Girls Day Out

Oh my goodness!

What a fun day I had today!

I got to hang out with my awesome friends Nicole and Whitney.

We started at Kneaders.

We only originally planned to go to Kneaders...

but one thing led to another, ha ha!

We went to Thai Drift because Whitney had never had mango and sweet rice,
so so yummy!

Next we headed to Sub-Zero because Nicole had never had that!

For some reason there is a large shark hanging up in Sub-Zero

so of course we had to get another picture.

We ate a ton of calories and had at least as much laughter and fun.

I'm sure going to miss these ladies!

4th of July

Well, I was asked to speak and also sing at a morning Independence Day program.
I'm way more comfortable with the singing part...
I don't know why, but I never feel like I do a very good job speaking.

Anyway, it was at 6 am (pretty early to sing) but I was excited to be a part of it.
I spoke a little bit about my experiences with Mike being deployed and then
I sang God Bless America a capella.

Mom, Dad, Marcy and Kenz came.

Noah and Kenz have really grown close since we've lived here!

Later that day we visited Jan in the hospital...she's having a tough time!

Then we went to a free lunch put on Kneaders for military families...that was cool.

They even had a big tv screen and let us Skype with Mike for a few minutes.

Grace and I took a little mother daughter date to Rita's...yum!!

For dinner I took the kids (including Noah's girlfriend Janna) to J Dawg's.

It was really good and we had a great time together.

Later on we went to Joe and Melanie's for fireworks.
Joe put on a great show!

I'm so thankful for this country. I think that I've been thinking more about that since I know we will be leaving behind certain freedoms soon. I'm not sure what that will be like...I guess I'll have to wait and see :)

Menchie's with Anna

I've been trying to go on little dates with my kiddos a lot more lately.

I really enjoy the one on one time with them.

I also know that when we move I won't be able to just take them places, 

because I'm not allowed to drive there :)

Anna and I had some delicious frozen yogurt.

She is such a fun girl!

She also wanted me to take a picture of the "owie" on the back of her leg

because we both thought it looked like a sad face :(

Ward Pool Party

We had our annual ward picnic and pool party last night.
I was assigned to bring a dessert.

I brought a fruit pizza.

It was gone it about 2 seconds :)
(always makes me feel good)

I invited my family again and they came.

I think everyone had a pretty good time.
My sister got this picture of me with my cute nephew Levi

We played in the pool and listened to the Rushton's band Bonne Nuit.

It was a nice evening :)

I loved how Cedric (a 16 year old) didn't think he was too cool to hang out with Isaac at the pool.

It always means a lot to a younger kid when and older kid spends time with them :)

No Candy For A Year...is Over!

Last year on June 1st I challenged the kids to try and go for a year without candy.

I told them they would get $100 if they could make it.

Everyone except for Anna agreed to try

(Anna said that candy was just too precious to her :) )

I told them if they messed up, then they could start their year over from the day the messed up.

Noah accidentally messed up on June20th when he was at Strawberry days, so he started over.

Grace made it for about a month and a half...but Girls Camp ended it for her.

Isaac lasted a few more months, but decided to end his try as well.
Noah, Dallin and I all made it.
(You might have noticed birthday wishes this year included eating candy, so I guess we each had one cheat day...though to be honest, on our cheat day we only ate one or two things.)

Noah and Dallin were excited to get their $100!
I'm proud of them for completing this challenge!

Below you can see the contract I had them sign.
As you can tell...there were still plenty of sweets they could have.
This was by no means a completely sweet free year!
But, it was still a challenge :)

18 Years Going Strong!

We had a wonderful day celebrating our anniversary.

When Mike asked me what I wanted to do for our date, it was easy...

I asked him to take me to the BYU Ballroom Dance company performance. 

They have this every year right around our anniversary...just for us, ha ha! 

On our way there.

It was so good! I absolutely love watching these talented dancers!! 

It's especially fun to watch our friends Jessica Kirkham and Kayci (Kirkham) & Casey Treu 

(We even lucked out and got to visit with Tracy and Paula Kirkham after the show for a few minutes)

They are amazing! So amazing!

In fact you should check out Kayci & Casey"s facebook page 

Oh, before we got to BYU for the show we visited the two apartments we used to live in when we were first married.

Our first address

 Our second

 We were the top apartment.

I remember those stairs very well!

Anyway, after the show we went to the temple.

We did sealings and it was particularly special because we were able to do the sealing for Mike's maternal grandma and grandpa. Now they kind of share an anniversary with us :)

We went to dinner at Red Robin (because we had a gift card and felt like it). 

We beat the dinner rush and had a great dinner and got in and out pretty quickly.

Then we went to Cold Stone for a treat. Yum!

(yes we purposefully aimed our spoons to our noses...we are weird!)

Happy Anniversary to us!

