cake of pan.

happy MEMORIAL DAY!
isn't it so wonderful we get a few holidays to honor those who serve our country?
we are truly blessed to live in such a wonderful land!
on sunday we had a wonderful outing in central park that i will share later, but today,
somethings about FOOD:



i've learned the secret to pancakes.

cottage cheese.

seriously people!

it's all about the cottage cheese.

here's the recipe i usually go off of from my grannylynn:

2 c bisquick

1 c buttermilk

4 eggs

1/2 c cottage cheese

(add sugar and vanilla as wanted per calorie choice intake)

my alterations to this recipe:

i always half it.

it's just too much for 2 people.

i never have buttermilk on hand, nor vinegar to do that smart change milk to buttermilk thing.

i just use a little less milk than what the recipes calls for and add more in as i think it needs to be runnier.
(it's probably yummier if you use buttermilk)

i also add equal amounts of oatmeal because it makes it more filling (and seems healthier???? oats, right???)

we always add sprinkles or food coloring to pancakes because it's more fun that way. 

i add like 1-2 T of sugar and 1ish tsp vanilla

but this time when i halved the recipe, i forgot to half the cottage cheese amount.

these were by the far the best pancakes i've ever made.

they were just so yummy and perfect!

also, i think this time around i felt the pancakes were too flat so i added like 1 tsp of baking soda fyi.

try it sometime.

tell me what you think of the cottage cheese :)

i ate the leftover pacakes plain all day long till they were gone.

 

what are some other awesome pancake recipes out there or what you use?
any tricks you love?
i have this new HOPE that now that i'm out of school i can actually focus on being an stellar cook!
cooking different recipes often during the week!
help me!

 

why sit when you can stand

this is what my work life looks like.

 

my back is having some serious problems these days.
sitting and laying straight on my back=PAIN.
the solution to working on a computer for your job:
place the keyboard on something tall, like your costco toilet paper,
raise the computer screen as high as it will go,
place a table on the chair so your laptop will be at eye level,
have a chair in front of the computer as a prop.

that's how college graduates get things done.


ps- only problem to this situation, when you need toilet paper your whole system falls apart...
i guess a box will have to do.

 

our house at 10:04 am

this is what our mornings look like:
scriptures, cereal, dirty tables.

 

we're still in that beloved stage of life where we sleep for 10 hours everynight...
wake up when we feel like it,
read the eternal marriage handbook from BYU religion classes in the morning
(actually a WAY good book people, if you have the time, read some of it)
then we'll lay in bed for another 20 minutes on our computers checking stuff out.
casey gets ready for the day
(notice casey gets ready for the day...not kimber)
we then go eat our bowls of cereal.
i don't know why i think multigrain cheerios are so yummy but they are...
we'll do our individual scriptures in the morning.
and bc we don't have to go anywhere for and hour or two we linger around reading our scriptures instead of being rushed to get to somewhere (aka class/work) on time.
this summer does have its perks.

i'm curious, what's everyone else's morning routines?
i imagine it's quite different/ more chaotic if you have children...

salsa

recently i've discovered all i want is salsa.

maybe it's the whole im-on-the-east-coast-with-fake-mexican-food thing or just because i like salsa.
it's one or the other.

WELL, i went on pinterest to find a yummy easy salsa.

easiest one i could find:

chili's copycat salsa.
easiest aka i actually have all the ingredients on hand

holy hannah it's our new favorite salsa!!!!!

and so gosh darn easy!

here's the recipe:

Chili's Copycat Salsa Recipe:

(Recipe from Deals to Meals)

2 cans (14.5 oz each) whole tomatoes, drained
1 small (4 oz) can diced or whole jalapenos (not pickled)--about 4-5 jalapenos (or less if you don't like a lot of spice)
1/4 c. yellow onion, cut into quarters (you can also use dried minced onion)
1 tsp. garlic salt
1/2 to 1 tsp. salt (depending on how much you prefer)
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. lime juice

Place all of the ingredients together into a food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Serve with tortilla chips.

here's the thing though.

the first time we made it, i felt like i put WAY too much onion in it.

casey LOVED it,

but we both felt like it was missing something...

the next day, it was AWESOME .
seriously, an exact replica of chili's.

we both really loved it and devoured it in one sitting.

a few days later i finally was able to go to the store and get more jalepenos to make more!

(we actually half our batch when we make it because we borrow my friends magic bullet)

well, i put the right amount of onions in this time, and i LOVED it,

casey didn't, he thought it was too tomatoey.

so we made a second little batch with more onion and he went back to loving it.

i'm so happy we have this around now,
 i eat this stuff like it's a slasa eating contest,
fa' realssssss

kimber's yummy recipe followed salsa on top

casey's too oniony but yummy to him salsa on bottom :)

yay for salsa!!!!!!

