Carrots and Cherries

So i got some more carrots from the garden for Sunday's pot roast (which turned out pretty good if I say so myself) and its always suprising what I pull up. So here are some fun pictures. The big one turned out to not be so useable. The top wasn't covered up as good and had gotten frozen. Then it must have been injured and the core had gotten bad. But I still had plenty of carrots and they tasted good!



















This one looked like a 7, or an L if you turned it the other way.







Here is what I got off the big one, but I'm going to dehydrate it as its a little dried out anyways.









I had such fun at the cherry reunion! I didn't get a lot of pictures since I forgot to take any really until the last day :( Mostly it was hanging out, laughing at the silly kids, and catching up. I also tried to make squash soup like Mandy on Sunday, but I got carried away on the ginger and it wasn't as tasty. At least I have plenty more squash to practice with. Any of you in this area who would like some squish just let me know!























































Can you tell the before and after?












Kimball and I went down to "Lake" Harriet because where there is water, one must throw rocks. Kimball had warmed up to me a bit by this time and we were good hiking buddies. Please ignore my squeeky voice. Maybe even turn the sound off!



Here is Fay helping out cooking. Notice the flour on her face?












You know what they say about what happens in Vegas.....? Not exactly true (no sillyness whatsoever):




My new years resolutions are going pretty good, except when Kate brought home so left over soooda. I am enjoying having a cleaner house.


I ALSO GOT TO WORK OUT IN THE YARD ON SATURDAY! its been awhile cause I was a bit sore the next day....

Olympics

Monday night for FOE (friends out night) I saw Invictus. It was a good movie. I like those feel good sports movies! They make me want to go out and do something, to work hard, be better etc. Unfortunately that feeling doesn't usually last too long....

I've seen Blindside a couple of times with Cathy and recommend it for everyone. Forever Strong is good too (its about Rugby too). Did you guys enjoy watching the Olympics? I really like it. I went over to Cathy's a couple of times and I do have to say they are even more enjoyable t-voed! It seemed that they didn't do as many 'behind the scenes' stories but that left more time for actual events. What are your favorite winter olympic events? I like the ice skating, short track, snowboard cross, half pipe, etc. basically all of them.

Paralympics will be starting in a week or so. Not too many events in the winter, but still really cool. They have blind skiers with guides do all those alpine and cross country events. That just blows my mind! I really wish there was more emphasis on the paralympics. If you want back stories of people overcoming adversity, you really don't have to dig that deep for these athletes. But they probably won't even mention that they are going on, on the one network that has rights to broadcast. grrrrrr. I did catch some of the Beijing Paralympics on the second nbc channel (5.2 here) so I'm hoping they at least do that.

So here is to getting out and doing things. Here is to finding the olympic spirit inside each of us. May it last longer!

Shout Out

This is a shout out to my good friend Xiao Wen or Anja (I'm not sure which name you are going by). Anja left me a comment on my last post and its so good to hear from her!

There are people who have touched my life and changed me for the better (sounds like a song), and she is one of them. I learned so much from her and am forever in God's debt for arranging the time we had to gether. She is my Sister, and my friend.

I'm not good at keeping in touch or contact with people. Its a huge failing. None the less, God is Great, and by His Goodness, Anja found me after I returned to the US and has kept finding me off and on over the last 9 years or so. I only wish I could talk to her in Chinese as her English is much better.

Jamie's sister is pondering going to Taiwan to teach English and so in looking up some info made me so "home" sick. I really want to go back and experience it all again. I need to just go and do it! Maybe I should also make an effort to study Chinese?

Thanks Xiao Wen/Anja, I miss you and pray for God's blessings to be on you!

ps I used my camera phone to take pictures of these pictures thats why they are so blurry.

pps I wanted to put every picture I have on here so you could see how cool she is, but I limited it to just these :)

new years resolutions

I don't know that I will ever get "around" to posting about Christmas. It was so fun and nice and makes me feel a bit depressed that its 11 months away till i go again :( I'll try to stick a few pictures in here and there, but I didn't take very many.

I have had some fun times since coming home. I'm having a tought time remembering anything. I went tubing up at soldiers hollow. It was way fun! And since it had a rope tow, it was even relaxing, strange as that seems.

I've cooked some too. I'm trying to use up the garden produce. A couple of weeks ago I went out and pulled some carrots out and look what I found! Unfortunately this one broke off and since it was dark I couldn't find the end. Look at the other one I pulled up. Its a purple carrot!

I also made an onion caserole out of home grown onions. And cooked some squash. yum. Here is the line up (the long skinny one is from the store).

Anyways, what I wanted to blog about was some new years resolutions. I'm a bit worried about jinxing myself, but oh well. I have been doing great with not eating out. It was such a tough habbit to break since I get a lot of pleasure out of it. Along with this I haven't had any sooooda. go me.

Another new thing is something I picked up, from a blog called flylady. She has a "baby steps" section and I've started to use some of her ideas. Namely the "shiny sink" and "hot spot" daily clean. This has made a huge difference in the cleanliness of my home and how I feel about it. Its great to wake up to a clean sink. I've noticed my roommates have kicked in too and things are just staying neater and cleaner in general. I have also tried to do the "lace your shoes on" first thing in the morning which has helped me get more out of my off days. Some time I will tackle my room....

Thanksgiving Late

I had a really nice, fun, relaxing thanksgiving. Maybe wasn't that so much for Jenny and her family since I basically just crashed there fun. Have I mentioned what an awesome family I have? I've crashed Nathan and Neita's party a few times, and this is the 2nd Thanksgiving I went to TX. I know mom misses me (well at least I hope she does) but I feel like since I go home for Christmas, Thanksgiving gives me a chance to see and spend time with some siblings in their natural habbitats. Also when I was in school in ID, and on the mission its not like I went home for turkey.


