Let the Christmas Season Begin!

Today is the first day of December! It was perfect timing for me to have a day off of work to get our home prepped for Christmas! Mitchell and I put up our first Christmas tree and we decorated it for Family Home Evening. Of course there was hot chocolate and cookies involved, what a way to get into the holiday spirit! Love it!

Here's the finished product!

Thanksgiving Adventures!

Gobble, Gobble! These cookies were just a fun little project I did one day after work to combat boredom. They turned out cute and several people have asked me to publish the finished product so, here they are! My "festive flock."

Mitchell and I enjoyed a fun trip up to Mountain Home, Idaho to spend Turkey Day with his sister, Claire and her family there on the Air Force base. Mitchell's parents were also able to come out from Washington and it was fun to see them too. On our way up we stopped in to see Mitchell's other older sister, Jessinna and her boys and their new house. Gorgeous! Our trip to Idaho was great and without incident (unlike the return journey). We had a couple of very enjoyable and relaxing days. In fact, Mitchell and I quite liked the lifestyle of a toddler. We slept in until about 8:00am, had a leisurely breakfast of yummy blueberry pancakes, then we went Christmas Shopping for a while and ate lunch...here's the best part...we took a long afternoon nap! When I woke up from my nap I was joined on the couch by 3 year-old Sadie and we watched 2 episodes of Dora the Explorer. That's a life I could get used to! Mitchell had fun Thursday morning joining in on the Turkey Bowl touch football game on the base that morning and Claire and I were happy to be their cheer squad. Thanksgiving dinner was amazing! Claire pulled it off beautifully and single-handedly, well, John carved the bird. It was delicious! All in all it was a great holiday with a great family.





So here's the great adventure...I was scheduled to work at 6:00am on Friday so we left Idaho after dinner to make the 6 hour drive back to Provo. About one hour in to the drive the check battery light went on in our car. If I had been alone I would have taken note of the alert but not worried about it immediately. Good thing Mitchell is more cautious/knowledgeable/inspired than me because he thought we ought to stop and get it checked out. Our Dads confirmed this intuition and we all decided it must be a failed alternator. What are the odds of finding an auto mechanic open at 8:00pm on Thanksgiving? I say they are zero because that is how many we found after calling half the numbers in the phone book. We got a hotel room for the night (thank you Scott!) and we set out on our quest for auto repair in the morning. We feel very blessed because the car did start in the morning and we were able to find a mechanic who could accommodate us that morning. We made it to the shop and parked in the parking lot; when the mechanic went out to pull the car in to the garage however, it wouldn't start and they had to push it in. Whew! Someone was watching out for us! We did make it home safely and are enjoying the last hours of vacation.

Found: Amazing Fall Recipe!!

I came across this delicious recipe in a cook book and I decided to try it, great choice!

Rice-Stuffed Acorn Squash

Prep time: 45 min
Bake: 20 min

2 large acorn squash
3/4 cup uncooked long grain rice
1-1/2 cups water
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 med onion, chopped
1/4 cup butter, cubed
2 med tart apples peeled and chopped
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup half and half cream
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
3 tbsp honey
3 tsp minced gingerroot
1 tsp curry powder

Cut squash in half; remove seeds. Place cut side down in a greased 9"x13" dish. Cover and bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes or until tender.
Meanwhile, in a large saucepan bring the rice, water and soy sauce to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15-18 minutes or until liquid is absorbed and rice is tender.
In a large skillet saute onion in butter until almost tender. Add apples; saute for 3 minutes. Remove from the heat; stir in the rice, cheese, walnuts, cream, vinegar, honey, ginger and curry.
Turn squash over; stuff with rice mixture. Bake, uncovered, for 20-25 minutes or until heated through.

**I added carrots and bacon and it turned out great!**

Picketing, Football games, and other stuff I should have blogged on

So I've been waiting forever to add my own two cents to this blog under the guise of waiting for something to blog on. As it turn out, I've let about 5 good things pass and now I need to play catch up.

First up, UIST.
I am now officially a published man. You can take a look at my paper the ACM ditigal library. You may not be able to actually see the article off of campus. If you REALLY want to see it, drop me an email. The good news from the conference was that I got to present and the presentation went very well. The bad news was that I didn't love it, and am begining to think about switching over to Human Robot Interactions (HRI) instead of Human Computer Interactions (HCI). More on that later.

Melanie and I have been enjoying going to the football games. The BYU cougars started out really strong, have hit a bit of a slump for the last few games, but will be back at it this Saturday. Here we are shivering away. BTW random thought. I took this picture with my cell phone on 640x480 resolution. However, I believe that they've reduced the color depth on these images. If you look at our faces or at my color you can see color contours.

