Look what Justin made!!

Well, as if Justin didn't already do everything, we can now officially add "artist" to his long list of qualifications. Believe it or not, he made this from scratch. Well, he didn't make the license plates, but he did cut them out and build and paint the backdrop. We got the idea for this about a year ago when we saw a similar work of art at the National Portrait Gallery.

Anyway, Justin decided that he could make one...and it turns out that he was right (which is good because the one at the Portrait Gallery cost $4,000). Besides the suggestion I gave him to actually plan which color of license plates he was buying (so that all of the Western United States didn't end up the same color) he did the whole thing himself. And it fits in so nicely with our vibrant red couches. Bravo, my love! (Watch out Dan Bradshaw--you're not the only "arteest" in the family now!)

Here's a better view...

And here it is when I used the flash...you can tell which license plates were really old because they didn't reflect...

Pretty sweet!!

Ride Like the Wind...

...the Black Wind, that is. You may or may not have been watching my g-chat tagline over the past two months, but it has basically been taking various forms of "I want a bike." And it turns out that I finally got one. I only crashed twice on my maiden voyage. The first time was kind of embarrassing because we had just made it to a pedestrian-heavy intersection in Old Towne Alexandria, and I kind of forgot that my foot was attached to the pedal. When I went to step down, it just tipped my bike over on top of me. Oops. I almost fell on top of a man walking by on the sidewalk. He was looking at me in shock (no doubt wondering why I all of a sudden tipped over). Anyway, I digress. The bike that I finally chose is called a "Vent Noir". That means black wind in French. So when I say I'm riding the black wind, I mean it.

Justin and I decided that we should bike for a cause, so we joined Booz Allen's Bike MS team (hence the sweet flaming jerseys). What that means is that we ride our bikes in the hopes that our friends and family will donate money to a good cause. I'm only about $200 short of my goal. And just think, if all of my friends were to contribute just a few dollars, I think I'd reach my fundraising goal in no time! If you are interested in being one of those friends who want to fund research to cure MS, please click here. All you have to do is type in Bethany Scott, and make a TAX DEDUCTABLE contribution. (Do you like how I'm using my blog as a fundraising forum? Anything for a cure! (Actually, my grandpa died of MS when I was two, so I actually have a reason for supporting this cause...)

This weekend we did a training ride out in Purcellville, Virginia. I decided not to put sunscreen on my arms. Big mistake. Now my legs are speckled, and my arms are red striped (there's a sweet line in the middle of my bicep where my sleeves were). Oh well. It was really fun. I rode 32.5 miles--my new personal record. And I'm in way less pain than I was last weekend after only 25 miles. Good times!

In other news, the prophet said to plant a garden, so that's what we did. And when I say "we", I mean Justin planted a garden, and I sat there and watched him, and then took some pictures. I was giving him a lot of praise for his good work, so I'm pretty sure I contributed to the successful beginnings of our summer salads. Here are the pictures:

Justin planting tomatoes.

Looking at me and planting tomatoes...

The finished product. We have, tomatoes, peppers, parsley, teragon, sage, thyme, broccoli, green onions, strawberries, romain lettuce, green lettuce, beans, chives, cilantro, oregano, mint, peppermint, basil, rosemary, a maple tree and a pine tree. Not bad for a tiny balcony!!!

Lord of the Flies

This weekend, Justin and I headed to the Shenandoahs for a little adventure in the mountains. It turned out to be a beautiful day, and when I say it was a beautiful day, I mean that I was wearing a t-shirt all day and wasn't cold.


We started the day by hauling up the mountain. Fortunately, Justin was carrying 50 pounds of climbing gear, which made it possible for me to keep up with him. Once we got to the top, instead of chilling with the scout troupe that was up there, we kept right on going in order to bushwack our way down to a hidden climbing area. I took some lovely pictures of the foliage (or lack thereof) and of Justin climbing.


Throughout the time Justin was climbing, there were little gnat-sized flies buzzing around...and they were very pesky, but I didn't think much of it. After Justin finished the route a couple of times, we made our way back up to the trail in order to find some easier stuff for me to climb. The climb we found ended up being a little harder than expected. I made it about three-fourths of the way, and then had to have Justin hoist me up. In my own words, "I had nothing left to give." We packed up our stuff, and hiked our way back to the summit where we tried (unsuccessfully) to capture the beauty of the day. Instead, we got a kind of lame self portrait in the sunset.


