New Camera

We got a new camera! Erick and I got a nice Nikon digital camera, but the battery pooped out on us after the first 3 weeks we got it! So, we have been in search for one since and settled on an awesome Cannon PowerShot. It takes pretty good pictures (as good as the Nikon and it was cheaper) it just doesn't have the cool touch screen and panoramic picture stuff on it, but hey, that's ok! I don't need no stinkin panoramic stuff anyway. 

So, we decided to test out our new camera.

Occasionally we'll leave the camera in the car because we intend to take pictures of stuff that we go to and forget about the camera...so this is what happens. This is when we were coming home from our new nephew Logan's baby blessing... Logan is a cutie!

So short story: the past 2 weeks I have been going to rehersal/performances for BYU's fall opera because I got the AWESOME opportunity to work as part of the tech crew for my last music ensemble credit for my minor. I was getting there on rehersal week at 8 ish and not getting home until 11 and then having to get up to go to Timpview High School swim practice at 6:00 in the a.m. (I'm the assistant swim coach there) and go to school, do homework, and spend time with Erick while try and get over a cold that ERICK gave me. It was a mess. So, this is what I came home to one night. 

Isn't being married the best?

This was probably the prettiest fall I have seen since I've been here because the leaves in the mountains were all RED. They are normally orange and yellow with a little red, but it was all red. I thought it was incredible. So, we decided to go for a little walk.

Erick loves to fiddle with new technology things, so he tried to figure out the self timer on our camera. Not too shabby, eh? I was in the middle of homework so it was kind of a mess around me...sorry about that. Oh, and don't mind the box, I got Erick a broken xBox 360 for his birthday and we had to return it. I got my money back and Erick a new one, but that's a story for another day.

So I have really wanted to go up the canyon and see the beautiful fall leaves. So up we went.

I was really excited.

But all of the red leaves were brown...I was quite sad. It was only 2 weeks earlier that I took that picture of the side of the mountain when we went for a walk.

See? Sad.

Y

So this beautiful labor day weekend Erick and I decided to be cliché and hike the Y. For those of you who don't know about the Y here's a picture:

The Y is right about BYU campus (which is also called the Y) and people love to hike it. Some even run it. I would not recommend it though. It is a very tiring hike...we were sore the next day...sad...

Well we went at sunset on Saturday and this is the beautiful view on the way up. 

Gorgeous huh? Love it.

Then, here we are again sitting on the Y. We got up there when it was dark, so couldn't get too good of a picture, but this one works.

So pretty when you get to the top. It's cliché, but worth it.

Cupcakes, Cannolis, and Chairs OH MY!

So Erick has been gone all week. Sad? Yes. Him being gone is the result of an incredibly bored Sam.
I was finishing summer school and working most of the week until today. Erick isn't supposed to come home until 6:30ish so I had the whole day to figure out what to do....

Well, here we go! I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned until my bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen were all so clean and sanitized you could eat off of ever surface. Yes, including the toilet.

Then, I decided to finish our unfinished dining room chairs...off to Lows I go! But, I got sidetracked...I ran into Petsmart and found puppies and cats to play with.

I went back home. Painted the chairs and started on my next project.......


Cannoli Cupcakes!!!

I recently got some ricotta cheese because I have been wanting to cook with it for awhile, and I looked up recipes and this is what I found!

It is a vanilla citrus cupcake with a cannoli filling, a ganache topping with a cinnamon whip cream. Here's the recipe I kind of tweaked from foodnetwork.com

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoons orange zest (I didn't have oranges so I used grapefruit)
• 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cups sugar
• 4 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon orange oil (I don't have that so I used another 1/2 tablespoon of zest)
• 1/2 cup milk

Cannoli Filling:

• 1 cups ricotta cheese
• 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped bittersweet chocolate
• 2 tablespoons finely diced candied orange peel (I didn't use this)
• 
  

Bittersweet Ganache:

• 2.5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 3 ounces heavy cream
• 1 tablespoons sugar

Cinnamon Whip Cream

• 1 cups heavy cream
• 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• Toasted almonds, for garnish (this would be really good if you have them)

Directions

For the cupcakes: Preheat a convection oven to 325 degrees F. Line 24 regular-size cupcake pans with liners.