  

burgers and parks in nyc

so we spent our saturday night in new york city last weekend.

it kinda stinks with how work works out,

but we do try to steal a few hours in of fun on saturday nights.

casey was the awesome brave driver as always.

he amazes me in driving situations, ha, sounds silly, but true.

i'm getting better at being prepared exactly where we need to be and he's getting better and getting us there somehow.

we went to the infamous shake shack in madison square garden.

we'd been to shake shack in DC with my uncle last summer and were excited for the burgers again!

they really do taste amazing.

and their zig zag fries are sure yummy.

we spent a good half hour or more in line, and after an hour finally got our food.

i was starving, to say the least, and thoroughly enjoyed every bite.

i got the single shack burger and casey the double.

we don't play around when it comes to fries anymore and got 2.

i couldn't believe how busy that place was,

for reals, the line did not ease up one bit the 2 hours we were there.

brooke, christian, and kelly were our wonderful company and made for great laughter through the night.

at 9:30 i realized that the park we wanted to go to closes at 10!

so we speed walked our way 5 blocks toward 10th ave and enjoyed the park for 15 minutes.

the highline is an old elevated railroad track converted into a beautiful park walkway in the midst of the city (and it's free, yay!)

it really was so pretty and fun plus it's like a little haven elevated from the hustle and bustle of the streets.

we will most definitely be going back to visit it in the daytime.

laughter abounded all night.
booke, christian, and kelly are 3 of the funniest people i know.
this summer will be do great with them around.
 

i'm so happy casey is eager and willing to do all the fun things with me.

we have the attitude of "when in rome" when it comes to visiting places and try to do it all and taste it all.

it's just the best.

we're very excited for the many more activities the summer will bring us!

if you've ever been to nyc or lived there at all we'll take all the tips we can get on food and activities!

jorts

let's go way back in time,

october 2008 back in time.

it was casey and myself's first date.

we were going to the byu v utah st football game up in logan.

i swear, just the week before a friend on my freshman floor, stacey,

brought up the conversation of jean shorts aka jorts,

and how no boy should ever wear these,

that they were the ugliest thing ever,

that no one in their right mind would buy/wear them these days,

only weirdos wore them.

i fully believed her.

i soaked in all her words.

i was like "yeah, they are ugly. what are these boys thinking?'

well you guessed it, casey wore JORTS on our first date!

gasp!

luckily, i was able to look beyond the jorts and easily forgave him. 

we're sitting here talking about them and casey thinks that when we were engaged i told him they were yucky and he should never again wear them.

wow, am i a rude person or what?!

but what can i say? i didn't like 'em? ha. 

well, i've been working on a project and those shorts were i the pile.

i held them up and we laughed.

casey says he still likes 'em.

i still don't like them so much.

other kinds, maybe...

those ones definitely not.

but i just cut them up so he can never wear them again :)

i love you, sweetie!
thanks for never again wearing jorts :)

iphone update

life from the iphones over the past month

graduation.
yayyyyy.

our time in arizona.
bahama bucks. casey's 2nd love.
they had a new size even bigger than their biggest size and casey had to get it.
it pretty much took 3 days to eat.
more on how awesome bahama bucks is later :)
in-n-out and ned's krazy subs with our trusty companion, annalee.
her and phoebe went everywhere with us that week which was a blast.
sadly, phoebe was always taking naps when we did lunch.

driving.
ugh.
driving in separate cars, even ugher.
finally getting to indiana, yay.
more on indiana and iowa later.

our first weekend in nj.
we went to the god father brick oven pizza.
pineapple and ham, of course, and it was yummo.
that night we also went and saw the avengers=awesome.
sunday lunch=green pancakes

our apartment complex.
yay/boo.
a walk a took one day to the cemetery across the street.
you know how on headstones they always say something like "the mother who loved all", "always inspiring" "a father and friend"
ya know?
i was thinking what if we all did our headstones like the i'm a mormon campaign?
 a wife, a mother, a mormon.
i just thought it'd be funny :)

 

and there is a small update

what our mother's day looked like.

i feel like mother's day is more like "celebrate women's day"

it's not like you're going to exclude married women who don't have children,

or even older women for that matter, who don't have kids.

so you see, it's celebrate women's day.

so for this non-mother woman, i was still celebrated and it was still fun.

all the men stood up and sang some song about mother's.

the first line was awesome, and strong, and clear.

the next few minutes were a little harder to understand... :)

i'd be looking over all the men standing up there and just giggle watching them.

but most the time i was staring at casey.

it was like having my own child up there in the primary program.

he was singing to me.

he'd keep looking up to look at me ans smile really cheesy and cute like a funny child.

and then we'd laugh at each other because it was just a funny situation.

tender.

the primary children got up too and were as cute as usual.

