African Foods

I was invited to a dinner tonight, where African food would be served. A gal that I visit teach is from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and she's lived here for about 4 years now. She invited myself and my visiting teaching companion (and our respective families) to dinner where food from her country would be served. I was super nervous, of course, because I am the pickiest person alive, but I went in with a open heart and hopeful. I of course don't know the names of anything we ate, but it was all actually really delicious! I snapped pics of the food, at the risk of being a weirdo.

I do know, the one kind of round white thing is called fufu and it was super yummy. All the food (except for the fish that I wouldn't eat) was super good and I was so glad for the invitation!

A Temple Trip

Today, I was supposed to teach the laurels for the usual Sunday lesson. My topic was on why temple covenants are important. Last minute, I had a change of venue idea. After we did the opening exercises, we piled all the laurels into our cars, and quickly jaunted over to the Provo temple. We had a small lesson on the lawn, and it was fabulous. One of the girls wanted to snap a pic of us after we had the lesson, and I was glad that she shared it with us.

I love my calling, but I gotta say, I think teaching is the worst thing to happen, ever. I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. I'm trying not to hate it, but that will take time.

Stamps and Chats

Stamp and Chat was lovely as always. The cards weren't too hard at all, it was nice to have some easy ones. The treats were amazing, of course, and the company was fantastic. It was some good times, all around.

Foto Friday

Gecko just did a quick thing of snuggling today, and it was so cute I was glad my sister snapped a pic before he got back up to wander.

Darth and Gecko

I am going to miss these cuties when they leave this weekend, but at least we get to enjoy their greatness right now.

 He's looking at candy here.

 This little smirk kills me.

Look at them, trying to be regular people and sit in camp chairs. What cuties.

Bananagrams

Tonight at YW, we had a game night. Before anyone showed up, one of my YW and I decided to play with her double Bananagrams and play just the two of us. It took a while to play all of the tiles, but by the end, we had an epic game that happened.

What a great game.

Pioneer Day SWAT Team

Today was my SIL's birthday. After doing the Temple to Temple Run this morning (I did better than I thought I would, with how sick I was) we had a delicious breakfast and then had a fun day of games and family. We went out to dinner and then when we came back to the house, there were a million cops at our house! WHAT?! So we quickly went inside and then I ventured outside to where some neighbors were standing, to figure out what was happening. Turns out, there was a guy in a house in the cul de sac next to my house. He was "distraught" and had guns and was intoxicated. So the police department sent out every single cop they had in the joint, as well as all the SWAT they could muster.  We saw some cool robots go in and out of the cul de sac, and that was pretty cool, if not a little scary.

Finally, at around 10:30 (so like, 3 hours after it started) they arrested the fella and got him away. After they started to take the cop cars away from here, we all meandered back to our houses, the excitement was gone. It was pretty scary, but you're darn right that I was out there watching the whole thing the whole time, it was exciting to watch. We also jokingly told the cops that they ruined our fireworks that we had planned, but the neighborhood just decided to do them tomorrow night, barring any more emergencies.

Birthday Desserts

Tomorrow is my SIL's birthday, and she's requested cupcakes and pie for her birthday. I was more than happy to comply. We decided on a Snicker's Pie and Oreo cupcakes, which are both totally doable. The Snickers Pie was :

1 chocolate pie crust
1 (8 oz.) block of cream cheese
½ cup dulce de leche (turns out I accidentally bought sweetened condensed milk instead of dulce, and this actually worked as well, just fyi)
1 cup powdered sugar
1 (8 oz.) package Cool Whip
3 Snickers candy bars, chopped
1/2  cup peanuts, chopped
Melted chocolate, for drizzling (optional)
Spread 2 tablespoons of dulce de leche on the bottom of the pie prepared pie crust (fully cooled if homemade). Sprinkle 1/4 cup of the chopped peanuts and 1 of the chopped Snickers bars over the bottom of the pie crust. In a large bowl, beat ¼ cup of the dulce de leche with the cream cheese until smooth. Add powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Add in the thawed Cool Whip and beat mixture until creamy and fluffy, scraping the sides as needed to ensure everything is fully incorporated. Fold in 1 chopped Snickers bar. Pour filling into crust, evening out the top with a knife or spatula. Dollop the remaining 2 tablespoons of dulce de leche around the top of the pie and swirl in with a knife. Top with remaining peanuts and chopped Snickers. If desired, drizzle the top of your pie with melted chocolate. Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

Y'all this is freaking delicious. 

 Next, I made Oreo cupcakes. The cake is your basic chocolate cake, with which I put half of an Oreo on the bottom before the batter, then I baked it. But the piece de resistance, the frosting. I tried a frosting this time that tasted like the inside of an Oreo, and y'all, I succeeded and I am happy. Here is is:

2 cup butter, room temperature
6 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4 TB heavy cream
10-20 Oreo cookies

In a food processor or blender, make the Oreo cookies into a fine powder, you want it that way so that you can pipe the frosting. Mix butter and powdered sugar together, but only add the powdered sugar about 1 cup at a time. Mix until well blended. Add vanilla and heavy cream, whip together until all blended and creamy, if you need to add more cream or powdered sugar, feel free. Then add in the Oreo powder, blend until just together, if you whip too much, it'll turn your frosting gray. Then just pipe it on! It was so good. I loved it. This amount of frosting did about 30ish cupcakes, and had some leftover, so just...fyi I guess.

