Great News, Great Weekend

Great news everyone! Sam and I got awarded a housing scholarship! What that means is we are moving the first day of May and from then on the school will be paying our rent! Downside is that they don't allow any kind of pets whatsoever so my parents have become foster parents to our 3 fishies. :) We'll be living by the hospital with almost half the people in our ward. The news got better yesterday when we found out our friends Spencer and Kelli got the same scholarship for the same complex so we'll be neighbors!

Any ways, on to the good weekend. The good part of the weekend happened Saturday night. Sam and I both worked until 4:00 but then we headed down to St. George and we met Amy and Mike for dinner at Frostop which was great. Then we headed to Tuachan to see Boys Like Girls in concert! Thanks to my parents, who have season tickets to Tuachan, we got to go for free! I'm a big fan of Boys Like Girls so I was totally stoked. Amy and Mike went to and were 8 or so rows behind us. City of Ashburn and Fearless Fearless opened the show and were pretty good. As we were waiting for Fearless Fearless to come on stage I noticed my friend Cassie's husband walking to his seat so I texted her and she said she'd be there in just a second. It was great seeing them there and talking about how we were the oldest people there. Haha. We really loved the Boys Like Girls concert. They're pretty good live. The lead singer is a bit of a spaz but it was still really fun. The weather was great too, thank heavens for spring.

Excited for the concert!

City of Ashburn

BOYS LIKE GIRLS!

First Camp Out!

Sam and I went camping, just the two of us, for the first time ever! We camped from 3/14-3/16. It was a great time! My cousin showed us a great spot on Gooseberry Mesa and we camped right on the edge of a cliff. Hiking, biking, dutch oven and camp fires were what filled our time while we were there. A short disclaimer: there's going to be a bunch of photos here. :)

Blowing up the air mattress

I'm the king of the world!

View from the cliff

View from our front door

Our little camp

Pretty view at sunset

Filet mignon, YUM!!!!

Dutch oven potatoes! Best ever!

Sam found the house he wants to buy, haha.

Pink Jeep Tours? Its a Dodge with weird van-ish back.

Edge of the cliff we biked too. Super steep drop off!

Sam's spikey face. Kissing a cactus, yeah. Haha

Happy Windsday!

Hum, dum, dum, dee, dee, dum

Hum, dum, dum

Oh the wind is lashing lusterly

And the trees are thrashing thrusterly

And the leaves are rustling gusterly

So it's rather safe to say

That it seems that it may turn out to beIt feels that it will undoubtedly

Looks like a rather blustery day today

It seems that it may turn out to be

Feels that it will undoubtedly

Looks like a rather blustery day today

On my way to work today I had a warm-fuzzy moment thinking about when I was little and how all us kids used to love to watch Winnie the Pooh videos. I can see him sticking his head down Rabbit's hole saying "Happy Windsday!". Haha. And I love the scene above where Piglet is flailing away as Pooh holds his scarf. Haha. Love it. This memory was sparked because all this week has been crazy windy. I learned that in ecology its that way because Cedar is located at the mouth of a canyon. I believe that wind is ruining America. Its my least favorite of any element. I'll take rain, snow, sleet, and sun as long as there's no wind. A gentle breeze on a hot St. George day is nice but wind is just annoying. I chose today as I was putting my make up on for work that I was going to have a great day. Guess what? It's working. :) So I'm going to sit here until 6 doing little mundane things humming the tune to "A Rather Blustery Day" because it makes me feel good.

New Blog/Fun Weekend

Ok, my friend Brittney and I started a food blog together and i'd love ALL of you to check it out. Keep in mind that its just brand new and we'll update it as we can but try out our recipes and let us know what you think about it. The site is goodeatinrecipes.blogspot.com and I'll link it to my page so if you just want to click it that's cool too. It will be Good Eatin' on the right side of my page.

That said just wanted to share our awesome weekend. Some of our best friends, Ryan and Emilee, came down from SLC to play. We stayed at Em's parent's condo in St. George and had a good ole time. Let me just say that at this condo the 70's are still alive and well. We raided the closets and found some HOT clothes from that era. Here are a few examples. Sam dubbed that piece his sari. He couldn't move his arms. Haha. I tried on a pretty retro dress. Next, yes folks, it is a pant suit. A striped pant suit. Totally hot. I was so surprised I fit in it. Haha. We all went to dinner at Benja's and it was amazing as always. After the fashion show we played The Office Trivia board game as well as Moods. Way fun. Ice cream, Charleston Chews, Peach Rings were the treats of the evening. Staying up till 2:00 a.m. doesn't happen very often for us any more so we were tired the next morning.

