rappin' tappens

Fall 2011 Happenings

2012-01-19T13:08:00.000-08:00

So it turns out my parents actually read my blog and want me to update it! Well ok folks, you got it! Today is a snow day, meaning they closed my office and since I don't have much to do outside of labwork (not really available remotely) I am blogging. Totally makes sense.

Biggest news since September 2011.... there is baby inside me! The little one will have a known gender in a few more weeks and will make an appearance somewhere around June 24th. Here is a picture of a stick that I peed on in case you don't believe me:

And the baby itself... this was a few weeks ago so I'm sure baby is much bigger now. My niece thought it looked like a dog, but I'm pretty sure it's a baby.

This was the Fall of Utah trips. I've flown to-and-from Utah 3 times, and next week Henry will make his third trip to the motherland as well. The first trip I made was for my lovely roommate Leslie's wedding. Here she is being happy about marriage:

The second trip was for Thanksgiving. All of my family gathered for my nephew Sam's baptism! Here he is with a great quilt my mom made:

We also celebrated another joint birthday with a chocolate chunk cake that my sister Kim made. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling exactly up to par (silly baby) so I didn't get to enjoy it quite as much as I would have liked. There's always next year!
Me and my sisters. That's the best part of Becca's face, you really don't want to see her right cheek...

The third trip was for another wedding of an old roommate. Deanna looked gorgeous, but I didn't seem to take many pictures unfortunately...

We also got to spend time with family and friends. Henry loved his new baby nephew, Daniel, and Daniel loved him too! Henry could make him calm down and be happy when no one else could. Here's Daniel in a too big snow suit that just looked too cute!

Henry practicing entertaining a baby... he'll be doing a lot of this in a few months :)
Little Santa devil with red-eyes. He's not really possessed, we promise.

In between all those things, Henry dressed up as Waldo for Halloween and carved a pumpkin that won the ward trunk-or-treat contest:

I made a nativity out of lab supplies for an impromptu White Elephant gift exchange at my job. It was pretty fun.

We went snow-shoeing for the first time up in the Snoqualmie Pass. I ended up getting a blister and walking the trail without snowshoes (thus Henry is holding them), but it was still fun to get out and see all the pretty snow!

Little did we know it would be coming to us in a few weeks...SNOWMAGEDDON! There is a road behind me in this pic, but you wouldn't know it since it's all the same color.

And this is on the trail behind my work. It was really pretty, but I'm glad I can just work from home and not drive in it...

Oh yeah... and we're buying a house :) More details on that to come!

Memories of Sunshine

2011-09-27T21:01:00.001-07:00

Now that Summer is over in the Northwest here are some memories from our sunnytime/summertime. I realized how it's kind of lame much I talk about the weather with family and friends, but it's just so opposite from what I've experienced before that it's still interesting to me... I think it also means I'm a boring adult. Whatever.

I know we're cool because we took an archery class through Redmond Parks & Rec. Maybe this just increases our dork factor, since we did make many references to LOTR and perfecting our Legolas form (you know where he shoots an arrow and then loads another one in one gracious motion? Never quite got that down).

This is my artsy shot. Those fluffy looking arrows are called "floo floos". They are for shooting "pizza boxes". All of these terms are extremely official.

Pizza boxes. This was the part where we got to shoot up in the air at a moving target. This one always impressed the people driving by. In fact, we had multiple cars stop and watch our amazing-ness.

I didn't just pose with that bow, I also used it to massacre unassuming balloons. Don't be led astray by my demure smile.
Look at that form! Henry is one hot archer.

We also had another visit from family, this time from Henry's sister and her family. We had lots of fun visiting with these adorable girls:

And of course enjoying the beauty of Seattle. Clare's husband Dan did his residency here, so he knows the in's and out's of the city (but especially the hospital cafeterias).

Hidden underneath the cutie in pink is another baby due to come out very soon!

We also spent a weekend in Vancouver BC. It's great to be able to go to an exotic country like Canada with less than a 3-hour drive! In Canada, we had many strange new experiences including eating poutine (think french fries on steroids, if steroids were cheese curds and gravy), using coins instead of $1 bills, streets with no left-turn lanes, and... that's about it. But we did have a good time.

We went to the Richmond Night Market and enjoyed the culinary delights of Asia, as well as all of the cheap Chinese goods you can fathom. Don't mind the weird picture, something happened with the flash and Henry's hand.

Our marriage once again survived the test of riding a tandem bike. We did this once before in Provo and I almost killed us by trying to take one-armed pictures while we were riding. It wasn't pretty. This time I think we did much better. We successfully road our bike around Stanley Park without crashing or fighting for control.

At the Puyallup (pronounced Pee-oo-awl-up) Fair we found SpiderPig (think the Simpson's movie)...

...and a bunny with a good Dungeons and Dragons name (not that we do dorky things like play D&D...)

Oh yeah. And last but not least, I turned into an underwater explorer AND an octopus.

PS These photos are for my niece, Lucy who saw this photo (4th one down) and promptly began to exclaim with awe "Aunt Tori went to SPACE?!?!?!". Hopefully she'll think I am the coolest aunt now.

Parentals

2011-08-02T20:56:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months we had visits from both of our parents! Looks like they didn't forget about us all the way up here in Washington. They did happen to remember our existence when our weather is nice and theirs is nasty... how convenient :)

My parents came over Memorial Day weekend. Their favorite part of the trip was seeing all of the beautiful scenery and seeing how ridiculously priced houses are in our area (Seattle was all like, "housing crisis? whatever!").

We went and visited Forks (the home of Twilight) and my mom was oh so excited! The city of Forks welcomed us - all of the residents were anticipating our arrival and setting up souvenir shops so we would spend our money. Luckily for them, my mom had promised a number of female co-workers some Twilight gear. I also had a very tasty philly cheese steak sandwich. Thank you City of Forks.

Henry was pretty ecstatic about this whole Forks thing, obviously.

The obligatory Twilight paraphernalia was everywhere. I don't think Forks had much going for it before Stephanie Meyer. She should have an elementary school named after her or something.

My best Bella impression. All you have to do is look disinterested and then speak in short, forced, awkward sentences.

We also went and explored some of the scenery around the Olympic peninsula. My dad got some really good action shots of Henry pushing me off of this log right after he took this one.

We were lucky enough to have some beautiful sunny days and my parents came away disappointed that they didn't get rained on (silly Arizonians).
Here I am telling my mom, "Those are buildings, that tall one is actually a space ship."

Henry's parents came in for the 4th of July weekend, and it turns out I didn't take many pictures while they were here! Their favorite part of the trip was taking a bus into Seattle (Senior disounts!) and eating fresh salmon and Dungeness crab.

We went on hikes, explored the city, and had a great time! It's nice to not have to cram everything in because we know they'll be back again.

Summertime?

2011-06-25T11:25:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Here are some things we've been up to lately. We haven't done too many "summer" things yet because the weather has been too cold! But we will hopefully be doing more and not blogging about it... like usual. I mean, we will faithfully report on our lives every week and bore you to death with posts about meetings, work drama, primary children, and our latest TV show on Netflix! How exciting!

Last weekend I got it in my head that I wanted to get some worms and start a worm bin as a way to compost our organic waste. I was pretty excited (and still am) and I think of it as a kind of science project. Here is the worm bin and the worms that arrived in the mail on Thursday:

(Don't mind my awkwardly held hands... they were dirty from wetting newspaper so of course I had to hold them like that.)

They are now busy eating away at our trash (including compostable Microsoft cups!) and making us some good soil. I just hope they live.... Henry thinks we don't eat enough vegetables to keep them alive :(

We also had a Reese's taste test with some friends of ours, Elena and Aaron. They bought a bunch of different Reese's products and we rated them based on texture, chocolate quality, PB quality, chocolate/PB ratio, and then gave each an overall rating. The results: everything pretty much sucks except the original Reese's and the minis. Reese's should stop branching out and trying to make versions of everything else! Just stick to what you're good at, sillies.

Prodigious amounts of milk were also consumed.
Here is Aaron dutifully entering in our ratings (on a scale of 1 to 10) into a spreadsheet to tabulate the results. Yeah, we're cool like that.

