your last meal

Andrew and I were catching up on past episodes of one of our favorite shows, "Top Chef." Last week's episode was all about what these famous chefs would eat for their very last meal. It made us think about what we would want for our last meal.

Andrew had a difficult time deciding, but finally said that it would be a roast turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce.

I knew immediately that mine would be macaroni and cheese! I would have to decide if I would want the original,

or the fancy stuff?

What would you want for your last meal?

Happy President's Day!

This weekend Andrew's parents and little sister came in town to visit. We are always excited to have people come to visit because it gives us an excuse to do lots of fun things.

We went to brunch at this really great place in Manhattan Beach, The Kettle. Their blueberry muffins were ridiculously good!

We also went out to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. There was an Arts and Crafts display that Annette wanted to see. It was really cool. (no pictures though.) Just outside the museum was the La Brea Tar pits. So we quickly walked around. It was pretty interesting. This is looking into one of the excavation pits.
More tar pits.

We also hung out with this big bear.

We also went to the California Science Museum. I have been there before, but it is a really cool museum. There is a lot of stuff to see and do there! Right now the special exhibition was CSI: The Experience. We got to solve a crime!

It rained all weekend long! This picture is supposed to show the flooding in the planter outside of our apartment. You can't really see it very well, but if you look at the sprinkler thing in the upper right corner you can see how high the water is.

Because of the rain and cold we stopped to get hot chocolate at Leonidas. It was delicious!

Thanks for the fun visit Jarvis family! Come again soon!

Back to Pasadena

After we got back from New Orleans it was time to drive back home and end our great vacation. Unfortunately Andrew had to fly straight to work in Tulsa. But my mom was nice enough to drive back with me so I didn't have to drive alone. We left pretty early, trying to beat the snow storms that were coming. We weren't quite able to do that. We hit a pretty bad storm in the Cedar City area (again). It slowed us down quite a bit, but not too much. Luckily we made it through it and back home in pretty good time.

My mom stayed for the entire week. It was great to have her around. We spent a lot of time just hanging around the apartment and going shopping at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods.

We decided that while my mom was here we definitely had to go to In-N-Out for a delicious lunch.

And then we had a delicious dessert of cupcakes from Crumbs bake shop.

It was a great week and I was so happy that my mom was able to stay and hang out for awhile. Thanks Mom!!

New Orleans - Day 4 - L9W

Our final day in New Orleans. We had an 11:00 flight back to Salt Lake, so we had a little bit of time in the morning to do a little more exploring. I really wanted to drive around and see some of the remaining destruction from Hurricane Katrina and what was being done to rebuild the area.

We decided to go to the Lower 9th Ward, which was the hardest hit area. I know there is a lot of controversy about whether it is "appropriate" to drive around the destruction or not. A lot of people feel that it is not a tourist attraction and instead of driving around looking, you should get out and help. I agree with this to a point, but at the same time, I think it is important for people to see the destruction that did take place. Anyway, here is what we saw:

This was a KFC building that was all boarded up with visible damage remaining.

Most of the houses have not been repaired yet.

All of the houses had markings like this on them. I researched the markings to find out what they all meant. They had an extensive code to label when the house had been searched, who searched it, and what they found. Many, like this one, had something about dead pets that had been found inside.

We took this picture for Joe, the leading mold expert.

Along with the destruction, we wanted to see the various projects that were taking place to rebuild the area.

Musicians Village is a rebuild project by Harry Connick Jr. It is a place for artists and musicians in the area. We thought we had found it and took this picture, but then found out that this actually wasn't it. But it does look something like this with the very colorful homes.

We did successfully find some Make it Right homes. This is probably the most well known rebuild project, because it is lead by Brad Pitt. These homes were very interesting.

Seeing the redevelopment that was taking place was a great positive note to end the trip. We quickly headed to the airport and we were on our way home.

The whole trip was amazing! I loved the city of New Orleans. It is so unique. The food is delicious, the culture is interesting, and the people were so nice. Thank you Jarvis' for a fabulous time. We will never forget our trip there.