These were all so good, I can't wait to eat more. 

Girls Camp 2017

Camp was extra fun this year. There was no girl drama, there were no fights, and it was just lovely. Unfortunately for me, I got sick on the first day, and it has subsequently gotten worse on each day as I've lived on. But I did what I could and only lost my voice a few times. But I wanted to celebrate with some favorite pics.

 The day before I wore this shirt (which says, I'm told I like camping) I wore one that said "I hate camping" because I feel its necessary to let people know that I don't like what we're doing haha.

These are just your standard "whole ward" photos. Despite my illness, it was a great year, and I look forward to next year.

Just Cuties

Tomorrow I leave for girls camp for the week, so today was just spent getting ready for it, finishing packing, getting all my gear together, etc. Gecko luckily was being a super cutie today, probably just making sure I have enough cuteness for the week without him.

I will of course miss these jokers, but I am excited for camp! It's always a good time.

Darth's Turns 3

Darth turns 3 this week, but I'll be at camp, so we celebrated it today. For his present we got him a little neon green ukulele that he had been talking about having, and I was excited to give it to him. First we had a chill afternoon and he decided to fake sleep on the hammock.

 Literally, he is not sleeping here, he thought it would be funny to pretend to be asleep, but look how sweet he looks. We had a dinner of Mac & Cheese, his choice, of course. We finished up with a yummy cake - Trolls is his favorite movie right now, and he was so excited to see his cake.

 After the fun and festivities, it started to rain. We went back out to clean up after the party, and saw this amazing double rainbow, so that was really cool.

Hopefully the little tyke had a great birthday, I can't believe he's already 3 years old!

Bubble Time

Girls camp is coming up. It's just a few days away, and I am in deep preparation mode. So today I made our ward gift. Apparently up at camp, we prepare and give a gift to another ward, so I chose bubbles.

I got the cute bubble sign from Pinterest, and found this cute crate at Walmart, for some cheap monies. I really dig it, and I hope this new ward does also!

A Day at the Park

Today, we took the kiddos to the park. Gecko had the time of his life, swinging away.

It was super hot, of course, so we ended the day with some popsicles and they had a great time. But come on with this weather, it's so hot all the time! I will never be used to it. At least they had fun, that's all that matters I think.

Skirt Day

Today when I was getting ready for church, my nephew wanted to wear one of my skirts. I gave him one and then we clipped it in the back to make it fit. He was so cute and he wore it for a really long time.

Darth and Gecko

With them being here, these jokers are just so fabulous and we are having a great time.

 I really enjoy styling his hair, makes him look so dapper.

 Just a casual fella, casually eating his breakfast.

What a cool dude.

Independence Day 2017

Happy Independence Day! I celebrated first off with the customary 10K in Provo

After a day of chilling with the little tykes and enjoying the sun, we had a delicious BBQ, and I made a relish dessert to celebrate America.

(sorry for the sideways pic, but oh well). Darth met my niece (on the other side of the family) E-Money and they were instant friends,

But believe me when I say, these hams were just hamming it up for the camera, they always made sure someone was looking when they did something sweet. We had a good night and nobody caught on fire from the fireworks, so I consider the whole day a success. This is how we watched most of the fireworks:

The sentence on the pic is just an inside joke between sisters in law, don't worry about it haha. I hope you guys had a great day also!

The Kiddos Have Arrived

Well, friends, there are tiny children in my house now. My sister and her kiddos have arrived, they'll be here for the entire month of July. Her husband (who is in the Army) is on assignment out of the country, so they're here. I'm excited for all the stuff we are going to get into this month, and now, here are some pics of the jokers to celebrate.

This girl is on fiiii-iiiiire!

Happy Canada Day, everyone! To celebrate, we left Boise this morning, and rushed home to have a fireworks extravaganza with our family and friends. We had gotten a bunch of fireworks in Idaho, arials, fountains, basically everything. So when we got home, we rushed to get ready, and then the night was ready to start. We were about an hour in, and then tragedy struck. My SIL had lit an arial firework, and we all stood back to watch. After a few went up in the air, the firework tipped over, and started to shoot into yards. One went off near us and we started to panic, and then one went off right in our group. As we learned a bit later, it hit the ground near me, and then went off into me. So I quickly run into the house, and look down. I AM ON FIRE. I AM PHYSICALLY ON FIRE. So I quickly patted myself off (yeah, turns out that worked) and we surveyed the damage.

The outside is fine, luckily none of the other fireworks went off when a firework went off in the garage. My 3 year old niece had a small welt on her face, one hit her. I had a burn on my neck, from the where the firework bounced off my body and hit my neck. But my clothes were burned through. It went through my shirt, my camisole, and my jeans, and stopped right there. Let's see the damage.

So there we are. After this encounter, we were all pretty cautious around the fireworks. We lit a few more, but the thrill was gone, so we packed it up and called the night. I don't know how Independence Day is going to go, but hey, we're going to see how it is, and hopefully, nobody will catch on fire.