Drumroll please....

We interrupt the previously scheduled programming for a word from our sponsors. Today I, the husband, will be taking control of the Starship Camouflage and Cupcakes and will take you on a journey of epic proportions. Our expedition starts last night. We were traveling at light speed towards our location of domiciliary habitation. Rachelle started to feel the symptoms of what I deduced to be the bubonic plague. "Rachelle, you're going to have to stay home from school tomorrow. You can take the PRAXIS another day." I urged her to conserve her energy and rest in order to overcome this debilitating and deadly disease. "I can't." She coughed with indomitable will. That was the end of that debate. I know that my wife would no sooner back down from the awful Sarlacc pit  than run from this daunting test. The PRAXIS, for those of you who don't know, is a certification exam required by all states in the Union so that one my teach in any given subject. Rachelle has been working on an English Teaching minor and in order to graduate must take and pass this test. Back to the story: due to the increased level of hostility with the mole men, Rachelle was unable to study the copious amounts of time that she thought requisite for the test. So, ill prepared and fighting the bitter pains of a body ravaging sickness, she walked determined into the testing center...

It was later that day when I received my first communication from her after the test. "I got a 193." She stated, obviously unimpressed or moved by her efforts. Upon further research I found out how mistaken her mood and attitude toward her score was. What my research revealed was this: the PRAXIS for secondary English teaching is out of non-other than 200!!! That's right people, Rachelle got a 193 out of 200! This is amazing. Not only was she truly sick but she hardly studied for this test. She walked away with an awesome score. We were both ecstatic. Here she is with her Grammar Bible, needless to say, she looks happy. 

The Great Indoors

My hubby absolutely loves the great outdoors. Hunting, fishing, hiking, sleeping under the stars, he loves it all. Luckily I'm pretty fond of the outdoors too. A few weeks ago, I got a text from Marc saying he wanted to go camping. It was in the middle of the school week, so I didn't think too much about it, thinking we could plan a weekend camping trip soon. Later that day, when I got home from school and rehearsal, I walked into a campground.

That's our front door to the left. Marc had set up the tent we got for Christmas in our living room. And the jean quilt that we got for Christmas was laid out as a picnic blanket. Inside the tents were blankets and foam pads. Here's the same thing from a different angle:

If you notice, we even had a "campfire." Marc had thought of everything! He found a video of campfire/outdoor sounds on youtube. So we had crackling fire and crickets in our living room. 

And, I forgot to mention that Marc had changed his outfit to for the part. Here he is roasting hotdogs over our electric stove. Haha...it didn't really work very well. I think we ended up microwaving them. I love this picture of him though, he looks so rugged. 

Here's our campfire dinner that he had gone out and bought for the occasion: juice, hotdogs, chips, and little peach fruit cups. 

I was very surprised and so grateful that Marc had planned dinner! I was having a rough day that day and Marc was so sweet to take care of everything. And I loved that he made it a themed dinner! (I love those!) In case you were wondering, yes we did sleep in the tent that night. For most of the night at least. I decided halfway through the night that the bed in the next room sounded much more pleasant. I guess we'll have to use our tent in the great outdoors soon. But for now, it works for the great indoors.

More Celebrations

The day after the Scottish Festival, we headed to the Museum of Ancient Life. 

We had fun posing by all the different dinosaurs. 

Marc by Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Prehistoric dwarf elephant.

Later that evening, we had cake at our apartment. 

Our friends, Brian and Hillary, gave Marc this awesome Dinosaur hat. 

Marc with his grandparents. 

Marc with cousins, Jim and Colby, and their sweet baby girl. 

It was the perfect celebration: dinosaurs, cake, and spending time with family and friends. :)

A Very Happy {Birth}Day

I got thinking today that it has been too long since I last posted...I haven't even posted about my hubby's birthday yet...and that was back in June! So...prepare yourself for a lot of updates about the Allan's. :)

So first update...Marc had a very happy birthday. The celebrations were spread out over the entire weekend, but on his actual birthday, we headed over to Thanksgiving Point to the Scottish Festival. Marc and his brother, Collin, were very interested in the Strong Man competition...basically guys just throwing heavy stuff (like a keg...yes I said keg...but the announcer made sure to explain that since we were in Utah it was empty) over a 20 ft. pole. It was actually pretty impressive what these guys could do. Our favorite "Strong Man" to watch was a guy in his mid-50's in shorts and loafers (without socks). Compared to everyone else who were decked out in muscle shirts, he made everything look easy. He beat out the younger guys on most of the events. We also saw a lot of kilts, bagpipes, kilts, root beer jugs (that we first mistaked for beer jugs), kilts, knives stowed away in socks, kilts...did I mention kilts? The funny thing to me was that the men would wear kilts and their wives would wear pantsuits...that's a switch isn't it? Here's some pictures from the festivities:

Practicing for the Tattoo (a traditional outdoor music spectacle)

They saw these hats and couldn't resist trying them on.

