Christmas Time is Here! (sung to the tune of the Charlie Brown special)

Here we are gearing up for our Christmas card photo. You'll have to take our word that it's really cold, even though it looks like a balmy 80 degrees in this picture. We also went to the recently re-opened Muesuem of American History, which was pretty cool.

Here's Sarah. I made her pose in her Christmas dress in front of our tree that's barely taller than us. Also, we have some awesome stockings that Sarah's mom made for us.


These are the gingerbread men that Sarah made. I got to decorate quite a few of them, so I tried to get creative. See if you can find Batman, a football player, a stick figure, and a dude in his underpants.

We also went to see the temple lights on Sunday. Here's a picture of Sarah and her mom. Christmas is great, and we are so excited to go to Arizona this year. Yay!

Picture Time!

So it's been a while since I have posted anything on the blog, mostly because of law school finals (which I should be studying for right now). But I figured we should add some pictures of the exciting non-law-school-final events of the recent weeks. First off, our table finally came, so now we have a place to eat! We were so excited that we took a picture with the box. As you'll notice, we're winners, because the box told us so.

Some folks in Sarah's family's ward started a tradition of having a pie party on Thanksgiving morning, where everyone brings a pie. Anyone who knows me knows that my priorities in life are as follows: (1) Sarah, (2) Pie, (3) Everything Else, so this was a pretty exciting event for me.

For Thanksgiving dinner at the Brutons, I was responsible for the Peterson family stuffing, and Sarah was responsible for the rolls. The rolls rocked, and Sarah did a great job, and I was so excited about my stuffing that I took a picture of it. Even my picky brother-in-law ate some, and he only likes rice!


Sarah got involved in a Gingerbread House competition at work, so we tried to think outside the box and stretch the bounds of the traditional gingerbread house to new heights. We came up with a gingerbread Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, which was pretty dang awesome. Sarah made the gingerbread from scratch (I helped by eating some), and then we cut out the pieces of gingerbread according to a complex posterboard model we built beforehand (I say complex because I even had to use a protractor). Also, we made that awesome snowman out of fondant frosting, and everything came out great.

Here's the more or less completed project, complete with reflecting pool! So those have been the highlights of the last few weeks. The rest of the time I have spent secluded in the bedroom pouring over unilateral agreements and forum non conveniens while Sarah watched Law & Order reruns all by her lonesome. Only two finals to go, and then I'm free!

The Long Wait is Over

After so many months of waiting, Sarah and I finally got to go see Quantum of Solace over the weekend, and it rocked. I figured I couldn't let such a momentous event pass by without making mention of it on the blog. The movie was great. I will admit that it may not be as good as Casino Royale (Daniel Craig's first outing as 007), but this movie was a respectable entry into the canon of Bond films.

The action sequences were amazing, although they do seem to follow the same shaky-camera method made popular in the last few Bourne movies. The plot was pretty good, but it basically just serves as a vehicle for getting Bond from one continent to the next so that he can kill more bad guys. But between the car chase, boat chase, and airplane chase, you fail to notice the parts of the plot that don't really add up.

All in all, the movie was everything I could have hoped for, and sets a precedent for amazing Bond films yet to come. Hooray!

An Ode to Georgetown Cupcake

Second only to my wife's amazing cupcakes, Georgetown Cupcake makes a pretty good snack. Whenever we are in Georgetown, we can't help but stop in.

It was nice to know that although our political differences may tear us apart, Georgetown Cupcake is there to bring us together again... with special election cupcakes!

Here's Sarah's Donkey cupcake. I can only presume that it tasted like hope.

Here's me and my elephant cupcake. It tasted like delicious, crushing defeat. Thanks, Georgetown Cupcake!

James Bond Party

So, we had a pretty awesome James Bond party for my brithday on the 24th. We had a few friends over and made some fancy hors d'oeuvres, including (from left to right) asparagus wrapped in prosciutto, pecan-crusted chicken, onion and goat cheese tartlets, bruschetta, and madeleines.
The madeleines were my favorite. I got addicted to them in Romania and now Sarah makes them when I've been good.
Instead of a cake, I opted for Sarah's award-winning chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting. We were able to keep with the James Bond motif, too.

Here I am blowing out the candle on my cupcake tower. I was dressed in a full tuxedo when the night started, but here I've taken off the jacket and bowtie, which unfortunately makes me looks almost exactly like John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever.
The afterparty was a bit less exciting, but overall, it was an awesome birthday. Plus, we went and saw Coldplay this last weekend as a finale to the birthday extravaganza, and that was amazing too.

The Greatest Halloween Cake Ever!

Sarah and I had a great time at the ward Halloween party. She dressed up in a traditional outfit from Panama, and I dressed up like I do on most days. One person asked if I was Robert Plant, so I guess I'll say that's who I was.

This is Sarah's amazing cake. It took a good ten hours to build the whole thing, but it was worth it. It won first prize at the Halloween party!

