I like this horse.

Nat Geo photo of the day.

The Washington Monument

During the earthquake that hit DC back in August, the Washington Monument was cracked on the pyramid part. When I drove in to work this morning, as I do most mornings, I get a great view of the monument.

Today, I noticed something... do you see it? That little bump near the point IS A MAN. There are riggers up there examining the structure, they've secured ropes down each side of the monumnet. I have NO CLUE what they're holding on to! The view must be incredible, but talk about scary!! I almost missed my green light, I just sat at the light staring as the man moved around the top!

Why are baby animals SO CUTE?!

Cookies ~ Zoo ~ Cookies

Mint Chocolate CrinklesThese turned out nicely. Next time I'm going to add chocolate chunks so they'll be nice and melty and make the cookies 3 inches across (instead of one inch).

I used this recipe but added a teaspoon of peppermint extract, and found they didn't really need to sit in the fridge- I tried it both ways and both resulted in the same amount of tastiness.


My recent trip to the ZOO
My friend Jon and I went to the zoo. Before we even walked in the gate I made him help me come up with a contingency plan in case any of the lions or tigers were able to escape from their enclosures. This quickly became the how to escape a gorilla attack when an obnoxious child threw a stick into the gorilla enclosure, waking a sleeping gorilla who leapt to his feet and starred at the stick that entered his domain. I thought that gorilla was gonna jump out of the enclosure. Scary! The funny part is, we actually were involved in an animal attack of sorts at the zoo. Jon himself got a little too close to a flat billed pink bird that came up to our knees. The bird had free reign of the Amazon house, and when Jon tried to pet it, it tried to eat Jon.

Here is Jon with the bird, before things got dicey...

Honey Peanut Butter Oatmeal Zoo Cookies
Named Zoo Cookies in honor of my recent Zoo trip, these cookies were more along the lines of Shopping Mall cookie bars than anything else, as I threw in several random ingredients. It was about 9pm when I decided to make these cookies, and I just wasn't feeling super inclined to using measuring devices with the sticky ingredients. Therefore, I mostly just guessed with my eyeballs and tossed stuff into the Kitchen-Aid Mixer that belongs to my roommate (the fastest way to mix anything and saves you from a tired arm). I sort of followed this recipe but made several changes, here are the ingredients I used:

• 3/4 cup shortening
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup honey
  
• 1 1/2 cups peanut butter
• 2 cups packed brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups quick cooking oats
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  

I couldn't really taste the cinammon in the finished product... Next time, I'll half the honey and double the cinnamon. These cookies turned out super moist- with the perfect filling, they'd make an ideal oatmeal cream pie cookie. :)

I flew!

My friend Jimmy had a birthday back in May, so Andrew and I pitched in to buy him flying lessons! We got some for ourselves, too... :)

It was a pleasant morning, light fluffy clouds int he air. I've never felt so free as I did right when we took off from the airport in Maryland and headed to the Chesapeake Bay. I took this picture on my iPhone of Jimmy in his place (Andrew's plane was on the other side of me).
That was also quite fun, flying side by side with my buddies. Our instructors did some tricks around each other right here in our planes, and it was super neat. I definitely recommend flying to everyone!

(of course, the last 10 minutes I felt extremely queasy, but the guys could have flown for days- they loved it).

Happy B-day Jimmy!

BYU Football

I missed the BYU vs Utah football on Saturday because of the wedding... only to hear later that they lost tragically and horribly to Utah by some absurd score (10 - 50?)

Anyway, it was still a surprise to me when I got to work and found THIS on my desk!

Seriously, I have no idea (and still don't) of who put this on my desk. I grilled a few people, but no one is fessing up! So I retaliated in the only way I know how...

No hard feelings, U of U... but mystery insulter deserves a taste of mischief right back at him (or her... seriously, who did it?!)

Binh's wedding

I flew to San Francisco for a day for my friend Binh's wedding! I was literally in SF for 11 hours total, the entire trip equaling approximately 26 hours total with flights.

Binh and Lexie!
Derrick and me

Me and Abby
The venue was City Hall in SF, they got married in this same room under the rotunda, Lexie walked down the stairs and looked like royalty! It was so beautiful! Bryce was there too, but I didn't get a pic with him on my iPhone... it was great to see everyone! Glad I could be there for the celebration. :)

Watch my knights!