This Week In

Quick review of this past week:

Finals ended.
Parents came into town.
I graduated college.
Moved out of our apartment.
Drove 19 hours to Iowa.

I'll spare everyone every detail and just focus on the highlights of each of those things. Finals ended on April 24th, with Ben standing in a line for about 2 hours to take his test and then taking his test for 4 hours.  After that, my parents and Ben's mom were in town and we all had dinner together.  On Thursday, April 25th, we went to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah.  When I came out to BYU in April 2009, the Tulip Festival was going on and my mother said that she wanted to go.  Four years later, she was finally able to go!  Here are some pictures from that...

Graduation was on Friday at 8:00am. It was so early, but I was grateful that we had the rest of the day to pack after that.  Here are some pictures from that!

Amy (sister), Carson (nephew), Ben, Me, Kelsey (sister), Mom, Dad

Check out Our Travels tab to read about our 2 day drive from Utah to Iowa. Currently, Ben and I are sitting on the couch watching The Voice and enjoying our time out of the car and with family.  For dinner tonight we had Papa Murphy's take and bake pizza. Ben's favorite pizza is from there and is called Gourmet Chicken Garlic Pizza.  It has a creamy garlic sauce, chicken, green onions, tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese.  I make my own version of this using a family favorite pizza dough recipe.  That recipe is up under the Recipe tab.

Sorry for the length of this post! Hope you enjoyed reading about our busy and fun week! Don't forget to go to the Recipe and Our Travels tabs.

Kristen

Let's Be Clear

Let's be very clear about something, I am a productive person.  In church on Sunday, someone talked about making sure that while you are working hard you don't forget to have some leisure time. Balance in all things, etc, etc, etc. Somehow I missed the "have some leisure time, it's not bad" part and Ben was not very pleased with that. Ben is all about taking little breaks, having leisure time, hobbies, etc. (He is such a hard worker though, the guy gets straight A's and scholarships.)  I'm more of the be productive 24 hrs a day type, I get it from my mother.  Now to today....I have been awake for 5 hours and have managed to go out to breakfast, take two naps, shop for a graduation present, and now I'm blogging and eating pie in bed. Eek. I still have one more final to take and my motivation to study is barely there. Granted I have already studied for 50% of the test, and I only need a 50% to get a B in the class, but Ben always encourages me to do my best so I don't regret it. I promise you all, I don't regret the naps, breakfast, pie, or graduation gift. This morning has been very pleasant. The only thing I wish I would have done is gone for a run. The weather is phenomenal, I may run later today!

Since I haven't been cooking, crafting, or travelling, I figured I would post about a few of my favorite blogs. Also, I'll include a cute DIY under the DIY tab that I want to try once we have moved and have settled in!

I love food blogs. My favorite food blog/webpage is The Girl Who Ate Everything she only blogs about food but always puts in cute stories about her family, which is also very cute.  The recipes are usually pretty simple and we love them.  We actually got the Banana Crumb Muffin recipe, which is under the Recipe tab, from her but she got it from AllRecipes, which is why I gave them credit.

My second favorite food blog/webpage is Six Sisters Stuff their webpage is on a much bigger scale and has all sorts of crafts, recipes, giveaways, and much more! Super fun and they post multiple times a day, which is great.

I also love craft blogs and just general blogs about people's lives.  This next blog will make you pure jealous (or at least that's how I feel after reading it, so be careful).  Kevin and Amanda have the cutest dogs, most amazing home, and super fun adventures around the world and country!  You can read all about their travels by clicking the links on the left side of the page and don't miss out on her craft room. I'm not a huge "crafter" but it is to die for.  Amanda is very skilled with her webpage and has all sorts of fun interactive things for viewing her pictures to get closer views.

The last blog I will post about is going to be under the DIY tab with the link to the craft that I want to try out! Sorry this isn't much about our lives, but you really don't want to miss out on these fun blogs.

Kristen

My partially eaten, Lemon Supreme pie from Village Inn!
Do you guys like my semi-licked spoon? Gross.

Wenzel Family Favorites

Benjamin and I recently hit our 1 year mark of being together (please hold the snide comments about our quick dating/engagement/marriage).  This year has come with a lot of testing and trying recipes, hobbies, entertainment, clothing, etc.  This post is dedicated to some of our favorites as individuals and as a couple.

While I was packing and simultaneously spring cleaning, I stumbled upon what appeared to be an addiction or hoarding problem of mine. Usually I like to think of myself as a minimalist, saving "stuff" just means moving more at the end of the school year and summer, and I'm not really into that.  As I was cleaning out a container full of tanning lotion, old contacts, face masks, nail polish, and so much more, I found 6 old Bare Minerals containers.  I must have thought that one day I would use the little bit left in the containers and obviously never did. Sigh.  So I got the brilliant idea to add all the old powder to my new container...long story short, I opened up the new container from the bottom and ended up with powder all over my pants, hands, and the floor. Once I got over the initial devastation of losing this precious powder, I recognized that I loved it so much that I needed to recommend it to people! So here I am, doing a sales pitch for Bare Minerals. It's worth the money.  I only use the powder foundation and the powder blush, everything else I use is from Target or WalMart's make up section (Maybelline, Cover Girl, etc).  My birthday is next week, so naturally I did a little shopping for myself and picked up a Bare Minerals eye shadow and new brush and I can't wait to use them!