The windows took the most work. We used a special type of icing called color flow icing, and it takes about 2 days to set up completely. Then we glued them to some popsicle sticks and jammed them into the cake. And Sarah says she couldn't have done it without me, but she's just being nice.

Museum Day

Sarah and I decided to go visit some of the awesome museum around DC, so we visited the Museum of Natural History and the Air and Space Museum. Here are just a couple of pictures, including me with one of the statues from Easter Island, and Sarah in front of the Capitol. Also, I'm wearing my parents' favorite sweatshirt, so they should be glad to know I still have it.

Other people have interesting lives too!

I have added a link on the side of our blog, so that people can look at some other fun blogs of some of our friends. Feel free to go to their websites, and make fun of them too!

DC Cupcake Competition Photos!

We finally got some pictures from Sarah's cupcake competition. The competition was a lot of fun, and Sarah got second-place in the amateur division! She did a fantastic job, and was one of the few competitors who actually brought enough cupcakes for all of the people that showed up. I know because I helped frost all of them (Sarah's mom helped too).

Every participant had to have three types of cupcakes: chocolate with vanilla frosting, yellow with chocolate frosting, and a "wild card" entry. Sarah chose to do an Italian creme cake, which was a really creamy cupcake with walnuts and coconut. It was a real crowd-pleaser, and a couple of people asked Sarah is she would be willing to cater their upcoming events!

The cupcakes were delicious, but Sarah and I have sworn off of them for at least a month. We have moved on to pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and cakes for the ward Halloween party, and for my birthday. Stay tuned for pictures of the upcoming culinary masterpieces.

Ryan's Top 5 Summer Movies

So summer is finally drawing to a close, bringing an end to my favorite time of year for movies (except of course for James Bond time - Nov. 14th). I figured this would be a good time to reflect back on some of the best films from the summer, so without further ado, here is my Top 5 from Summer 2008.

5. Kung Fu Panda

If I had to imagine would Jack Black would look like if he were animated, I would probably picture a fat panda who can't do anything, which is what makes this role perfect for him. I didn't go into this movie expecting a whole lot, but it was really hilarious, the action scenes were incredibly fun to watch, and the animation was great. I think everyone was pleasantly surprised, and glad to have something from the Dreamworks studio that wasn't another Shrek movie.

4. Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

This movie had everything going for it. Indiana Jones was back. The whip cracking was back. The gross bugs were back. An annoying sidekick was back. It had everything I was looking for to be number one on my list of perfect summer films, except for one fatal flaw: it was kind of a crappy movie. Parts of it just didn't make sense, and Indiana looks like he's ready for a nap after most of the fight scenes. For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, my advice to you is to rent the movie, watch the first hour and a half, and then turn it off. Trust me.

3. Wall-E

This is without a doubt the greatest movie about robot love I have ever scene (unless you consider Short Circuit a robot love story). The sound effects were all done by the same guy who made the sounds for R2-D2 in Star Wars, and that guy knows how to make you sympathize with robots. The movie itself is flawless. It had endearing characters, a great story, and delivers a good message without coming off as preachy. This is the movie on the list that came closest to making me cry (except for when I watched the last thirty minutes of Indiana Jones and realized how bad it was), and it really had a lot of heart.

2. The Dark Knight

This movie rocked. The action sequences were all amazing, and the story (at the risk of sounding cheesy) really brought up some interesting viewpoints on morality and responsibility. But what really drove this move were the characters. The Joker was incredibly creepy, and sometimes hilarious in a very macabre, gruesome way. And the pretty boy face-off between Christian Bale and Aaron Eckhart wasn't too bad either. All in all, this was perhaps the best movie of the summer, but maybe not the most fun (which is what being a summer movie is all about). Which brings us to my number one...

1. Iron Man

Any movie that starts off playing AC/DC's "Back in Black" is already off to a really good start for me, so maybe I am bit biased. The movie was incredible. The actions sequences were stunning, and it suceeded in one area where almost every other superhero movie fails: comedy. The movie kept me laughing almost the entire time, and it managed to do that while still being an action movie. Most superhero films (i.e. X-Men, Hulk, Ghost Rider) make incredibly lame attempts to be funny, but this movie pulled it off beautifully.

So that rounds out the Top 5. If there are any you think should have been on there, feel free to let me know. Oh, and one final note. The new James Bond movie will probably be the greatest film ever, and will blow all of these out of the water.

Furniture Photos!

This is our new coffee table. Now we can eat while watching Jeopardy. Our lives are complete.

This is the buffet that almost killed me, but I'm happy to say we're still friends.

Also, I have a beard now, which is inexplicably a completely different color than the rest of the hair on my head. I think my beard might be Irish.

CUPCAKES!!!

Sarah is competing in a cupcake competition! She's got some amazing cupcake baking skills, so she'll put them to the test at a local contest on the 25th. I'll be the official taste tester in the family, so I'll keep you posted on how delicious everything is. Also, I finally found a way to put pictures on the blog again. Hooray! Here are some pictures of chocolate chip cheesecake filled cupcakes with chocolate ganache. Enjoy looking at them!