i'm excited to be back in a family ward for the rest of the years of my life so i can enjoy the funniness of primary children.

and then we got a baggie of legitimately yummy chocolate goodies.

they were thoroughly enjoyed by casey and myself.

relief society was a different one too.

we had a brunch the whole hour and just sat around and chatted with each other.

kind fun.

plus it was fun to get to know more people in the ward.

any kind of muffin/bread with chocolate chips in it is just so darn yummy.

we called our mommies that afternoon and lazied around the house for awhile.

later that evening we went over to dinner at one of the member's houses.

it was actually a member casey ran into while working his first day here in new jersey.

they were just the absolute sweetest and we had the best time with them.

they've got 4 awesome kids.

dinner was exceptional.

the stories they told were hilarious.

the kids were quite the entertainment.

while i visited and talked with the mom, casey played baseball in the backyard with kids.

after everyone was tired of baseball (and the wiffle ball was broken)

we sat around outside and talked more about life.

they gave us some awesome nj/ny tips and we are excited to use them.

i'm so humbled by the kindness of others and immediate acceptance from others.

it's amazing that no matter where you are in the world,

if you learn someone else is LDS it's like you're immediate friends.

it's so wonderful.

it's like having friends everywhere in the world.

 

and casey made this card for me today in primary.
i love the hearts :)



ps- on the way to our car when going to dinner that night, an older man started running over to us.
i saw he had a missionary nametag on.
i exclaimed, "i'm mormon too!"
he said "i know, i saw your license plate!"
(it has a BYU alumni around the plate).
we began talking and he said he's been seeing our car here often and has been trying to meet us.
they're senior couple missionaries who work in the NJ mission office here.
it was so fun to talk to them.
and again, immediate friends.
i love the church so much,
it brings so many great blessings to our life.

our first real excursion in new jersey

so this last weekend was when we really tried to do something cool here in new jersey!

we both were very long and hard hours on saturday so instead of going all the way in the NYC,

we just went close.

we went to the town called hoboken which is on the hudson river on the new jersey side.

firstly, washington street was crazy busy.

it's apparently the hot spot of the town which we did not know.

but we found our little pizza place i wanted to try, grimaldi's.

(not going to lie, I've been scurrying pinterest, a cup of jo blog, and the rockstar diaries blog for tips and good eats in the city.

rockstar diaries said grimaldi's was their favorite pizza place in NYC, and they had a shop in hoboken, NJ so we went to that one!).

it was a small little pizzeria but did not disappoint.

the seasoning on the pizza was outstanding.

and i did love the thin crust version, it was delicious.

 

the three of us each picked a topping for our pizza.

3 as in myself, casey and kelly.

let's introduce kelly bc i think we'll be seeing lots of him this summer.

kelly is my guy friend from high school who is actually out here selling with us.

he's super fun to be around and adds a great flare of fun to experiences.
plus he voluntarily will take pictures of the both of us when i don't even ask, 
he's so nice.

so he's cool and hangs out with us :)

back to toppings.

kimber- olives

casey- sausage

kelly- green peppers.

we devoured the pizza and splitting a large between the 3 of us was perfect.

after dinner we saw a little cupcake shop next door, crumbs,  and just wanted to take a peek inside.

we were thinking we'd go a few doors down to get ben and jerry's ice cream but once casey saw the cotton candy cupcake he was sold.

so casey got the cotton candy.

i asked the lady what a popular one was and she said the red velvet and i followed suit.

mine was spectacular.

so rich and so perfect.

casey said he could have used a little more cotton candy flavoring.
personally, i would totally like to go there again, it was yummo in my opinion.

kelly ended up getting the yummy ben and jerry's ice cream.

we went back to the car and found that a view of the manhattan skyline was right there by us at the water's front.

we stopped the car and took in the lights, shapes and vibe.

took a few pictures,

dreamed of all the fun we'll have in the city this summer and drove home.

twas a great end to our week.

coming up: how we spent our mother's day,

ps- happy mother's day to my incredible mummy! i love you!

and happy mother's day to my mother in law, you are so wonderful!

the last provo bucketlist: diamond fork hot springs hike

i'm here to report our last provo bucketlist activity:

hiking to the diamond fork hot springs together
(not too far away from spanish fork)

the day after graduation ceremonies was pack up our house day,

or at least pretend to pack up our house day.

we stopped for awhile and went on a little excursion with my mom to hike the hot springs!

i had done it with friends during my aspen grove summer,

but it was at night and you couldn't see much.

so i was definietly excited to go with casey and my mom.

i just googled "diamond for hot springs" and looked up the info on it.

we followed the driving directions and reached our destination mid-afternoon.

we were very surprised how many other cars were there but knew we were at the right place.

the hike is about 2 miles in and beautiful.

