How do you say no to Paris?

Mike sent the official "turn-down" email to INSEAD today. (Clarification: INSEAD is that MBA school in Paris/Singapore that Mike applied to...the school specializes in churning out international consulting students.) They wanted to interview him in either AZ/CO/CA, so Mike thought long and hard about whether to fly out or not. In the end he decided not to waste the money when he was pretty sure he wanted to go to Chicago GSB.

I would have loved to live in both Paris and Singapore, but Mike promises that Chicago's study abroad in Paris is top notch. So it sounds like I can now officially start saying..."Chicago here we come!"

Tea time with the girls

We went to tea on Wednesday at the Grand America.

I ordered raspberry tea. It was quite a lovely time.

At the Grand America.

Gotta love tea!

Fiesta!

FIESTA!

On Saturday we had a fiesta at our place. Shannon and John made chile rellenos (yum), and Jon and Shae taught us how to make empenadas from Chile (so good). Luke brought the chips and salsa, and we made the guacamole and dessert! It was a night of adventure...

The three amigos...the Featherstone brothers

Shannon and John's chile rellenos were to die for!

Shae wearing the sombrero...

Trying our luck at making Chilean empenadas.

Dancing the night away to the salsa beat...


Shannon, John, Mike and I realized that although we hang out every week, we don't have any pictures of the four of us...so we took one during the fiesta.

It's already been a YEAR?

Yesterday was May 6...exactly one year since Mike and I were married. It's already been a YEAR? We couldn't believe how fast the time flew...

Here are some memories from our first anniversary. We started a tradition where we switch off planning anniversaries. ex. Mike will plan one year, then I'll plan the next. So Mike got to plan this one. Lucky guy.

We celebrated on Saturday with a day of festivities.

First up: tennis. He surprised me with a morning of outdoor tennis. Fun! But the only problem was when we left the house, it started raining! Bummer. No tennis for us.

Next up: a French-style picnic outside. Oh, but of course it was still raining. (chuckle) So we spread out the sheet inside, and had our picnic complete with a baguette, Brie cheese, grapes, tomato slices and Perrier (okay, Mike got Evian for me, since I can't stand bubbly "no-taste" water). Yum.

Then: dinner at the Tree Room. After our afternoon break (Mike studied, I hit the treadmill), Mike surprised me with reservations to my favorite restaurant in the whole world. What a cool surprise! Yes, I will admit, it takes an hour to drive down there (the restaurant is in Sundance), so we had to sacrifice two hours round trip, but it was so worth it. I got the seared Ahi Tuna. Ahhhh heaven. Funny side note: we ordered the fresh potato ravioli as an appetizer, and when it came, there were only THREE ravioli squares (chuckle). Oh, I guess that's what we signed up for. But every bite of the three squares was divine.

Sunday (our actual anniversary): Memory grove. After church we walked around Memory Grove, which is the coolest park in Salt Lake City--it's at the foot of the canyon and the Capitol. And lucky us, the whole time we got to do flash cards for Mike's CFA test! Mike's been stressed about it lately so every spare moment we get I've been quizzing him with flash cards. As we walked around I couldn't help but laugh because people probably thought we were either crazy, or talking in another language. Imagine hearing people say things like "Mike, define and calculate: Yield Measures, Spot Rates, and Forward Rates." Yeah, okay, I don't understand it either. (chuckle) But aren't I a good sport?

I love flash cards!

Walking along City Creek. Notice I have conspicuously hidden the flashcards in my coat pocket. You'd never know!

Later Sunday: dinner with the Featherstones. Every Sunday we join Mike's family for dinner and dessert and the best entertainment you can get for free. They even made us a poster for our anniversary! Marianne made her divine pound cake with fresh strawberries, and it reminded me once again how awesome the Featherstones are. It also reminded me how pale my pound cake is compared to hers. (chuckle)

Also congrats to Shae (wife to Jon, Mike's brother) who graduated from college this week! Go get 'em girl...