I jus' wanna let you know, the backa yo' head is ridikkulus!

The title comes from this MadTV excerpt: "Can I Have Your Number?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRbkkqZikx4 It's awesomely funny. DISCLAIMER: There are maybe 4 or 5 milder swear words interspersed in here, but the rest of the video is so funny that it makes up for it.

Last week we forgot to relate to you an exciting story: the story of our very first burnt dinner as a married couple!!! *cue the awwwww's* I know!!! Christian was taking a nap, so I was in charge of dinner. I was making Chicken Parmigiana again (see the recipe from a few posts ago). I got everything ready, put the chicken in the oven, set the oven's timer for ten minutes (which was when I was supposed to turn over the chicken), and then went and laid down on the bed. BAD idea. Two hours later, I awoke to a curious smell permeating the apartment. In my groggy, just-awoken state, it took me a minute to figure out what the smell was. It dawned on me. I gasped and jumped up from the bed, and opened the oven to reveal a baking dish full of black, charred, shriveled, very smelly Chicken Parmigiana. I stared open-mouthed at it for a minute, then went and woke up Christian so he could see. We both started laughing. We went out to eat that night. We had to resort to the hard-core baking soda method of cleaning the burned-on stuff off of our baking dish. And our apartment smelled faintly like burnt chicken for at least a week or so afterwards. Not an exceptionally pleasant smell to come home to. So did all of our clothes, since our bedroom is so close to the kitchen. We had to wash them all.

Tragic story of the week: On Friday I had a 5-page research paper due for biology on the benefits of stem cell research. I stayed up until 4 AM Thursday night (well, technically Friday morning) doing it. By the time I was done, I was SUPER tired, but I finally finished it and emailed it to myself so I could print it off at a school computer the next day before class. I closed the paper. Then I clicked on the link that I'd emailed myself, and to my horror I discovered that I had sent myself just my rough draft (just some bullet points of things I was planning to talk about). My real, finished paper was DELETED. GONE. I woke Christian up and he very kindly - even though he was very tired - helped me search my entire computer including temp files and everything. But it was completely GONE. And it was 4:00 AM and I had to get up in two hours (at 6:00) to go to class. After a giant pity party and a few "Why???? WHY???? I didn't do anything!!!"'s, I eventually regained enough composure to write a pleading email to my professor about it. He felt sorry for me. And so in class Friday, he extended the deadline for the papers until Monday!!!!! Hooray!!!!!! I still had to re-type the entire paper, but at least this time I knew in general what I was going to write about, and which sources I was going to use. So it was a little easier the second time around. I turned it in this morning. And it was beautiful.

On Friday we had our ward Halloween party. All right, all right, I know you've all been dying to know what we dressed up as. We went as.......*drumroll* ......Steve and Blue, from Blue's Clues!!! (ba-bow!!!) Obviously, Christian was Steve, and I was Blue. We picked up some clothes from D.I. to make our costumes with. You can't see it in the pictures, but my spots were cut out from an old blue t-shirt and taped on with packing tape (I didn't want to ruin my good blue t-shirt by sewing things onto it). We had to get kind of creative with the ears too. For Christian, we couldn't find a shirt at D.I. that looked exactly like Steve's. So we got one that could give the general effect, and he wore a nametag that said "Hello, my name is STEVE", so that people could tell who he was. Unfortunately, we didn't think about the fact that most people in our ward don't know us yet, and so they might think his name was actually Steve.... oh well. Here are the pictures: one that we took with the Halloween party backdrop (that may or may not complement our costumes), and two that we took of each other at our apartment.

There were SO MANY CUTE BABIES there, dressed as WAY CUTE THINGS!!!! There were little tigers with eyeliner noses, and little pumpkins.... and one little baby was dressed as a dragon, and his mom was a damsel in distress and his dad was a knight.... awwwww!!!! Christian says I go baby-crazy every time we go to church. I guess I do. They're all just so darn cute!!! There was one baby blessed just this week named Apollo, and he's SO TINY and SOOO CUTE! They dressed him in this darling little knit white outfit that looked like a little snow suit.... it was ADORABLE..... ahem. Anyway.

Our last piece of news is that Christian was just yesterday given a second calling in the ward..... along with the Redeeming the Dead Committee Chairman, he is now also....... the ward choir director!!! I laughed out loud (literally) when the bishop told him. We'd been going back and forth about who we thought was going to be the new choir director. I guess it was him. Haha. But he's way excited about it, and I think he'll be amazing. He's already started looking up new pieces so that we can start having choir practice asap. This should be really fun for him, and he'll do really well.

I am still without a calling. However, the bishop knows (I reminded him) and says he is going down his list looking for people without callings, and calling them as things. I hope someone gets called to be the ward program printer person. We have no sacrament meeting programs currently...

And the most recent news of all (as of today): a couple weeks ago, there were auditions for the band that plays at the basketball games. There are 8 positions, and about 10-12 horns auditioned. Christian was the first to audition - like a week before everyone else - and he didn't really think much about it until today, when he was reminded that audition results are out today. So he went down and looked, and was surprised to find out that he got first chair in the band that plays at the mens' home basketball games! This comes along with a little more scholarship, which will make next semester even more financially feasible as far as funding goes. The first game is on November 13, and he is pumped!

Anyhow, here is the recipe for this week. And yes, it does say 1/2 CUP of basil. We tried it but with a few alterations that we think made it worse. Instead of fresh basil, we used the kind in the spice jar, since we didn't have fresh. We didn't have enough basil to make half a cup, so we also put in some oregano. And our shredded zucchini that we'd frozen beforehand didn't end up thawing very well - it ended up being mush, basically. I guess you're supposed to use fresh zucchini. Anyway, ours ended up being pretty much noodles with zucchini pesto sauce. It looks bizarre and green, with flecks in the sauce, and has a strong basil-y taste, so don't feed it to picky children if you're planning on them actually eating it. Perhaps it will be better if you use fresh basil, and zucchini that's not mush. I did actually like the taste of it somewhat. Try it out and see what you think. Maybe if you do it actually correctly it will be better. :D

Zucchini Alfredo

Ingredients

12 oz package uncooked noodles (egg noodles, linguine, fettucine, whatever)

3 Tbs vegetable oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 cups shredded zucchini

1/2 cup milk

4 oz cream cheese, cubed

1/2 cup chopped fresh basil

salt and pepper to taste

grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions

1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add noodles and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.

2. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in garlic, and cook 2 minutes. Mix in zucchini, and cook 10 minutes, until some of the moisture has evaporated.

3. Pour the milk into the skillet, and stir in cream cheese until melted. Mix in basil. Season with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Serve over the cooked pasta.

Anywho. Adios, amigos!

Brittany and Christian