Here's to Holly and Greg!

The snow finally came

2012-01-14T19:51:00.000-08:00

We got one big snow fall a little before Thanksgiving, and then it's just been cold and dry. I was starting to feel like it's spring time, but tonight it finally decided to snow again.

It's kind of fun to have snow I guess, but not fun for driving. While we were on the other side of the state for Christmas we bought a car. It's a lot easier for us to get to our jobs with two cars instead of one person driving the other--especially when our start and end times are variable every day. Now that the snow has come we will have to drive each other to work again though. We haven't gotten snow tires for the new car yet, and you can't put on chains.

We're just grateful the snow came a half hour after we got home from our trip to Spokane today. It would not have been fun driving on the highway in the snow with regular tires on a new car...

(Isn't it funny--really I should be worried about sliding off the road because I don't want to get hurt, but somehow the money it would cost to fix the car seems like a bigger deal. The whole drive home to Pullman when we first bought the car was nerve racking. I kept imagining getting in a wreck just because it's a new car. Do new cars really get in accidents more often than old cars? I think it just feels that way.)

Guess what?

2011-12-21T20:04:00.000-08:00

Like Ali said, I knew when it was the one, and this is the one. Hooray! Finally!

Robotic Surgery

2011-11-22T09:47:00.000-08:00

If you watched the video you saw a little news report about the hospital in my town. We have a new robot in our community! Of course Greg was very excited about it, so we stopped by SEL in the morning and got to try it out.

You put your hands in these little controls that have two loops. Two fingers slip into the two loops--like a thumb and forefinger, and then you can move the robot arm by moving your arm, and open and close the robot "pincers" by pinching your fingers closed or opening them. There are three arms that you can control, but of course you can only really use two at a time. If you want to use the third arm--perhaps because it has a different tool on the end--you push the toggle button on the floor with your foot to switch arms.

Greg and I were wondering what happens if the surgeon sneezes during surgery...Does his arm flinch and cause the robot to use it's amazing strength to rip open the patient? Well, no. The fail-safe is the eye sensors in the control station. The robot is activated when it can see your eyes, but if you move your head and look away, the robot will freeze until it sees your eyes again. Another helpful thing is that the robot filters out "noise" in your movements. For instance, if you are an aging surgeon and your hands shake, the robot will not mimic your shaking. It makes all movements fluid and smooth.

You can see in the picture that there is a screen that shows live what the surgeon is doing, and then you can touch the screen and point out something to the surgeon. The surgeon is also able to control where the camera arm is, and zoom in or out according to his needs.

I just can't get over how much it makes me think of science fiction. This is the thing the aliens use to dissect the people they beam up from earth. Right? That's the image I get in my mind when I think of this robot. The helpful thing to remember is that the robot is not acting of its own accord, it is just a tool being used by a surgeon. (They don't program it to do anything--it responds directly in real time to the surgeon's hand movements.)

I could tell you more but this post might get too long and boring. If you're interested you can find a lot online about this guy--including videos.

A Book of Mormon Story

2011-11-10T11:24:00.001-08:00

I was preparing my lesson for Sunday when I came across this video on the church website. I thought it did such a good job of explaining what the Book of Mormon is, and the "story part" is cool. I like the animation. Mostly I just like the way he explains his testimony and how he learned about the gospel, because it is the way I feel too.

Speaking of Choir...

2011-11-07T15:42:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to a recording of the last concert. It's not the professional recording, but you can get an idea of how it sounded.

Eternal Light Concert Link

Click on Choir Palouse Choral Society, then Recordings, then Performances, then PCS Concert_Eternal Light mp3

The concert started with the Chamber Choir--which I'm not a part of. The chamber choir sings for about 26 minutes, and then at 26:45 is when the Chorale starts.

Here's the program:

Chamber Choir
Missa Brevis St. Joannis De Deo
By:Franz Joseph Haydn

Puisque Tout Passe
By: Paul Hindemith

The Coolin (The Fair Hared One)
By: Samuel Barber

Bright Morning Stars are Rising
By: Traditional, arranged by Paul Siskind

Full Chorale
Let their Celestial Choirs all Unite
By: george Frideric Handel

Lux Aurumque
By: Eric Whitacre

Luz Aeterna
By: Morten Lauridsen

True Light
By: Keith Hampton

I miss high school choir--Journal entry

2011-10-28T21:59:00.000-07:00

I can hardly believe it's been 7 1/2 YEARS since I sang in my high school choir.

This is a video of the choir at my old high school in Texas 2010.

When I was in choir, I used to be one of those girls in the background doing a silly dance and singing backup. I always thought it would be cool to be one of the soloists that sing with power and confidence, but those are hard things for me to find in myself. I sang my "Senor Solo" at our last high school choir show ever, and that took every ounce of courage I could muster. I was the Blue Fairy from Pinoccio singing, "When you wish upon a Star." I wore my blue prom dress that happened to look like the fairy's dress in the movie.

For me, choir really started when I joined the Musical Theater and Dance class with Ms. Gillis in Junior High. It was so fun to sing AND dance. I also enjoyed the new experience of singing in small groups and ensembles. We had an awesome group and an awesome teacher. She took us to State--the only freshman choir to make it. Then I went to high school in Bremerton and the choir kind of fell apart. We started with 27 girls in the "Elite Audition-Only" girls choir. By the end of the year we only had 9 girls left because all the others dropped out of choir. On the CD of our competition at the end of the year you can hear me clearly because I'm one of 3 altos, and the other two were really shy.

I moved to Texas when I was 16. I also moved from a mediocre girls choir of 9 to an amazing girls choir of about 50. Our teacher was very strict, but I loved having her nit-pick at us until we sounded perfect. Every note, vowel, dynamic, etc...had to be PERFECT, and we were capable of doing that when she pushed us.

(This is one of the songs my new choir in Texas sang--so cool. This version was the closest I could find to the way we sang it. Nobody had cell phones to take video back then.)

I loved learning how to sight read music and use solfege to figure out the notes without a piano. ("Solfege" = Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do) We went to choral competitions with music memorized, but we also competed by looking at new music we've never seen/heard and singing the whole song a capella. Amazing! I didn't know that was possible! I learned so much from being a part of the choir in Texas.

I really wanted to be a part of the Show Choir too, but I didn't have room in my schedule for a 2nd choir class. (Instead I was focusing on Health Science classes.)

Here is the Show Choir from my school in 2010.

These days, now that I'm old and not in high school anymore I am part of a very "mature" community choir. (Median age: 65 yrs?) We wear fancy dresses and stand nicely on the risers to sing 20-30 minute songs in latin. We also mix in "normal length" songs that are really beautiful too. My favorite from the last concert is Lux Aurumque--the one I posted on the blog a few posts ago.

(I couldn't find any youtube videos, so here's a picture of us last year in St. Boniface Church. We always sing there at Christmas. It has cool echo-y acoustics.)

I enjoy this choir too, and I'm definitely learning and improving my music skills....I just miss swing dancing on stage while I sing, or wearing fun costumes sometimes. Our last choir concert was about a week ago and we got to "dance" a little. We were singing, "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine..." and at the exciting part we got to step in place to the left and the right on the risers. After the concert we were congratulated by our conductor for doing so well on the dancing part. haha

ShapeMatch Puzzles

2011-10-22T12:09:00.000-07:00

By Diana Weddle

We went to the craft fair on Saturday and came across this booth. Most things you just walk by and say, "Oh that's nice." But this booth caught my eye and I wanted to take home everything they had! Diana Weddle draws these amazing pictures made up of lots of little characters and then cuts them out as a puzzle. The puzzles were over our price range (cheapest was $60) but they also sold prints of the pictures for $15. It was so hard to decide on which one to pick! I loved the elephant, and the horse, and the moose. She had lots of animal shapes to choose from: dinosaur, sea horse, cat, pig, hedgehog...etc. I expect to collect a few more of her pictures in the future. They are just starting a website: http://shapematchpuzzles.com/. It doesn't have any information or links yet, but it has the picture I posted above. I would love to have some of her puzzles too, but I wouldn't want to let the kids play with it! It would just be my special puzzle that only careful hands can try.

The Monster in my closet

2011-10-18T14:59:00.000-07:00

I found this story online and thought of Dad--it seems like something he would write. I also thought it was appropriate for the upcoming holiday.
Happy Halloween!

The Monster In My Closet

by Wil Wheaton

There is a monster in my closet. It’s standing in there behind my clothes, and it wants to come out. I don’t know where it came from, I don’t know how it got in there, but I know that it’s been there for a long time, waiting.

Mum and dad don’t believe in monsters (and until yesterday, neither did I), but during dinner tonight, I had to tell them.

“A monster,” dad said, wiping mashed potatoes off his beard. “Like, with claws and fangs? That kind of monster?”

“I haven’t actually seen it,” I said, “but I know it’s there.”

“How can you know it’s there if you haven’t seen it?” Mum asked.

“It’s like…” I thought for a moment. “It’s like when it’s cloudy, and you can’t see the moon, but it sort of glows behind the clouds, so you know it’s there.”

“So your closet was glowing, eh?” Dad said.

I shook my head. I could tell that they thought I was making the whole thing up. “No, dad,” I said, “but I could feel it in there, and --”

“And what?” He said.

“And if it comes out,” I said, carefully, “It’s going to kill us.”

“Well, I should expect so,” dad said. “Monsters are usually very serious about that sort of thing.”

Mum scowled at him. “Richard! Don’t make fun.”

Then she looked back at me and said, “you can have a night light in your room to keep the monster away.”

“And keep your closet door shut,” dad said, gravely, “everyone knows that monsters can’t open doors.”

“But --”

“But nothing. Now stop all this chattering and eat your peas before they get cold,” mum said.

I’m trying to deal with a monster, and all mum cares about is me eating my peas. Typical parents.

They walked me into my room when it was time for bed. Dad made a big production of opening the closet and looking inside. “Well, it looks like we scared it off,” he said. He didn’t notice that the lid of my toy chest was lifted up slightly, and I didn’t bother telling him. He pushed the door and it shut with a click. He shook the knob and pantomimed looping a chain around it that he secured with a pantomimed pad lock. He swallowed a pantomime key and rubbed his belly.