We missed most of the dancing competitions but we did see some younger dancers perform. I've taken an Irish dance class before so I know how hard this movement is...you have to be ridiculously precise. I was impressed at how well these young dancers performed. 

The kilts....

(do you see the knife tucked away in his sock??)

Our little clan. 

(The guy who took the picture asked us in a Scottish accent if we had ever seen a man in a skirt before...that's why I'm smiling/laughing so big.)

Just the two of us.

I sure do love this man. 

When July Rolls Around

Every summer and especially during the month of July, I am reminded of the many freedoms that I enjoy. The freedom to worship God the way I want to, the freedom to gain a higher education, the freedom to marry the person I love, the freedom to make my own choices each and every day. I am so very grateful for this country that I live in. I am grateful for the men and women who have risked their lives so that I can enjoy the freedoms that I do today. I don't think I stop to remember and appreciate them or this country often enough. But I can be sure to remember every time July rolls around. What freedoms are you grateful for?

White Bread Recipe

We love homemade bread. We love baking it, we love smelling it, we love eating it. The first time I made bread was a few months after we got married. I've been hooked ever since. There's something very relaxing about making bread (and I don't mean dumping all the ingredients in a bread machine, I mean making it all by hand), I absolutely love it. And Marc doesn't complain when I take a few hours to make a couple loaves. We've tried lots of recipes, some better than others, but we wanted to share this recipe that we discovered on Pinterest with you because it makes GINORMOUS loaves of bread! We took pictures to prove it to you.  (Ignore the messy tabletop but admire Marc's apron :D) The first time we made this recipe, the dough deflated in the oven, but this time it rose beautifully. The crust gets a little hard but if you store the loaves in plastic bags, it softens up a bit. Also, it makes A LOT of dough, our little kitchen-aid can barely handle it all, so we have to knead it by hand (Marc is really good at this in case you were wondering). Once we tasted it right out of the oven with honey smothered all over it, we were in love.

Drumroll Please...

 Last week, Marc's MCAT scores appeared online. They were posted 5 pm Eastern Time. Marc was a little (understatement here) anxious all day. The worst part for him was waiting for me to get off work so he could check his scores (we wanted to see them together). I drove home from work as fast as I could (without breaking the law or barreling through the orange cones that adorn our city) and Marc was waiting with his username and password all typed in, waiting for me to push "enter" to view the scores. I pushed enter as he walked away from the computer, too nervous to look himself. Once I saw the score, he asked "Is it above a 30?" I told him to see for himself. He took a deep breath and walked over. Are you ready? Drumroll please....32Q!!! The 32 is the total sum from the physical sciences, biological science, and verbal reasoning. The Q is the score for his writing sample. For those of you not familiar with the scoring process, this is a really good score. The average acceptance MCAT score is a 30. We were very excited (and I admit maybe a little emotional) about his score. We called all our family and then stuffed ourselves with sushi and teppanyaki grilled meat and veggies. It was a very happy day! Thanks to all our family members for praying and fasting for us,  we couldn't have done this on our own!

Oh what do you do in the summertime?

