Plantaloons

Last semester I took a class on indoor plants called "Interior Plants and Landscapes." The best part of this class was that almost every week we got to take home a plant or two which meant I accumulated a lot of plants...fast. By the end of the semester, I had accumulated the following plants (some in multiple pots)

- Heart leaf philodendron (regular green and Brazil varieties)
- Mother Fern
- Dieffenbachia
- English Ivy
- Golden and N-joy Pothos
- Variegated and non-variegated spider plants
- Some variety of begonia that I don't remember
- Burro's tail
- String of pearls (I chucked this one when it decided it didn't like humidity and got nasty)
- Amstel King ficus being trained into a bonsai shape
- Baby Madagascar dragon tree (living outside as it is breeding fungus gnats)
- Peace lily
- Arrowhead vine
- Gardenia (now living outside and covered in spider mites)
- Warneckii dracaena
- Lemon-lime dracaena

and the other couple plants I had before them, most notably my avocado tree named Kashyyyk (after the Wookie homeworld). I threw the other ones away because they rotted.

As it turns out I'm not exactly the green thumb I hoped to be. All my plants have fungus gnats so I've hung fly tape to catch them. It's funny what bringing home one infected plant can do. The infestation has decreased dramatically but it's still disgusting to think of maggots crawling around in the potting soil.

Now I'm worried about spider mites. My baby ficus was next to my infected gardenia so I washed the ficus in the sink. The ficus is one of my favorites so I hope it doesn't become infected. I should probably wash my gardenia as well, as the infection is pretty bad. However there is so little light in our apartment (half-basement, north-facing) that my plants are having a hard time and the gardenia is a high/intense light plant so I will probably just chuck it.

I think the plants make up for not having any animals in the apartment. I've had fish for the past five years but I'm not allowed to have them right now :( Can't wait until we can get a dog and a cat.

Apartment Tour

Just a few shots of our new place for the inquisitive minds :) Not too impressive, but comfortable indeed.

 Our table and chairs set from Target

 We need some different pictures to put in these :)

Our ugly couch! We are getting a new cover for it...

 Our "desk"

 Our kitchen, which never can seem to stay clean :)

Yellowstone!

Nicole and I traveled up to Idaho Falls to see Mark and Cadence Fillmore's wedding reception. Congrats to them, they looked sharp. Plus their reception was beautiful. Unfortunately we forgot to take some pictures to share...

We decided to make the most of our travel and see Yellowstone as well! Thanks to Emily and Andrew for taking us in for a few nights and showing us around!

Buffy the vampire buffalo walks again!

Anyone want to guess what this used to be?

Yellowstone bacterial mat, looks like OJ to me...

We got to see Beehive Geyser go off!

Wile E. Coyote. If you zoom in all four feet are in the air.

Thanks Emily and Andrew! Thanks for coming with us Michelle!

Weird Things We Really Like

Two weeks into our marriage we realized that there are a few things that we really get excited about every day, including:

- Day-old bakery goods at the Creamery ($.75 for breakfast for the both of us? Heck yes!)
- Our daily episode of Chuck or Futurama
-  "Pwning n00bz" on League of Legends or playing StarJeweled, a mod for StarCraft II

And among other favorites:
- Visiting the turtles at the duck pond
- Going on walks
- Riding our bikes home from the Creamery at night
- Elk and buffalo
- Cream of Wheat cereal
- Having our own apartment
- Quiet time where we can talk or take a nap
- Katamari Damacy

...and the fact that my BFF and I don't have to part ways at the end of the day :)

-Nicole

What exactly does "Two Degrees Kelvin" mean?

Theoretically it should be "Two Kelvin." I must have been half-asleep when that inside joke of ours came to be.

Oh wait...I was.

Scene: Lounge of the apartment complex where Will used to live. Big-screen TV, a microfiber couch and matching loveseat, a lamp held together by duct tape (which was eventually replaced) and very noisy upstairs neighbors.

Situation: Typical weekend evening; we were both exhausted from the week's activities. Usually on the weekends we would commandeer the lounge and use the TV to watch Futurama or play some PS2 games. That night, I was the one nodding off in the middle of a conversation. My mind wandered to such things as star formation from very cold clouds of gas and dust called giant molecular clouds (pic).

Will had just finished saying something to me and in my half-conscious, nearly asleep state I blurted out, "We should be frozen to about two degrees Kelvin."

And so "two degrees Kelvin" was born. We use it to describe our level of exhaustion. Four degrees is pretty tired, 2.5 is nearly dead, etc, until you reach two degrees Kelvin, then it's definitely time for bed.

The other weird thing I remember saying was something like, "I really don't want to live in Salt Lake. I want to stay here (here=Provo, BYU, Happy Valley, etc.) forever," which is definitely NOT true. Apparently I am a liar in my near unconsciousness. I guess there are worse things!!

-Nicole

Pictures of our new apartment! It looks great thanks to Nicole's cleaning prowess and the Shark Vacuum we received from the Borders side of the family. After the first round of vacuuming we concluded that the previous tenants (some sort of cave-people) didn't own a vacuum. The carpet looks almost new (besides the claw marks and burns in various places).

(our new bed! a Temper-Pedic knock-off -- feels awesome)

It's our first post! Nicole and I decided that Emily and Andrew's blog was pretty cool so we thought we'd keep a blog too. It's been two weeks since our marriage (tomorrow...)! Here are some pictures of our trip to Zion Canyon National Park. We stayed at the Zion Ponderosa Resort Ranch high on the east side of the park. It was windy and sunny.

(Nicole enjoying the shade on the way up Angel's Landing)

(Nicole with Angel's Landing in the center background)

(The upper most emerald pool's waterfall)

(awesome beetle that Nicole spotted)

(We are not the first BYU students up Angel's Landing)