Click here for my powder foundation, here for my blush (color: Giddy Pink), and here for my new brush. Below is a picture of the new eye shadow that I got.

Now that I have exhausted that story, here are a few other favorites of both Ben and mine.

We both love shoes! For Christmas I got a new pair of running shoes and for Ben's birthday he got a new pair of Reeboks which he seriously does love (our fun nephew Carson also loves Ben's shoes).  Since then Ben has picked up golf and I have enjoyed wearing my sparkly gold flip flops since the weather is warming up.  Just in case you were wondering what those all look like, I will happily post pictures.  Ignore our not so attractive, poor college student, kitchen floors.

Carson wearing Uncle Ben's Reeboks
and trying to go outside.

As mentioned before with the shoes, Ben has enjoyed golfing and I have started running more.  I hiked the Y for the first time with my sister and a friend and went back up again today while Ben was taking a test. Here are a few pictures from my hike and from Ben golfing the other day.

Some of our favorite places to go to eat are Texas Road House and my personal favorite, HuHot. It's a Mongolian grill that is super popular in places other than the west, but one just recently opened in Logan, Utah and there will be one opening in Sandy, Utah as well.  So thrilled! We also love BYU's Graham Canyon ice cream and Kneader's peach smoothies. Yum!  Back in February ( I think), we made the most delicious Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Brownies, so look under the Recipe tab for that recipe and a picture. Also, tonight we bought some Babybel cheese and that was such a treat.

As far as TV goes, we love The Walking Dead, Revolution, Locked Up Abroad, and Shark Tank. If you haven't seen any of those, I would highly recommend them all, as long as you don't mind walkers, war, drugs, and rich people.

Last but definitely not least, we have enjoyed literally living next door to the Provo Temple. I'm sad to be moving where we won't have one close but that just means we can make weekend trips to go to the Nauvoo Temple!

Provo, Utah Temple

Nauvoo, Illinois Temple

I guess it's about time to end this post. Thanks for reading and head over to the Recipe tab to check out the delicious brownies I talked about earlier!

Kristen

Bulls, Burgers, Cupcakes

Last night was the first NBA Playoff game for the Chicago Bulls.  Ben loves the Chicago Bulls, Bears, and Cubs, and I love basketball, so of course we had to watch it.  My sister, Amy, and her family were gracious enough to have us over for BBQ Bacon Sliders and watch the game, it sure was a treat!  Amy introduced us to BBQ Bacon Sliders from Our Best Bites a few months ago and we love them.  We talk about them often and even made them for our friends, Cindy and Jordan, when we had them over for dinner.  Cindy requested that I post this recipe, so this is for her!  After dinner, Amy started prepping for Sunday's dinner and I was in charge of making the dessert.  Under the Recipe tab, you can find the link to the recipe for BBQ Bacon Sliders and check out what we had for dessert tonight! You don't want to miss out on these recipes!

This week is going to be a little crazy for us, but we are looking forward to having Ben's mom and my parents and sister out to visit for my graduation from BYU. There probably wont be any DIY posts, because I don't want to make anything just to put it in a box, but look for stories on our travels and for new recipes!

Hope everyone had a good Sunday!

Kristen

New DIY

Check out how to make your own scented wax melts and my opinion on it all under the DIY tab! Also, look for a BBQ Blue Cheese Bacon Burger recipe tomorrow under the Recipe tab.

Kristen

P.S. I apologize for all the blurry photos. iPhones are great but they don't have the best cameras.  First world problems, I know.

8 Days and Counting

Hi All!

This has been such a nice week in our home.  Ben and I have both stopped working for the most part and are able to sleep in and study at our leisure since finals have now started.  It has been a great way to end our semester.  We move in 8 days and the closer it gets, the more excited we are for a change of pace.  It will be sad to be away from my family, but fun to be closer to Ben's family who will only be 2.5 hours away.  Also, my younger sister Rachel is serving a mission for our church in Nashville, TN, so it will be fun to know that she is only a couple states away (want to meet Rachel? Click here). Not sure what a Mormon missionary is? Click here!  Just a couple of recents in mine and Ben's life include yogurt, bowling, and dogs! We were going to look at some puppies tonight but luckily we can't have them in our apartment this summer and were brought back to the reality that we wont be home enough to care for a living thing.  Below are a couple of pictures including our favorite yogurt (yes, it's so delicious that I am willing to blog about it) and bowling the other day/night. Also check out new posts under Recipe, Our Travels, and DIY!

Kristen

In order of our favorite:

1.Key Lime (We like to add walnuts)

2. French Vanilla Bean (I like walnuts and dried cranberries but Ben does not!)

3. Lemon Squeeze

Beginnings and Endings

The past few days have been busy and fun for Ben and I.  We finished classes for the semester at BYU and have started studying for finals.  This is my last semester before I graduate and Ben's second to last semester.  Next week after graduation, Ben and I will pack our things (which started today, I will post a picture of our grocery store boxes) and move to Iowa.  Ben will start an internship at John Deere which will last about 13 weeks and I will hopefully find a job. Cross your fingers.  We are so excited to start something new and I am pretty excited to end my time at BYU.  

Seeing as this is my first blog, I am still trying to figure out how everything works and the best ways to publish posts and create pages.  Bear with me as I learn!  As a starter, I posted the salad we had for dinner last night under the Recipes tab and a quick story on our first honeymoon under the Our Travels tab.

Enjoy! 

Kristen

Our beautiful boxes that are drying because they were a little wet from the grocery store.