Ricky's Fried Rice

Today, Ricky decided to give me a little cooking lesson! We made one of his signature dishes - fried rice! I think Ricky’s fried rice is unique and SO good!

Here’s how we made it:

First, get a large skillet and let the vegetable oil warm. Put the chopped ham in and let it brown slightly. Then, add the diced onion. You can add a little butter at this point if you would like. Then, add carrots and any other vegetables you would like. Let the vegetables brown. When they are as soft as you would like them, add the rice. Let the rice warm up and add dry seasonings at this point (pepper and turmeric). In a bowl, stir up your eggs and add soy sauce and a little sesame oil to them. Pour your eggs in the frying pan to add to your fried rice. Let the eggs cook with everything else. Then, add rice vinegar and a little sriracha. Enjoy!

 Apparently, just hours after Ricky's lesson, I got it all wrong. Before I was going to publish this post, I thought I would double check with Ricky and he said I was all wrong! Haha! Here is what I had written down from what I recalled us doing tonight: 

First, cut up some ham and onion and fry in vegetable oil in the the frying pan. Add a little bit of butter. Then, add carrots and any other vegetables you would like. Add your rice. Season with pepper, turmeric, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar. In a bowl, stir up your eggs and add some soy sauce to them. Pour your eggs in the frying pan to add to your fried rice. There are two ways to do this: Make an area in the middle of your frying pan to scramble your eggs, and then stir it all together with your fried rice. Or, you can just pour the eggs over everything already in the pan and let the eggs cook with everything else. After your eggs are added and cooked, your fried rice is done. Enjoy!

Don't let this part confuse you. Look at Ricky's instructions if you want to make it! I just thought it was funny how wrong I had remembered it! There is no hope for my cooking skills!!!

One reason I have the Best Husband

Ricky is the cook in our family. This is partly because I always tend to mess things up in the kitchen. For example, yesterday I was going to make us dinner. Ricky literally said, “Just make something easy, like pasta.” I ended up burning the pasta sauce because I didn’t stir it enough.  Today, I made some muffins from a mix and ended up burning those too. Ricky, on the other hand, is the best cook I know. Today, he made fresh homemade salsa and quesadilla tacos.

"Quesa-tacos"

Ricky's homemade salsa was so spicy but SO good!

 I might start documenting our meals more often because they are always so delicious!!

Our Engagement Story

Ricky and I got engaged a year ago from yesterday (Halloween), so I thought it would be fitting to share the story of how we got engaged.

When we got engaged, we had been dating just over a year. I had graduated in April and had to move out of my apartment complex in Provo that was only for students. I was living with my family in Sandy and had been commuting to Provo for work. I always hung out with Ricky on weekdays after work. Since we lived so far apart, we usually didn’t do anything on the weekends. But on Halloween, which was a Saturday, Ricky wanted to meet halfway at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi for a date. I was pretty sure this would be the night Ricky proposed to me. We had been talking about marriage for awhile and had designed my ring together. We even had the date picked out, December 19th, which was coming up fast! So when I left the house that night, I remember telling my mom I would probably be engaged that night and would call her with the news!

Ricky and I met at the frontrunner station where his friend Reid dropped him off (which I was not supposed to know - he said he would be taking the frontrunner but there was literally nobody else at the station or in the parking lot, so I obviously saw him get dropped off) I drove up to him and he hopped in the car. He had some nice cologne on and had a fresh, new haircut! We drove over to Thanksgiving Point and went to a nice restaurant called Harvest for dinner. During dinner, Ricky slid a small black box across the table to me. I was confused/disappointed because I thought it might be the ring and didn’t think he should propose in the restaurant and without getting on his knee. I opened up the box and it was a pair of diamond earrings. This was supposed to be like what happens in the movie Leap Year, one of my favorite movies at the time, when Anna is expecting a ring and gets earrings from her boyfriend. Ricky thought it would be funny, but I didn’t connect the experience with the movie until later when he explained he did that because I loved the movie Leap Year.

After dinner, Ricky and I sat on the bench outside the restaurant for a few minutes (he was texting Reid to get in place to take pictures of the proposal). We then walked around some of the Thanksgiving Point grounds near the restaurant. Ricky was asking me if I was disappointed with earrings and if I was expecting something else. I didn’t want to say I was expecting a ring! He stopped in a spot that was not the prettiest and I thought he was going to propose there, so I tried to keep walking to get to a prettier spot. (He was trying to stall to make sure Reid was in place for pictures.) We then continued our walk. When we got to a very pretty area with green grass, some rosebushes, and a small waterfall, Ricky hugged me and then got on one knee and asked me to marry him. I said yes! After putting the ring on my finger, he asked if I smiled for the camera. I was like “what?” and then I saw Reid and Larissa taking pictures. Although I was suspicious as to why Ricky was dropped off instead of taking the frontrunner like he said he would, and why we sat on the bench by the restaurant while he discreetly texted someone, I did not know anyone would be taking pictures of the proposal! I’m glad they did though! They also had flowers for me that Ricky picked out himself!

