Foto Friday

Tonight, I went to my sister-in-law's house to celebrate the birthday of her child. As we were hanging out, we were shown their new turtles. I played with one that was a super mover, and tried repeatedly to jump out of my hands. But we had fun with them for about 6 minutes, and then put them down and immediately washed our hands, of course.

 


I don't know why I chose to do that with my face, but there are the tiny turtles. I named mine Cletus, because they wouldn't tell me his name.

First Soccer Game!

As I have blogged about our new soccer team, I will not waste any time introducing it. Today was our first game! We (Chelle and I) have been prepping for a week now. Sadly, we had to skip all of our soccer practices the past week because of inclement weather, so today was the first time seeing everyone again since the very first practice. Of course, I had forgotten half of the girls’ names. They were pretty good about telling me again what they were. After some warming up, we got started. We got to be on the field with the girls, Chelle back with the defensive girls, and me just running all over with the ball (well, the girls with the ball). It was fun, tiring, and made me sweaty by the end. After the game, we had cupcakes, to celebrate the other coach’s birthday. After singing to her, and giving everyone high fives, we all dug in.

How cute are these?! I used a funfetti cake with a vanilla frosting, dyed yellow to match the liners and pop-ups. I think they’re pretty fun. So now, I know what to expect from a game, and how to prep for them. And, in case you wondered, we tied, 1-1. It was a great game, and I can’t wait for the next one!

Miscellaneous Monday

This weekend, I went to a junior high school’s play. I went to the OJHS production of High School Musical. It was hysterical. I rarely go to these sorts of things (Because why would I, as an adult with no children, go to these things otherwise) but we got an invite from the kids in the neighborhood, since a bunch of them were in it, and we thought, may as well go check it out. So we did, and it was a lot of fun. And as an added bonus, I ran into my old high school coach, who I haven’t seen since high school. It was awesome, so I’m double glad I went.

I have a confession to make. Ok, it's not like a secret or anything, but there is something I really want to do. Now, this is the nerd in me coming out, the lazy nerd. I really want to take a whole day and watch every Harry Potter movie. In order. A Harry Potter marathon. Now, 8 movies times 2.5 hours each movie, and I'm looking at about 20 hours of movies, if my math isn't failing me. And if it is, oh well. But still, that's a long time of just sitting there. That doesn't even figure in time to stop and go to the bathroom, get food, etc. But I want to do this. I'm trying to convince Husband to do this with me, and so far, he's not really going for it. But I'll keep trying. I'll get my Potterthon.

Yesterday, I pulled a tiny prank on Husband. Not even a prank really, but something that I thought would be funny, and decided to do it. I don't know if everyone has seen this pic of Nicolas Cage, but it makes me laugh hysterically.

Its creepy and funny at the same time. So I got it into my head to make this Adam's background on his computer. So yesterday morning, I waited until he was in the shower, and changed it. Then, I waited all day for him to see it. And I did wait ALL DAY, it was finally 9:00 at night before he noticed it, and it wasn't even the reaction I hoped. I hoped for a burst of laughter, but alas, all that happened:
*Me, putting the clothes away*
*Husband, on his laptop* "It looks like someone changed my background picture."
*Me, laughs*
*Husband* "You're not allowed on my computer anymore"
And that was it! So anti-climactic! But oh well, maybe I can get him another way, I'll wallpaper anything I can with that handsome face.

Cake Cookie Bars

I haven’t baked for a long time.  First there was the vacation, and then when I came back, I had that awful cold, and no one wants to take treats from a sick-o, so I just haven’t done anything. Today, whilst I was at church, I realized how long it had been, and thought it was time I made something. I came across this recipe and thought it was easy enough to get things going, without committing myself after being away for so long. The recipe is as follows:

 

I box yellow cake mix

1 small box instant vanilla pudding

¼ cup water

¾ cup oil

2 eggs

½ cup chocolate chips

½ cup M&M’s

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine cake mix, pudding, water, oil, eggs and chocolate in bowl. Pour the batter into a greased 9x13 pan. Bake the bars for 20-30 minutes (I did mine for 24 and that was fine) it looked really raw in the middle, but that’s because of the pudding, so don’t worry. The edges will be crispy and brown.