After breakfast we headed to my parent's house and my dad let us borrow his shot guns, his truck and clay pigeon thrower. We went out to the Arizona strip and got to shooting. It was great fun. We then went to Basila's for lunch and it was also amazing. The weather was gorgeous and reminded me of why I love St. George springs. So in short: good friends + good food + good fun = great weekend.

Valentine's Day!

So, V-Day was pretty much awesome this year. Sam asked me to go to our stake Valentine's Day dance and we had a blast. We got all dressed up and we learned the cha cha and danced the night away. I worked out a really elaborate plan to surprise Sam with dinner, dessert and gifts on Friday the 13th because we were headed to St. George for the weekend. Thanks to Kelly and Kirk, Crystal Sr. and Jr. too. Kirt convinced Sam to go help him make pizza for another family in our ward. While he was gone I hurried and made Honey-Apricot Sesame Chicken with wheat noodles (see the recipe by clicking on the link). I made him a tres leches cake the day before and hid it at my sister in law's house. Sam wanted to ruin my plan so he decided to go over to her house the same day I took the cake over. My other sister in law had to tell him he wasn't allowed in the fridge and that kind of clued him in but luckily he didn't figure it out. When he got home Friday night I had a quilt on the floor with a little table set up with candles. He was surprised. He was sweet and gave me tulips before he left to help make pizza. When he got home we swapped gifts and then ate our yummy dinner. He got me 5 toffee and almond Symphony bars which are my very favorite. I made him some sweetheart coupons for massages and dates and stuff. He thought we were going to St. George that night but we had a nice night in instead and left Saturday morning. I'm posting the recipe for the cake with some pictures. The pictures aren't that great but bear with me. The cake is actually really good. I dyed the whipping cream pink to celebrate the holiday.

Tres Leches Cake

1 yellow cake mix
1 box cook and serve vanilla pudding
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 medium sized carton heavy whipping cream
pecan bits
caramel

Make cake mix using milk instead of water and add the box of cook and serve pudding. Bake in two 9” round cake pans. While they bake pour sweetened condensed milk into a deep, flat pan. Deep enough and big enough to dip cakes into. While the cakes cool whip the whipping cream until it starts to thicken, add a little sugar and vanilla to taste. When the cakes are cool dip them in the sweetened condensed milk. Let them soak up the milk but not until they’re soggy. Cover the first layer with the whipped cream, pecan bits and caramel. Don’t warm the caramel too much or it will ruin whipped cream. Set the second layer on the top and top it the same way as the first. Stick in the fridge. Serve cold. Keep refrigerated.

i want to make these

I want to make these really bad. I got the idea off a blog I follow and I'm trying to come up with an excuse to make them. Party any one?

All you need is some good quality baking chocolate, small balloons, parchment paper and cooking spray.  Here is the trick: Melt your chocolate slowly in a glass bowl, over a slightly simmering pan of water.  You don’t want the chocolate to get to hot or it will turn white and look really bad one it has set.  It will take some time to melt while you stir it constantly until it is smooth.  Once it is melted, take your blown up balloon (you want to use the smallest balloons you can find, I used 5 inch balloons) and dip it into the chocolate just about half way up the balloon.  Set the dipped balloon on parchment paper that has been sprayed with cooking spray.  Once the balloon has set, simply pop the balloon and it will come right out of the bowl.  You now have a beautiful edible chocolate bowl that will literally blow your guests away!!! You can fill your bowls with whatever you desire. Cake, brownies, cookies, ice cream. What ever you can come up with!

missing pictures

So a few posts ago I put a recipe for Bacon Cheeseburger Chicken and forgot to take pictures so here's one to satisfy your interests. Haha.

Also, Sam and I just made calzones for dinner tonight on a whim and they turned out pretty darn good. I got a recipe for an awesome pizza dough from my bridal shower. We made the whole batch and froze the dough we didn't use and it freezes and thaws beautifully. It does expand as it freezes so give it some room to do so.

Pizza Crust

2 1/2 cups warm water

2 Tbs dry yeast

2 Tbs sugar

1 Tbs salt

6 cups flour (more or less)

Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Add salt and 3 cups of the flour. Stir vigorously for 3 minutes or mix with a hand mixer. Stir in the remaining flour by hand and make a moderately stiff dough. Let rest for 10-15 minutes. Stir. Let rest 10-15 minutes. Stir. Let rest once more for 10-15 minutes. Divide into 4 portions for a thin crust, or 3 for a thick crust.

Roll out each portion with a rolling pin or toss. Lightly oil each pan with olive oil. Pat the dough to fit the pan, using a had greased with olive oil.

Place in preheated oven at 425 degrees and prebake each crust for 5-7 minutes (cooked but not browned.) Spread with sauce, toppings and mozzerella cheese. Cook each pizza for 8-10 minutes.