Another fun thing we did was shoot some guns! This was my first time shooting a gun and it was kinda fun, but we won't be purchasing our own any time soon.
Here's Henry shooting some gun.

Sandra and I both thought is was very loud! Even with earplugs. This is also me rocking the double-glasses look. I like to call it "six-eyes".

Here is me shooting some gun. I hit the target and that's what matters.

Gator hunting

2011-05-15T21:37:00.000-07:00

While in Florida we really wanted to see some gators, so we headed out to the nearby wetlands (sanitation water re-usage zone) to get up close and personal with the Florida native. We saw a total of 16 gators (tallied by a professional gator-hunter, our 10-year-old nephew) and even spooked a huge one which made a scary splash back underwater.

It was love-bug mating season... so this was the state of the minivan after our 20-min. drive. Lovely.

Just a little warning not to go traipsing around shallow waters. This is the real thing baby! No fences for us! And we did not harass the alligators, unless you count staring and yelling, "gator! gator!"

It was a beautiful, bright, sunny Florida day. Here are our 3 Tappen nephews.
And our beautiful Tappen niece. She's the princess of the family, as evidenced by her elevated position.

And last but not least, the footage! They didn't move around too much because of the heat, so this was the only one I caught on tape.

Later in the week, we had the opportunity to EAT some gator in the form of a gatorburger. And not to be trite, but it really does taste like chicken.

Henry Potter's wand

2011-05-11T17:40:00.000-07:00

Just back from our trip to Florida. Here's a little peak at what we did:

Ollivander himself chose Henry to receive a wand (for only $29.95!) and Henry hammed it up for the crowd.

More pics to come!

Peep sushi

2011-04-16T16:57:00.000-07:00

Peep sushi is all the rage in the hipster Seattle sushi bars (made with free-range, organic peeps obviously). It comes in three delicious flavors: yellow rabbit, pink chick, or purple chick.

Well... that may kind of be a lie. But if it becomes a truth then we get all the bragging rights!

Ingredients:

Peep=sushi

Rice krispie treats=rice (duh)

Fruit-by-the-Foot=nori (seaweed)

Steps to make the goodness:

1. Take a peep (bird or rabbit variety) in your left hand

2. Mold some fresh-made rice krispie treats around it

3. Wrap the whole thing together with some Fruit-by-the-Foot

4. Give it away to someone because you probably shouldn't be eating that much sugar

Unfortunately they don't make Fruit-by-the-Foot in green flavors, and I was too cheap to only use the green portions of the rainbow ones, so the nori is mostly red... maybe from a red-tide or something? Use your imagination.

WKWDWTGTSWHOFDLTTRAGVS

2011-03-21T18:26:00.000-07:00

We're just starting to feel the first hints of Spring up here. Last Saturday was very nice and sunny and spring-like so we went out for a walk! We live really close to Redmond's large Marymoor Park and so we took advantage of it. Apparently so did everyone else because there were so many people outside! And maybe as many dogs as people. People around here love their dogs.This is me with my dog, I mean, my Henry. Yes, we have matching hats. They were free from Microsoft (just like many things we own). And yes, it was cold enough to need hats. But matching hats keep you warmer than non-matching ones, so we were in luck.

Here is the beautiful Lake Sammamish!

So it kind of rained a lot the past few weeks, which overwhelmed the walkway system around the marshes (or something) surrounding Lake Sammamish. We used the well-known technique called "Wimpy Kids Who Don't Want To Get Their Shoes Wet Holding On For Dear Life To The Railing And Going Very Slowly" in order to get across. There happened to be THREE stretches of walkways with similar flooding so we got pretty good at it.

After all that hard work, the loop we were on was closed at the end! But don't worry, we were very industrious and just hopped over the "do not cross" fences to finish the few hundred feet of the loop rather than go back and use "WKWDWTGTSWHOFDLTTRAGVS". We are rebels!!!

Lately

2011-03-05T17:41:00.000-08:00

So here are some things we've been up to lately:

1. Museum of Flight. On our day off (Employee Appreciation Day aka President's Day) we went to this museum! Henry was giddy and excited like a school boy (see picture below):

He loved seeing this amazing replica of the moon something-or-other and reading about the crazy people who go to space! "SPACE! There's nothing in space! If something goes wrong then you DIE!" -quote from Henry.
I myself enjoyed pretending to be an astronaut, and pushing children out of the way to get this photo:
But actually, my favorite display in the whole museum was this section on fashion and flight attendants. It gave an interesting timeline of stewardesses through the last 70 years or so.

Did you know that the first flight attendant was a nurse who volunteered to go on a flight to make the passengers feel more at ease? Makes sense because flying is kinda crazy... but not quite as crazy as going into space. It was interesting reading about the qualifications for "stewardess school" in the 60s, which were to be gorgeous and skinny and genuinely nice and caring. No wonder they had a hard time keeping them working! That's exactly what a man wants in a wife (of course!), and most of the stewardesses got married to pilots or passengers within 2 years. Some of the ad campaigns of that time (and the entire job description of a stewardess) were so objectifying to women. Thanks goodness that we have more equality and understanding now. This exhibit did bring out the feminist in me... and it was more interesting than old planes (no offense Henry)....

2. SKATE KING (which deserves to be in all caps). Who knew that Bellevue was home to one of the greatest skate places, and tween hang-outs, of ALL TIME? Thanks to our friends, the Chins, we now know.

This is a picture of me looking cool and skating. I am going sooo fast that I am blurry. I am amazing at skating.

Highlights of skate king: entering a "no gum zone" and having to spit out my gum (first time since junior high), winning a free 12 oz. drink for being in the right corner when a giant dice was thrown, becoming BEST FRIENDS with DJ Apollo, requesting "I'm Blue, Da-ba-di-da-ba-die" and having it played (!!), coming up with a business plan to make a skating rink for adults (serve alcohol, charge ridiculous prices, have better skating games). So if you're ever in Bellevue and want to make some cool pre-teen friends.... Skate King is the place to go!

3. Hiking. This hasn't happened for us in a while because, let's face it, I'm a cold weather baby. Meaning I'm a baby when it comes to cold weather, not that I was born in cold weather. But today the sun came out!!!! What?!?! Who is this!??
But the magical spell cast by the sun wasn't strong enough to totally conquer Old Man Winter. There was snow still on the ground :(

We were a little nervous to go on this trail because of my weight problem.

Just look at our pre-hike enthusiasm (and Henry's pre-hike granola bar)! That's how to start a hike!

So here's little glimpse of our life based on the times when I've remembered to bring my camera to things. If you really like us... come visit us and then maybe you'll get a post about you!

AZ Christmas Part 1: da kidz

2011-01-09T21:39:00.000-08:00

Well one thing we loved about our time in AZ was getting to see our nieces and nephews a lot. They are some funny kids. I took three of my nieces out for a girls lunch and we had a blast! Here they are being silly:
We also went on a bike ride with my brother's family. I really suck at mountain biking, and I fell off at the bottom of a big ravine. But a week later all my bruises are almost healed! Hooray! Here is a good picture of Jensen. I usually can't catch his attention long enough to get a picture where he's looking at the camera, but this one just worked perfectly:
I'm not sure what my hand is doing there, but it almost looks like a thumbs up so I'll pretend I meant to do that. We went on a hike in the desert by my parent's house and got this really cute shot of Elijah. He's such a chunky and cuddly baby, and is just at the stage where he is so smily:
We also went to Phoenix to see some museums with family. Here is my niece being funny outside the museum. Lucy used to be such a terror (see video at end of post), but going to preschool has really made her much more personable. She no longer just glares at you when you address her, she gives a terse reply and may even make eye contact!

Here's to 2011!

2011-01-01T13:46:00.000-08:00

Just returned from a trip from AZ that went by so quickly! I feel like we still needed more time to see friends and family. But we had a lot of fun in the time we were there. I am going to actually make separate blog posts about our trip instead of one huge one. And that way I it will look like our lives are more interesting because more posts = more life (obviously).

