Craft Night

My friend Lacey and I had a craft night a couple days ago! We had a fun time watching movies, eating pizza, staying inside warm from the snow, and being crafty. She painted a super cute board to hang in her house and I made an "I love you because..." sign. You write on the glass in dry-erase marker. Both turned out way cute! Take a look!

I kept getting paint on my hands, hence the gloves. I don't know why I was making that face though. No explanation for that one.

Our projects in progress!

All finished!!

Ceeellllebrate good times, C'MON!

We have cause to celebrate here in the Larsen house- Keith is OFFICIALLY graduated! He's waiting to walk until April but his diploma came in the mail yesterday! I am SO proud of him.

His degree is in geography with an emphasis in geographic information systems. I still don't really know what that means, but I know he's smart! To celebrate I made these super yummy bars (but please excuse the picture- I am in no way a good photographer):

That is a layer of brownies- from SCRATCH! and a peanut butter filling all topped with chocolate ganache. mmmm. I just ate one and cannot even stand to eat another because it was so rich. This recipe is definitely one for the records. It kind of tastes like a Reese's peanut butter cup but in a brownie bar. I'm not the only one who has been learning new recipes though. This past Monday Keith let me teach him how to make manicotti. It turned out great except that I bought Hunt's sauce and I didn't like it as much as others. That's weird though that I could even tell a difference because I'm usually not that picky. Anyway, more camera-phone pictures:

Other than dabbling with cooking, our life has been pretty quiet. Busy but quiet. I'll be starting my clinical hospital time any day now and that will be awesome but crazy. 12-hour shifts in the ER, OR, ICU, and labor & delivery until I reach 270 hours. Hopefully I will learn a lot and have fun doing it. My fire rides don't start until April. Then I'll be doing eight 48-hour shifts at the fire station. I guess I'm trying to say that I'm enjoying the quiet time now because it's not going to last long!! It's a common joke among recently graduated paramedics that upon graduating they had to reintroduce themselves to their spouse. I'm not looking forward to that, but I have a strong conviction that I'm where I'm supposed to be and doing what I'm supposed to do. But WOOHOO for surviving the first semester of my program!! Now that's another good cause to celebrate. I guess it's time to go eat another brownie :)

...I can't think of a title.

We have been pretty darn busy here in the Larsen house. This week we worked on "new year cleaning." It felt great to do that extra bit of deep cleaning and really do what we could to get rid of more than just your everyday dirt and grime. We bought our very first mop too! Kinda gross to think we went 5 months without a mop. We had just been using Clorox wipes on the floor, but it was about time our floor got a good scrub with something a little more heavy duty.

School is getting super fun now. We've been working on mega codes so much that now they're just fun. Not scary. I actually like running them. It's kind of like a puzzle or a mystery. Figuring out why they're sick or why they're vitals/EKG/symptoms are what they are. It's just fun to figure out how to fix a person and have a team looking to you for direction. I definitely still have a lot to learn but at least I am doggie-paddling my way through now rather than drowning.

Keith is loving his job at In-N-Out. We're expecting big things from him there. Last night we were able to go up to the Salt Lake temple. I had never been (other than visits to Temple Square) and I'm so glad we went! It was actually the first time Keith and I went to the temple together since we've been married. I know- pathetic. But we're making it a goal to go once a month. Since we live in Utah we really have no excuse. There's a ton of temples here. It was a different experience last night because it was so empty. There was hardly anyone there. It was cool but different. I love date night with him :)

It's taken forever to get here but it's finally really winter now here in Utah. We woke up to a few inches of snow yesterday. I really hope that doesn't mean we're going to get a late start to our summer too. I love snow at Christmastime but after that...I like the warmth. We are totally in the wrong state. It's a good excuse to wear comfy, warm, cozy clothes though and I'm always OK with that!