In other news Mel and I made a surprise visit to California last week. In addition to hanging out with the Tracys, we also got to picket for Prop 8. For two hours more than 200 people stood outside in the cold for a 1.5 mile stretch waving signs. It being suburban Sacramento we got about 8 or 9 friendly waves or thumbs up for every middle finger. Anyhow. We like to think that our signs got that last 2% of the vote to get Prop 8 passed.


I look forward to blogging with you all in the future!
Mitchell

Vote Yes on Prop 8!

What I did on my day off...

This is what I started with. Some items are from Deseret Industries and some are from WalMart.

...And here's the finished product. It was a fun and relaxing day.

I'm Proud of my Brother!

I have to say that I am so proud of my brother! He rocks! This year marks a decade of competitive running for him and he is doing great! He is running on a scholarship at BYU and recently finished his cross country season and is ready and rarin' for indoor track season to start! I was fortunate to be able to watch him run in a race last Friday and he was smokin'! The race was at Utah Valley University and he took 5th place overall! He looked strong and finished great! Great work James!

Shopping Spree!

This week I ended up with a lot of spare time. My clinicals at the hospital were changed at the last minute so that instead of spending 12 hours in the hospital I spent 4 hours (divided between 2 days) in the community observing broader nursing opportunities. I also got the whole day off work on Friday because I had a scheduled lab that morning that only ended up lasting one hour. Wahoo! Although I love to be busy and have to be efficient in organizing every minute of my time, this was a nice break from the normal hustle. Consequently, having more time on my hands I had to fill it somehow... I decided to have a little shopping spree! Mitchell often tells me that I should treat myself to little luxuries, so this time I took him up on it. However, I think he tells me that so freely because he knows that I am very practical and not given to extravagance on a regular basis. On Wednesday I first hit Target and got us a microwave. We have been surviving without one, just because we never got around to making the purchase. Also, I got us a butter dish. This is our second butter dish in 3 months, you would be surprised how difficult it may be to find a good one! Then on to Lowes. I love house plants! Several of my house plants died this Summer, I truly think they got elderly and passed on. It was time to replace their lovely presence around our home. I got a beautiful broadleaf tropical plant and, I splurged, I got a gorgeous orchid! That little plant with 8 vibrant blooms makes me smile every day! The spree continues, on to the mall. Mitchell has needed new Sunday dress shoes for some time. I asked him why he hasn't gotten any before now and he said that he likes the ones he has because they were custom made for him in Peru. He proceded to tell me in great and explicit detail exactly why he liked these particular shoes and what specific features they have that he wants in a shoe. Whoa, pressure! I decided to take on the challenge of finding an adequate replacement. After perusing every shoe store in the entire University Mall, Macy's came through and had his very shoe in stock! They even passed the test when Mitchell got home and tried them on! Score! As I was meandering in the mall I came across a lovely little black dress, I tried it on and it fit! That came home with me too! What a fun day of shopping!

Friday night Mitchell and I enjoyed a lovely date night together. We went to the temple and then to a play at the Hale Center Theater. We love to go to plays at the HCT because they have such a talented cast and the theater is small and makes you feel a part of the action. This time we saw AIDA, a musical written by Tim Rice and Elton John. It was fantastic!! We would definitely recommend the HCT experience!

Harris Family Tradition Continues...

Hello all! Mitchell and Melanie are excited to join the world of blogging! We are loving life together! We have now been married 4 and a half months and everyday gets better and better! Mitchell stays busy with school, work and other projects on the side. He is preparing to take a trip to California next month to present some of his research and a paper he published in a professional conference. This will look great on his resume as he applies to grad school soon. He is also working on developing several new technologies that could turn into future business opportunities. Melanie is also busy. She is enjoying her nursing classes, this semester she is learning about pediatric care and pregnancy, labor and delivery. If nothing else it will be great education for her future family! She is working as a nurse's aide at a nursing home in Provo and loves it! She also completed her fourth marathon on Saturday! Her muscles are telling her they wish she hadn't put them through such a ride but she is really happy to have finished.
In the Scott Harris family the tradition stands that the men cook dinner for the women on Sundays. Mitchell is adamant that he continue this tradition in our family...Melanie doesn't complain a bit! We have had some delicious and impressive meals in the last 4 and a half months. Yesterday was no exception! Mitchell made a delicious Milanesa Napolitana with steamed broccoli. Milanesa is a traditional Argentine dish. It is breaded steak topped with tomato sauce, ham and mozzarella cheese. It was so yummy Honey!