I guess i'll do a quick 2010 in review just for the heck of it. We started off the year with Henry getting an unexpected, but much appreciated, job offer from Microsoft. That sure did change our plans, not to mention the rest of our lives. Henry graduated from BYU and was later picked as valedictorian (since he actually graduated in August). After spending the first half of the year in Provo, we made the big leap to the Pacific NW! Now we are big kids living in a real apartment, working real jobs, and having a real good time (clever, I know). We really do love it here and we've had a lot of fun getting to know the area a little bit and making lots of new friends. I haven't been very diligent in documenting what we've done here, but we are totally awesome, I promise! We are looking forward to 2011 and what goodness awaits.

So Happy 2011 to all!

Do you say twenty eleven or two thousand eleven? I'm still unsure which is more comfortable.

Portlandia

2010-11-27T19:40:00.001-08:00

With our time off after Thanksgiving we decided to take a short road-trip down to Portland. I didn't take a whole lot of pictures, but here are a few highlights.

Here we are in a Chinese Garden downtown. It was really gorgeous.

Look how excited we are about that Tea House!
We saw this place was popular online, but we aren't huge doughnut fans so we weren't too sure. But after a few enthusiastic recommendations from friends we decided to go. The place looks like a dive inside and out, but the doughnuts were amazing. They came in a distinctive pink box, and we saw a bunch of other people carrying them around town.
Flashback to Philosophy 205 (Deductive Logic).... All good things come in pink boxes? Or all pink boxes contain good things? Well, the contents of this box were DEFINITELY good. This picture was taken after we had already eaten the one with maple frosting and bacon - DANG GOOD. These ones have oreos, cocoa puffs, and chocolate chips/peanuts/peanut butter/chocolate syrup/bananas. Yeah. I'm serious.

We also had a fun time checking out the Saturday Market and Powell's City of Books (a city-block size bookstore). And we had some great real food (besides doughnuts), too. Portland is a cool city, and I felt out of place not wearing skinny jeans... but whatever. At least I've got the dark-rimmed glasses to help me out. Even though we have a cool city nearby (Seattle) where we can go do similar things, it was fun to get away for a day or two.

PS-- It also helps that Oregon has no sales tax! I got a sewing machine! So look forward to more crafty posts!

Snow

2010-11-27T19:16:00.000-08:00

We had a double birthday celebration last week (similar in intensity to a double rainbow) and Mother Nature decided to bestow upon us the much un-anticipated gift of snow. Lots of it (for the NW). It left the roads frozen and treacherous. Two cars were stuck in our apartment entryway for a few days. Most of Seattle shut down and lots of people put on chains. Yeah, it was pretty exciting.

So what do you do when life gives you snow? Make snowmen!!! On Thanksgiving morning we made a snow-family on MS campus. The snow was PERFECT for rolling into snow-people parts -- must be the humidity. We like to call them our snow-friends (from a Donald Duck children's book, "Donald makes a snow friend").

Ok, so we're not experts at making snow-friends, but they are pretty awesome, right? We also made an angry snow-friend (or enemy?) looking into Henry's bosses window.

Unfortunately for the snowmen, but fortunately for us, all of the snow melted later that day. I never thought I would be so grateful to hear the sound of rain outside.

Look what Tori made!

2010-11-20T18:10:00.000-08:00

Tori spent a good amount of time today turning boring hoodies into great gifts for our nieces and nephews:

Get it? They're little monsters! Here's the shot with models:

Big Change

2010-10-31T18:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I underwent a massive change in appearance. I know, it may be shocking, so prepare yourselves.

So in case you didn't notice I got a new pair of glasses! Yes... they are still black. Yes... they are almost the same... but they are different too! 1) More square 2) New prescription 3) Better lenses (see before picture for strange haziness on my right lens). Now tell me how awesome they are.

Products of our imagination

2010-10-31T17:40:00.001-07:00

I carved a cute pumpkin:

Henry crafted one of his own :

No wonder we don't get any trick-or-treaters.

quick pic

2010-10-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

Here is a cute picture I snapped while video chatting with my sister, Rebecca, and my nephew, Elijah. No, Rebecca and I are not the same person. Although we do make the same cheesy faces to try to get Elijah to smile (me, bottom corner; her, middle).

October!!!!

2010-09-03T20:11:00.000-07:00

October will be a great month! Finally Sufjan is coming out with a new album! And we just bought tickets to see him in Seattle on October 30th! Maybe we'll wear Halloween costumes!

Now we get to sing wiggle songs

2010-09-01T19:45:00.000-07:00

We must have been just a tad too friendly with the Primary President's kids (they really are adorable, so we couldn't help commenting). Or we just sub-consciously exude this need to be around children. Or someone thinks we just need some extra birth control help. Or we must have joked one too many times about being called into the Primary/Nursery as a young married couple. Or maybe our Bishop was inspired.

Whatever the reason (and not that we need one) Henry and I have both been called as Primary workers. We will be moving around a bit, but for the time being I am playing in nursery (I can't really call it helping or teaching), and Henry is teaching some rowdy 9-year-olds. It should be pretty fun :)

Mountain Mommas

2010-08-21T18:55:00.000-07:00

I'm not exactly a Momma, but the "Mountain Mommas" hiking group happily accepted me into their posse. They are a lively group of women from our Relief Society church group. I may be the youngest by a few years, but we're all the same age in spirit :)

One of the signs on the trail gave a very detailed pictorial description of what could happen if one was careless and went off the trail. And for some reason I'm smiling.

We have hiked a few of the trails here in Western Washington and it's been a blast. Too bad it's going to start raining soon... I don't know how much of a hiker I am when I have to get wet.
Here's one thing I've seen a lot on hikes that I'm not used to...
... the banana slug! I've almost stepped on these guys so many times. Just imagine the carnage that would be left on your sneaker. Gross! Notice the finger there for size comparison -- and keep in mind that I have long fingers (piano-playing ones).

Henry (not a Mountain Momma) and I have also gone on some hikes while the weather's been nice. We are not very hard core, but we like nature and mild/moderate exercise.
Here he is with some stuff growing on a tree stump.

And here he is in a blurry picture that makes him look really fast. He actually was running fast, but I suck at taking in focus pictures which ends up making him look amazing and awesome.

And here is Henry being overcome by the beauty of the forest. Ah! All the beauty! (What does it mean!?!??!)

Seattle area map

2010-07-31T21:59:00.001-07:00

This is my new favorite picture of the Seattle area.

From here.

Development in action

2010-07-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

Oddities in Bing maps
1) Click this link.
2) Zoom out from the lot on the northeast corner of 12th st. and Bellevue Way.
3) Be amazed.
4) Send us money.

More Dorky Funnies

2010-07-17T08:56:00.000-07:00

Here are some funny links from around the world wide interwebs:

Book: When a Daddy loves a Mommy very much...

Video: Star Trek getting krunk

Print: What more could you want!?!??! (only 3 left in stock!)

Yes, that's all we're doing in Seattle thanks to Comcast (wink wink, nudge nudge). When we do happen to get out of the house sometime, I'll post pictures.

I Spy -- 8-bit edition

2010-07-14T21:39:00.000-07:00

The denizens of Microsoft Studio A have displayed their love for Nintendo with cool Post-it note art. Ten points for the first person to name all these characters correctly! -- H.P.T.

Kooza

2010-06-25T18:37:00.000-07:00

So this show was totally awesome. Even Henry loved it. The show is playing in a big tent just a short-ish walk from our apartment, so we went last weekend. But seriously, the show was great, and it did have jaw-dropping moments where I couldn't help but say "wow" out loud. I felt like a kid.

On a more grown-up note, I started a job yesterday! It is a great company and I think I'll really enjoy working there. It's also a much shorter commute than to Salt Lake from Provo, so I'm excited.

Now Henry and I both have jobs where we can't talk about what we're doing. It works well since I don't get computers and Henry doesn't get science.

Seattle Cribz

2010-06-19T11:38:00.000-07:00

Hello again! Just thought I'd post up some quick pictures of our new place. This is it all unpacked and decorated (I'm not that fancy so it didn't take too long, although as time goes on I want to replace some things). So now you can imagine that you are us, living an exciting apartment life!

A dishwasher! Gasp! We haven't had one since we got married, but it was a remarkably easy adjustment to make.

