This Little Piggy

Wes once said to me:

"This little piggy went to the market,
This little piggy stayed home,
This little piggy had tofu,
This little piggy had none..."

Well, I thought it was funny. This is basically all that I have to show for being an art student this past quarter. I am in a ridiculously easy online course called "Art in Elementary School," and this past week my assignment was to make a puppet from a nursery rhyme. I chose little piggy. And here she is:




My other classes have been very abstract theory and history based stuff. They've been interesting but I'm definitely ready for something new. Spring quarter ends in two weeks, and we'll be celebrating our three year anniversary. Can't wait!
Hope you all are having a lovely Memorial Day Weekend!

Something to Watch...

A Toast to Summer!

The weather has been nice. The sun is up early and stays out late. Summer plans have been made and our list of "must-do's" has been taking shape. I just can't help but share with you some of the things we are most excited for as well as my latest summer-inspired cocktail of choice. We have 2-3 weeks left of spring quarter and then our summer will begin to unfold......

- a trip to Mcmenamins Edgefield hotel to pamper ourselves and celebrate our 3 year anniversary.

- Sondre Lerche show with Caleb and Nina.

-Ashley Whipple visits!

-We meet up with my family to go camping.

-I get to visit home to spend time with my family and also to attend Rebekah's baby shower.

-And then lastly, we get to finish off our summer with Sue, Greg, Scott, and Bekah. We will be attending a Shakespeare play in Ashland and then kicking it at a beach house in Brookings.

To say we are excited for all this fun is an understatement. We can't wait for another awesome summer in Portland: picnics at Jameson Square, camping trips, food carts, and making fun drinks like this one:

My new discovery is, gingerale with bourbon and an orange peel. Try it! It's quite tasty! :) What are your summer plans I wonder?

Fish with Orzo Pasta

Most nights, around 5ish (after school and work) Wes and I (let me rephrase, I ) will start a conversation of "What should we have for dinner tonight?" We both love food. We both enjoy dreaming up a delicious menu, however, its that little planner in me that umm, well, has actually been thinking about dinner all day and just wants the husband to catch up to speed come actual dinner planning time. So, the conversation usually proceeds like this:

W: "I don't know, what do you feel like having?"
K: "I'm up for anything, what do you feel like having?"

-assessment of evening plans takes place- are we going to coffee? how much homework do we have? what do we have time for?

Answering these questions will usually cut our options into one of two categories: recipe cooking, or packaged cooking. By "recipe cooking" I mean, if we have the time we will usually bust open our favorite cookbook and try something new that we are in the mood for. By "packaged cooking" I mean the: rice in a box, fake meat, frozen foods type-o-stuff.

Last night the above conversation happened and we realized:
a. we don't have much homework
b. we have a very clean kitchen (perfect for cooking up fresh ingredients)

I confessed to having orzo pasta on my brain ever since eating it for the second time in my life at this amazing restaurant last weekend. So, we started with orzo pasta. My only hesitation was "what do we have with it?" Coming up with vegetarian proteins are usually easy for me, but sometimes I feel completely uninspired and just want meat. Good ol' animaaaal protein. Wes some how sensed this (or perhaps it was completely coincidental) and said we could eat fish with our Orzo. And from that point on, the menu just kept getting better. Wes found us two amazing recipes: one for our orzo and for our fish. (click the words to view the recipes) Then, as I was leaving for the grocery store Wes says "Get a Pinot too." I didn't think this night could get any better when I receive a phone call while at the grocery store. It was Wes, "Please get some tea cookies so we can have tea and cookies with a movie tonight." COOKIES? MOVIE?? I was wrong. The night apparently could get better. :)

If its not apparent to you by this point: I love cooking, I love wine, and I love cookies. Nights like these are such a treat. With how busy and school heavy our lives are, a night like this is usually planned ahead of time, so a spur of the moment movie night is bliss.

Our dinner turned out amazing. I would highly suggest this orzo pasta recipe. For fish we just got trout because we liked the idea of cooking whole fish (and this was the only whole fish offered).



Dinner was huge success and for the movie we watched 3:10 to Yuma. Wes' favorite western and a movie I had been wanting to see for quite a while. It was all quite good. Happy almost friday to you all!

Our Life Lately...

This past week was quite eventful for us Northwestern Scoville's. We had our friend Rachelle visit us from Seattle while at the same time our car broke down (again). For some reason or another it is always I who(whom?) happens to be with the car when something bad happens to it. Fortunately, the situation could have been much worse and to make a long story short, our car battery needed to be replaced. We made due while Rachelle was here, but it was very bad timing. I'm thankful Rachelle is used to walking and busing all over Seattle or I would've felt much worse than I already did. At one point Rachelle and I were caught in a downpour in which neither of us had hoods, umbrellas or proper rain shoes. By the time we arrived back to the house our shoes were slushy and hair quite a mess. Also, yet again I managed to not take a single picture while hanging out with Rachelle. Anyway, we all had a really great time together. She visited primarily because a band she loves was in town (The Shook Twins) so after watching them perform on Tuesday, we spent Wednesday eating breakfast at Jam, visiting Powell's, shopping at Anthropologie, and watching a movie at the Kennedy School. Of course no trip to Portland would be complete with out a trip to voodoo donuts! For the first time ever I got something interesting rather than a tradition chocolate. This time I got a chocolate donut with rice krispies (the cereal) on top with a drizzle of peanut butter. Happy to branch out a bit but I think next time I'll still stick with the classics. Rachelle got something called "the Grape Ape" which was a grape and lavender donut. She liked it, and Wes liked his "Old Dirty Bastard" as well.




(I didn't take these pictures, just found them on google.)

To finish off our week we went out to a spur of the moment dinner lastnight. Wish I had a picture of that to share with you but I don't. I will say that we had such a fun time. We went to a newly discovered restaurant called Clyde Common which was about as perfect as could be. Hope you all have had an amazing weekend. Wishing you crazy donuts and yummy wine (not together of course)!!!

I miss...

MY BESTFRIENDS!

It has been 17 months since these pictures of all 4 of us were taken. That was the last time we all sat around the same table together. I have known Cory since she was born basically. Marisa and I were inseparable ever since freshman year of high school; and Ashley entered the picture about 8 years ago.

Cory is off in Paris, and Marisa and Ashley are in San Diego. We have all changed so much since our days of high school and somehow we still manage to stay connected. We have the world's longest thread of messages on Facebook (seriously, this October we will hit 3 years of one continuous thread). We've been through the thick, and the thin and I trust that we will be this way forever.

Skyping with Cory

I love you ladies and miss you. I would give anything to have all of us sit down together over a cup of coffee... someday.
Proud of you girls!

Sun!

Today was the closest thing to summer we've had this year. I don't know what the temperature was but I wasn't cold and I was in a tshirt, sporting the sunglasses. The weather was so nice that my art class actually moved to the roof of the art building where it was definitely hot, and quite sunny. The trees are turning green, the bugs are out, and blue birds are nesting directly next to our kitchen window (or well, they were, we are wondering if they abandoned it due to a stalking cat). I am counting down! One month until spring quarter is over. One month until Wes and I spend a much needed weekend at Edgefield pampering ourselves in honor of our 3 year anniversary.

An old picture of us at Rachel & Anthony's wedding

We are excited for all the summer vacations we have planned. I am also especially excited for:
-tank tops
-visitors
-camping trips
-and checking things off our growing list of "Things to do during our last full summer in Portland!" We do in fact have a list hanging on our fridge. :)
Love and happy weather to you all!