New Orleans - Day 3 - French Quarter and Baton Rouge

Even though the game was over, we were able to stay for an extra day in New Orleans. We decided to go spend the day in the French Quarter. Unfortunately it was a little rainy, which made the day a little bit dreary. We didn't let the rain stop us though. We went and parked in the French Quarter and walked around in the rain. Unfortunately, we parked a little too close to this pole. Oops. I guess that's what car rental insurance is for! We wanted to go see the St. Louis Cathedral. Outside the cathedral there was this going on. I guess they didn't let the rain stop them either.

The St. Louis Cathedral is the oldest Catholic cathedral in continual use in the United States. It was absolutely beautiful, inside and out. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

That night we drove up to Baton Rouge to see my friend Marjorie and her cute family. She was my roommate at BYU. They took us to dinner at a cool cajun restaurant. It was great food and fun entertainment. They had a live band and people would just get up and start dancing. It was great to see them and to hang out for awhile. We wish they didn't live so far away!

New Orleans - The Sugar Bowl

Now for the whole reason for the trip to New Orleans ... the Sugar Bowl! I'm not a huge football fan, but I have to say, this game was amazing. It was exciting and a lot of fun. We arrived at the Superdome a couple hours early. It is a huge stadium. It was sobering to think that just a few years ago it was used as an evacuation center and shelter to so many people during Hurricane Katrina. This was the scene when we arrived.

There were a lot more Alabama fans than there were Utah fans. 50,000 to 10,000 basically. Luckily we were sitting mostly around Utah fans. We did have to hear "Roll Tide Roll" every 5 seconds though. Oh well. We also had a visit from Utah's number one fan and Andrew's friend, Tom. It was fun to see a friendly face in N.O.

The pre-game show was pretty cool. I love big flags. Apparently the other side of the stadium was more important as they were able to see the flag right side up. Oh well.

Here we all are before the game starts.

The game started off great with a quick touchdown by the Utes. The Alabama fans told us all to "sit down" thinking that we were celebrating too soon. But it was not so.

Here we are at half-time, enjoying being in the lead!

Despite low expectations, the Utes played amazingly well. It really was the most exciting game that I have been to. By the end of the game, the Alabama fans had cleared out and the Utes were left to celebrate!

Yay for winning!

Utah 31, Alabama 17! Wow, what a win.

Number one!

Here we all are again, this time celebrating the win!

I was so happy that Utah won. The day of the game you could just see how the Alabama fans would just look at us and think how we didn't deserve to be there. Things were definitely different the next day. They couldn't even look us in the eye!

One of the highlights of the game was this guy that sat next to us. When he arrived at the game, he had already had way too much to drink. He quickly became Andrew's best friend, always hugging him, leaning on him, and entertaining us throughout the night. At this point in the game he had taken off his shirt and used it to wave around to cheer.

Here is a video of the celebration and of our new friend at the game.

We were excited to go to the game, regardless of the outcome. The win just made it that much sweeter! Go Utes!

New Orleans - River Walk - Day 2

After leaving the D-Day Museum we headed downtown for a delicious Cajun lunch. It was at a really fun restaurant. Every 20 minutes or so they would play the fight song for Alabama. Everyone there would stand up and join in. They would then play the Utah fight song, and all 10 us of there would join in. It was a lot of fun.

We then decided to go check out the Mississippi River Walk. While there we stopped by Cafe Du Monde. It is a famous French Market Coffee stand that has been in New Orleans since 1862. We had heard that the beignets were amazing. I didn't know what a beignet was, but it is a "square French-style doughnut, lavishly covered with powdered sugar." Sounded good to me! I quickly learned that "lavishly covered" does not even begin to describe how much powdered sugar they put on these.

A little dark picture, but you can tell Andrew is really enjoying his beignet.

Can you see all that powdered sugar?

This is the mess I left on the ground after eating just one beignet. They were absolutely delicious! Definitely worth every calorie.

After filling ourselves full of beignets, we headed over to the superdome to see the game! (the real reason for the trip.)