Please take note of our amazingly fancy entertainment center, built completely by Mr. Henry Tappen!

Once again, we are open for visitors! As you can see there is space on the couch... or the floor....

More Seattle fun updates to come!

Adventures in Seattle, Part One

2010-06-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we experienced a little bit of nature. We headed out to the Juanita Bay Park (about 10 minutes away) and saw some of the wildlife at the wetlands area there. Our favorite part was when an otter swam up and made the Great Blue Heron really mad.

Isn't the back of Henry's head cute? I think so. The heron is just to the left of his head. We have now decided that we don't have the patience to be bird-watchers, but we do like it when someone is there to tell us what everything is (a nice lady who let us borrow her binoculars).

Later on we went to an art walk downtown (no pictures) and mingled with the locals. On the way back we saw the Space Needle from the freeway. This is Henry's rushed attempt to take a picture of it. I think it's behind the trees, so look really closely.

New favorite song, featured in Man on Wire. Peaceful and serene.

times are a'changin

2010-06-10T16:05:00.000-07:00

The last two months have been relatively uneventful, but here is a quick list to get you back into our amazingly exciting life:

1. Henry graduated from BYU... and apparently he's been going to law school on the side in secret. His picture appeared in the Daily Universe above an article about the law school graduation. We found this funny since his home-teaching companion was an editor of the paper, and should have caught the mistake (or maybe the law school graduation was just too boring to send photographers to).
2. Henry's parents visited us during graduation. We had a nice time chatting and spending some time with the non-Rappin' Tappens.
3. We visited friends and family in good ol' Arizona. I unfortunately didn't take any pictures... but we got to spend some time with cute nieces and nephews, relax without any work, and get just enough sun to be ready to move to Seattle.

4. We packed up and left our studio apartment that we've so enjoyed for the last year and a half.
5. We moved to Seattle. Yes, the time has finally come for us to grow up and move away like big kids. We've been here for approximately 29 hours. I made the flight here while coping with food poisoning, so I made good use of the "Feel Better" bags... not very fun. More updates to come as we take pictures and explore the city! PS - pray for me so that I get a job!

Moab trip 2010 - feat. HPT, VAT and da Lefgrens

2010-04-11T19:19:00.001-07:00

We just got back yesterday from a little vacation with my sister's fam. We drove down and did some hikes in the Moab area over a few days. Here are some of the highlights: No jackets (mostly)! Gross hotel pool! Cool rock stuff! Funny kid antics! Pretty scenery!

Here are da Lefgrens. They are pretty cool. Lucy doesn't know how to pose for pictures yet (far left).
Girls in a "cave". Emma and Lucy had more fun searching for "caves" than actually hiking.
A cute picture of Lucy. She almost smiled!
Henry looking cute. That's Corona Arch in the background (Cool Rock Formation #1). It kinda blends in with the rock behind it, but if you look at the shadow you can tell it's legit.
CRF #2. It looks like a monster. It went along well with the story Henry told the kids about the whole area being a Zombie Reservation.
A good close-up of CRF#1, Corona Arch. Some crazies hiked up to the top. Luckily they did not fall to their death in front of the kiddies.
Henry being confused as to what this contraption is. A phone? That you pay to use? What?!?! Our children will probably have the same reaction (being raised in the cell phone age and all).
CRF #3. Another arch thingy. There was an extreme drop off just on the other side of the arch, so we're actually really REALLY brave just to be sitting there. Give us props.
CRV (Cool Rock View). JP and Noah fell off the edge, but no one really misses them much.

And last but not least.... the video that kinda sums up Lucy's attitude on the whole trip. She was extremely obstinate and wanted to be independent while hiking and climbing on rocks. I really am hoping to show this video to her future husband someday... hopefully to show how much she's changed:

We had a lot of good laughs over just how true to her personality this is and just how different she is than the rest of her siblings (they are all really good, obedient kids). We love her even though she is crazy.

Easter Weekend

2010-04-06T19:00:00.000-07:00

Easter coincided with General Conference weekend this year, so we got to spend time with family all weekend long! It was great being entertained by children, especially for short increments of time.This is the pose our niece Lucy chose when I decided to take her picture. I guess no one has taught her how to smile nicely and look cute (like JP). Instead, she prefers to make her usual scowl and do jazz hands...
Dying eggs with Noah and Emma. This was my FIRST TIME EVER dying eggs (I guess it was just one of those traditions that never caught on in my family) and I had fun making decorations with duct tape (we didn't go too fancy).
That's my egg second up from the bottom on the right. It's pretty hot.
We also spent some time with Henry's sister Clare and her adorable daughters, Mesia and Anna. For some reason this is the only picture I have of them, which is a shame because they are INSANELY cute. We went to a nearby park and "hid" eggs for them (which actually consisted of us throwing them across the lawn while their backs were turned). They both had priceless reactions whenever they found an egg though, it was like a novel experience every time.

Only two more months in P-town. We're really going to miss having so much family close by. I mean, what would we do without all those free meals and laundry trips?

A very un-Provo encounter

2010-03-22T21:04:00.000-07:00

Tonight I smelled weed while on the streets of Provo. That's right, drugs do exist in Happy Valley. It was the first time I can ever recall that happening in the four+ years I've lived here. This experience brought back many memories of walking home from the metro in DC last summer. Our neighbors on the end of the street would always be out enjoying themselves on the lawn... and I would come home with the sweet aroma infused in my hair and clothes, much to the surprise and confusion of Henry.

This reminds me of some other smell-related stories:

Once Henry came home smelling like BO (he never smells... seriously), but it wasn't the normal BO just in the armpits... it was all over his body. Then I found out that he had been to the Microsoft recruiting meeting that afternoon. Computer programmers had left their mark. Although I hope the ones that actually work for Microsoft may have slightly better personal hygiene.

So we usually hang our towels outside the bathroom to dry because we don't get good air circulation in there. In our studio apartment, this means hanging them on the kitchen chairs. It works pretty well most of the time, unless you make highly-aromatic garlic-infused Indian food only a few days after laundry day. Then you have the lovely surprise of rubbing garlicy goodness over your freshly scrubbed body. Yum.

P.S. That picture above is what the streets of Provo usually look like... ya know... llamas, cheering, parades, dorks wearing bird beaks and celebrating biology. It's actually me in the 2007 BYU Homecoming Parade as a duck, in case you couldn't tell.

Kreative Naymes!

2010-02-17T20:26:00.000-08:00

Henry and I were brainstorming our favorite baby names (seriously for no reason...), and we came up with a list that we'd like to share with the world. PLEASE feel free to use any and/or all of these names if you have a child in the works (aka prego). Some of these can be bi-gender (like all good names, of course), but I'll list them by which gender we thought they fit best:

For Her:
Papilloma
Rubella (nickname Ruby or Ella)
Malady
Malaise
Gonorrhea
Laceration (nickname Lacey)

For Him:
Typhus
Marburg
Abrasion (nickname Abe)

We'll keep you updated as to the number of children who are born with these names in the next year. They'll definitely catch on sooner or later.

Big news.... but not that

2010-02-06T10:38:00.000-08:00

In approximately six months we'll be saying goodbye to P-town, goodbye to studio apartment, goodbye to BYU, goodbye to undergraduate education, goodbye to Google, goodbye to iPod, goodbye to Mac (if we used one)....

And we'll be saying HELLO to Seattle, hello to a bedroom, hello to a real job, hello to Bing!, hello to Zune, hello to xbox, hello to PCs (which are NOT dorky, by the way).

All of this because Henry accepted a job with a silly little company. Well, they're actually pretty successful, so that's kind of reassuring. Henry will be working as a program manager at Microsoft! It's kind of a change of direction from what we'd be planning on (Henry getting a PhD in econ) but it's all for the best and we feel great about the decision. We're so excited to start this new phase in our lives and try to learn how to be grown-ups.

Tori may have to try to learn to like fish since she won't be in a land-locked state anymore. Unfortunately, we'll also have to buy umbrellas that work (a problem we've had for a while).

So from one Washington to the other, I guess.

If you've ever been to the Seattle area, we could definitely use any suggestions/advice you have!