Mum brought in one of my old night lights, the one with the blue pony on it, and plugged it into the wall next to the bed. “There, sweetheart,” she said as she turned it on, “let’s just leave this on tonight.”

She kissed me goodnight. Then dad kissed me on my forehead.

“There’s a good girl,” he said, “sleep tight! Don’t let the monsters bite!”

“Richard!” Mum smacked him on his arm. “Sorry, sweetie, he’s just having a bit of fun.”

“Good night, mum,” I said. I tried not to frown too much at dad.

I heard them talking as they walked down the stairs.. “She just has a wonderful imagination, doesn’t she?” Mum said.

“She’s a dreamer, that’s for sure,” dad said. I heard ice clink into glasses, then, a moment later, the creak of their armchairs as they sat down to watch television.

I was starting to fall asleep when I heard it.

“Psssst.”

I thought that maybe I was dreaming, but I pulled the covers up to my neck, as tightly as I could, and listened.

“Psssst.”

It came from the closet. “Psssst. Hey, kid. Come and open the door, hey?”

I felt my eyes widen, as a chill ran down my spine.

“Come on, kid, I won’t hurt ya, I just want to get out of here. Open the door and I’ll be on my way.”

The voice -- its voice -- was gruff, but not as gruff as I thought it would be.

“No,” I said in a small voice, barely a whisper. “You… you just stay in there.”

The handle shook a bit, and I screamed. Mum and dad were in the room before I knew it.

“It’s in there!” I cried, “it’s in there and it told me to open the door and let it out!”

They looked at each other. Mum walked across the room to me and sat down on the edge of my bed. “There, there, sweetie,” she said, “you just had a bad dream is all.

“Richard, open the door and show her that there’s nothing inside but clothes and toys.”

“No! Dad! Don’t open it!” I practically screamed.

“Fear not, my petal,” he said, gallantly, “Any monsters inside this closet will get the thrashing of their lives!” He walked to the closet and knocked on the door. “Anyone in there? Hmm?”

He winked at me and shadow boxed the air in front of him.

“Richard, stoppit and just open the door. She’s had an awful fright.”

“Daddy, don’t do it,” I said, suddenly feeling like I was seven years-old again. “Please.”

He smiled and said, “it’s all right, sweetheart. Daddy’s just going to show you that there’s nothing to be afraid of, and then we can all go back to sleep.”

Mum squeezed my hand. An audience laughed on the television downstairs. Dad turned the handle on the closet door and opened it. “Now, see? There’s nothing to--”

The monster was covered in dark scales, like a lizard. Its eyes were jet black, but reflected something red in their centers. It grabbed my dad by his shoulders and bit into his neck with long, sharp, white teeth.

Dad screamed and struggled against it. Clawed hands held onto him and a spray of blood shot across the back of the closet door, black and shiny in the dim light.

It slurped and gurgled and crunched, and in a few seconds, dad stopped moving. I realized that my mum hadn’t made a sound, but had let go of my hand.

She stood up, and walked toward the monster. It dropped my dad’s body to the floor and grinned at her, dad’s blood dripping off of its teeth and running down its chest. They stood over my dad’s body and embraced.

“I’ve missed you, darling,” the monster said to my mum.

“I missed you, too, my sweet,” she said, in the same gruff voice.

“Mu-- mum?” I said. She ignored me.

“I would have come sooner, but you know that we can’t open them from the inside,” the monster said.

“Everyone knows that!” Mum said, and they laughed together. She turned to face me. Her skin was starting to crack on her face, revealing dark grey scales beneath it. Her eyes were turning black, reflecting something red in their centers.

“Come on over here and give us a hug,” she said, as sharp white fangs pushed her teeth out of her mouth and onto the floor where they bounced around like marbles. “Come and be mommy’s little monster!”

“WHAT IS HAPPENING?” I screamed.

“Stop that horrid racket and say hello to your dad -- your real dad,” she said.

I reached around for something, anything, to use as a weapon to protect myself. When I stretched out for the lamp on my night stand, the skin on my arm cracked and split open. There were grey scales underneath it.

“Oh no. No no no no no,” I said.

I reached up to touch my face, and pulled the soft pink flesh away. I felt the rough scales underneath.

“What’s happening to me?!”

I looked at my mum.
I looked at my dad.
I looked at the body on the floor.
I realized that I was ever so hungry, and my food was getting cold.
I got out of bed and joined my family for dinner.

Things as they really are

2011-10-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

Here is the whole talk: Things as they really are By David A. Bednar

I loved this talk the first time I heard it. I feel like I really learned a lot and caused me to think about these things more than I have before. Do I really want to spend all my time watching tv or browsing online when I could be spending meaningful time with family and friends instead? Or working, or studying, or doing service... The scriptures say that, "...the natural man is an enemy to God..." It's our mission to overcome the natural man that is in each of us and become a servant of God, because that is the thing that will bring true and lasting joy in this life.

We used this talk for a youth activity a couple years ago when it was first given. We handed out a worksheet for the kids to do while they listened to the talk. They had to listen for answers to questions or fill in the blank on their page. It was a good activity and got the kids thinking and talking about how they use different kinds of media or how it affects their life.

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir - 'Lux Aurumque'

2011-10-04T01:26:00.000-07:00

I was looking on Youtube for videos of the songs my choir is singing in our concert this month, and I found something even cooler. This is one of the songs we will sing, but it's amazing how it's done. I wish I thought of it first!

If you liked that, you should listen to the next one, "Sleep."

Face Feed...

2011-09-25T10:25:00.000-07:00

Oops, I mean Faye's Feed.

My mom found this really good recipe for granola cereal and she started calling it "Faye's Feed" because it reminded her of bird feed. When I told Greg about it he said, "What? Face Feed?" So it's been kind of a joke since then.

Anyway, this stuff is really good. It takes a little bit to find all the ingredients, but you could alter some things if you can't find it and I'm sure it'd still be good. (We can't find rolled wheat, so we use a 5 or 7-grain cereal that includes rolled wheat.)

4 cups rolled oats
4 cups rolled wheat
1 cup wheat germ
1 cup unroasted sunflower seeds

3/4 cup thawed unsweetened apple juice concentrate
2 tsp vanilla (or more if you like)

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix apple juice concentrate and vanilla, then pour slowly over dry ingredients and mix well. Don't worry--it's impossible to evenly coat every piece wheat and oat.

Spread out granola on 9 by 13 baking pan or cookie sheet and bake at 275 degrees for an hour.

While granola is baking you can measure out and mix the following ingredients in a large bowl:

3/4 cup chopped dates
3/4 cup raisins
3/4 cup dried apples, cut into bite-size pieces (We haven't tried the apples yet.)
1-2 cups slivered almonds
3/4 cup chocolate chips
Cinnamon--a lot if you like it

I also added a cup of ground flaxseed to add more good-for-you stuff. Feel free to play with quantities, and/or add other things that sound good to you. I added twice as many dates because I love them, and half as many slivered almonds because I don't love them. Of course, you could probably add an extra bag or two of chocolate chips by that logic, but this is supposed to be a somewhat healthy breakfast.

Once your granola is done baking and COOLED, mix it all together in your large bowl with the dates and raisins...etc. This is very filling--not to mention it takes a long time to eat, so 3/4 cup is a good serving size for breakfast. (You will be sorry if you fill up your whole bowl.)

Hope you like it! I made a double batch because it keeps for a long time in the fridge in a sealed container, and it's sooo good! Thanks Mom for sharing!

Sound Equipment

2011-09-21T16:21:00.000-07:00

Greg found this cool piece of sound equipment on Craig's List for an awesome price. It was cheap because a part was damaged, but of course Greg knew how to fix it! He's been spending a lot of time in the evenings playing with this and reading the manual to figure out how it works. When he figures out something new, we spend some time together so he can teach me what he learned. It's great! We make a good team because I like singing and playing the piano, and recording my music, and he likes editing my music and doing the technical stuff. I sure have come a long way from the days in middle school when I would sing into one tape recorder, then play it back while singing along into a second tape recorder. (The sound quality was significantly worse each time, so by the 3rd recording I had to stand across the room and sing so it would be the same volume as the tape that was playing...Hope that all made sense to you.)
Anyway, I'm glad we have a hobby that we can both enjoy and be a part of.

(Yeah, that's my sewing machine box that is being used as a table for the sound stuff. Greg plans on building a small table this week so I can actually use my sewing machine to sew.)

Other news is that I am thoroughly enjoying choir again. I like most of the music pretty well, and it's fun to sing now that I'm starting to get the hang of this soprano thing. (I prefer alto, but the director made me sing soprano. I wanted to rebel at first, but I think I just might be good at singing soprano after all....well, after a LOT of practice.)

Our first concert is in October, and then we'll have another one in December of course. Our choir recently changed its name to the Palouse Choral Society, so the daily news thought they would write an article about it Here. They took some close up pictures of my friend and one of the director.

Team iLuminate

2011-09-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

This is a find on America's got Talent. They are so cooooool.

Unexpected Adventure

2011-09-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

About 6 hours...and 32 miles...

Wendy came up from Texas to visit at Summer's house, so I met them and our parents so we could all visit together. On the last day of my visit Wendy and I decided to go on a bike ride...you know, quality Sister Time. Summer asked if we wanted to pack a picnic but we said no because we'd be back in time for lunch and to put little Heidi down for her nap. We left the house around 10:40am.

It felt good to be outside and get some exercise. We rode for about two hours until we had to stop for a potty break for Heidi. We talked about if we should turn back, but it seemed like the time had gone by fast, and it might not be that far if we just kept going and followed what seemed to be a big loop. It would be more fun to follow the loop than to go back the way we came. So we kept going.

Eventually we stopped at a house to see if we could get some more water. I was looking around to see if anybody was outside when a friendly looking guy pulled up on a dirt bike. He told us where we could get some water and then said, "You wouldn't happen to be Summer's sister would you?" The guy was a friend of Summer and Glen's that I met on a visit earlier this summer. Wendy thought it was so funny that way out on this dirt country road, someone would recognize me as Summer's sister.