Oh what do you do in the summertime when all the world is green? I like to make crafty projects. During the school year I hardly have time to do anything than my homework and attend rehearsal after rehearsal. That means when summer rolls around I try to squeeze in as much fun stuff as I can (that usually means reading tons of books and making fun artsy-fartsy crafts). So here is the first batch of summer projects. Marc went fishing one day in the afternoon/evening/late evening last week (that's what he likes to do in the summertime), so I had lots of time on my hands to craft...and watch chick flicks :). I decided to make this wreath and some button earrings (stay tuned for those). The wreath is made from a grapevine wreath (only 5 bucks!), fabric rosettes from fabric scraps, pearl beads, wire, and ribbon. I've been wanting to have a wreath on my door ever since we had to take the Christmas wreath down that my mom bought me for my birthday, but I didn't have time till now. I love how this wreath turned out! This next project I finished just last night. I found the idea on pinterest (gotta love pinterest!) and decided to try it. You can find the original tutorial here. We've been wanting to put this quote from President Monson in our house for a while now and just couldn't figure out how to do it...vinyl lettering, cross stitch maybe, framed quote. When I saw this idea I immediately wanted to try it. We first needed some old wood which, luckily for us, comes in heaps and piles at my in-laws house. So we picked out a couple of boards we liked from the burn pile, sprayed the dirt off them, and carted them back home. We attached the boards with hinges (thanks to my handy-man husband) and put picture hangers on the back. Next we had to decide what font we wanted and how big to make it. That took a while, but we finally figured it out. Then we had to flip the text to mirror image so that we could transfer it to the wood. For my own future reference I'll tell you how that's done on a Macbook Pro: Select File, Print. Select your printer. Then select Layouts (from 3rd drop down box). An option will pop up that says "Flip Horizontal." Check that box. Print! Macs are wonderful...that would've been so much harder on my old PC. We'll be putting the sign up later today (it was too late last night--we have neighbors with babies), and I can't wait to see how it looks!

He's a Survivor

A couple of weeks ago, Marc took the MCAT. He has been preparing for this test all semester long, spending lots of quality time with Harold (Harold B. Lee Library). After long days at school and studying for his regular classes, he would go back to school and study with a buddy for a few hours late into the evening every weekday. Then on Saturdays he and his buddy would study from 8am-4pm. That's a lot of studying and I am so proud of him for putting so much work and effort into it. With all the hard work he put in, I wanted to make sure the day of his test went as smoothly as possible. I asked him if he wanted anything special for that day and his response was "chocolate cake" and "a really good breakfast...like sticky buns." I woke up early to make the sticky buns (yes, from scratch). They were really tasty but...let's just say they did not look like the picture in Betty Crocker so I'm not including a picture of them. His test started at one and it was in a town about 30 min away. He and his buddy left extra early to make sure they got there before it started. That left me plenty of time to make his chocolate cake before my mom-in-law picked me up for a baby shower. Usually I don't like chocolate cake, but the recipe I used is to die for! I should put it up on the blog sometime. We started devouring it before I could get a good picture but in case you can't tell it says  "You survived the MCAT!" And yes, I did put those green streamers up just for the after-test celebration. Since his test started at one in the afternoon and its a five hour test (I know, yuck!), he wouldn't be done till 6. Travel time meant he would be home even later than that.  We had a family wedding to attend that evening, so that meant I wouldn't be at our apartment to welcome him home and give him a big squeeze. So I decided to decorate with streamers and little signs. You can't see them very well but they say things like "You survived the MCAT" and "It's OVER! You made it!" and "Hooray!" Yep, he's a survivor. Now we're waiting for the scores. Stay tuned...   

Banana Cookies and Carrots

Sounds like a delicious combination right?? Ok, maybe not...but the combination made for a fun week :)

First, the banana cookies. These things are dang good. These are the second time I've made them and they get inhaled every time. I made about 4-5 dozen of them a few days ago and this is all that's left!

Maybe I should add that we shared them with some family...Marc and I didn't eat them all by ourselves, but that would have been pretty easy to do. Here's the recipe if you want to try them (you won't be disappointed!) Recipe is courtesy of my in-laws ward cookbook.

1 c. shortening

2 eggs

1 c. sugar

1 c. mashed bananas

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 c. buttermilk

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 c. flour

Frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/4 c. butter

powdered sugar

vanilla

Mix cookie ingredients together. Drop onto cookie sheets and bake at 350 degrees for 11-12 min. Mix together frosting ingredients and frost cookies.

Now for the carrots part of the post. I enjoy eating carrots, but I enjoy this carrot just a little bit more...

Marc is a volunteer for the local hospital and went on an "obesity campaign" at a local elementary school. He passed out jump ropes and tried to convince all the kids that eating carrots is cool. He even had jump rope competitions with some of the students...he said he jumped rope for 2 hours straight! Needless to say, I was massaging his calves the next morning. This is him with the rest of the volunteers dressed as a bunch of fruits and veggies.