My First Jazz Game

I went to my first Jazz game yesterday. Our tickets were in the upper bowl, but when we arrived our tickets wouldn't scan. So we had to go to the ticket office and they gave us new seats in the lower bowl. I thought that the players would look tiny from where we sat, but they still looked huge. I'm glad that the Jazz won!

Halloween at Work

My Niece's First Birthday

I made it back in town from my San Angelo trip to go to my niece's first birthday. It looked like she had lots of fun and enjoyed all the attention. She's a cutie!!!

San Angelo Trip

I had a great time visiting my sister, Wendy, and her family in Texas a couple of weeks ago. We just hung around and I tried to make myself useful. Below are my favorite pictures of all the kids from the trip.

Bread Maker

A friend of mine gave me a bread maker and I used it for the first time today. I made cinnamon rolls and they turned out very pretty and yummy!

Pineapple Plant

It's one of the most adorable things I have seen. Back in August I moved to a different cubicle at work. My new cubicle has a window, so I thought it would be appropriate to buy a plant. I went to Ikea and found the pineapple. I hope I can keep it alive.

Oriental Pork

I was going to go to my brother's place for dinner with a friend tonight, but my niece got sick. I'm sad I missed out...but I had to come up with something else. After making an inventory on my ingredients I decided on cooking some pork chop steaks into an oriental dish. This was inspired by mom's Oriental Beef/Chicken.

Oriental Pork

Pork chop steaks (that's what I call the thick cut), cut in strips
Garlic
Onion
Bell Pepper
Sugar Snap Peas
Rice, cooked

Marinade:
Soy Sauce
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder
Cayenne Pepper
Ginger Powder
Pepper

Marinade the pork strips in the marinade sauce. Saute the garlic, onion and bell pepper. Add the pork till all strips are browned, add sugar snap peas. Cover and cook thoroughly. Serve over rice.

As you can tell, I have no measurements. That's because I was improvising. So, just add everything to taste. If I had pineapples, I would have added a little of the pineapple juice to the marinade and served the pineapple on the side. This can be a quick meal if you prep the ingredients early in the day. Also, you can use chicken or beef, and you can mix up the vegetables you have on hand. This is basically a stir fry. And...if you want to be adventurous you can try to eat with chopsticks.

Wang Jian-Xin and Li Feng-Yun

I went to the performance of Wang Jianxin and Li Fengyun in September. They teach at the Tianjin Conservatory of Music in China and have been on tour. I really enjoyed the music. During the performance Wang Jianxin explained the different instruments that they played. I was very impressed with their talent.


The instrument above is the xun which is made of clay. It is also called an ocarina.


This instrument is the xiao. This flute is played vertically.


The qin is a very beautiful instrument. The one that Li Fengyun played was at least 600 years old. It has a very unique sound to it that can evoke different emotions. I enjoyed watching her play this instrument.


The pipa looks like a guitar. The name comes from the direction of strumming the strings--"pi" is strum in one direction and as you come back to strum in the other direction it is "pa". I thought it was a cute description.


The last instruments that were played were the di-zi. These flute like instruments come in all sizes and are played horizontally.

I really enjoyed the music and talent from that evening.

Frog Exhibit

I went to a frog exhibit at the U of U on Labor Day. I was really excited to see all the frogs on display. Andy picked me up so I could go with their family. I took pictures and I thought that they were deleted from my computer. However, I found them and have a little slide show for you to see now.