Around 1pm we decided to call Summer for help. We were hungry and Heidi was being a good sport, but we felt bad having her ride in the bike trailer for so long. It looked like our loop was a lot bigger than we first thought, and we couldn't decide if it would be better to turn around or keep going forward. Summer brought us food and took Heidi home, and we kept riding. (There wasn't enough room in the car for everybody and the bikes and trailer.) She went home in the direction we were headed so she could call us back and say what was coming ahead. We followed the loop forward 12 miles back into the main part of La Grande.

We got home around 5pm, sweaty and exhausted. We had gone from one end of the valley to the other.

It was actually a nice ride and we got to see a lot of pretty country roads and fields...but maybe next time we'll plan a little better. I'd love to do it again with my own bike that fits me better, some food and maybe a little sunscreen.

Safety First!

2011-08-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

This is one of the reasons I think Decagon is such a great company. In how many other workplaces have you seen a sign like this! Decagon really cares about the well-being of it's employees.

Mom's Pasta Salad

2011-08-16T15:08:00.000-07:00

My mom made a delicious pasta salad to share on our camping trip at Alder Lake. Everybody wanted the recipe so I thought I would post it here, and anybody else who reads my blog can get it too. Really--this is good. A couple people who normally don't like pasta salads loved it, so give it a try!

Bistro Chicken Pasta Salad

4 cups cooked pasta (penne, spiral, bow-tie...whatever)
1 cup quartered cherry tomatoes
1 pkg (4 oz) crumbled feta cheese
1 cup prepared GOOD SEASONS Italian Salad Dressing Mix
1/3 cup lightly packed fresh basil leaves, cut into strips
1/4 cup chopped red onion
1/4 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes (not oil packed)
2 boneless skinless chicken breast halves, grilled or broiled, cut into 1/4 inch slices

Toss all ingredients except chicken
Cover pasta mixture with chicken. Serve warm or chilled. (We like it cold) Makes 7 1/2 cups

Arrrrrr Matey!

2011-08-08T22:52:00.000-07:00

For Greg's birthday I decided to throw a big Pirate Party. We just moved into a house, as previously mentioned, so we wanted to have a big party and invite lots of friends because we can.

It was fun to plan and find piratey things for the party. Greg found out about most of the things I was planning, but he didn't know what I was going to do with the cake. I thought it would be cool to make a treasure chest cake, and it turned out pretty good! (It was actually very easy to do.)

Max was good at helping me get ready for the party. He put the cupcakes in the oven while I frosted other cupcakes and worked on the cake. It was fun to have him in the kitchen to keep me company.

We had hot dogs for dinner--roasted over the fire, and everybody brought something to share.

I think the most interesting thing was "Dessert Sushi." I really thought it was sushi until I picked it up. It was rice crispy treats rolled up in fruit leather with little pieces of red vines. It was weird how much it looked like rice and fish, but it tasted really good!

I thought this was a cute picture of my pregnant friend.

Special Guests include: Greg's brother, David, The Summer and Glen Posse, and Max from Texas!

Ginger looks so cute!

(David is to the right of Greg with a black bandanna.)

Ok, last video post

2011-07-24T21:40:00.000-07:00

I left Greg home alone for a few days and when I came back Greg was singing this goofy song about chicken. This kid cracks me up--his eyes and facial expressions. Greg likes this video because it reminds him of his mission in inner city Baltimore.

Provo, Utah Girls

2011-07-20T12:49:00.000-07:00

You know that song by Katy Perry and Snoop Dog?

Harry Potter

2011-07-18T09:17:00.001-07:00

We saw Harry Potter in the IMAX 3-D in Spokane Saturday night. It was mostly like I pictured. Mom sent me this video made by some kids at BYU. It's hilarious, but it's also just how I feel!

It's been awhile...

2011-07-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I posted on my blog because I kept thinking I was going to get a job, and I wanted to wait so I could announce my new job! But, I still haven't gotten a job. I've had a number of great interviews, but there's always somebody out there who is a little more impressive than me, or who is happy and excited to work the night shift when I'd prefer to work during the day...

Anyway, besides the job thing, my other news is that we moved! Hooray! We found a 3-bedroom house to rent that costs just a little bit more than our tiny lame apartment. I've been working in the kitchen for the past few days, unpacking and organizing. It's fun this time around because there is actually enough room for all of my kitchen things! Hooray! My pots and pans fit nicely in the over-large drawers. They don't have to be stacked and hidden in the bottom of a hard-to-reach cupboard. We have lots of space in the rest of the house as well, so we are looking forward to inviting friends over for dinner and games, and inviting family to come stay in our extra bedrooms.

This is a good change. We used to invite people over to eat dinner with us at THEIR house. haha. Recently Greg left this message on my friend's phone: "Hi! This is Greg Kelley! I have an urgent invitation for us to hang out with you at your house! Please call me back to find out the details!" If you know Greg, you know that he's about the only person who could get away with that. haha.

Well, I don't have any real pictures to share because I don't know where the camera is at the moment, but I might get some pictures later with Greg's phone. Because blog posts without pictures are boring, here is a picture that sort of looks like my house.

That is the neighbor's cat that always comes around and tries to sneak into our garage...

Again

2011-06-07T19:51:00.000-07:00

I'm going to work as a CNA again. I worked as a CNA about 5-6 years ago before I was married, and like all jobs there were great parts and not great parts. The main down side was the work environment and the management, so I'm hopeful that I will have a good experience this time around. I took a CNA class in Lewiston for the past few months and just passed the state tests last week. Now I'm working on transferring my license to Washington. Wish me luck as I look for a job! I applied at the Pullman Hospital. I'm not sure where the available position is in the hospital, but I hope it is in the BirthPlace. I haven't gotten to work in that area yet but I think it would be a fun new experience.

Scouts

2011-05-23T16:11:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Greg and I took the 12-13yr old scouts down to the river to learn how to paddle a raft and how to make a fire. It was ok weather, but the wind was blowing so hard. It was relentless! The river sort of flows in a direction, but not enough to move your raft much. So we paddled into the wind towards a small alcove where we planned to let the boys out of the boats and go exploring. We were not even halfway there when I started thinking, "This is not going to work. We will have to turn around and head back before we get there." The wind kept blowing harder and harder. Sometimes it would let down for a minute, but we could look at the water ahead of us and see it coming. We pushed ourselves harder and amazingly we made it! It was fun to be around the boys and see how they interacted with each other. They sort of reminded me of puppies--the way they had so much energy and just took off in all directions to go play and explore. I'm somewhat new to this thing of hanging out with 12 year old boys, but I think it was fun overall.

(We thought we would be the only adult leaders on this trip, but the dad of one of the boys came and another adult leader. I was glad...I felt a little overwhelmed at the idea of being responsible for so many boys on this trip!)

When we got back from our paddling adventure Greg gathered the boys around and showed them how to build a fire. With all the wind, our fire lit up right away and we were roasting hot dogs before we knew it! After all that paddling it was a good thing we could eat so quickly...Everybody worked up a big appetite!

We had a couple hours left so we let the boys run around and play. I was amazed at how well they could stay entertained in just a small area outside with rocks to climb and water to throw rocks in. We could have left them alone for a few days and I think they would have had fun the whole time.

Greg earned the boys' respect by jumping off the cliff into the water after dinner. We all thought he was crazy, but the boys had fun cheering and yelling when he did the deed.

Once the rafts were dry, Greg showed them how to fold them up and load them back in the trailer. We broke out the s'mores and the fun continued until our carpool parents showed up. It wasn't until we were starting to drive away that all the boys came running to get in the cars. Next time I think we'll plan an overnight camping trip.

At the end of the night I was worn out and sore from paddling and chasing boys. (Well, I didn't actually chase any boys, but you know...) It was a lot of fun and I look forward to going with Greg again.

Tro Lo Lo! You've been missing out!

2011-05-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

My parents came to visit last week and we shared this with them. I thought you should all have the chance to enjoy it as well. I think it's nice that so many people can be inspired and brought together by this song that was censored in Russia.

Crazy version live--in case you couldn't get enough of it.

Is that song stuck in your head yet?

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T12:55:00.001-07:00

This is what I wore to church today. My pink sweater and pretty heart necklace are both from Mom. I liked wearing them today especially because I thought of Mom whenever I saw myself in the mirror or got a compliment on the necklace. Maybe I should wear it every day. =)

I love you Mom!

Osama bin Laden is dead

2011-05-02T08:37:00.000-07:00

Last night at the end of my choir concert I went next door to the building where the choir hangs out for intermission. I was starting to help straighten up the green room and gather trash when the man who owns the building strutted in and announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US Forces. Bin Laden was shot in the head as he tried to hide behind a woman in his complex in the city of Abbottabad, Pakistan. What a loser.

Glen Beck was emotional on the radio this morning as he announced the victory, and recalled the events of September 11th when Osama made war on our beloved country. One news article said the mission was to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, but I have to say I'm glad they killed him.

From Wikipedia:
"Nearly 3,000 victims and the 19 hijackers died in the attacks. According to the New York State Health Department, 836 responders, including firefighters and police personnel, have died as of June 2009. Among the 2,752 victims who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center were 343 firefighters and 60 police officers from New York City and the Port Authority. Another 184 people were killed in the attack on the Pentagon. The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals of over 70 countries. In addition, there was at least one secondary death—one person was ruled by a medical examiner to have died from lung disease due to exposure to dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center."

As Glen Beck said this morning, "Thank God that Osama bin Laden is dead."

Gretchen

2011-04-12T10:57:00.001-07:00

She looks like a little doll! So Cute!

I don't really have time to do a whole post about visiting Summer and family in La Grande right now, but I'm tired of seeing that post about the disgusting okra on my blog. haha.

I thought I would put this cute picture of Gretchen up so we can all have something cute to look at instead. =) I loved visiting and seeing Summer's kids again over the weekend. I'm surprised every time at how much they have all changed since the last time we were there. Ginger keeps looking more and more like a little young lady, and she has lots of funny stories to tell and songs to sing. Jack is no longer a toddler, but looks more like a little boy. He's talking a lot and is fun to tickle and chase! I can just point at his tickle spot and he giggles and runs away. hahaha! And little Gretchen isn't a tiny baby anymore! She's cute and playful. She can crawl pretty fast, and likes to interact, talk, and play. I could have sat and played with her for the whole visit.