 

Now, of course, I didn’t check any of my supplies before I got going here, so of course after I poured the dry ingredients in, I realized I didn’t have any eggs. Naturally, today’s a Sunday, so I couldn’t get to the store. Luckily I just went to a neighbors’ and they gave me what I needed. These were so gooey to cut into, and even now, they’re very mushy and gooey. It’s just a weird cookie bar to be eating. And I don’t know if it’s because of my cooking spray or what, but these seem very greasy on the bottom. I like them, I just wonder how I can make them different. But I do recommend them, and I used mini M&M’s just because I think smaller things are more fun. But give these a try, they’re yum.

Foto Friday

Since I've not had anything interesting to photograph lately, or even funny, I'd thought I'd share my toes. I got them done this week. I know many people think it's dumb to get pedicures, but I love them. They're my luxury. I pound my feet so hard with all the running, it's nice to do something for them to try to reverse some of the damage I inflict on them.

I really like the flowers this time. I went to my usual place, but had a new guy, and I think he did an awesome job. And now I get to smile when I look at my toes.

I've created small monsters

A week ago, as I was alone in the house with Husband being gone on yet another business trip, I was cleaning the kitchen. The doorbell rang, and of course, I'm like, people don't visit me, so I was immediately on my guard. I go to answer it, and as I open it, there is NOBODY on my doorstep. I heard some laughing, and yelled to the black nothingness (Since it was like, 7) "You guys are the WORST doorbell ditchers ever!" to which I heard back, "We're not ditching!" Out of the darkness emerged 3 boys - former scouts of mine, and to be honest, my favorites that I've had so far. I asked why they had come to visit me, and when they had no answer, they were just on their way home from scouts. I told them they must have come over for my candy. We have accumulated a lot of candy since Christmas. For Christmas, we were given 3 boxes of chocolates that we hadn't even opened yet. I was actually cleaning out the pantry when they had rang the doorbell, trying to figure out how to get rid of the chocolates. Luckily, they all showed up with my answer! I gave them the boxes of chocolates, and sent them on their ways, telling them to tell their moms not to hate me for giving them chocolates.

Cut to tonight, and I had just gotten home when the doorbell rang. I thought it was my brother, since I had just seen his wife wandering around the neighborhood. Husband got the door as I was upstairs, and I heard a faint kid ask "Is your wife home?" I came downstairs and see the same 3 boys, all smiling at the door. Of course, the first thing I ask them is if they came over for more candy, and they say yes. Luckily for them, we seem to collect candy in this house. It's given to us, I buy it to try it, and don't like it, but don't have the heart to throw it away, so I just keep it. Now, I believe I've found my chance to get rid of all of it. Of course, there will come a time when we'll probably run out of candy, but to be honest, I'd probably just go buy some more to give to them. I know I probably shouldn't encourage them to come over, but to be honest, I really like these boys, they're great kids. And having them stop by makes me feel like I'm doing an ok job as a scout leader, so for now, I'll just keep going with it, and hopefully, that doesn't make me a bad leader/person.

Miscellaneous Monday

At work recently, we’ve moved desks. So instead of us ladies all being together in a line, we’ve spread out to be all around all the desks. Its weird to be so far away from each other, and its not as fun. Now Chelle and I can’t whisper secrets or do any of that stuff, we’re too far unless we decide first to meet in the middle of the desks. Which is fun, but not the same. A few days ago, we had the idea to get ourselves a good transportation system to pass stuff back and forth.