P.S. The picture is of the Microsoft staff circa 1978.... AND the current dress and style-code at Mircosoft. Looks like Henry's gonna turn into a thrifter!

food of sorts.... again

2010-01-31T19:25:00.001-08:00

So our life really isn't all about food... even though I seem to mention it on almost every post. But I guess we do spend a lot of time eating every day.... but we also spend a lot of time sleeping and I never post about that.

I made a HUGE sacrifice and compromised my principles for Henry. This, my friends, is true love:
Yes, yes. I made vanilla cupcakes. More importantly, I made something non-chocolate. But the biggest surprise is that... I actually liked them.... Don't get too excited (you chocolate haters) because my heart still belongs to the cocoa bean.

As I mentioned in the previous post we made pizza! Here is a picture to prove it to you (artichoke hearts, red peppers, and spinach = yum):

And last but not least.... another food related picture.... this is me as a human burrito. After complaining about being cold one too many times Henry decided to take matters into his own hands and make me warm up. Being from Pueblo, CO he knows quite a bit about making burritos. So he put his skills to work and made one for me. It was quite warm :)

fun in a box

2010-01-16T21:54:00.000-08:00

So one of our favorite games is "Bang!" It's great fun. We just finished a three-game run with friends and there were many laughs. I lost every time. Sometimes rather badly.

We ALSO made delicious homemade pizza. I'm so domestic now that I have a pizza stone. And when I wear my "Flirty Apron" the domesticity just overloads the system. It's so contagious that even Henry starts feeling domestic (see post below of Henry in an apron to get the full effect).

But seriously, the pizza was ridiculously good so comment if you want our dough recipe. If you're good maybe I'll share it with you.

Christmastimes

2010-01-07T20:31:00.000-08:00

We spent Christmas this year with Henry's family in good ol' Pueblo, CO. It was fun to have the WHOLE family there (10 adults, and 9 kids under the age of 10) under ONE roof together. Here are some of the events that transpired that weekend:

1. Cat vomit. On Henry's socks.
2. Almost dying on I-25 between Cheyenne and Ft. Collins when someone decided that plowing snow was for dummies.
3. Matching aprons for all the girls in the family (Henry felt left out so we let him try one on).
4. Watching Blu-Ray for the first time. "The Dark Knight" was a good choice.
5. Getting a talking gnome named Henry... he provided HOURS of entertainment for the nieces and nephews (you can record your own voice and it plays it back at a higher frequency... like a "gnome")
6. Singing Taylor Swift songs with nieces and having them stuck in my head for days.
7. Playing LOTS of bored games... I mean board games (I'm so clever). Our favorite was Monopoly Deal which was amazingly fun and a lot faster than the original Monopoly.
8. Reading books by Michael Chabon, one of our favorite authors.
9. Fixing computers. Henry is one handy dandy dork.
10. Most importantly, not working or going to school.

So, our lives aren't really that interesting... but thanks for making it through that list. Come over sometime and I'll make your some Indian naan bread on my new pizza stone!

All you need is love

2009-12-29T20:42:00.000-08:00

One of my friends just sent me a link to this amazing and inspiring video. It really just makes me so emotional to think about all of our brothers and sisters around the world singing about love together. I do believe that all this world needs is love. Love for each other, and love for our Savior. Christ really did know what he was talking about when he gave the two great commandments. May we all just take a little time to think about others at this season and love a little more.

Good Food Bad Food

2009-12-20T20:19:00.000-08:00

Q: Which one tastes better: a homemade burrito with chipotle peppers, or a wedding cake that's been frozen for one year?

Here are some pictures to aid you in the decision-making process...

A: Definitely the wedding cake.

The burritos were good... if you like having your mouth BURN for 30 minutes after eating.... Henry had the great idea to cook the chicken in the pepper sauce from the can, and then add all the peppers to the mix as well. Let's just say that there was a LOT of flavor in that little can. Henry's stomach ached for the rest of the night (Tori wisely only had half a serving).

Yes, we followed the old tradition of freezing the cake from your wedding. Our cake maker actually made us a separate cake, so we'll be eating this for the next few days. But it is still so good! The icing may have slid around a bit in transit (it made the road trip from AZ on dry ice), but it tastes 15X better than it looks. Promise. Come over and have a bite if you're in Provo.

Happy One Year

2009-12-20T20:14:00.000-08:00

We are still in love! Hooray!

Happy Twelve Days to Christmas!

2009-12-13T15:54:00.000-08:00

We're currently contemplating never leaving our apartment again. The tons of snow we had dumped on us last week has now transformed into an all-consuming slush. Every time we've taken the car out (only three times) in the past few days it has almost gotten stuck. Stressful.

On a more happy note, we have our first Christmas tree! Tori was giddily excited by the prospect of having any kind of tree, while Henry just didn't get it. This one was pre-lit, pre-decorated, on sale, and about a foot tall! A mini-tree for our mini-studio. We managed to squish some of our ornaments on it... so now it's a bit crowded, but hey, we like it!

To end this long-awaited (by my MANY readers...) blog post, I'm going to share some of my favorite Christmas/winter songs! While I always love the traditional, religious songs, I also like to add some variety in there sometimes.

Here they are (youtube links):
I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
Come on, Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance!
Donde Esta Santa Claus?

the daily grind

2009-10-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

So in the last month we've just been settling in to our daily routines:
5am: Alarm goes off ("Gold Digger" ringtone). Snooze. Wake-up. Shower etc. H makes T lunch.

6am: T catches bus to SLC and reads books, H goes back to sleep or starts work.
8-5pm-ish: T works, sacks (sacrifices) mice, finds out how nicotine affects the immune system and how it can affect developing babies. H works, goes to school, learns about measure theory and dynamic programming and other hard math.
6:30pm - bedtime: chill, eat, cuddle, etc. (service to the poor, putting together humanitarian aid kits, cleaning the wounds of lepers, and giving blood)
SLEEP

rinse. repeat.

Here are some things that H and T have been enjoying lately:
1. Trying to become ventriloquists, which really just involves avoiding words with letters like "m" and "b", etc.
2. Autotune the news. Seriously funny. Especially if you are familiar with T Pain, Kanye, etc. There are about 8 videos, but our favorite is found here.
3. Chocolate. This is a regular for T, actually....
4. New phone! H got a fancy phone with a whole QWERTY keyboard on it... too bad he doesn't have texting.
5. Wonderful conference!
6. Spending time with family. Kids are entertaining. Take for example, our 3-year-old niece who wants to be naked Dumbledore (time 1:18 here) for Halloween. She has a natural aversion to wearing clothes. We attribute it to the fact that she is actually Tarzan.
7. Trying to play D&D with H's old roommate (meathead, and wife). T was an elven druid named Valanthia or "Val". H was a barbarian named Grognak.
8. Indian food in all its forms. Bombay House and/or homemade. If you have any recipes you'd recommend send them our way.
9. Lots of books. Our nifty goodreads sidebars can testify to that.
10. Hayao Miyazaki films. So good. Kiki's Delivery Service and Porco Rosso are our most recent favorites.

That's it. Come say hello if you are in town.

vay-cay

2009-09-03T14:25:00.000-07:00

So after our internships in DC finished we went on a whirlwind vacation to NYC and Boston. We also spent about 20 hours on various bus rides ... not too fun, but worth it for the price!

Here we are in Central Park. Most of our pictures are "arm shots" - ya know, where you stick out your arm and take the picture yourself (I'm pretty good at them actually) - but this one was taken by a kind stranger (you'll notice both of my arms are visible):
NYSE, baby. Doesn't Henry just look so happy?
Ground Zero. Seeing the former site of the WTC up-close made us realize how scary it must have been when the buildings came crashing down 8 years ago. Everything is so close together in Manhattan that it must have been a nightmare to be anywhere in the vicinity.