Greg had fun playing with the kids too.

I miss them already, and we've only been home a couple days.

Oh Okra!

2011-03-17T18:47:00.001-07:00

On our quest for better health, Greg and I have been trying a number of new vegetables. For the most part we have been happy with our new discoveries, but tonight was definitely a failure. We've never tried okra and had no idea would it would taste like. While it was cooking I thought it smelled "Green".

Greg dished up first and ate all of the okra on his plate while I happily ate my delicious Tilapia. Greg asked if I had tried the okra yet and I said no. He didn't want to tell me what it tasted like or if he liked it, so I knew something bad was coming. I took a bite and started chewing. The flavor was fine, but in the few seconds of chewing, somehow the vegetable in my mouth turned into a big mouthful of snot. Gross! It was so disgusting! I had to jump up and spit it out to keep myself from gagging. I didn't even try to swallow.
(This is a picture of some okra slime. It happens just by cutting into the fruit once. Sick.)

I'm not sure who decided okra is an eatable food, but I think they were crazy. It reminded me of those "snot fish" we saw on Dirty Jobs and MythBusters. Those fish are a type of eel that continuously produce slimy snot as a defense. And that's exactly what happened with the okra when I started chewing it. Gross gross!

If you happen to like okra, please comment and explain yourself. Maybe you have a good recipe that keeps the snot thing from happening...?

On a positive note, you may have noticed I mentioned my delicious Tilapia. We've tried a few recipes that were all good, but this is the one we made tonight:

3 tablespoons coarsely chopped mint leaves
1 small garlic clove, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
Pinch red pepper flakes
2 tilapia fillets (about 1 pound total), halved
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Some extra virgin olive oil
Some lemon juice (Oil and lemon juice were not measured. We just poured it until it looked good.)

We mixed up all the spices and made a kind of soup by adding some lemon juice and the olive oil in a bowl. Then we brushed the mixture onto the fish and baked it at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. You can flip it halfway through if you want. If your fish is thicker it might need to cook longer. Our fish was really thin on parts and really thick in the middle, so it had to cook longer.

Sorry, I didn't get a picture. I found this online in case you were wondering what raw tilapia looks like. When it's done baking, it should be white (not see-through at all) and it should flake easily. When I took it out the first time I tried to cut a thick part and it was kind of chewy and hard to cut. That means it's not done.

After we got over the grossness of the okra, I steamed some broccoli to have with our fish instead. Definitely a good choice. I think my favorite vegetables to have are steamed broccoli and cauliflower mixed.

What are your favorite vegetables and how do you like them? (Raw or cooked in a special way?)

What's new with Choir

2011-03-08T14:14:00.000-08:00

I'm singing in the Idaho Washington Concert Chorale again. It's been fun to see all my old friends again, and interesting as I sing in the soprano section. (I usually sing alto, but this time I auditioned the director said my voice "Really wants to sing soprano.")

Anyway, I thought I'd give you a sneak preview of the beautiful music we're going to sing. (This is not my choir.) Actually, I think it's probably going to scare all the kids in the audience. It sounds like crazy chaos for most of the song. It's like the soundtrack for an action adventure movie with religious undertones. (The words are sung in Hebrew.)

There's a part in the 2nd movement where they write in the music for the women to sing "Blissfully unaware of Danger." At the same time the men are supposed to sing, "Savagely." Do you think you can recognize that part? The women's part really is pretty.

I won't put the rest of the song and give it away for the people going to the concert. I have to leave a few surprises to jolt you awake for the rest of the song. (Don't you love how it lulls you to sleep and then surprises you with a bang? haha.) We really are singing other songs that are pretty, so don't be afraid to come to the concert. One of my favorites is, "Sure on this Shining Night." It's soft and peaceful.

The other exciting thing is that we will be getting new dresses for the choir. Our current dress is like a big black tent, best fit for wearing to the funeral of someone you don't like. They haven't made an official decision yet, but I think we will get the dress that I like the best. It's a velvet top and a separate skirt with pretty sparkles.

Treasure Hunt!

2011-03-02T14:51:00.000-08:00

I forgot to finish and post this! This is from the first week in January. I made a treasure hunt activity for the kids at church for our Wednesday night activity. It was lots of fun--to plan and to participate!

I started by looking up scriptures that could be used as clues. For instance, one clue was Hosea 7:6. "For they have made ready their heart like an oven, while they lie in wait; their baker sleepeth all the night..." So they would go find their next clue in the kitchen of the church around the oven. I came up with 13 clues so they would stay busy for about an hour.

This activity involved all the kids (girls and boys) 12-18 yrs, so I had a large group to work with. I divided them into 6 teams, each with an adult leader to keep the group on track. Each team had their own set of clues to find around the church, and each group leader had a cheat sheet in case they couldn't figure out the clue, or the clue was taken by another group or person. With each clue there was a small assignment. Some of them were silly, like, "Jump up and down while patting your head and rubbing your stomach." Most of them were serious, like case studies about what to do in a certain situation. It was fun to walk around the church and see groups of kids excitedly flipping through their scriptures and running to the next clue.

At the end we all met in the gym for a closing prayer and treats. My partner in crime (another adult leader named Kathy) made the treasure chest cake, along with a bunch of cupcakes for the treat. I thought the cake was so cute! I wish I had a good excuse to make one now.

Mega Mind

2011-02-22T10:03:00.000-08:00

Our friends invited us to go see this with their family and it was fun. Greg actually got shushed by the kid behind us for laughing too much.

I found this clip that is short and funny. All the trailers I could find basically showed the entire movie with the slow parts cut out, so don't watch those.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T14:16:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day is fun because I have an excuse to make cookies and treats and give them to people.

(You can pick which picture to look at...one is flash and the other is no flash.)

The above pictures are the "Heart Attack" I did for my neighbor friend. My girls at church did this for an activity on Wednesday for a few people at church. I thought it was fun.

I made cookies and took some to be delivered to my girls at school today. It thought that would be a fun surprise. It was always the coolest thing to have something brought to you at school. I remember for my birthday one year, Wendy brought a small birthday cake to me at school during my lunch time. That was so cool! I got to serve birthday cake to my friends, and we got to stay at lunch a little bit late for the special occasion. I kind of feel like I get to do "Big Sister Stuff" for my 14-15yr old girls at church now, since I was never a big sister before. I think I would have liked to be a big sister.

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope it's a good one. What fun things are you doing (or other people are doing for you) today?

The skies are clear! Our troubles are over!

2011-01-30T10:17:00.000-08:00

Old cartoons are the best.

CrossFit

2011-01-25T23:02:00.000-08:00

My brother-in-law was recently in the newspaper:

(The Peninsula Gateway)

"College students can no longer expect to walk out into the world right after they graduate and be handed the golden career they’ve been studying so hard for. But two young men from Gig Harbor refused to let hard times get them down.

Instead of standing in the unemployment line, Michael Kelley and Matt Graham pooled their talents to start a new business. They recently opened a new gym, Narrows Crossfit, on Jahn Avenue in Gig Harbor.

(Michael is the guy hanging upside-down)

Kelley graduated from pilot school with dreams of flying for United Parcel Service.

“Every pilot wants to fly for UPS,” he said. “I applied everywhere. But it just wasn’t a good time for pilots.”

...Narrows Crossfit came together at lightning speed. The men devised a plan in September, got a business license in November and opened on Jan. 1. They worked around the clock to put the gym together on a steady diet of espresso.

“We worked 14 hours every day, including Christmas Eve, for 20 days,” Graham said.

At first glance, the knotted ropes that hang from the ceiling and the pull-up bars and free weights make it look more like a military boot camp. But Kelley said there’s a specific science to crossfit training. It focuses on core strength and mobility to produce visible results."

CrossFit Website

It was fun to see Michael and Lory (Greg's Mom) in the professional gym video. It makes me want to go lift some weights, or go for a bike ride or something.

Anyway, there's a little positive advertising for Michael...although I don't think anyone in/near Gig Harbor reads my blog...

Memphis Single's Branch

2011-01-20T17:05:00.000-08:00

I was looking for something to help prepare for the wednesday night activity when I came across this website. The guys in this branch are pretty funny. They make short videos and post them to advertise the activities for the young single adults. Here's a couple of the ones I liked. (Of course, you can expect them to be ridiculous and corny...just the sort of thing I like. hahahaha.)

The Halloween Dance:

The Asian-Themed Break the Fast (This is a social potluck meal after church to end our fast...it's fun.)

Spudwood Dirby...I want to do this one. It looks like fun!

Funny Videos Website

Verizon Sucks

2011-01-18T21:04:00.000-08:00

(That's not my car.)

This may be a boring blog post because it's not about treats or fun things...but because we live in America and we can speak freely about pretty much anything, I want to tell this story so I can give Verizon some bad advertising. I think they earned it after by trying so hard to rip us off.

I like having a phone, and it's pretty much required in our society...but we were really close to canceling our Verizon account.

A few months ago we decided to cancel Greg's phone so we could trim down our budget and save more money. So we called in November and asked them to cancel it. There were some cancellation fees, and they said the phone could not be canceled in the middle of a billing cycle (which I know to be untrue). In December we were supposed to pay the cancellation fee and the bill for my phone only. They told us about what that would be, and then they told us what we would be paying in January and forever while we just have my phone. December came and Greg's phone kept working. He had stopped using it, but used it again one day by accident and then realized he still had service. So he called them again and spent a LONG time on the phone, finally figuring out that the person made a note to cancel the phone, but never actually did it.

So they canceled it a few days late, and charged us for those days even though it was their fault... Since we pay a month in advance, we were supposed to be refunded what we paid for Greg's phone in December, but they didn't refund all of the charges. So in January when we were supposed to pay half of what we used to pay, our bill was only a few dollars less. Greg spent over about an hour on the phone with a guy trying to figure it out. The guy didn't understand it, so he'd put Greg on hold for 20 minutes at a time to ask the supervisor. The supervisor would convince the guy it was right, and then he'd talk to Greg again. And Greg would point out another problem and it'd start all over. Greg printed out several pages of our payment history and tried calling again. The lady on the phone said, "I will try to explain it to you." Instead of, "I will try to find the problem." She refused to look for a mistake on Verizon's part, and was irritated when Greg explained the first mistake to her. She still refused to look for mistakes and kept trying to explain why she was right. So he hung up.