IKEA: The furniture I love to hate, and hate to love

So, I have lost the cord that connects my camera to my computer, so I have no way of uploading pictures until I find another solution. But Sarah and I bought some awesome stuff at IKEA last weekend. We bought a coffee table, and something called a buffet, which is like a big side table (which presumably you could use to lay out your very own buffet if you so chose). It looks really cool, and if you really want to see it, I guess I can take a picture of it with my phone and send it to you.

I love the furniture now, but I definitely hated it last week. Not only did it threaten my own sanity, but it threatened my marriage as well. Something about trying to find the right wooden peg to put in a piece plywood can really bring out the worst in people, and Sarah and I fell victim to the IKEA madness. Fortunately, we only actually came to blows once or twice, and once the buffet was completely assembled, it seemed to restore harmony and peace to our home.

So I guess it's safe to say the most confusing and frustrating thing I have had to do since starting law school is put together that rediculous buffet (which I love so much), so I guess that's a good thing. School is going well, and the cases I have to read every day are pretty hilarious. Who's sues a bus company for being assaulted in the face with exhaust fumes? People are crazy!

Well, that's all for now. I'm going to go home and play with my buffet, seeing as were best friends now.

First Week of Law School

Well, I seem to have survived my first eight days of law school. Sorry I haven't been able to post anything in a while, but life is good. Sarah and I are happy here in DC, and we are both staying really busy. Right now I am taking Criminal Law, Civil Procedure, Torts, Contracts, and a Writing Class. So we're doing great for now, but I can only imagine that school is going to get more and more busy as the semester goes on. See ya.

The New Desk (my home away from home)

So here is the new desk that Sarah and I set up a few days ago. I figure I will be spending a lot of time here over the next three years, so it deserves its own post. Law school starts on Monday, so I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to get acquainted.

We have moved in!

We are officially moved in to our new place. Plus we finally have furniture to sit on. We have our nice couch and love seat, and we have also fixed up the kitchen and the bedroom a bit. I added a few pictures so you could see what everything looks like. Sarah and I are so happy to be in our new home. Feel free to come by and check it out if you're in our neighborhood.

Ryan's Downward Spiral

I suppose the long hours of no job and no school are finally getting the better of me. I realized this when I spent a few hours the other night making blueberry scones with a "zesty" lemon glaze. I suppose that is a pretty good indicator that I need to get back to more of a routine schedule. On the plus side, the scones were delicious. Maybe I could bake up a batch for my law school professors for the first day of class.

The End of Independent Study

I am done with Independent Study forever!!!!!!!! Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is all. :0)

Pictures of Our New Apartment (with someone else's stuff in it)

Here are some photos of our new place. We took these when we signed the contract, so the owner's stuff is still inside it. The place is really nice. It's called the Cardinal House in Arlington, VA, and it is about ten minute's walk from the metro that I will need to take to school. We are planning on moving in sometime next week, so we'll put up some more pictures later on.

We have a front porch (sort of)! Since our apartment is on the ground floor, we have our own entrance to the place. There's even an area where we can sit outside and grill when we want to.

The kitchen is pretty nice. It's recently been redone with new countertops, cabinets, and appliances.
The bathroom has also recently been redone, and has some pretty sweet stonework inside the shower. We are really excited about moving in and having our own place again. Although I will miss the Wii/Playstation 2/XBox at Sarah's house. That new Mario Kart game is incredibly addictive.

No money, Mo' problems

Hey folks. Sorry I haven't put much on the blog lately. My computer died, so I am waiting for my Iranian friend at the Computer Clinic to fix everything so I can start working on it again. As for exciting news, Sarah and I now have an apartment, as well as a couch and a love seat. Although we may not have any money, we have a place to sleep, and a place to watch TV. Woohoo!

Road Trip Across America

Hi everyone, and welcome to the blog. Sarah and I wanted to find a way to keep everyone posted on how we were doing here in DC. We're both doing great. Sarah is enjoying her job, and I'm enjoying sitting around the house, wishing I had a job. We're going to do our best to keep this blog updated, so that you all can see what we're up to. For starters, here are some choice pictures of our trip across America's heartland.

Here are all of our worldly possessions, packed up in two cubes. These cubes are supposedly sitting in Baltimore right now, waiting for us to find an apartment to put them in.

Here was the Cadillac Ranch in the middle of Texas. Truly, a bizarre place. Essentially, it's ten old Cadillacs that are buried halfway in the ground and covered in spray paint. Also, there appeared to be an old nuclear bomb there.

This is apparently the largest cross in the Western hemisphere. It was glorious.



We stopped at Neely's BBQ on our way through Memphis, TN. For those of you who aren't addicted to the Food Network, the Neely's have their own show, where they cook lots of meat and stuff.

The ribs were fantastic, and the beef brisket ruled.


So, that's it for now. Once I get some more pictures from the trip, I'll put some more up here on the blog. I gotta get back to watching Price is Right, because it's almost time for the Showcase Showdown. So long, everyone.