it smelt so good and the rushing water by the path was spectacular.

we had good company and we just kept hiking along.

about half way there though, we ran into one of the funniest moments i'll always remember.

casey was leading and then it was myself and then my mom.

suddenly i see a small snake by casey's left side and i say "watch out there's a snake"

casey then begins to go bonkers.

he can't see the snake.

he begins to do football star/deer high knees trying to get away from where he's standing while looking at the ground.

he's freaking.

i've never seen that boy move so much nor be so terrified.

i know, i'm so childish, but seriously it was the funniest thing ever.

i'm pretty sure his face was struck with pure fear too,

i was laughing so hard and would just keep randomly laughing about it for the next while.

funniest moment ever.

we finally reached the hot springs after what seemed like forever

(forever bc we could smell that yucky sulfur for so long).

sadly enough though, it was quite warm outside during the hike,

and so the last thing we wanted to do was get into some burning hot hot springs.

so we splashed our feet in the cold stuff for a little while and then once we cooled down tried out the hot springs.

it was still way too hot to me so i just walked in the shallow parts up to my ankles.

casey got in sitting down though and seemed to enjoy the warmth all over his body.

once he got up, the bottom half of his stomach and below looked like it had been sunburned the water was so hot!

it was beyond stinky too.

you could tell what parts of the water were hot v cold depending on the color:

black=HOT

white= warm

clear= cold

there were lots of fun little pools for people to sit in so you didn't feel like you had to mingle with everyone else too much.

the rushing waterfall set a beautiful background to our experience there too.

i did feel that it was the hang out for all non-LDS people in the utah area to go to,

ha, seriously!

it felt like everyone else there had beer, were smoking, and were covered in tattoos.

it was just a funny site indeed for a utah hike :)

but we were so very lucky to have the company of my mom there with us and it was just a fun trip all around!

if you're in the area, it's definitely a must hike to do!

sadly, this item rounds off our completions of our provo bucketlist.

maybe in the future years as we come back to visit provo we can do a few we never got to accomplish.

if you ever make one of your own send me a link so i can follow in on your fun!

the official statistics are as follows:

total: 29

completed: 20

still to-do: 9

cheers to our 4 years we spent in provo!

2 bachelors

let's talk a little about graduation, shall we?

we shall.

graduation rocked.

it was like celebrate casey and kimber week all over again,

not to sound all self-absorbed, but it really was just so much fun.

i think of the 4 days we were with family, we pretty much only had cereal for breakfast at our house, it was great.

everyone was so nice and treated us to the yummiest places that week.

brick oven pizza, awful waffle, more pizza, magelby's, and a japanese grill.

twas the best.

casey and i did everything for graduation together, not only because we're married, but also because we in the same college anyways.

commencement was sweet. 

walking into the marriot center all dressed up, having the sidewalks lined with professors in their really cool garb and then hearing the official graduation song playing was really very cool.

everyone around you was so happy too.

and it's amazing, after 4 years at BYU, i was really surprised how many people i kept seeing/running into that i knew.

there were nearly 7000 graduates and i knew people, kinda fun.

elder oaks spoke at commencement ceremonies and did marvelous.

my landscape management friends sat on one side of me, casey on the other side, and on the other side of casey was some of his dental club friends.

precious, huh?

it was later this night we went with the cutlers to brick oven pizza (mmm pineapple) and awful waffle.

they are such a hoot to be around.

the next day was REAL graduation activities.

my sweet parents bought us hawaiian leis to wear during all our festivities.

those flowers were so much fun to wear all day long, and they smelt so DANG good!.

it just made it that much more celebratory!

we then went the (veryyyyyyyyy long) graduation ceremony where they called everyone's names and we received out "diplomas."

it was funny, casey and i were literally part of the last 15 people to get up there and walk due to them messing up seating, so the poor guy had done so well on EVERYONE'S names and still sounded so cheery,

but we went up (I was first, since casey technically was walking with me and my department) he said "kimberly woodruff carter" and casey very loudly corrects him to cutler.

he then says, "oh sorry, that's cutler and walking with her husband, casey d cutler."

it was so cute :)

we made our way out of the marriot center, and i met up with a bunch of my landscape management friends to take pictures.

we took more pictures with family and soaked in the moment.

then, for dinner, we went to sakura, japanese steakhouse in provo and boy was it good.

yes, a little pricey but well worth every dollar.

the food was incredible, the cook was so fun and put on such an entertaining show.

it was such a wonderful end to our day of celebration.

but seriously, the food and service were outstanding.

cue the rest of graduation pictures i want to post:

 

it was one of the awesome times where people just take your camera and willingly take lots of pictures for you, thank you, family.

happy graduation to us.

and even bigger happiness to kimber knowing that i never have to take a test for school again!!!!!!