Anyways, enough of that. Here Melanie blogged about our trip, and here too. Jenny already blogged about Thanksgiving too, so this will be repeats, but I wanted to write about it anyways. I sure wish I had taken more photos, as I didn't get pictures of everyone, but its ok since they know they were there. Like I said before, it was a great Thanksgiving and I am so thankful for all the blessings I have, including the chance to be with family.





On leaving the airport there was something imediately different. it was WARM! I just sat in the sunshine and felt so good. After Jenny picked me up we had to get some nice pie plates for the culinary masterpieces. I got Jenny an apron. I wanted to get her the one that said she was queen (or this "sexy" one) but the one we picked out had better fabric. Here you can see Jenny using it, and Melanie doing something silly.






Jenny also treated me to some tasty noodles that night at an asian diner thingymajig.





Tom did a smoked turkey and boy was it tasty! We had all the usual fixins and they were all extremely tasty too. Also did some "appetizors" in Jenny's fry daddy. I always get appliance envy, but its probably good if I don't endulge in this one, but boy are fried things tasty! Speaking of kitchen appliances, Jenny needs an apple peeler, corer, slicer!

We ate a good lunch/ dinner, and due to the appetizers there was plenty of left overs for turkey sandwiches, etc the next day!

We had pie too, later of course when we could enjoy it better.

Jenny and Tom spent lots of money and warmed up the pool. It felt so good! We swam during the day and soaked in the hot tub at night for a couple of days. I didn't spend as much time in there as Jacob did since he saw rainbows around all the lights that night.

We went to belly dancing on Friday morning. We woke up late and Jenny was very stressed out... One of the girls said, "my mom is crying in the car." when I was taking the time to brush my teeth. So although it was stressful getting there, the lady had waited and we had a good time. I'm not coordinated but it was fun as it was just one other lady, and Melanie, Jenny, Megan, Carly, Sarah, and I.

We did lots of other fun stuff, and even went to a football game. Football really is big in Texas. There were more people there and the stadium was bigger then some college games I've been to. Wow. It was really fun. I was a bit onry on our way there but once I got a couple of brats in at the "tailgate" party the evening looked up considerably.

Monday morning I joined Jenny for some belly dancing again. I was sore in wierd places for a couple of days later.

Before it was time for me to go I got to help a little at the nativity display thingy that Jenny's stake does. Its a huge undertaking and is very impressive! (This is Jenny's honkin big tree- I'm standing up on a table to reach the top branches)

So I wanted to again say thanks to Jenny and Tom and the kids for letting me come and hang out.

I was not too happy to be back to the cold and to work. It didn't help that I picked up a cold somewhere, but I'm mostly better now. I still need to blog about my lasik and some other things since then, but we'll see.

last 3 weeks or so

I'm sure many great and wonderful things or cute, funny things that I can be witty about have happened, but right now can't think of any so this will have to do.


Angela had a performance in SLC with her orchestra and so Melanie came up from Vegas and we had a fun short visit. Oh and we watched Angela, well not really her so much since it was difficult to see her (thats what happens when you are really short) so more like listened to her. It was a good performance. I liked it and Melanie and I discussed it on the way back. I would give a link to Melanie's blog but as she posted a short video that was not for public viewing I'm not going to. (for those of you who already did, the finger licking and neighing is from when Megan and Carly were little and making a documentary of sorts while visiting grandma (and Me, and some other aunts and uncles)).

This guy kept getting in the way, Angela is right behind him.



















Poor Melanie wasn't feeling real well but I was still happy to have her here. I cleaned the bathroom and my room all up for her :) The funny thing was I got a roatisary chicken from costco and Melanie was amazed at how tasty it is. It is mighty tasty!











Speaking of other loves from costoc....



This is my new lover. Always available, always warm. There have been some funny quotes too since it came to our home, mostly along the lines of my lover not being being completely monagamous.









I am finally rescheduled for lasic. Its expensive but I think I'm ready to go ahead because I am SOOOOO tired of my glasses! I also got the bill for having that eye surgery. wow.







Basketball season has started! I love watching my friend Cathy. When they win we go out for icecream/frozen yogurt. This year I'm sitting all by myself but its ok cause I text Jamie (who listens on line when she can) when Cathy stomps her foot. this only happens when things don't go her way so don't get the wrong idea!

I grilled up the tomatillas and hot peppers from my garden, canned tomatoes, apple sauce, and tomatillos, and made a sort of hot sauce with the peppers. I didn't get many cans from all of this but I will enjoy what i've got. Now its time to start planning and dreaming for next year.

I should make another post, but because I'm lazy here are some halloween pics.

orange lights and lots of spider webs, jack-o lantern in front plus a caldren with candles and dry ice.

I forgot to take a picture of my trunk or treat. I put spider webs, glow in the dark decals (spiders and jack o lanterns) on my car, had my bubbling caldron set up and a chair for me. I also attempted to have a black light but as it was still light out for the trunk or treat that was a failure. I went as a witch and here is my costume (again forgot to take a picture). I was very eclectic.

this is all the candy we had left after trunk or treat. its a cooler completely full! No worries its almost all gone now. Aparently around here the kids just go around the cars once (maybe twice for a few kids) and then head off to other fun activities. So I had way over calculated the amount needed! I also had passed out spider rings and glow sticks which were way popular. So I'll have to play better next time...

And lastly a picture of a giant zuchini just cause. I was thinking of saving this one to get seeds off of because this plan stayed healthy while the others didn't fair so well, but it got a little frosted after this picture and disintigrated.