We went to the Verizon store to talk to someone in person. Greg took the pages he printed out and explained step by step how Verizon had messed up and what our bill should be. The guy at the store then had to call the same people we've been calling, and he explained it to them step by step as Greg had done. FINALLY they recognized that they were capable of making a mistake and fixed the billing for us. That took an hour and a half at the store.

And at the end of it all, we felt like we should be compensated for the many hours we spent trying to fix the problem that was not our fault, but Verizon refused to do anything. I was mad that we had to work so hard to get our billing fixed, and had to spend so much time doing it. I'm mad that they continued to deny there were any mistakes, and I can't imagine what kind of idiot the supervisor was to continually go over the history with the other employee and convince him that it was right, while there were glaring mistakes. This makes me think they purposefully overcharged us and are dishonest in their business dealings.

Most people would have given up and just paid the bill. What a bunch of jerks.

I just can't understand why I'm not loosing weight!

2011-01-15T16:10:00.002-08:00

We made 3 batches of muddy buddies and a batch of cupcakes to take to our friend's house tonight. We're going to have dinner, play games, and stay the night, so we thought we'd better be prepared. There's nothing worse than a party without treats and snacks!

Love my boots!

2011-01-14T11:59:00.000-08:00

I've been needing some good boots to wear in the snow. I have steel-toe boots, which keep the snow out, but then my toes freeze. (Haha, cause the metal gets cold.) Anyway, we went searching for boots. All the boots I tried on were stiff and uncomfortable, and most of them would take 15 minutes just to put on.

Finally, we went to Tri-State and started looking. I saw some boots called Bogs. They were on sale, so I tried them on. Miracle of Miracles! They were comfortable! The sole is squishy and soft, and the sock part of the boot is made of neoprene. You just slide your foot in and it's on! No annoying laces to get tangled up or mushy with snow and mud. And I can wear my fat wool socks with them and play in the snow for hours without getting wet or cold feet. It's amazing!

(The picture at the top is the kind I got. And there are lots of variations. If you google "Bogs" you'll see lots of different kinds.)

Flower Hair Clips

2011-01-09T18:24:00.000-08:00

Wendy taught me how to make these pretty flower clips when we had our Sister's weekend last year.

Since then I've had a lot of fun making lots of different kinds. They are so easy, fast, and inexpensive to make that I thought it would be a good idea to use as a birthday gift for our Young Women this year. We're going to give them a small plate of cookies and let them pick 3 clips when it's their birthday.

Today was the first birthday of the year, so everybody was wondering what the gift would be this year. They were pretty excited to see those flower clips! I'm glad! I was pretty sure they would like them, but it would be sad if they didn't. So, it was a success.

How to make them:
Get some fabric that is like silk, or a synthetic polymer. (Not cotton)

Cut out circles of the fabric of different sizes. I like to do a small, medium, and large circle. Three to five layers is good.

Put the fabric near a candle flame. You will have to experiment a little to see how the fabric reacts. Usually I just move the fabric in and out of the flame carefully to get the edges to scrunch up. If you're really good, you can make it look like there are actual petals, instead of just a scrunched up circle. It's also a good idea to make sure the edges is melted all the way around the circle to keep it from fraying later. (It's hard to go back and fix it after the clip is made.)

When all the layers are done, you can use a glue gun to glue them together and to glue the flower to the clip. (Make sure you don't glue the clip closed!) The glue stays kind of tacky for awhile, so I like to stick a piece of toothpick in the clip to keep it open a little. I also like to clip it on the edge of a plate after it's had time to cool with the toothpick.

If you are buying fabric, you can ask for 4 to 5 inches and you can make several flowers with that. If you want to make a lot of clips, it's cheap to buy the clip part online. I found some on Amazon: 50 clips for $2, with $5 shipping.

The other part is the center of the flower. You can use a jewel (with a sticky back), a button, a pearl...etc. My favorite thing to use is that clear flower-shaped jewel you can see in my flowers. I like how shiny it is.

Snow!

2011-01-06T15:09:00.000-08:00

Pinus flexilis....in case you were wondering what kind of tree this is.

I got some pictures of the snow and hills we like to sled on. This hill is right next to our apartment (right outside my bedroom window) so it is handy to use for sledding. I'm glad we don't have to drive for hours to get up in the snowy mountains. We've gotten lots of snow this winter, and pretty much anywhere you are in Pullman, you are very close to a big hill.

We went down the hill shown above, and then up this little hill (below) and then went backwards...plowing into the snow with an abrupt stop. I felt like a cartoon. It probably looked really silly.

The next two pictures are to show the weird snow formation right outside our apartment. It looked like a wave at the ocean. (Sorry, I took the picture at night and it was hard to get the camera to focus right.)

Floating Fiery Lanterns

2011-01-03T16:04:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Eve Greg and I went driving around to see all the pretty Christmas lights. We were on our way home through downtown Pullman when we saw a big group of people crossing the street together. We were curious about what they were doing, so we pulled over and joined them. There was lots of excited talking and laughing, and then these lanterns started floating up to the sky. I had never seen them before! We just saw the movie Tangled a couple weeks ago, and I thought it was such a cool idea. I didn't know those lanterns were real! (I posted a video at the bottom of the post...)

It was kind of a funny place to send them off because we were on the corner of a busy intersection with lots of power lines criss-crossing and going over the road. One lantern got stuck on the power line and was positioned so the fire was burning directly ON the wire.

Greg had the idea to throw snow balls at it, so he did. A few people joined in, but it was Greg's snowball that put the fire out. (He was very proud of that.) A couple other lanterns bounced around on the power lines and came close to getting stuck, but they all ended up ok.

Oh, and one hit the power line and then floated down and landed in the middle of the busy road. Some brave person ran out into traffic to grab the flaming lantern and toss it back into the sky. (The lanterns were made out of special flame-resistant material, so they didn't catch fire at all.)

As I gazed into the sky at the 20-30 beautiful glowing orbs floating off in to space, I wondered how many forest fires they would start. (It was probably ok since it's winter and everything is covered in snow...but you never know.)

It turns out that the large group of people came from a church across the street. They were probably having a special Christmas Eve service. I was glad we happened to see them and got to watch the launch of the lanterns. They were pretty neat to watch.

This is a quarter that I found in the parking lot of our apartment complex. I just thought it was interesting and wanted to share. I wonder how it got bent.

HexBug

2011-01-01T23:05:00.000-08:00

This is a cool toy we got from Greg's parents. We got one green and one pink, so we can both play and make them "battle." They walk sort of like an inch-worm, and the middle part can spin. (That's how it turns when it walks.)

Car Wreck

2010-12-20T15:30:00.000-08:00

You may have seen this on the news. Adam is a friend from church. His family is in our ward and I like to help his mom with serving lunch at Friday Forum (Institute). Adam picked us up last night to go to the ward choir party at the Dangerfield's, and on the way told us about his car accident. It's funny...I've been hanging out with Adam's mom and spent some time at their house, and somehow did know this news that went international before the cops arrived on the scene. Haha. Adam said the other cars on the highway stopped to get pictures and video and put it up online with their phones right then. I just can't believe what a close call that was! I think he was ok because of the faith and prayers of his parents. Sometimes I wonder if they were angelic messengers who were sent to earth and got stuck here. I think living a life of complete service to others has really paid off for their family.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Nativity

2010-12-11T22:55:00.000-08:00

We went to see the Nativity display at the Stake Center. It was fun to see all the different kinds of nativity sets that were displayed in the gym. I think there were about 450 sets, and they were from all different kinds of cultures and places: Mexico, Africa, China, Native American, Poland...etc. They had another room where you could dress up and get your picture taken. My friend, Hadra, and I are angels and Greg is a wise man. The family before us had a lot of kids, so they had Mary and Joseph, Wise Men and Shepherds, an angel, a cow, and a donkey. Hahaha!

If your church doesn't do this, you should suggest it. It's a neat experience! The nativity sets came from people in the church and the community who let us use them to display. Lots of people came throughout the last week to help set up and make it beautiful. There were people singing, playing the flute and piano, and the harp to make beautiful background music. It was wonderful!

Beautiful Savior

2010-12-09T18:22:00.000-08:00

This is sung by a BYU Men's Choir. So beautiful.

Money!

2010-12-05T20:43:00.000-08:00

We had a lesson about money management in Young Women's today. We talked about why God would want us to learn to use our money wisely, and how the qualities we develop as good stewards of our money will translate to other parts of our lives. For instance, you have to learn self-control and discipline to manage your money. When you can do that, you will be able to master many other things in your life. And why would we have a lesson about money management in church on Sunday? Because God wants us to be successful and happy, and these things that seem temporal to us affect us spiritually as well. The whole point of life is to learn to master yourself and become more like God.

The teacher read a quote from Dave Ramsey's book during the lesson. It may not be word for word because I wrote it down after she said it.

"Money will only make you more of what you already are. If you are a jerk, wealth with make you become the King of Jerks. If you are generous, wealth with make you most generous, and if you are kind, wealth will make you more kind than any."

That is so true! Money is not evil. Evil people are evil, and their evilness is magnified when they have money/power. And when good people have money/power, their goodness is magnified as well. (Think of Esther and the position she was in. And they said she came to the kingdom "for such a time as this." She was able to use her position of power for good in a way she could not have done were she a simple citizen of no consequence.)

The teacher also read a quote that said something to the effect of, "Money will pave the road from good intentions to good deeds."

Money isn't everything, but if you have it you can use it and be an instrument in God's hands. I have met several people who are doing very well financially, and they all had this in common: They were hard-working, unselfish people who wanted to serve God and their fellow men. Matthew 6:33 "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you." One of those people told me they believed God blessed them because they gave when they did not have much to give. Now they are blessed in many ways and it is easier for them to give freely to help those around them. I admire their good examples and hope that I can be an instrument in God's hands as well.