Anyway, it turns out that all those pesky little flies were doing more than just buzzing around. I realized when we got home, that I was being eaten alive!!! I've declared myself the Lord of the flies, since apparently, they LOVE my blood. Justin got a few bites here and there, but I got 22 bites on one leg, and 33 on the other. I look like I have leprosy!

The Clothing-Coordination Connection and Conference

I have discovered a simple truth. I am much more athletic when I'm fashionably clad than when I'm not. I was first made aware of this strange clothing-coordination connection two years ago when I started dabbling in tennis. The summer before moving to D.C. I spent a lot of time playing tennis with people in my ward, and I was never very good, until I bought my sweet tennis outfit. You know, a cute little skirt outfit that the pros wear. I'm not exaggerating, but my skills jumped significantly on occasions when I was wearing the outfit, and dropped back down again when I wasn't. I only bring this up because I have recently decided that I need some fashionable climbing/hiking clothing.

A couple of weekends ago, I went with my friends Katie D. and Roz and Justin to hike around Sugarloaf Mountain in Maryland. We had a great time--it was briskly cold, and actually snowed for part of the time we were hiking. The only down side to the experience was the number of colors that I was wearing. Note the outfit below: You don't see the full glory of my outfit in the picture, but when it got really cold, I was wearing about 6 different clashing colors. I had on Justin's green pants (I don't own any long pants that aren't jeans, so I had to borrow from my husband, which is clearly sick and wrong, but I will try to refrain from pontificating on the evils of a fashion industry who fails to actually sell clothing that fits a woman over a certain height...), my puffy red coat from the GAP (my sporty coat comes from the GAP because it's the only company that makes tall sized coats with sleeves long enough for my arms...), pink gloves, forest green wool socks, and white and lavender shoes. I'm pretty sure that I would be way better at climbing if I only had an appropriate outfit...And a word about Justin's hat--he couldn't find his beanie when we were leaving, so he just grabbed his biking hat, which is designed to fit under a helmet--in case you were wondering why Justin was wearing a swimming cap. But despite our current fashion-faux pas, we all had a lovely time in the great outdoors. (And, just so you know, I ordered some North Face pants when we got home. I know that I am ridiculous, but I guarantee I am more coordinated when I don't clash...and when I'm not wearing my husband's pants.)

In a totally unrelated note, Justin and I had a great time watching General Conference this weekend. It was a spiritual feast...and an artistic inspiration!


We may need to re-read Elder Child's talk when it comes out in the Ensign...I can't recall exactly what Justin was going for on the pinky-toe (that is Justin's foot, by the way), but we decided it looks like the family beaver. Every knows that every family needs a beaver.

Welcome Home!

I must say that one of the best things about being married is having our own home. Not that we own the apartment that we are currently living in, but at least we know that everything in the refrigerator belongs to us. (I can't tell you how many groceries I let go bad because I wasn't sure if it was mine or my roommates, so we both just let it sit there until it was rotten to a point that we knew no matter who had originally purchased it, neither of us would want it at that point.)

Before we flew out to Utah to get married, we spent the week painting, moving and unpacking (moving and unpacking were actually squeezed into the Saturday before we flew out for the wedding) so that we could return to a beautiful home. Now, a month later, with the TV securely mounted on the wall, I decided that we are officially settled in, and it was time for me to invite you all on a virtual tour of our new abode.

The first thing you will see when you come to our house (everyone is invited to visit!!) is the door. Actually, you will see the gate outside, and you'll have to call us to buzz you up. Ha! No missionaries will be trackting at our house. (Did anyone else hate those door buzzer things on their mission?) Anyway, I included this picture mostly because I wanted everyone to see our doormat. Apparently at this complex it is customary to have a doormat, so we have obliged.


When you walk in the door, this is the view you will see:


If you were to look to your right, you would find our laundry room, which I didn't actually take a picture of because I figured that nobody really wants to see our laundry room. But I'm sure you're all excited to see our bathroom...it is quite spacious, featuring dual vanities and a linen closet, two things that I did not have in my previous apartment. And I didn't even clean it up for the pictures. We are actually that tidy!!


Once you get over the excitement of our lovely bathroom, your eye will probably be caught by the bright red couches in the living room. These couches were my best purchase of 2006. They are comfy, and yet oh so stylish.


This is the perfect place to sit and watch our new sweet TV that Justin mounted all by himself. (We're pretty pleased with the fact that instead of buying a $500 mount and paying an extra $500 for someone to install it, Justin found a similar mount online for $160 and installed himself with no problem...HGTV here we come!) We haven't decided what to do with the cords yet, but I'm sure we'll figure something out. At least we can enjoy the architectural beauty of our fireplace and watch TV at the same time.


