Easter! (a bit late)

Easter is one of my favorite holidays!  My grandfather was Russian (and Easter is a big deal in the Russian culture) so we always had lots of family around with lots of traditions.  My favorite one is Shashlik, or lamb skewers.  I have watched my grandfather, mother and brother all make the delicious dish every year, but I have never had to make it myself (one of the perks of having so many amazing cooks in my family).  This year Jeff and I decided to host Jeff's family for Easter.  This meant that I was in charge of cooking the lamb.  I was a bit nervous that I would ruin it and that Jeff's family wouldn't like the food (this was new to them).  Luckily my mom and brother were just a phone call away.

This is a picture of the finished product, just not mine.  It is from my brother because I forgot to take a picture of mine when it was done.  I told you he was good!

Ingredients

Marinating!

Jeff's mom helped me put the meat on the skewers.

 

Here is the table all set for the meal.

I had a wonderful time sharing my family tradition with Jeff's family.  Also, the good news is that I didn't ruin it and it tasted as good as ever!  I can't wait to try making it again next year!

Spring time and Hiking!

It is spring time and we are both so excited for the nicer weather!  We were so excited that we decided to go on a hike.  We started at Tibble Fork reservoir because the road was closed to the trail head we had originally wanted to start our hike.  Somehow this always seems to happen.  We planned on a four mile hike and ended up going twice as far and about 2 miles of it was in heavy snow.  Oh well, it was beautiful and we got a great workout.  

This is where we finally stopped.  It was the trail head we were suppose to start at originally.  We found out quickly why the road was closed.

A picnic table is the best place to have lunch!

Sometimes Jeff sinks in the snow.

 

We love being in the mountains and look forward to many more adventures this year!

Just a Quick Trip

Last weekend Jeff and I took a quick trip down to Cedar City and Saint George.  Jeff's parents have a time share down in Saint George so we decided to spend a little time with them over the weekend.  Here are some of the highlights.

Jeff's brother is going to school down at SUU so we stopped off for the night and took him out to dinner.  He loves sushi (and so do we) so we went out for sushi.  We always like to try something new so we ordered an octopus and cucumber salad.  It actually tasted pretty good.

Here is Jeff eating the salad.  Pretty!

The next day we wanted to go hiking so we found a city trail that ran though Cedar Canyon.  It ran along the river and was beautiful.  There was a race that day and we were a bit in the way, but we were glad that we walked farther then the racers ran!  We were tough because we made it to the end. 

Along the trail there was a place to do some cross training so clearly I had to try it out.

Jeff's brother showed us around his campus and I even got to see the Adam's Theater.  It is a reproduction of the Globe Theater.  Sometimes I miss being on stage.

Jeff wanted to have another adventure of his own.  He had researched about these giant arrows and wanted to see one.  He took me on random dirt roads that didn't go anywhere.  Finally he had to get out and hike up a mountain to find the arrow.  I was not as interested so I stayed in the car and enjoyed his pictures later.

Well, once we got to Saint George it was rather late.  I did some shopping with Jeff's mom (I bought new running shoes!), went out for dinner and then went swimming in the pool.  The next day was Sunday so we just had a quiet morning at the condo before packing up and heading home.  It was a short, but sweet weekend.