That's been on my mind now that we're headed into Christmas and the season of giving. I hope you have a meaningful Christmas and look for ways you can help the people around you, as Christ would. Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-01T07:50:00.000-08:00

My Young Women leaders showed this video with the song for a Wednesday night activity close to Christmas when I was 17. I thought it was so beautiful and it really touched me. That night, after watching the video, we all took turns expressing our feelings about the Savior and our faith in him. I think of that special night every year when Christmas comes. I hope it touches you too.

Merry Christmas.

Roasting a Turkey, Part 2

2010-11-23T14:33:00.000-08:00

Ok ok, it wasn't that bad I guess. It was about 15 minutes of horrible miserable grossness, and then a few hours later it was 15 minutes of wonderful delicious dinner. And, there's tons of meat there that will go in freezer bags and be enjoyed in the coming months. It really is cool that I got that whole thing for $7. I probably will do it again next year.

...And if I can do it, YOU can do it!

How to roast a turkey....(not really)

2010-11-22T12:45:00.000-08:00

So, I bought a turkey for the first time. All the grocery stores in the area have been competing a lot since that giant Walmart came to Pullman. I think the best deal was at Safeway: Buy $25 worth of junk and get a turkey for 25 cents a pound. It's pretty easy to spend $25 on groceries, so I decided to get a turkey to bake and then freeze the extra meat. My turkey was 23 pounds and cost about $7. Cool. I went back today to get another turkey for my sister to stick in her freezer.

I knew that getting a real turkey would be a disgusting experience, but I put off thinking about it while it thawed in the fridge. I even managed to forget about it while it thawed in the sink with water this morning. But this afternoon I couldn't deny it anymore. I really had to take the plastic off that raw turkey and pull the guts out. Ick! My friend suggested I get some gloves, and that significantly helped. Oh, but it was so gross even with gloves!

I put on a Harry Potter book and tried to just listen to the story and not look at the turkey as I reached inside and pulled the neck out. Who eats the neck anyway? And then I pulled out the bag of guts....does anybody really want that? I felt like throwing up, but somehow I managed to get that turkey in the bag and into the oven.

After that, I changed all of my clothes and washed up to my elbows. (I felt like taking a shower, but didn't.) I also sprayed down the kitchen with disinfectant and cleaned the sink. I think I might mop the floor, just in case something splattered on the floor without my notice.

I sure hope this turkey turns out good! I think I'm starting to understand why some members of my family never get whole turkeys anymore...

Maybe in a couple hours when I've gotten my appetite back and the turkey smells good I will be glad. What do you do for Thanksgiving? Do you cook whole turkeys or little turkey roasts?

Merry Christmas

2010-11-19T16:57:00.000-08:00

This happened at Macy's in Philadelphia. They have the world's largest pipe organ. The entire Philadelphia Opera Company along with more than 20 other choirs in the area went to the mall and just hung out all around the 7 story building. Somebody was playing the organ already, but when they started playing the Hallelujah Chorus the choirs all began singing. They chose that day and time because there were some awesome sales and they knew the mall would be packed with people. As you can see, all the shoppers stopped what they were doing to listen to the music. What an amazing experience! Wish I could sing with them!

What a storm!

2010-11-16T19:27:00.001-08:00

Last night the wind blew and blew! It was so loud that it kept me up for the first half of the night. And the thunder and lightening came! The lightening was so bright that it hurt my eyes when it flashed and lit up the room through the closed curtains. The thunder rumbled and roared like a freight train coming through my bedroom.

Lots of people and businesses in the area lost power. Luckily we didn't. I heard that the wind was going 70 miles per hour! When we left the apartment this morning we saw our neighbor's moped bike had fallen over. We also drove by a construction site that had most of the roofing progress ruined. Tar paper and shingles were all over the ground that had been torn from the roof. And most exciting, one of the schools in Moscow closed! When I went shopping I saw lots of kids happily hanging out with their moms at the store. I bet they were happy!

And on a bigger scale, here is a picture my dad sent to me. It was on the Komo News website.

Dominoes!

Greg's Costume

2010-11-06T08:50:00.000-07:00

This is what Greg wore to work on Friday. Don't ask me what he's supposed to be...I don't think he knows either. But the mask is cool, and he made the fuzzy part of the costume a few years ago.

...maybe some kind of mexican wrestling viking warrior?

Pumpkin Pie!

2010-11-04T08:40:00.000-07:00

(It's kind of puffed up when you first pull it out of the oven...it sinks as it cools.)

This is the best pumpkin pie I've ever had. My mom would make it for us every year, and now I love to make it too! It's super easy, and there's no dry icky crust. (Sorry, I'm not a fan of pie crusts.)

3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup Bisquick
2 Tbsp butter or margarine, softened
1 can evaporated milk
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
16 oz can pumpkin (I found 15 oz can, worked fine)
2 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 tsp vanilla

(If you don't have pumpkin pie spice, use 1/4 tsp ginger, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp allspice, and 1/2 tsp cinnamon.)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease pie pan. Beat all ingredients until smooth. Pour into pie pan and bake for 50-55 minutes, or until knife inserted comes out clean.

Serve warm or cold with whipped cream. Yum!

Pumpkin Carving!

2010-11-02T08:31:00.000-07:00

We carved pumpkins Thursday before Halloween so Greg could bring his in for the contest at work.

This is the start of my pumpkin. (I didn't get to finish it that night because I had to hurry off to a meeting at church.)

This is Greg's again. Notice the earrings on the finished product.

This is a fierce pumpkin indeed! Unfortunately it didn't win the contest, but we still like it.

Blood Clots and Puss

2010-10-30T20:20:00.000-07:00

Tapioca Pudding + Mushed Strawberries =

Blood Clots and Puss! Yum!

This is what I made for Greg to bring to work for the treats contest. I got the idea from my mom who made it years ago for a Halloween party. Everybody was as disgusted as you probably are, but it really does taste good!

Weezer

2010-10-29T08:25:00.000-07:00

I forgot how much I liked Weezer when I was a teenager until it came up on a Pandora station. I wish I was so cool that people paid me tons of money to play music. That looks like fun.

Sugar Cookie Recipe

2010-10-28T16:56:00.000-07:00

Here's the recipe for those sugar cookies. They are excellent! And by the way, I never make only one batch...Two batches is just right for a family or if you want to share any.

2/3 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
4 tsp milk
2 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Cream shortening, sugar, and vanilla. Add egg and beat until light and fluffy. Stir in milk. Mix together dry ingredients in small bowl and then add to creamed mixture. Blend well. Divide dough in half and chill one hour. (I never do that, and my cookies turn out fine.)

On lightly floured surface roll dough to 1/4 inch thickness. (Too thin means crunchy cookies--no good. It has to be thick!) Cut out shapes and bake on greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes. Do not allow to brown. Bottom of cookies may be slightly golden. The cookies will still be soft when you take them out of the oven, but they will firm up as they set on the cookie sheet and cool. Remove to cooling racks after about 5 or 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-27T08:41:00.000-07:00

I love making and decorating sugar cookies!

It really is an art...especially if you have these cool stencils to use. (Wendy gave me those a year or two ago.)

And thanks to Teri--I used the sprinkles you gave me for Christmas last year! The purple looked really good on the green or orange background. My favorite is the purple sparkly spider on the green cookie.

LIBERA

2010-10-18T10:23:00.000-07:00

I posted one of their songs a little while ago, and here is another that I love. It sounds like Debussy's Clair de Lune.

In case you were wondering, you did hear a little bit of English:

"Star of heaven, send your light on me
Star of day, shine through the dark"

I had to look up the lyrics because it was bothering me that I thought I could understand some words, but then I'd listen hard and the rest seemed to be in latin.

Homemade Oreos

2010-10-13T21:58:00.000-07:00

Yum. That's all there is to say.

(Sister's Blog)

For the Cookies:
1 package devil's food cake mix (or chocolate of any kind)
2 eggs
1/2 - cup oil

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Add oil and eggs to cake mix and blend together. Roll dough into balls (a little larger than a quarter). Place on greased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on sheet (until warm). Remove cookies from sheet and place on cooling rack. To assemble the cookies, add about a tablespoon of filling into the center of one cookie. Place another cookie similar in size on top of the filling. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream.

Cream Cheese Filling Recipe:
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 block of cream cheese (8 oz)
3-4 cups - powdered sugar (depending on desired consistency)
1 - tsp vanilla extract

(By the way, this made about 3 times as much filling as I needed. I would recommend cutting the filling recipe in half at least, or making more cookies. I will have to put the left over filling in the freezer for another time.)

Cream butter and add cream cheese and mix well. Add powdered sugar slowly until you reach your desired consistency.

These are easy and fast to make, and delicious! I love how soft they are. Oh, and I used my cookie scooper so they are all perfectly the same size.

Also, I decided to just frost the top of each cookie and not make it oreo style...that way they last a little longer, and I didn't really like eating two cookies at once.

PS. I tried making Fudge Crinkles using a strawberry cake mix instead, but they aren't that great. Well, Greg and all his friends at work liked them, but they just don't compare to chocolate. They are pretty though.

Chewy White Chocolate Chocolate Cookies

2010-10-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

I believe in the healing power of chocolate. Since I have been home from about 3 1/2 weeks of visiting various family members, I felt bla and sad. I missed my family, I had a cold, and my house was a mess from partially moving in and then going on vacation. So I gathered my strength and made a pan of brownies, and it made all the difference in the world! Suddenly I had a new energy and motivation to work on my house, and I got over my cold. After that first bite of chewy chocolate, I became a new woman.

Today I dedicate this post to another recipe I found on the Sister's Cafe Blog: Chewy White Chocolate Chocolate Cookies. A recipe that has the word, "Chocolate" in it twice has GOT to be good!

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup flour
1 1/4 cup Dutch cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
2 cup white chocolate chips

(I would reduce the amount of chips to maybe one cup, or one and a half cups...it was hard to keep them all mixed in the dough because there were too many.)

Cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla and salt.

Combine flour, cocoa, and baking soda, then gently mix into creamed ingredients. Fold in white chocolate chips.

Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Plant Video

2010-10-01T22:09:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to fixing up my plant video. I took all the pictures over a year ago and then forgot about it. It looks like it was made by a 5-year-old, but I think I learned a lot from it and now I have ideas to make a better one. Hope you don't feel motion-sick from watching it. Ta Da.

