now our lives are changing fast.

bucketfuls of good things have happened since i've last written anything. bucketfuls.

chase & i took a weekend vacation in maui. camped in the most absurd wind i've ever encountered, drove the road to hana, saw tons of waterfalls, went to the top of the real high crater, ate our weight in gelato, resort hopped & got sleeping in a mazda3 down to a science. this trip also marked the beginning of our love affair with card games, which has only picked up since returning.

i graduated from college, and chase . . . almost did. we walked at the commencement ceremony together, but he's not official 'til he passes physics and life saving this summer (and then takes abstract algebra . . . the kid is going on 14 semesters). i spent the entire ceremony scanning the program for ridiculously long hawaiian names & crossing my fingers that the announcer would screw up their pronunciation, since entertainment was so scarce. literally, one graduate's last name was "leimamoia'umeheiponolo'ikamakaokeao." oh, and another graduate was named risky? just risky. no middle name, no last name, just risky. sure, fine.

we also sold our beloved beater truck. honestly, we'd been wanting to sell the thing for months, but i'm just so damn lazy. i can go far enough to make a craigslist posting, but when i have to start returning calls and responding to emails, i absolutely fail. i was fine with making casual progress on selling it until our neighbors borrowed it and came home telling us that it slipped into reverse and the accelerator jammed, causing it to suddenly speed 4o mph backwards with no foot on the gas pedal. so, no more rusty F250 with the obscenely ripped driver's seat, boasting fuel mileage of up to 8 miles per gallon and teeming full of sweet memories. it was a bittersweet sell.

but we replaced it with a, erm, minivan? i guess all sense of style goes out the window when you get married, because we're both smitten with the thing. it's a '99 toyota sienna, with a tape deck, a/c & drink holders. needless to say, we are very much pleased with our purchase. we bought it on monday, & today the seller texted me asking that we wipe his phone number off the back windows because he kept getting calls from interested buyers. again, we are so lazy! inexcusable.

chase's parents & sister (& husband & sweet baby girl) came out for graduation & stayed to play for a week. it was so rad. we grilled, spent a couple days beaching it in town & kailua, watched baby aspen start walking for real, & ate wayyyy too much good food.

and i started a new job, as "serving assistant" at a restaurant called ola, at turtle bay resort. aka, i'm a busser!!! yaya. i was overwhelmed by the pride on my old humanities teacher's face when he came in to eat & saw me putting my political science degree to good use as i filled his water glass. joking aside, i love my job. it's a beautiful restaurant right on the beach, with no walls (it's all open) & tables on the sand. we serve seriously good food right up my alley -- food of the sea. ahi poke, a different fresh fish every day, shrimp the size of my fist, scallops. . . it's a dream.

the only real sad thing that's happened lately is that chase & i both lost our best friends to the mainland! my maggie eliza unexpectedly headed home to st. louis for the summer last week, & chase's best friend skee took off for california after graduating. we miss 'em, bad.

lotsa changes lately. but, we're still young, in love, & incredibly blessed. or lucky. or both.

that hasn't changed. 

love will die without a home.

cinderblock walls, blue carpet, and popcorn ceiling:

the trifecta of good design.

we're spoiled-- we got a corner unit in married student housing, which means we get an extra window and an extra foot or two in width. cha-ching. sure, we still live in one giant room; pretty sure chase could jump from our front step onto the bed (long legs), and we have to crack every window when the oven's on to prevent passing out. but it's home. we've got a walk-through closet (different than a walk-in, but sounds spacious on paper) leading to a little bathroom with zero storage and a small mirror that we're constantly shoving each other in front of so we can check ourselves out (so vain, us carlstons).

we also reap the benefits of living in a community of college-aged married couples, including the temptation to kidnap any one of an unlimited number of unattended children, left free to roam the parking lot, climb on top of cars, get stuck in trees and chat it up with strangers. we are also frequently the recipients of neighbor's baked goods, another perk of TVA living.