Combine the flour, orange zest, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In a stand mixer, cream the sugar and butter on medium speed until light and fluffy, 4 to 8 minutes. Slowly add the eggs one at a time, scraping the bowl as needed. Add the vanilla extract and orange oil to the mixer. On low speed, gradually alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients, and mix until smooth.

When the mixture is smooth, divide the batter evenly into the prepared cupcake liners. Bake until lightly browned and fully cooked through, about 15 minutes. Cool completely.

For the filling: With a large wooden or metal spoon, mix the ricotta, confectioners' sugar, chocolate and orange peel in a medium bowl until combined.

For the ganache: Place the chocolate in a medium heat-proof bowl. In small saucepan over medium heat, bring the heavy cream and sugar to a boil ensuring the sugar is completely dissolved. Pour the cream and sugar mixture over the chocolate and let sit 5 minutes. Gradually whisk until smooth. Cool completely.

For the cinnamon whip cream: In a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, beat the cream, sugar and cinnamon until the cream is firm enough to pipe on the cupcakes but not too stiff and buttery.

To assemble: Cut a small hole the size of an apple core in each cupcake and fill with the cannoli cream. Pipe a small amount of ganache on the entire surface of the cupcake and do the same with the cinnamon cream. Top with toasted almonds.

This recipe was created by a contestant during a cooking competition (and by Sam). The Food Network Kitchens have not tested it for home use, therefore, we cannot make any representation as to the results.

Tomatoes and Things

So when Erick and I first moved into our little side apartment off of a couple's house, they said that we could have a little "plot of land" on the side of our house. Erick immediately started making plans for a garden. So, now we have a little garden. We have two HUGE tomato plants, two pepper plants, a basil plant (mmm...fresh basil), and a zucchini plant. There's been a tomato growing on the plant that's been getting rather large, so we picked it. I heard that if you pick it while it is green and put it in the window it will get red...well, that's a big fat FALSE. So I ruined our first tomato. So, another tomato that we have been watching we vowed not to pick until it was red.

So...long story short, I came home from a final and a 3 hour study session to this:

Can I just say...I have an awesome husband. :)

We made our first "weed" aka TOMATO!!!!!

mmmm....

Oh, here's what it came from.

Ketchup

Soooo I was looking at Erick's camera and I realized that there are some pictures on here from before we were even engaged, so lucky you. You get to see these wonderful pictures!

So this is the face that I get to see every morning. Well, one of them... this was before we were engaged and he got really sick. He was so sick that his tongue decided to make a funny shape on it. 

 So this is probably that same night.

 Erick was SUPER DUPER supportive of my swimming while we were dating. In fact, all of our dating was pretty much during my last year of swimming for BYU. He's great. Some times it's really boring and I can't believe that he even goes to my little kids' meet that I coach for now. But here's a picture of my last meet. I'm in the middle with the striped jacket on. :)

 So. For our honeymoon we went to Disneyland. It was Erick's dream to go there for his honeymoon since he was little, apparently. I wanted to go somewhere tropical and beach like, but Disneyland works too. It matches our personality...never going to grow up.

 Waiting in line for the AWESOME Toy Story ride. Loved it.

 Our last glimpse of Disneyland. We had this really awesome foreign man take this picture for us. He had a rather intense DSLR around his neck and a couple of tattoos, so we figured he'd do a good job of it.

 PRESENT DAY! This past Saturday (7/23/11) we went to a Salt Lake Bees game. It was pretty cool. I've only been to MLB games, so a minor league was fun. This one was against Tacoma. The Bees scored 10 runs in the first inning. There were a lot of home runs too. I think the high score at the end of the game was 9 to 18 Salt Lake. Not too boring...which is good.

 Ah the faces of Erick. I wish I could get all of them on camera.

 The End.

Weeds

So. Today I officially became a very legal Weed. Not that I wasn't illegal, but I now have a drivers license that says Samantha Althea Weed on it. Cool huh? The only downside was I had to give up my Texas license. It takes a lot of humbling for a Texan to give up her drivers license, but I did it. 

Anyway. We are the Weeds. 

I'm Samantha (or Sam)

  

and he's Erick.

We were married in Houston, TX on April 30, 2011 in the LDS temple.

Here >>>>

And this is how happy we were...

We are so glad we got married. Best. Thing. Ever. I recommend it.

I'm going to try and keep this updated. We shall see how well I do.