I love Pandora

2010-09-11T09:12:00.000-07:00

This song just came up on my Pandora station this morning. I love the pure sweet voices of the boys choir. It's amazing that they can be so talented at such a young age. It's beautiful.

Oops!

2010-09-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

We came upon this the other day. The semi truck was trying to make it around the circle round-about at the only entrance to our apartment complex, but he didn't make it. It looked like he was planning to jump the curb and drive over the island, but the tires just sunk deep into the mud instead...and he didn't jump the curb--he plowed through it instead. The maintenance guy that was standing around told me the total weight of the machinery and the trailer was 80,000 pounds, and the truck driver got fired. I don't know how you get another job after getting fired for messing up like that.

It's times like this that I'm glad I'm not a truck driver.

We Moved!

2010-09-07T12:13:00.000-07:00

We moved a little over a week ago from our Cougar's Closet apartment above the storage units to a regular apartment down the street.

It has been so nice to be home and not worry about the phone ringing or customers coming to my door! And I'm glad we could stay in the same ward at church. A major part of Pullman that I love is the friends who feel like family at church. I also love my calling of working with the young women. It is one of the great joys in my life right now.

Welcome to our home!

This shows the signs I made to help our friends help us. We put colored stickers on all the boxes to tell them which room they go to. (Put an orange sticker on the boxes for storage, and a green sticker on the bedroom boxes...etc)

Even though there are boxes everywhere and things are not organized yet, it does feel like home. We're making progress, and I think it will be really nice when I've finished working on it.

Oh, and by the way Mom, the bathroom stuff matches nicely with the green counter top.

This is the view I used to have of my flowers...

Oh, and I wanted to get a picture of this satellite dish...they are taking it down and I thought it looked like they are going to shoot a missile into space.

And this is the view we have out our bedroom window now. It's not too bad actually. If you look out the sliding glass door you see the edge of the parking lot and then it's just wheat fields. It will be really pretty in the spring when everything is green!

French Twist

2010-09-07T09:46:00.000-07:00

I finally figured out how to do the french twist in my hair! It's fun to play with new things and do something different than my regular boring ponytail. The flower is from Wendy. I think it looks so cute when I can add a flower or a bow.

This hair-do always makes me think of the Thatcher girls--especially Shauna. They always had their hair done nice and neat as teenagers.

Greg found a job!

2010-08-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

My husband graduated in May this year as a mechanical engineer. I've been wondering, more seriously as time passed, where in the world he would find a job and where we would live, if there would be a university nearby for me to finish school, and if we would be at all close to our families. As the summer passed and Greg didn't get any serious offers, we decided we would have to move back to Gig Harbor and stay with Greg's parents until we found a job. We cried as we thought of leaving Pullman and our friends, and felt excited when we thought of the time we could spend with our families after being far away for the last 3-4 years. We found a replacement to take our place as manager at the storage facility, and reserved a U-haul so we could move at the end of this month.

Then! At the very last minute possible, Greg got a call from Decagon Devices: a local company where many of our friends work in Pullman. They wanted him to come in for an interview! The interview went great and Greg got the job! (Of course, we didn't know if he would get the job for about two weeks, so that whole time I was just wondering at the possibilities and trying to think of what to do. The date for us to move was coming upon us quickly!)

So now, we are still packing up and moving, but we're moving down the street instead of across the state. I'm so happy Greg can work for a good company with a fabulous work environment, and that we can stay in Pullman. Of course, it took a little adjusting when we realized that suddenly all our plans with family were not going to happen, and we were sad for the loss of time we would have spent with our families. The job doesn't start for a few weeks though, so we'll have time to go visit before we have to start real life again.

Here is a short video about Decagon. The company was actually founded by the Campbell family in our ward at church. Tamsin is their oldest daughter, and she is currently the president of the company.

Greg is excited about the job he will be doing. He is going to work with SolidWorks--the program he's been using for several years now for school and personal projects.

Everything has come together so well for us. Haha, I kept telling my friends at church that I knew God had a plan for us and we would be taken care of, but I just wished that He would tell me what that plan was! Maybe He was trying my patience and faith, and I finally passed the test. Hooray!

Young Women Recognition

2010-08-15T22:33:00.000-07:00

This is actually what I earned last year in December, but the lady who was putting this together was having difficulty (those pendants wouldn't stick to the black background no matter what kind of glue she used). Various other life situations prevented her from finishing it until a few weeks ago. She gave this to me at the end of Girl's Camp. It's so pretty, and I love having all the pendants and the old medallion to display. (You may recall that they made a new medallion when I was about 17,

and then just last year they changed it a little again.)

I'm excited to have this pretty display--it's like a tribute to the Young Women's Program. If I have a girl I will hang it in her room. I hope my daughters love Young Women's and Personal Progress as much as I do!

Multi-Stake Youth Conference!

2010-08-11T21:37:00.000-07:00

After Girl's Camp I got a little breather and then got ready for the Multi-Stake Youth Conference. President Monson first met with some of the stake presidents in the area and told them his idea for this big youth conference. They said, "Great, I think we can pull something together for 2012." And he said that wasn't good enough--it needed to be this year, so they put this event together in 6 months. There were about 2,000 people who attended, 300 of which were adult leaders and the rest were youth. 11 stakes participated from the surrounding areas. They said that everybody was within a 2-hour radius of the Spokane Stake Center. I was surprised that there were so many LDS youth! And these were just the kids that were able to come. (Less than half of our kids were able to go.)

The first day (Friday) was mostly a fun day of playing games, get-to-know-you activities, and a dance and more games in the evening. They played a number of field games that were directed by a man with a mic and he stood on a lift so everybody could see him. I was amazed that he could entertain 1,700 kids for a few hours! He did a great job and had watching/joining the games too.

After the field games we went to dinner, and then straight into the dance. There were three large rooms in the conference center that we used. The one was for the dance with a regular DJ and music.

The next was a game room with lots of little odd games like:
Put the lamp shade on your head with the fishing pole while your blind-folded. I think that was more fun to watch than to do.

Stack 3 golf balls, flick the raisin boxes out from under the water bottles, and much more!

The second day was a little more serious. We met at a different conference center and had a presentation about some of the soldiers serving our country. There were a few soldiers of various rank who told their own stories, and then others who told the stories of fallen soldiers they knew. The mother of one soldier in particular came to tell us the story of her son who had died in combat, and it was very moving. At the end of the presentation we made Christmas and Thanksgiving cards to give to the Red Cross for the soldiers serving abroad.

We had lunch at the park and then headed back to the auditorium for the closing ceremonies. In the months leading up to this conference we all learned some songs so we could sing them here to each other. Every two stakes combined and sang a song, and then the entire conference learned a second song that we all sang together. It was neat to hear so many voices combining and singing those beautiful songs about Christ and being strong and pure.

I'm excited for future events like this. One of the stake presidents told me he thought they would probably be doing this about every other year now. It was a great success and I know the kids had a lot of good experiences. I hope I still get to serve with the youth when we move!

Girl's Camp!

2010-08-10T06:53:00.000-07:00

Turtle on a Stick! Turtle on a Stick!

We're having oranges! We never used to....until Katelyn, came to our camp!

The orange letter "T" stands for the Terre View Family! We're Pullman! Ya ya ya, Pullman Girls! Ya ya ya, Girls Camp! We have three cabins--try all three!

This is just a small sample of the things you might hear if you spent a little time at girl's camp with me. We had a really good group of girls this year: Great YCL's that led their girls and great girls that had fun doing what they were supposed to. I also had fun being with our ward's leaders and sharing the cabin with the another leader who is one of my good friends. We all got along so well! (Sorry--the picture didn't focus right.)

That's Brother Dangerfield being dubbed a turtle for Girl's Camp. The theme was, "Inside Out" and our mascot was a turtle, so the men all had to wear turtle costumes. That consisted of a large basket that was worn like a backpack with straps, and a green circle of fabric over their necks. Every morning and evening our Sunshine Lady would bring out Turtle on a Stick and we would cheer for our mascot.

Camp is fun because you can have people do your hair and everybody wears flowers or bandannas and fun things in their hair. My friend, Heather, did my hair almost everyday as well as several others in our ward. I love the French twist! I just can't figure out how to do it on my own hair.

For part of certification, the girls have to demonstrate that they can do first aide for different kinds of injuries. The leaders got to put on make-up and pretend to have certain problems like heat stroke, broken bones, snake bites, etc. That was really fun. The girls all did a good job and they even carried me across the field with the new hold they learned.

Here's a few camp skit pictures. The skit by the stake leaders was really funny. And the poor men who were there as Priesthood leaders put up with a lot. They were so cute wearing their turtle costumes and going along with all the silliness of Girl's Camp.

(Kim is such a funny girl. She's actually pretty girly, but for this skit she dressed up like a guy and it was so hilarious. We all laughed so much when she made her entrance.)

Here's a few pictures from the big activity. The girls were blindfolded and then led through this obstacle course that was designed to make them feel like they were crawling through caves and caverns and on the edge of a cliff...etc. It was fun to be a part of as a leader and get to watch them all working together to get through it. At the very end, they were led to a cabin with soft music and pictures of Christ, and there was a quote on a large poster on the wall, "I once was blind, but now I see." When everybody got there, they had a devotional about Christ. It was a neat activity.

This is from our hike. The teenage girl is one of my old Mia Maids that moved up to the next class. It was fun walking and talking with her on the hike--she reminds me so much of my old friend Whitney. I kept forgetting that I'm not 16 anymore when I was hanging out with her and her friends.

These pictures are from the "Spiritual Spa." We all sat on blankets on the grass and did "spa things" (like special scrubs for our hands and feet, and a face mask) while a lady with a soft voice talked about our inner and outer beauty, using quotes from scriptures and prophets. It was so relaxing and nice. The soft music in the background was nice but not so loud that we couldn't still hear the birds chirping in the trees around us.

I loved being at Camp Wooten. It was so pretty, and I had a good time with my girls. In fact, I think this was my best year of camp so far! I'm really going to miss my girls and the leaders when we move away from Pullman!