Meet my mini-truck. He’s amazing at his job, which is to transport treats and notes back and forth. Chelle has a silver one, and he’s a good worker too. I love these, I don’t care that it makes me a kid to use it all day.

This past weekend, I tried a new cupcake place. I heard of this place in PG that recently won Cupcake Wars, and as we all know, regardless of if you win a national competition, if I don’t give the go-ahead, I don’t think you’re a good place. So I went to the place, Cravings-Alisha’s Cupcakes, and I will say, it was pretty dang good. I tried a Coconut Tres Leches, a Chocolate Covered Strawberry, and a Better Than What cupcake, and they were all good. If the place weren’t so out of my way, I’d probably go there more often, but I do recommend it.

Good news, I’m ready to celebrate Easter. This evening, I took down my LUCK blocks and put up my EASTER blocks, so I’m ready to celebrate with those for 2 weeks. Am I the only one that thinks having Easter in March is the worst thing in the world? There’s an entire month dedicate for that – it’s called April! Don’t ruin my March holidays by putting the April one in here. But I’ll keep my head up, and just take solace in the fact that I even got to have the blocks up at all.

First Race of the Year!

Today, March 16, 2013, was my first race of 2013. I’d like to say I was ready for it, and jonesing to go, but really, I wasn’t. Originally, my first race of the year was supposed to be the Rex Lee Run 10K at BYU next weekend, but as I went to register for it, I learned that because of construction on the road the race is on, they decided to cancel to race. WHAT?! I was so sad! So now, in order to still reach my goal of doing 12 races this year, I had to find another race. I was looking for a 10K, so as I went in search of them, I found 2 this month that fit the criteria. One of them was in SLC at the Capitol building, and the other was in Layton, at a much flatter course, so Layton won out.

PJ and I met at 7:00 Saturday morning, and took the hour long drive up to Layton. I know people are thinking, you guys drove an hour to make it to a race? And yes, we did. We got there, got our numbers, and lined up to race. As we started the race, I thought, this isn’t too bad! But after about a mile, I realized I wasn’t nearly as ready for this as I should have been. Being at the tail end of this dumb cold, meant that I kept coughing during the race. And my mouth was still in a bit of pain, after the work I had done on it Thursday, so that didn’t help either. I think I ran at a good pace, but near the end of the race, my legs felt like jelly. To say I hadn’t run in a long time before the race would be an understatement, I don’t think I’d run more than 2 miles in about 2 weeks. But, I made it! I survived, and nobody died. After the race, we were given these sweet mugs instead of a finisher’s medal:

Cool, eh? And after we stretched, and drank some water, and ate an orange slice, we found someone who was willing to snap a pic of us:

See how festive my socks are? I was trying so hard to be festive for this race. You can’t see it, but I have a ribbon in my hair, a green ribbon. So thankfully, my first race of the year is over, and my next race is in about 30 days – and I intend to be ready for that one.

Happy Pi Day!

Happy Pi Day everyone! With todays date being 3.14, it’s a day that math nerds all over the world live for. My dad is just one of those math nerds, and he looks forward to it every year. Every year, he brings pies in for the office, and we (Chelle and I) get to join his department for the fun. This year, there were so many pies, I just couldn’t decide. So I did what anyone would do, and I took small pieces of every pie I wanted to try.

Delicious! On this plate is Chocolate Caramel pie, Cherry pie, Peanut Butter Cup pie, and Key Lime pie. Do you now see my dilemma about not choosing? This isn’t even all the pies there! I abstained! But they were all really delicious, so thanks for bringing these in, pops. I hope everyone got to celebrate this holiday!

Put Me In, Coach!

Today was my first practice as an assistant coach. Chelle and I (and her sister-in-law) are coaches for a 5-year old girls soccer team. We’ve known about being the coaches for a while, but today was our very first practice, with our first game happening in another week. Since none of us have ever coached before, this was a scary experience for me.