View of the Statue of Liberty, the sun, and some other tourists from the Staten Island Ferry:
I don't remember why Henry is whistling or singing or something, but he sure is cute doing it:
This is my artsy shot of my not well-manicured foot, a fence, and the fuzzy Manhattan skyline in the distance:
Enjoying sunset from Staten Island! It was cool to see the city light up as the sun went down:
This was from one of the exhibitions at the Met (I can't remember what it's called...). It's an ancient Egyptian temple, and I found it amusing that there is also not-so-ancient graffiti on it:
Tori in chocolate heaven:
We then boarded a bus to Boston and stayed with some good friends of ours, Malia and David, who graciously let us sleep in their living room and share their toothbrushes (...they don't know that...). We had a delicious calzone and then a cannoli (one each, of course). I definitely felt that for a while.
Wow! The Old North Church:
Napping in Boston Common:
Taking the ferry to Martha's Vineyard. This is my all-natural hair, by the way, a nice wavy mess:
The safety (?) sign on the ferry... still not exactly sure what that's supposed to mean. It sure didn't make us feel any safer:
We rented bikes and rode all around the island. It was a nice sunny day and we didn't wear any sunscreen (we just love skin cancer) - I paid for it that night when I got delayed sunsickness and re-experienced dinner... But anyway, MV was consistently beautiful: the houses, the ocean, the lighthouse, the flowers, EVERYTHING. We would definitely rent/buy a home there someday if we make it big with one of our movie ideas. Beautiful park and eccentric architecture:
HPT is proud to present.... THE OCEAN!!
And how could we go to Martha's Vineyard without remembering the Obama's (who were vacationing with us.... or on the island at the same time)?!? Of course chocolate and ice cream is the best way to celebrate anything, especially if the food 1) is accompanied by a nice detailed diagram of the contents, 2)is available for a reasonable price that reflects the number of the president (44th), and 3) has a name could possibly be taken as an extremely politically incorrect racist comment:

Lil' furry friend(s)

2009-08-20T19:04:00.000-07:00

So a few weeks ago we found some presents in our kitchen! They were a total surprise and we didn't know who left them. But don't get too excited, it wasn't Christmas in July/August... they presents were of a different nature altogether. I recognized the mouse poop because I used to work in a lab with mice. If only these little guys knew what I did to their distant cousins (not to sound too morbid or anything, but hey, it was for science) then they wouldn't have been so nonchalant about masquerading around OUR kitchen.

Well, we immediately put all of our food that was out (bread, chips, cereal) in the cabinet which we ASSUMED was secure from the scurrying scoundrels. We hung up our kitchen trash (which had been on the floor and had nibble marks). Then we bought some rat/mouse poison (tasty green blocks) and put it in some dark corners so the mouse could eat and DIE.

We soon found that our cabinet was NOT the safe haven we thought it was. In fact, the mice/mouse was having a hay-day eating through our plastic bags and cardboard boxes and finding all the food it wanted! It was quite disturbing the first morning we found this out. Honestly, it made me want to vomit. The mice I am used to working with are clean and disease-free, in fact, they would die pretty quickly in the normal world because of their genetic mutations. But these mice are disgusting, dirty, deleterious and disease-ridden (there's some alliteration for you). So now all of our food is in the fridge, we wash all of our dishes before using them, and we are super careful about crumbs etc.

On Saturday, Henry's mom and sister were visiting and his mom happened to open our water heater closet which is in the kitchen. There in one of the mouse traps (left by the owner) was a little friend! I won't go into details (even though I think it's interesting), but the mouse was definitely dead. Hopefully it was just one...

Here is a haiku I've written in honor of the dead mouse:

You lil' mousey, you.
Nibbled our food and left poo.
Then your head got smashed.

Rest in peace.
(Maybe this picture is from mouse heaven.)

Tappenings

2009-08-04T17:34:00.000-07:00

List of the latest (in no particular order):

CoCo Sala - Henry's work party at this swanky downtown DC lounge/restaurant. Fancy hors 'doeuvres + unlimited alcohol + chocolate = great fun. Even more fun when you are not drinking and everyone else gets hammered and then you can all dance to MJ at the end of the night! They gave us chocolates with BW | 10 (10th anniversary of the company) on them. Also, as you can see by this picture we: 1) like chocolate 2) have a gas stove and 3) recycle!
Hirshhorn - We both love modern art. This is one of our favorite Smithsonian's so far. Also nice because it doesn't take that long to go through the whole thing.
Holocaust Museum - Very memorable and well-curated. The reality of it all really hit me when the ID card I received was of a 22-year-old newly married young woman who did not survive.
Matchbox - Good pizza. Horrible service. We were never greeted, and spoken to rudely and glared at when we asked for a table. But good pizza. We like veggies.
Temple closed - Only to be realized after making the hour commute by metro and bus. At least they had a cool exhibit from the Hubble spacecraft at the visitor's center. And nature. The temple is surrounded by nature -- something that is hard to come by in DC.
Homemade chocolate chip cookies - Filled with butter and love, these goodies make a perfect breakfast any day of the week. And they disappear quickly.
Henry's interim review - Success! Henry is now CEO of Bates White. Or at least the best intern they've ever had (not an exaggeration).
Tori's poster presentation - On August 6th! Who cares how it goes, the poster looks pretty! Thank heaven for Powerpoint 2007's amazing default color scheme.
Family! - The Lefgren family came out to play before heading back to Utah. The kids were cute and we had lots of fun going to the zoo and just hanging out.

Here is Lucy saying "I don't want to wear shoes because I am a turtle and turtles don't wear shoes." She has a point, ya know.Emma and Tori swinging. We are girls because we wear pink shirts.

And these are boys. You can tell because they smell and wear blue.

Well, that's the latest update from the Tappens. 2.5 weeks of internships left (along with visits from more family) and then we're off to NYC for a week! And don't forget good ol' Provo, we'll be back there soon enough. Look out!

The Notorious HPT

2009-07-12T17:03:00.001-07:00

This is the inspiration for the name of our blog. We proudly present Henry's graduation rap:

This video has over 37,000 hits on YouTube. That makes my husband a famous rapper! His rapper name is The Notorious HPT (Henry Potter Tappen). He can beat you up.... with words... or econometrics.

Go Fourth to the Capitol

2009-07-08T16:46:00.000-07:00

Happy Independence (not dense) Day! That reminds me of a funny Andy Sandberg digital short.

We started off the weekend by going to Arlington National Cemetery and seeing the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We also went to Georgetown Cupcake and waited in line for 30 minutes to buy a little bit of heaven. I do love chocolate A LOT, but the wait was a little bit ridiculous.

(We all know you're really just here to see me, so it doesn't really matter that Henry's left eye is cut off. Isn't the right side of his face cute, though?)

(I thought it was funny that they swung out their legs before they stopped walking, so I was soo happy when I caught this lil' pic.)

Random science fact: Did you know that they exhumed the remains of the Vietnam unknown soldier and identified him through his mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)? mtDNA is inherited through the mother because the egg contributes the bulk of the cell (including organelles like mitochondria), while the sperm only holds DNA. Wowsie!

On the fourth we went forth to downtown DC and saw the big show.

(Random people we don't know)

(This is us looking up at the fireworks. They turned us into giddy, blissful children... no lies. I have a video with Henry exclaiming "WOW" with perfect child-like awe)

After the show, we were walking through the crowd to get to our bus-stop and we came stumbled upon a magical street performer.

But this was not just any street performer. And that is NOT Chairman Mao behind him (not a racist comment, but just a remark on the way I edited the photo). This guy was actually playing CLASSICAL MUSIC on the STEEL DRUMS. This guy was a mix between Marley and Mozart, Rastafarian-ism and Ravel, Dreadlocks and Debussy, Jamaica and Johannes..., sorry I just got on a roll there. I'll put up a video soon so you can see, and hear, for yourself (our internet is too slow and it won't upload right now).

'Twas a good weekend

2009-06-21T15:58:00.000-07:00

#1. Our 6-month-versary was on Saturday and we went out to Moroccan food at Marrakesh. It was an all night dining experience with a seven course meal and a belly dancer who balanced a sword on her head. Pretty scary if you ask me.

#2. National Portrait Gallery. It's like a whole museum full of the stories of individuals throughout history. Simply amazing. It allows you to put faces to all those names that you've always heard. Our favorite thing was seeing the pictures of the presidents that were used on money (the penny, $1, $5, $100).