When we were choosing paint colors, we actually chose the whole color scheme based on a dishcloth we saw at Crate & Barrel. We really went out on a limb when we decided to paint the kitchen and dining areas Surfer Blue. It's definitely a bold statement. I like to think of it as an ode to our family members in Hawaii, and in the dead of Winter it reminds me of a swimming pool. Overall, I think it actually turned out really well. I especially like the contrast between the surfer blue in the dining area and the grasscloth green of the bedroom.


I also have to say that I married into some pretty sweet bedroom furniture!! (And Justin made the frames above the bed...mucho impressivo!)


You're probably thinking by now, what other amazing features can this apartment have? Well, the answer is a huge walk-in closet! I was particularly excited about this feature since my previous bedroom did not actually have a closet. I had to fit all of my clothes and shoes into a tiny armoire from IKEA. I don't know if you can tell by the picture, but we really maximized this space.


And last, but not least, we have a cute little balcony where Justin keeps his garden, and from which you can get a preview of the beautiful cherry blossoms below.



So that is our home!! We're excited for everyone to come see it in person! :)

Adventures in Home Canning, Part II

When you can pickles, you can't taste them right away. (It turns out that pickles are really just cucumbers.) You have to wait a couple of months so that the vinegar has time to work its magic. Justin and I decided that the time had finally come for us to try our home canning experiments. We started with the spaghetti sauce.

I was making stuffed pasta shells for dinner one night, and the recipe called for spaghetti sauce, so I decided to use one of our homemade cans. We had used the recipe from Barbara Kingsolver's book, the one that inspired all the domesticity in the first place. It turns out that while Kingsolver has written several good books, she doesn't really have a flare for writing recipes. The spaghetti sauce was nasty, and we dumped it all out.

Next we tried the pickles, with much the same result: it turned out they were nasty, and we dumped them all out.

After two disappointments already, we turned to the salsa without much hope. Even as we were canning it, we thought that there was a good chance we had chosen a terrible salsa recipe. The thing that clued us in to this was the apple cidar vinegar combined with 7 cloves of garlic. We were right. The salsa was terrible, and we dumped it out.

So what did we get out of more than 50 pounds of tomatoes and cucumbers? A mere 6 jars of tomatoes. Lessons learned: 1. Find a good recipe before you start canning. 2. Instead of canning, just go to the store and buy what you need.

There is something sparkly on my finger...

You'd think that of all blog postings, this is the one that I would spend the most time on...and yet I find myself with an unexpected deadline at work (moved up from March to January 3) and do not have time to create my usual literary masterpiece. Suffice it to say that I am officially engaged!! I'm sure that as you've read the recent postings of my adventures with Justin, you have probably suspected that this would be the outcome, and you were right!!

He totally surprised me. I mean, I knew that it was going to happen, but I was expecting Christmas or Christmas Eve, or at least the weekend. But like normal, I called him after work to see if he had any plans or if there was something in particular he wanted to do that night, and he suggested that I come over to his house and we decorate his little Christmas tree (he has been growing a tiny evergreen tree in a pot for the last two years--if you picture Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree, that should give you a pretty good idea of what it looks like).

So I went over to his house, and his roommate was there having dinner with a friends. I mention that to emphasize that this was just a normal day. So we decorated the little tree, and then we were just chatting, and he looked over at it and said that it needed a star for the top. I suggested that we juts print one out (paper is about the heaviest thing this little tree could support). He said he thought he had a bow--one of those you just stick on presents--that he thought would work, so he started rummaging through his closet, and when he turned around, he was holding a ring, and he said, "or maybe this would work."

I think it took me about 10 to 15 seconds to process. I was staring at a ring, but I was asking myself "Is that a real ring?" "Is he proposing?" (He said I had a look of bewilderment on my face.) And then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, and I said yes!!!!!!! He wanted to do it on a Thursday and kind of low-key (which I'm a big fan of) so that he could surprise me, which he clearly did.

We are planning on getting married in the Salt Lake Temple on February 22, 2008. (Of course we haven't actually called the temple yet, but we figure that our chances in the middle of a semester are pretty good.) So mark your calendars!

And this is us posing with the beautiful turkey Justin made for Thanksgiving. Pretend like there's a ring instead of a turkey, and it would be the perfect engagement shot!