We started off with introductions. Them to us, us to them. We talked about the rules of soccer, we broke off into groups for smaller drills, reconvened back up for some running, stretched, and that was practice. It lasted 45 minutes, and it was a good one. I thought we were supposed to have a group of soccer newbies who didn’t know anything, but almost every girl had been on a team last year! We only had 3 girls that hadn’t been on teams previously. But I think we’ll have a great team. Our name is The Angels. I think that’s a great name! After practice was over, we took a group shot, for memories, of course.

Don’t they look great? Wish us luck for a great season!

Crafty Times

Today was a crafty sort of day. Today at work, I bought a Cricut machine from Chelle’s mom, something I’ve never had before but have been wanting. So after a brief tutorial from Chelle about how to use it, I used some letters and made us both some name tags:

Fancy, eh? So I made myself one, and then I liked it so much, I made one for Chelle, in case she wanted to enjoy one of her own, haha. But in any case, I’m psyched for my Cricut and can’t wait for my new cartridge to arrive.

After I got home from work tonight, I decided to clean things up a little. One of the things I needed to clean up was the cards from my recent card club. Since I had accumulated a bunch of sympathy cards this time around, I decided to make a sympathy card box. I don’t really have sympathy paper, so I just it pretty plain this time.

And because I had run out of A stickers (of course) I made the A here by taking a lower-case Q and cutting off the tail. I think it works. And now, all my cards fit in there, and things are looking clean! …For now!

A Recap of Florida

After Wednesday, our DW vacay was over. We spent Friday visiting various families we had in Florida, my brother and his wife live there, as does Husband’s grandmother. As I was visiting my brother, his daughter made me hold their guinea pig for a while. Her name was Princess. She seemed terrified of my niece, ha ha.

We visited the beach in Sarasota

I am trying to look neither cold nor sick there. My sickness had come in with a vengeance on Thursday, so I was sick. My throat was killing me, my sinuses were out of control, and I just felt awful. But on the way back from the beach, I found a cupcake place, of course, called Cupcakes a Go-Go. The cupcakes weren’t that good, so I was sad, but still, at least I got to enjoy one!

Friday was spent traveling back. On the flight to Denver, I sat next to an older gentleman who offered to buy me a scotch. I politely declined his request. And I was trying so hard not to seem sick! But I don’t think I did very well there. After a quick flight from Denver back to good ol’ SLC, I was home. And ready to be home. Vacations are nice, but like the saying says, there’s no place like home.

Park-Hoppin’

Wednesday was our last day in DW, so we did a bunch of parks, trying to get to the stuff we missed. We did Hollywood Studios first, to get the last ride in, Midway Mania, and I beat Husband quite soundly in the game.

Then we went over to Epcot, to get in all the World places. I don’t know who knows this (I certainly didn’t!) but in Epcot, half of the park is different countries. You can eat the foods of these countries, buy stuff, see videos about them, etc. So we went over to Germany to eat, which was a lot like eating the food back when I was in Germany. They a German group singing, and it was a good time. We visited all the countries, including America, of course. They had a fife and drum band that sang all of our national songs:

After visiting all the countries, and riding more rides, we saw the fireworks show, and then called it a night. I had been rocking a sore throat all day, and wasn’t feeling too well at all.

Animal Kingdom

Today, Tuesday, was our first warm day! No wind, and the sun was a glory. That’s good, because the first ride we went on was the river-rafting ride, and I got SOAKED. But luckily, it only took like an hour to dry off. I was still uncomfortable until I dried! After the ride, and a roller coaster in which you ride backwards for a bit in the dark (which freaked me out!) we went on the safari. We got to see all kinds of animals, it was awesome. After the safari, we went to the petting zoo, where I pet a couple of pigs and a sheep.

The pig didn’t move, I thought he may have been dead until I noticed he was breathing. After many much animal sightings and tours, we saw the Lion King Festival, then made our way back to Epcot to eat dinner at a French restaurant that was delicious. And for dessert I had crème brulee, which I’ve always wanted to try. It was pretty good! On the way to the exit, we went through the French stores, and tried on these awesome hats.