#3. KHAAAAAN! So if you haven't seen the Star Trek movie "The Wrath of Khan" (TWOK) then WATCH IT. We both loved the newest Star Trek movie, so we thought we'd go back and watch some of the old ones. We're pretty dorky, we know. Anyway, TWOK was actually pretty good. The shot of William Shatner screaming KHAN!! is well-preserved by the website above. And just so you know, this guy's chest is NOT a prosthetic (which makes him just a tad bit more creepy than he already is).
#4. Church was wonderful and uplifting as ever. We have a very diverse ward with members from many African countries (Mali, Cameroon, and Nigera, that I know of) and we really enjoy listening to their inspiring testimonies and comments. We also found a random connection through someone that knows Henry's family from Pueblo, CO. Oh Pueblo.

#5. Henry and I are still very much in love and enjoying our time together in this exciting city! Only 9 more weeks to go!
P.S. I just learned how to make words into links and am now obsessed. Funny youtube videos here, here, and here.

domo arigato mr. yogato

2009-06-12T18:14:00.000-07:00

So we just had frozen yogurt at this place called "Mr. Yogato" this evening. Good yogurt, trivia challenges, free do-it-yourself toppings, and old school nintendo. While the extra chocolate sauce made my night, Henry was just ecstatic to play Mike Tyson's Punchout for 15 minutes.

Here are the RULES OF YOGATO:

If Mr. Roboto comes over the speaker system and you sing along,
you get 10% off yogurt.
Try your luck with a trivia question. Get it right for 10% off, but get it wrong and 10% is added.
If you will wear a yogato stamp on your head, you get 10% off.
If you can recite the Stirling battlefield speech from Braveheart in a great scottish accent, you get 20% off yogurt.
Order a yogurt for 30 consecutive days and we'll name a flavor after you. View 30 Day Champions
If a customer suggests a topping or flavor which is then adopted, that customer receives a 5% discount for life.
If anyone can stump Steve on trivia regarding Seinfeld or "The Rock," 10% off yogurt.
Anyone wearing a kickball uniform and has played hard (evidenced by dirt on their knees) will receive an automatic 10% off yogurt.

We helped someone name five state capitals with two words (not including city). They are: Des Moines, Little Rock, St. Paul, Baton Rouge, and Santa Fe. Next time we're taking the trivia challenge.

the district #1

2009-06-07T11:26:00.000-07:00

We've been in DC for a week and a half now. Here's what we've been up to:

- Meeting many of our friendly neighbors with their darling children
- Traveling by metro to and from work every day
- Going to some Smithsonian museums (Air and Space, and Natural History) with family, and alone (American History)
- Coming in to our bedroom (we are subletting from a woman in her 60s) for the first time and finding pictures of naked women on the walls (artistic, but still a bit shocking). They are now in the closet, so no worries
- Learning to live without a microwave
- Adjusting to humidity (and wavy hair on my part)
- Getting used to seeing diversity everywhere (a nice change from Utah)
- Taking the bus in the wrong direction when coming home from church (which only took an extra half hour... no biggie)
- Learning all about Ebola virus and antibodies (Tori), and about trust-busting and the legal system (Henry)
- Having a nice seafood dinner with Aunt Gail/Uncle Udell in Chinatown (not what you'd think of as a Chinatown) with an AMAZING chocolate cake dessert

If you've visited or lived in DC before, please send us your suggestions as to what to do (or what to eat)! We have three more months here so we're going to fit everything in.

Goodbye Provo

2009-05-25T17:19:00.000-07:00

Well.... only for three months.

And hello DC!!!

(p.s. we hate packing)

Food

2009-05-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

So on Sunday, in commemoration of Mother's Day, I made lots of homemade food. And that actually means that I made two recipes (and peas). #1 is pineapple muffins. Sooooo good. Not healthy at all, especially with that glaze, but soooo good. It was a recipe from my cooking class that I took last semester. And actually, they are healthy! They have pineapples! That cancels out all the other ingredients. (Behind the muffins is our beautiful green stove, doesn't it match the plate well - on purpose of course)
#2 - Henry and I made Indian food for dinner. Chicken Korma. This was AMAZING and super easy. It was only hard to find mango chutney, but besides that it was cake. The recipe was from allrecipes.com and it was as good as a restaurant. It kind of looks like throw-up, but I promise it tastes divine. And look how healthy we are!!! Frozen peas!!! And the beautiful presentation!!! I'm ready to have many, many children ... obviously.

Gradumecation

2009-05-03T11:31:00.001-07:00

I graduated from BYU! I have a BS in Molecular Biology with a minor in Philosophy. So I'm a scientists who loves knowledge. But more importantly, now I am an educated woman. Soon I'll be asking for the right to vote or own property or something. Man, has Henry got his work cut out for him!

So this picture isn't exactly the greatest, but it's the best one on my camera. My dad (the photography guru of the family) took some with his really nice camera that hopefully he'll send to me soon. The traditional graduation attire is so strange - the robe makes you look like an elephant even when it's sized, and the pointy hat should seriously come with a warning (I poked many people and may have caused some injuries).

It was just nice having family in town. My parents and two sisters came in to support me (but the sisters just really wanted free food from my parents). We went on a walk near their hotel in Provo and got this nice photo. We also went out to Bombay House and got indigestion. Yum! (Seriously though, Indian food is the best.)

Then we went to Colorado to visit my brother's family (with new Baby Sarah) and Henry's parents. Baby Sarah (not just Sarah - you have to add the "baby" in front) was less than two weeks old and oh so cute. This is my other niece Delaney with her little sister. Even the craziest 7-year-old (Delaney) can be calmed by the presence of a precious baby.

We saw the sights of Pueblo, Colorado: the downtown Riverwalk (pics below), the new Chipotle, City Park (played Bocce Ball), and the used bookstore - Books Again. It was rather eventful. We also had an open house with Henry's parents and got to celebrate our wedding again! It made us feel like newly weds again!!! Oh wait...

New movie ideas

2009-04-19T09:16:00.001-07:00

Just a warning: these are all copyrighted by Tappens (c)

Last night we (mostly Henry) came up with some great new movie ideas. I think we'll drop out of college and pursue careers in Hollywood.

Movie #1: Funkytown
It a live-action movie with dogs, but they have animated mouths that make them talk. They are all voiced by famous comedians. Martin Lawrence plays some kind of terrier, George Lopez is a chihuahua, Cedric the Entertainer plays a bulldog with a screwed-up eye, and Beyonce Knowles (Sasha FIERCE!) plays a toy poodle. The dogs are in rival gangs in a neighborhood in the Bronx but they band together to fight off the dog-catcher (played by Bill Murray). Beyonce ends the show singing "Funkytown" - the classic 80s funk song - with dog barks in place of many of the instrumentals.

Movie #2: Ivy League
A gay guy (played by Zac Efron)tries to get into a Christian college only to be discriminated against and rejected because of his orientation. He pretends to be straight in order to attend the school, but the ruse falls apart when he's discovered on a date with his male lab partner (played by Zachary Quinto, Spock in the new Star Wars movie)! Our hero is distraught. He attempts suicide but is rescued by his football-playing roommate (played by Tom Welling from Smallville), whom we thought was nothing more than an ignorant jock. The school issues a full pardon and the Tappens win an Oscar. Also features Morgan Freeman as the sympathetic school counselor, Reese Witherspoon as his conflicted mother, and Ed Harris as the intolerant dean. Hit pop song/title track by Mariah Carey and Zac Efron.

Hope you enjoyed these. Look for them on the big screen in the next two years.

Catch-up

2009-04-11T16:59:00.000-07:00

So I haven't updated in a while, but I thought I'd go ahead and put up my pictures from the last month or so.

1) The Hunger Banquet. March 6-7. Those dates will be forever ingrained in my mind because of the hundreds of posters and handbills I put up around Provo. I was part of the publicity committee and as such I got to... publicize. The event turned out remarkably well and had 1,900 people show up over the two nights. We also made over $15,000 to donate to local non-profits (working locally and abroad in development-related issues). I had a great time helping greet people and serving food both nights.

Unfortunately, due to an unlucky run-in with the delete key, I lost most of my pictures from the night. Here are a few that were rescued:

This is my friend, Elisa. She's cool. We put up a lot of fliers together :)This is me in my Tanzanian dress (from my friend Katie). I did make that face most of the night. Oh yeah, the shoes aren't Tanzanian, but rather Old Navyian.