It was a really great day and we were so happy! We drove to Ricky’s apartment in Provo to call family members with the news and let it sink in that we were engaged!

We were both wearing the same clothes we wore on our first date!

Park City Pictures

I couldn't get these pictures in the right order! So they are random. But here is us on a heated bench on Main Street.

It was too bright for Ricky

#cowboy

Ricky got scared when the chairlift stopped

Ricky on Main Street

We found a cool tunnel to take pictures in

The shoe tree

sup

Ricky's first time watching Tangled!!

Ricky and his mini Coke

Going up on the chairlift! I thought the tiny cone was cute!

So many triangles

Our delicious cow cookie from Java Cow

Ricky was enjoying his ice cream

Park City

We are Finally in our New Home!

Our Daily Commute

Hidden Blessing

I recently came across a post by Al Fox Carraway titled “Wait For Your ‘Manger.’” She talks about how Mary and Joseph had to do some traveling before Jesus was born and how opportunities, like the inn, may have come up that did not work out for them. She points out that the inn may have seemed like such an amazing thing and they must have been heartbroken when it didn’t work out. “But Heavenly Father had something else in mind.” --Al Fox Carraway, Wait For Your ‘Manger,’ Al Fox’s Head

Lately, I have been thinking about how God’s hand may have been playing a role in the situation that Ricky and I are in right now. After moving out of our apartment in Wyview to go to Ricky’s internship in California, we had this perfect little plan that we would easily find another Wyview apartment and move back in time for this semester of school to start. That definitely did not end up being the case. All summer in California, I looked everyday at 4:00 pm when new BYU housing apartments became available. I had no luck because my internet was never fast enough, I guess. We also began looking for off-campus housing in Provo. The first day of school came and went and we were still hanging out in my parent’s basement. Ricky had to commute to school and deal with the horrible BYU parking problem (another story for another day).

We were getting frustrated that absolutely nothing seemed to be working out. We had done ALL that we could possibly do to find housing. We got on the facebook page for housing and checked the BYU website everyday for new postings. We checked Rentler, KSL, and Craigslist. We toured many places and filled out many applications. But nothing worked out. I was very confident about at least two basement apartments we looked at and filled out applications for. I had contacted the landlords as soon as I saw the postings and asked for the earliest time to come tour the place and get an application. The landlords at both of the places did not choose us, although we did everything right. They both told us we were second choice. How could we have been so close!?

We were feeling like everything was going wrong and feeling sorry for ourselves. We hated commuting to school and work in Provo. Traffic was bad and unpredictable, and our schedules did not match up perfectly so there was waiting around on campus or in the library on both our parts.

When Shadow’s health suddenly went downhill and I realized he would be gone soon, my perspective about all of this “homelessness” changed. I was SO grateful that we were able to live in my parent’s house and spend time with Shadow for the last few weeks of his life. I was grateful that we could be here to comfort him in his last days and when he had to be put down.

Ricky and I enjoyed playing Pokemon Go, and would take Shadow with us when we went to find Pokestops and Pokemon. Shadow absolutely loved the walks with us, and I’m so happy that we could spend that time with him. I’m also grateful that I could be living with my family during this hard time. My family is all living under one roof at the moment and I’m grateful that we could all be together.

“I know it can be hard and full of discomfort, just like Mary, but when you see opportunities pass, keep going with faith knowing there is something else to come. That you are not being punished”

-Al Fox Carraway, Wait For Your ‘Manger,’ Al Fox’s Head

When all of these opportunities came and went, it was hard not to feel frustrated. I remember, before we went to see some of the places we really liked, praying that the spirit would guide us and the owners of the places we were seeing. After meeting the owners and touring the places, I would pray that the owners would be guided by the spirit, whether they chose us or not. I was disappointed whenever we found out we were not the ones chosen, but I trusted that God had guided the owners in their decisions and maybe those places were just not for us. Maybe God had something else in mind.

It was hard not to feel sorry for ourselves and like we were being “punished” like Al Fox Carraway said, but now I can see that maybe God wanted us here with my family. I sure am glad that we were here with my family and Shadow.

So, we did finally find a place in Provo! It is BYU housing. We got online because there was going to be a perfect Wyview apartment that we wanted to get! Of course, it went SO fast and we did not get it, but Ricky called me and said he had gotten the other one that had become available. It was a 3 bedroom Wymount apartment, available October 14th. First of all, October 14th was so far away! Second, we do not need three bedrooms, and can hardly afford the three bedrooms that we do not need. So at first, I was like “no way, just drop it.” We had 30 minutes to pay the deposit for the place or let it go to someone else. Ricky and I were asking ourselves, “do we keep this one since we’re desperate or drop it because better ones will probably come along that we can keep trying for?” I called my mom to help us decide and she told us “GET IT!” She pointed out that we have had no luck for months and are desperate, so just get it!! So, we did. We are so excited to finally move to Provo and not have to commute anymore! It will be nice to finally have our own place again. We are actually still looking for other opportunities that might be a better fit and where we can move in sooner. I guess we will have to keep trusting Heavenly Father about this for a bit longer.