it's fun making our home a home together, doing things like thrifting, sewing curtains and building wooden shelves. chase even built a surf rack and screwed it into the wall, despite the strict no-holes-in-the-wall policy-- oops. i guess we're gonna have some patching to do before we leave.

i just love coming home to a warm, clean home.

especially to snuggle with this boy.

vegan march.

chase & i declared this month vegan march. beginning last thursday, we cut out milk, eggs, cheese & ICE CREAM from our diets . . .we already don't eat meat (or i don't, so chase is pescatarian by default), and we will still be eating seafood during march. i just can't feel bad for dying marine life! and shrimp & poke are on my top 5 tastiest foods ever created list.

anywho, vegan march is posted on the fridge, so you know it's official. along with my other goals for the month, like wear my retainer & learn how to cross-step on a long board. yes, i PROMISE, i go to school, and yes, i PROMISE, i have a job, but compared to mr. school president who's taking physics, 2 chemistry classes, & trying to prepare for the DAT, my schedule's pretty wide open. taking 8 credits is pretty much the best thing i've ever done, & i wish i had done it my entire university career, so that i had more time to focus on goals more important than receiving a college degree, like keeping my skin bronzed.

i've played around with eating vegan before, primarily for health benefits after reading books like eating animals by jonathan safran foer, in defense of food by michael pollack, and the food revolution by john robbins. i'm a believer. i also keep flax & chia seeds in the fridge, snack on goji berries, & try to remember to take my fish oil in the mornings. i figure these are all necessary health precautions when you consume as much ice cream as i do each week and have hopes of living past 35.

saturday was only day 3, but already the universe was conspiring against us. we spent the day in town with our friends taylor & anna, and chase & i paced around in circles muttering inspiring phrases about willpower as our friends walked from honolulu cookie company (sample paradise) straight into yogurtland (sample wonderland) and we stayed outside. i then spent the afternoon dodging sample booths in costco, after turning down the cookie corner employee offering complimentary cookies on the waikiki strip.

cookie corner giving out cookies? for free? unheard of. seriously, someone alerted the big guy & now he's having fun testing us. still, we're now on day 5 and we're sticking to our guns. it's incredible how two people with extremely weak willpower can join together & turn into a couple of cookie-dodging superheroes. i guess that's the miracle of marriage for ya.

***THIS JUST IN: the malasada truck, full of deep-fried, cream-filled, piping hot dough deliciousness is now parked in the laie shopping center after a good year hiatus? this is a joke. welcome to vegan march. the world's out to get me.

from hot pavement and into the grass.

i've been workin' on a new project lately: a food blog.

chase jokingly came up with the name during church one sunday, & i have yet to come up with anything better. that boy.

it's still in its infancy, but i hope for it to grow lots.

check it out when you're hungry!

ringing like a bell.

our marriage day was so much fun.

chase's friend from san clemente, elise capener, took our wedding photos for us,

& they came out beautifully.

we were married december 28 in the salt lake temple,

surrounded by family & friends.

i wept like a baby, of course.

chase did too--of course.

it was perfect.

in my heart there's flowers growin'.

happy valentines day kids.

hope it's a good one.

don't wanna work in a building downtown.

we've been eating some good food around these parts lately. i told chase we're getting ethnic this week, so we stocked up on seaweed for making sushi, & fish sauce, chili paste, rice noodles & all those yummy thai spices. we also got a bunch of plums at costco yesterday (after passing by the salted caramels samples probably six times).

this semester has been so rad, largely because i'm only taking 8 credits. and, for the first time in my life i have my own kitchen & my own fridge.

(i couldn't count the number of times mag & i opened the fridge last semester and yelled, we have a shelf system people! come on! and removed a mug of blue goop supposed to cure acne from our respective chilled territories.)

anyways, cooking in your own home is a joy.

but it's my last semester. so somedays i worry about graduating in two months, & trying to find my place in that big scary real world out there.

all i wanna do is cook & feed my loves,

lay in the sun & surf,

& paint pictures

all day long.

if i could make a job outta that, shoot-- i'd be good at it.