Deanna (former roommate of 3.5 years) and I. She had on a beautiful formal Chinese dress. Very classy.

2) Amy's (roommate of 2.5 years) sister's wedding reception in SLC. Once again, very classy. It was in the Joseph Smith Building, NOT the one on BYU campus but the real one. I was amused with the name tag:
It makes my first and (former) last name look very similar.

Here are the roomies! We're still in love even though I've left them for this man:

He is working hard to solve the world's problems and find an equation to take over the world. He's so hot.

3) Internship Fair. I had a booth at the Internship Fair at BYU last week (April 3rd) on my Internship to Northern Ireland last summer. I studied leukemia. The fair was mostly geared towards "normal people" (aka non-science people) so I focused my booth on explaining what leukemia is and what a chemical signaling pathway is. I used the game "Mousetrap" to explain a signalling pathway. People liked it. And I got a $50 gift certificate to the BYU bookstore, so I was pretty happy, too.

And yes. That is a real leprechaun.

4) Pictures at Utah Lake. I usually associate this lake with gross smells and swamp-like qualities. Who knew it was actually pretty? I went to take pictures there with Deanna during Priesthood Session last weekend, at sunset. If we were in love and one of us was a man and I wasn't married it would have been the perfect time to purpose.

Next big plans:

GRADUATION!!!!!

and then....

WASHINGTON DC!!!! We both have internships there over the summer. Henry at Bates White economic consulting and Tori at the National Institutes of Health. It will be an adventure (we leave on May 27th).

Wii-kend

2009-03-15T22:28:00.000-07:00

Doesn't that picture just look epic? The Wii could be seven stories high for all you know (lowly beggars and peasants that you are). Actually it's not. It's about six inches high. And we know this firsthand because (we are lofty aristocrats and)....

We Won a FREE Wii on Saturday!

It's kinda funny to juxtapose this post with my last one because we actually won the Wii at a BYUSA event. Yeah I know. Does that make me a hypocrite? If so, oh well. I have a free Wii and you don't.

We decided to go to the "Unofficial Spring Break" BYUSA activity on Saturday just to get free dinner and act goofy. Well, we got much more than dinner (and really good Gelato). We ended up (through the help of others and ourselves) having about 70 tickets in the raffle for the Wii by the end of the night, so the odds were stacked in our favor (the only way Tappens win anything, Henry informed me). We were really just happy to win out over all the Freshmen there (99% of those attending were Freshmen, please see previous post about how this is not an infrequent occurrence) since we have been at BYU way longer and entered many more contests without winning than they have.

I'm still in shock. We've joked for months about how Henry wanted some kind of gaming system and I would always say no. Now it's just funny that we have a Wii and are still using my hand-me-down TV that has a smaller screen than our laptops. Hey, it still works though. We'll get a nice TV for Christmas, if I can get a job.

This is the culmination of my BYU career. I would have been fine graduating without getting married, but graduating without getting something expensive for free through BYUSA and tithing money? That would have lead to clinical depression.

BYUSA Elections

2009-03-01T22:13:00.000-08:00

I feel like ranting a bit about the upcoming (March 2-6) BYUSA elections. For anyone who doesn't know what BYUSA is, it is the on-campus "student service association" on BYU campus. This is actually different from a student government, but perceived in much the same way.

Election season is annoying. It is especially annoying when it is pointless. Here are reasons why BYUSA elections are pointless/annoying:

The only people who vote are friends of the candidates. Other people don't care (as shown by the usually very low voter turnout).
If for some reason another person who is not friends of the candidates votes, they are voting a) based on their surface perception of the candidate (a face put on for election week most of the time) or b) based on their platforms (many of which they will be powerless to act on) or c) lame advertizing based on "colors" and bribes.
Platforms are ridiculous. Most candidates are trying to get people's attention with platforms that will affect everyone, but most of the time these are parties. Other times they are vague and unspecific and won't get done.
Some good platforms are included, but these will be incorporated whether or not the candidate wins because usually the losers end up as "executive VPs" anyway. They stay in the system and still work for BYUSA!!!!!!
BYUSA is only good at putting on parties for Freshmen. They have not significantly influenced campus in any other way. If this is untrue, I would really like to know.
BYUSA is not there to represent the students, it is not a student government, so stop having elections to make it seem like one.
BYUSA president and co-president have their tution paid for. This seems odd to me. And it's a fact you don't usually hear about, I only know because my former roommate was in BYUSA.
Resume builder? Future politicians? Ugh.
People don't actually care about BYUSA any time of the year except elections. That means that NO ONE NOTICES WHAT THE PRESIDENCY DOES = POINTLESS.

Ok. I don't want this to seem like I am actually against everything about student leadership or BYUSA. They have a role to play. They should represent the students. They should try to improve campus in novel ways that other non-student administrators may overlook. Innovation is the key.

I am actually the president of my college student council (Life Sciences). We get some things done, although most of the time we hit dead ends honestly. We try to spend a lot of effort researching what the students want, but it is always so difficult to get feedback. We have lofty goals but sometimes we have to look for smaller ways to contribute. I was appointed to my position by the former president, VP, and advisor after having served a year on the council.

I think that BYUSA should have a similar system. The presidency should not be decided by the student body because that gives them a false sense of actually being represented and having their views considered. The presidency should be chosen by SAC (student advisory council) and BYUSA non-student leadership. That way we can get leaders who can impress a wide-range of students (members of SAC come from all colleges) and who can get things done and work well with administration (as shown by how they have worked with the BYUSA non-student leadership - they have more insider knowledge anyway).

And best of all, no annoying "color" campaigns across campus.

Especially the week of the Hunger Banquet (byuhunerbanquet.com) that I'm trying to advertise the same week :)

life

2009-02-15T17:36:00.000-08:00

So I decided to do this survey thing for fun. Enjoy!

For all you married people out there! Tag your married friends that you want to know about!(Don't forget to tag the person who tagged you!)

1. When is your "engagement" anniversary: August 17, 2008
2. When is your "marriage" anniversary: December 20, 2008
3. How long have you known your spouse: 1 year and 13 days
4. How long did you date/court before you were engaged: We dated for just about 6 months when he "officially" popped the question - we were "unofficially engaged" (a.k.a. we knew we were getting married and so did our families and close friends) for 3 months before then when I was in Ireland for the summer.
5. Where did you meet your spouse for the first time: Easy. Blind date on Feb. 2, 2008. It was sweet. We ate Indian food, wrote haikus to each other, talked about foreign film, fingerpainted, and ended up watching Lost with his roommates. The rest is history.
6. What is your spouse's full name: Henry Potter Tappen. And Potter is from his mom's maiden name, not Harry Potter (although we did get some wedding presents to Tori and Harry Potter).
7. Do you have any children yet: Nope. I take my "no babies" pill every day :)
8. How many: zero
9. Do you have any house pets: We hate dogs and cats, so no. Unless you count Henry...
10. Do you own a house or rent: Rent a studio apartment, cozy and cheap.
11. Do you live in the country or town/city: Town
12. What is one of your favorite activities together: We love going on long walks together. It's the only exercise we get. We also love watching Lost or making yummy food.
13. Do you have a favorite vacation spot: Switzerland. Obviously hasn't happened yet, but it will someday.
14. How many siblings (including in-laws): I have 4 and he has 3. But they are all married, so 14?
15. What church do you attend: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
16. Is this the church you were married in: Sure. The temple of that church.
17. What town is your current address: P-town, UT
18. Do you work or stay at home: School and work. But I'm not actually that busy.... thus this blog post.
19. Where did you honeymoon: San Diego, CA.
20: Leave a piece of marriage advice: Well, it's been 7 weeks. I guess just talk about everything. Bore them with the details of your life, but hopefully it won't bore them. It's important to keep all lines of communication open.

Tag 14 people
-I'm opting out of this. I doubt anyone looks at this anyway, but if you are married and want to take this - do it. It's great :)

to wed, or not to wed. we've chosen.

2009-01-31T15:43:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures from our December 20th wedding!