The Tarantula...Gets Eaten!

 Warning: This blog post may should be disturbing to some most people!

So...a couple years ago when I asked Grace what she wanted for her birthday dinner

her response was tarantula meat...

DISGUSTING!

Anyway, she has pretty much asked for it every year since. I think 3 years in a row.

So this year I got online and ordered a tarantula in a can. 

I was hoping it would get here in time for her birthday, but no such luck.

When it arrived we invited family and some friends over to watch and possibly partake

if they were so inclined...

Here's how the evening went...

Well....there you go!

I have nothing more to say...

Noah Saved My Life

not literally...but it's a fun story anyway :)

So the other night while we were having family prayers a giant spider (probably really not very big) emerged from nowhere and started coming straight for me (at least that's my perspective.) Noah didn't hesitate, he smashed the spider with his bare hands. He save my life (yes I know my life wasn't actually in danger, but I don't really like spiders.)

I decided (to try and be funny) to show my gratitude for his selfless act. I made him some cookies and even gave him a bowl of cookie dough and a thank you note. I told him that any son who would put his own safety at risk to save his mother certainly earned a reward! He got a good laugh (and cookie dough) out of it!

Applesauce

Another food post...sorry :)

I made homemade applesauce from the apples from our tree and my brother Joe's tree.
I'm not a huge fan of applesauce, but this stuff is delicious. I did the low sugar version, so it's kind of tart and really fresh tasting!

Asian Pear Pie

My sweet neighbor Thelma gave me a bunch of asian pears from her tree.

I decided to try and make a pie out of them

 It turned out beautifully and it was so delicious!!

I sure have been posting a lot about food...what does that say about me :)

Fun With Dough!

I watched a video that someone posted on Facebook about how to do 

different things with your roll dough...so I thought it would be fun to try some of them.

Grace, Isaac and Anna got in on the action too and we had some pretty fun looking rolls...some turned out better than others, but they all tasted good and that's the most important thing :)

Peaches and Pears

Here's what I've been up to lately!

A few days ago I bottled peaches with my mom and my sister Marcy.

(I did some peach freezer jam too...just to try it out)

and today I did pears with my Mom.

We had Dallin help some too because it could count for his Cooking class assignment.

The tiny jar he will take and show to his teacher as a sample.

A homemade fruit cup :)

 Grace and Anna thought this pear was so perfect and cute!

I have to agree, it's pretty cute. It was very small too.

I'm loving taking the time to preserve all this food, I know we will enjoy eating it!

My Cute Little Helper

I was babysitting my cute niece Eve today and so she helped me make some freezer jam. 

She loved pulling the green parts of the strawberries

and she always wanted to press the button on my Ninja :)

 We successfully made delicious strawberry and raspberry jam!

Apricots!

I know I've said it before, but I love having fruit trees in our back yard!

We are currently working with apricots, yum!

 We made apricot nectar, syrup and jam.

I know this is just the beginning, there are still so many apricots on the tree :)

Hopefully my neighbors will appreciate being given some of the preserves.

A Fun Treat

Since we have moved out to Utah we have had a lot of opportunities to get together with my family. We get together quite often actually and I love it!

Wednesday night we all met at my brother Joe's house for dinner and my sister Marcy and I decided to make some fun treats to take. Scoops of watermelon made to look like ice cream cones, topped with some yogurt fruit dip stuff and a cherry. (also, there are some grapes in the cone to help them not tip over)

I won't tell you how long it took us to get to this finished product after trying different variations, but we were pretty happy with how they turned out, and we had fun making them together.

I think everyone liked them. At least I know Joe did :)

Father/Son Campout & Girl's Night

This year's father/son campout was different for my boys, of course, because Mike wasn't here to take them. Our kind home teacher offered to take them with him and his boys.

Blurry, but it's the only picture they gave me of the three of them together

Isaac loved throwing the tomahawks

They said they had a good time, but really missed having their dad there with them.

The girls and I had a good time together while they were gone. We went out to dinner at Costa Vida and then we got some yummy frozen yogurt at Menchie's.

We laughed a lot and just had fun together. At home we snuggled up and watched a movie :)

DC Trip

When Mike first told me that after his R&R here they wanted him to go to DC for a few days, I got excited and hopeful that I would be able to join him. I'm so glad that we made it work out! Not only was I excited to see friends, it would be nice to have some more time with Mike before he headed back overseas. I was happy that we were even able to get me booked on the same flight as him :)

When we got there we picked up our rental car, they gave us a free upgrade which is always nice, and we headed to our hotel. We went out to dinner at a place called Afghan Restaurant. I was a little nervous, but my dinner was actually super delicious, I didn't take a picture of it and I don't even remember what it was, but it was really good. The service was great too!

