours a week. And by common I mean that I come home in this stressed out state at least once a week, sometimes more. When I am in that mood there is only one solution, which is to sit myself down and get a ton of work done really fast. It's great because it's really productive and I'm super focused. However, I think that it puts Clayton on edge haha. So whenever I get into my "I need to get things done!" mood, Clayton drops whatever he is doing and cleans our apartment. I know, he is absolutely the best husband a girl could ask for. And it gets better, he often makes me brownies too. 

For the past two days we have been streaming General Conference onto our laptops. 10 hours of greatness! Today in between sessions we had Matt and Stephanie over for lunch. I made meatball subs and Stephanie made some awesome pasta salad with avocados. We chatted, played two rounds of catch phrase, and then continued the conference watching. This year I felt like the speakers were very pointed and straight forward in their remarks, which is exactly what I think everyone needed to hear. Loved it.  Summer has been turning to Fall around here, so after conference we decided to go drive the Alpine Loop. All of the trees that change colors around here on the mountains makes the Alpine Loop a beautiful sunday afternoon drive. 

One of our goals for this year was to learn basic car maintenance. You know, like filling fluids, changing/rotating tires, changing oil, etc. Well we haven't been as proactive at learning those skills as we thought we would be until today when it became necessary. A little over a year ago I bought this lemon of a car. I had it checked by three reliable sources when I went to check it out, but I knew VERY little about cars at that time so I had no idea I was totally getting taken advantage of. I basically paid some strangers on KSL thousands of dollars to take their trash out for them. Anyway, since then I have spent more time with my favorite mechanic in Provo than I have with many of my friends. I've learned terms, schedules, and the workings of my car, and I've spent many fun hours sitting in the waiting room of Hay's reading National Geographic while Fritz (the car) was being worked on.  The night before my wedding I parked Fritz outside of my sister's...

Today Clayton and I went to get a couples massage at the Massage Cabin. Oh. My. Goodness. My body died and went to heaven. I have never before been so relaxed with a stranger touching my bare body. I'll admit at first I thought it was a little weird when we pulled up to the cabin. And maybe I thought it was uncomfortable when we undressed and laid on the massage tables. But as soon as those hands touched my shoulders I melted. That hour was the fastest hour of my life!  

My friend from work, Maria, is a PR student at BYU. She also writes the occasional article for The Digital Universe, one of BYU's news sources. At the beginning of the semester Maria and I signed up for the fitness classes that the BYU gym sells, and Maria decided to write an article on the ratio of men to women in the classes. She asked my to give a couple remarks on how I feel about having men work out with me in the class.  Well, about two weeks ago at work she asked me if I thought that Derek, another co worker, would be willing to pose as a model for pictures that would go in her article. She was going to a funny meme theme where he would wear wacky clothes and make creepy faces. I right away volunteered Clayton. He loves that kind of stuff.  I ended up being in the pictures to, as requested by the photographer, and now you can see our faces in the newspaper form and the internet site of the Digital Universe! Whoo hoo! What'd I tell ya, we're famous! Here...