I think we could pass for snooty French people.

Hollywood Studios

The third day brings us to Hollywood Studios. We got there a little later than I would have liked, and immediately had to make our lunch reservation. We ate at The Prime Time Café, which was done up like a house in the fifties, and we were made to feel like family. When it was your time to eat, they came out and yelled your name, and called you kids, and said it was time for dinner. Then you sat down at a table with a TV at the end that showed old time shows.

It was delicious, and so much fun. Then we went on some tours of the place, rode some rides, and it was a generally low-key time. I think this was a day we rode the least amount of rides, this theme park was mostly tours of stuff, and videos, and things like that, and less ride-heavy. I did enjoy a ride I went on – Rockin’ Roller Coaster, that was awesome. At the end of the day, I went on all rides but 1 that I wanted to go on, they wouldn’t let us on the ride because it was a 60 minute wait, and the park closed in 60 minutes. I was mad at that, but couldn’t change it!

Magic Kingdom

Greetings! On the second day of vacay, we hit up Magic Kingdom. My first gripe with Magic Kingdom is that it takes so long to get there. After you park, and get up to the gates, then you still have to take the monorail to even get in there! That was annoying, but I got over it quickly. The thing I enjoyed the most about MK is that it’s the one that’s the most like Disneyland. Things are in the same place, rides are the same, etc. We mostly hit up just the normal rides, ate food (Including delicious funnel cake) and tried not to be too cold yet again. At least I planned ahead and brought a jacket this day, since I hadn’t to Epcot.

Instead of having Sleeping Beauty’s castle, like they do in DL, DW has Cinderella’s castle, which is just as beautiful.

Unfortunately. unlike Disney, you can’t walk through the castle. We went on all the rides, including a story-time with Belle (which was recommended to us) and Husband got to play the part of a guard in the story.

After the story-time, we wandered through Belle’s Paris, and wouldn’t you know it, we ran in to Gaston!

He WAS roughly the size of a barn! After more wanderings, and a viewing of the Main Street Electrical Parade, we had some dinner, and with my leftover bread (from my hot dog) I fed the nearby ducks. I started some fights.

But everyone got their own food, and it was evenly spread out!

Epcot!

This upcoming week, Husband and I are going to Florida for a vacay. We flew out last night, and landed pretty late in Florida. We finally got to the hotel at about 3:00, after not having the rental car company pick us up, and then finally showing up, but not having our car that we reserved. We ended up having to change companies to Advantage, and they took good care of us, yay! We were going to Florida for the purpose of visiting

Today, after sleeping in a little, we made it to Epcot at about 11, and immediately dug in. First off, we visited Club Cool, where you can try every flavor of Coke products from around the world.

They were all pretty tasty for the most part. China’s tastes like watermelon, and Germany’s is the one I’ve blogged about before, the orange one. The worst one BY FAR was Israel. It tastes awful. And the longer the aftertaste, the worse it gets. It is so bitter and gross. But the rest were great.

We spent the afternoon going on various rides, and trying to stay warm. The temperature wasn’t that high, and with the wind going on, I was so COLD! For dinner that evening, we went to Boma, an African food place, and while I tried to be adventurous, I didn’t try everything out there, I wasn’t that brave. But I did fill my plate up with desserts.

After I ate everything, then I was told that one of them had alcohol in it. At least I didn’t eat too many of them! but the rest were delicious. And now, I can indeed say I have tried African food!

Foto Friday

I went to the Jazz game this week, PJ got free tickets from her work. Naturally, I snapped a pic of the court from our seats.

The game was fun, but I like the PHS games that Chelle and I go to a little more, because there, I can hear myself yell at the refs, and I feel like the girls/refs can hear my yellings. Even if they can’t, I feel like they can.