After dinner we headed to Waldorf. We went to the Volks house because they were having book club that night and discussing The Fault in Our Stars, which I finished on the plane ride. It was fun to show up and feel right at home. Mike visited with Duane while we had book club. 

Karen and I at book club :)

The next day Mike had meetings so I decided to be brave and ride the metro into the city and see some of the sites. I was particularly interested in seeing things I hadn't seen before. I started at The Holocaust Museum, I don't know if I can say I enjoyed it, considering the subject matter, but I'm really glad I went. They had an exhibit called They Were Friends, or something close to that. It was interesting to listen to the different stories. They had other exhibits that were not directly about the Holocaust, but related in that similar things had happened to people in other countries in a more recent time...I'm trying to remember, but I think it was a video reel from Somalia that I watched. Anyway, everything was very well done and I was deeply touched by the stories of those who put their lives in danger to help others. 

Next I went to the Botanical Gardens. I loved looking at all the beautiful (and sometimes strange) flowers and plants. 

 I like how this one was called Shelob 'Tolkien' had to get a picture since we are Lord of the Rings fans, and Grace is a spider fan.

 

I walked around the mall a little bit too, just enjoying the beautiful day and looking around.

I've always loved the Smithsonian castle. 

While I was walking around I purchased a super overpriced ice cream from a vendor truck. It was yummy, but I hated knowing that I could by a whole box of them at the store for what I paid for one there...oh well. Anyway, I was a little bummed that I came just a little too late to see the cherry blossoms, (they were in full bloom and gorgeous the week before we came) but I did get to see some pretty flowering trees on the mall. 

Then I headed back to the hotel and relaxed for a little bit waiting for Mike to return. We walked to a little restaurant next to our hotel for dinner. I loved this place. The atmosphere was great, it was so nicely decorated and had a live jazz band playing. My dinner was so good. I was kind of boring and ordered a filet, but it was delicious, so I don't care :) We came back to the hotel and I got ready to go spend the night at my friend LeeAnn's house. Mike had another meeting first though, so I watched some tv while he was gone. After his meeting he drove me to LeeAnn's and then headed back to the hotel. LeeAnn and I sat up for quite a while just talking and enjoying each others company, but finally we went to bed.

The next day we had a girls day. I really needed that :) Nanette even drove down from New Jersey to join us, so our group was me, LeeAnn, Tina, Nanette and Karen. We did mani/pedis (I could not believe it was LeeAnn's first pedicure!...since then I hear she has become hooked) 

Anyway, then we went for lunch at Red Robin and treats at Menchie's followed by some shoe shopping at DSW. Such a fun day! (We even found a truck in the parking lot that had a sticker that said "friends don't let friends live in New Jersey" ha ha.)

That night LeeAnn had invited a bunch of people over for pizza and fun. It was great to get to be able to see so many friends. We played a game called Heads Up, and had a blast. We laughed pretty hard at some of the video replays :) We are so blessed to have such good friends. 

On Saturday we just took our time getting going, enjoyed the breakfast at the hotel and then drove to Waldorf. We went by the nail place to get my toenails fixed because a couple of them had gotten messed up. Then we went and visited with our friends the Beals, and then we drove around a little. We went and saw our old house, it felt kind of weird and totally not like home there anymore, which I guess is good since we don't live there. Then we met up with some friends (Volks, Vances, Stevens, Sparks and Thompsons) and went to dinner at Bollywood Marsala, one of Mike's favorite Indian restaurants. We had such a good time and even though I don't love Indian food, I had a great time (except for when Mike Vance had me taste his dish...it was way spicy hot! But I guess my reaction was funny to everyone...) I did love the naan though, so yummy...and the mango drink that I had was so so good too. After dinner we went to Sweet Frog for some delicious fro-yo. 

Loved hanging out with wonderful friends!

The next day was Easter Sunday. We got to go to our old ward and see more friends. 

Our kids were so bummed that they didn't get to go so I took some little videos on my phone of people saying hi to them. Anyway, we only got to stay for Sacrament meeting because we both had planes to catch, mine back to Utah and Mike to Miami (he will be there for a few days, he has some meetings there too, and then he'll go back to Qatar.) It was kind of sad when he dropped me off for my flight before turning in the rental car (his flight was later than mine) I guess that's when it hit me that he wasn't coming home with me. Anyway, the flight home was good, I read pretty much the whole way. I read a book called Wonder that my book club friends recommended. I finished it on the flight and loved it so much. 

My mom and Noah picked me up from the airport and we went back to Marcy's where all the other kids were, they had all had Easter dinner together. I'm thankful that my family pitched in and helped with my kids so that I could have this little trip. 

Thanks Duane and LeeAnn for being amazing hosts while we were in Waldorf! You guys are the best!

Well, it was so great to have Mike here with us for a little while. I think now that we can make it until Aug/September when he will be home for good.