California Trip (Day 8)

2010-08-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

Saturday was our last day in California. We were going to have a big party at Grandma's to celebrate Lizzy's birthday with all the family and good number of friends too. (I took that picture just as Dan looked up. I was trying to get candid action pictures.)

In the morning we took our rental car back and got some party supplies. Greg's uncle had a large blow-up slide delivered to Grandma's back yard for the kids to play on. It was a water slide with small sprays of water at the top to keep the slide wet. I think the kids had a lot of fun playing on that. There was a little pool of water at the bottom of the slide to help cushion their landing.

Grandma was hard at work, decorating Lizzy's cake. I thought it was so cute to see all the little girls gathered around her while she was working. She was explaining how to do those fancy things on the cake while they watched.

I think the cake turned out really cute.

Lizzy liked her cake too.

They made the regular birthday cake for the adults to have and then they made cupcakes for all the kids to have. The kids all got to decorate their own cupcakes. They seemed to be having fun, and I thought it was a good idea too.

Through out the party I was torn between spending time with the family and trying to get packed up to go. We had to leave for the airport around 5pm. We said our goodbyes and then Carol drove us to the airport. We got home around 2:30am on Sunday. Greg and I both had lessons to teach at church, but it was ok because our church starts in the afternoon. After church I unpacked my things and then started packing again for Girl's Camp on Monday!

California Trip (Day 6 and 7)

2010-08-03T20:23:00.000-07:00

The Beach!

This is the day we planned to go to the beach all day, and several of Greg's relatives met up with us there. We went to Corona del Mar. It was so crowded! (That picture does not accurately represent the millions of people that were there. I think I took it later in the day when everybody was migrating away from the beach for dinner.) I have decided that California beaches are very different from Ocean Shores--our Washington beach.

There were big waves that crashed close to shore, and everybody thought it was fun to swim around and jump in the waves. There was also a ton of seaweed. It was icky gross seaweed. If you stood at the edge of the water, you had lots of seaweed strings that washed up around your ankles and between your toes (Ahhh! Not between my toes!) and it was impossible to avoid because there was so much of it. If you stood out farther where the strings don't seem to be, you would get huge masses of fat seaweed wrapping around your legs and getting tangled up around you feet. That grossed me out a little, but it also was kind of scary to not be able to walk or take a step when I wanted to, because that was right where the waves broke and the water really pushed you around. (Yeah, I probably sound like a wimp. Oh well.)

So, overall, I didn't have a lot of fun in the water because it was so strange and new to me. I pushed myself and spent some time getting used to it, and I can imagine if I had more time or if I had grown up playing at those beaches I could have learned to enjoy it more. Greg had a really good time playing in the water. He just ran right out to the water and dove into the waves.

I liked sitting at the water's edge and playing in the sand. It's been years since I've done that. Greg bought me a bucket and a shovel for a surprise on the way to the beach. I used it to dig a big deep hole that filled with water. Even though there were lots of people running around and kids screaming in the water, it was kind of peaceful to just sit in the wet sand and watch Greg play in the waves. I think he was a fish in another life.

We went to the beach the next day with just the two of us and Greg's Aunt Carol. It was nice to spend more time with her because she had been out of town for the first part of the week. She's fun and nice, and just like Greg she always cracks me up.

Before we met up with Carol, we went to the tide pools nearby. It's like a separate little beach with lots of rock where you can find little sea creatures in the shallow water.

That was one of my favorite parts of the beach--it reminded me of playing at Lion's Field in Bremerton.

Yes, advertising is even at the beach. There were two or three different messages that floated through the sky at the beach that day.

In the evening we met up with Grandma again at Chrissy's karate lesson. She was practicing with her tufas.

After Karate, we all headed back to Grandma's to play cards and make s'mores in the backyard. I love playing cards with Greg's family!

PS. This is my souvenir from the beach. The sand was so hot that I burned/blistered my feet by taking about 3 steps off my towel, so I kept my sandals on the whole time.

California Trip (Day 5)

2010-07-31T11:57:00.000-07:00

This is the day you've all been waiting for! Disney Land!

Greg's uncle works at Disney Land, so he was able to sign us in (we got in for free) for the day. We got up early so we could be there right when they opened. Several of Greg's relatives do or have worked at Disney Land at some point, (including Greg) so we were able to plan ahead for fun things to do there. I was telling my Mom on the phone, "They all gave input as to what rides would be fun for somebody who doesn't like rides." Haha. I don't like roller coasters or crazy rides that are designed to make you scared or sick...I really can't understand why that would be fun. So we did a lot of things like the Snow White ride or went to see shows. I really enjoyed the one-on-one time with Greg. We went with just the two of us, so it was like a date.

Another thing I enjoyed was the canoe ride. We all had to paddle and that was fun. We followed the big boat in that picture, and our guide was funny. Greg had fun bantering with her and making jokes.

This is a classic "Greg Picture."

We went to Toon Town for a little bit to say we went.

I went up to the door and knocked on it. A minute later Goofy came out of the door and walked past me. He didn't even stop to say hi. So I knocked on the door again to see if another character would come out, but nobody did. I think I just happened to knock at the time he was coming out anyway.

I took this picture because I thought it looked so funny. Greg was just looking up into that big tube. We hadn't seen it do anything, but the ground under the tube was wet with puddles, so it seemed like a bad idea to stand under it like that. Hahaha!

Later we saw that a heavy mist sprays down from the tube--instead of a rushing waterfall....so Greg would have been ok.

We waited in the middle of the day for the parade to come. I was really excited because I remembered it as an awesome and magical thing when I saw it as a kid. There were huge fake animals and people on really tall stilts...I think it was the Lion King Parade that we saw. So we waited for about 40 minutes in the hot sun so we could get a good place on the sidewalk to see the parade. Crowds were gathering and they'd announce the parade every 15 minutes or so--let us know that it's coming. Finally the big moment came! The parade started down the street and then stopped. College age kids were dancing around in the street with disney characters and trying to get us to dance too. It was kind of fun to watch the "Street Party" but I kept waiting for the actual parade to come. They kept singing and shouting, "We're celebrating YOU!" And then it was over.

I have to say, that was pretty disappointing. If I knew the amazing Disney Land Parade had been warped into a "Street Party" to celebrate me, I wouldn't have gone. It might be cool if you're a little kid...

After the parade we were so hot and tired. We decided to go back to the Golden Horseshoe for ice cream and their little show. We got a big cup of ice cream and shared it. It was so wonderful to eat cold refreshing ice cream after drenching our clothes in sweat in the hot sun.

At lunch time we went to The Hungry Bear Cafe where Greg worked in his teenage years. It was fun to imagine him as a teenager running food and working behind the counter. We found this nice walkway to sit and rest. It was away from the noise and crowds of people. Then I saw a cat. It looked like a weird freaky cat from a scary movie, and it was kind of fun to watch. There were three cats in the area that we watched for awhile before we moved on. Greg said they used to have a problem with mice in the park because of all the food and garbage, so they brought a bunch of cats in to catch the mice. Now there are lots of feral cats running around Disney Land and no more mice problems!

Guess who I ran into! The sax guy from the Art Festival! I heard them announce that he also worked for Disney Land, so I was kind of keeping an eye out for him. I saw him playing with the band and he remembered me, so we got a picture!

(Look familiar?)

At the end of the night we saw a few shows that were really neat. While we were waiting for World of Color, they had some characters come out to entertain us and lead us in a singing contest.

World of Color is the most amazing show. I stood open-mouthed the entire time. That show is new this year, so if you haven't seen it, you should plan to next time you're in Disney Land! You have to go first thing to get the fast pass in the morning. You go find the line (Yes, there was a 30 minute line and we were running into the park right when it opened!). The line was in the California Adventure park, which opens a little later than the Disney Land park. The fast pass gives you a chance to see the show, but even with that we were in the back of the crowd. It would have been awesome if I had a big bucket to stand on because it's hard to see over everybody's heads and cameras and kids-on-shoulders.

That's some artwork of what the show looks like. It's made up of water fountains that shoot water straight up or spray around. The water can appear to be different colors (lights shine from below to light up the water). They also had tons of lasers shooting through the water, as well as projectors that put images on the water. The other awesome feature of the show was great bursts of fire that appeared to come out of the water. We were standing pretty far away from it all, but the fire felt hot on my face!
We watched something like a movie on the water. It was just so amazing. They did a scene from Pocahontas that showed her canoeing on the water and going over a waterfall. It's so neat how they used the real water and other things to make that scene look so real! And of course there was music playing for the whole show.

After that show, we ran back to the Disney Land park to catch the Fantasmic show. There were so many people! We were pushing against a huge never-ending crowd of people who were trying to get out of the park, and then when we got close enough to see the other crowds that had gathered for the Fantasmic show, we decided to give up and take advantage of the rides instead. We went on the Pirates ride twice in a row without waiting in line. Greg thought the ride would spit us out at a good place, and when we got off the Pirates of the Caribbean ride we realized that we did get a perfect view of the Fantasmic show! We had only missed about 15 minutes, so we still got to see Captain Hook and Peter Pan sword fighting at the top of the big sail boat, and all the Princesses sailed by on the other boat. The evil lady from Snow White appeared on the island and made her brew that turned her into an ugly hag. Later we saw the evil lady from Sleeping Beauty, and she turned into the big fire breathing dragon. That was very cool.

After that show, we went to the Tiki Room and played around in the kid part of the park. The Peter Pan ride had a huge line, and so did Splash Mountain, so we skipped those. We caught the last train ride out of the park at about 12:30am. We got home around 1:45am and collapsed on our bed. We slept very well that night.

Flowers!

2010-07-29T12:36:00.001-07:00

....................................THEY GREW!!!..............................

California Trip (Day 4 )

2010-07-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

(I hope my long posts aren't boring for you. Mostly I'm using my blog as a journal for myself.)

We had planned to go to Disney Land on Tuesday, but we got home so late from the Art Festival that we decided to have Tuesday be a slow day to relax a little, and then go to Disney Land on Wednesday instead.

We had a lazy morning, and then for lunch we got Subway sandwiches for a picnic at the park with Grandma and Chrissy. It was a perfect day with beautiful weather and a breeze to keep us cool. We had our sandwiches and shared stories at a picnic table under some trees. Grandma told us about when she trained to be a lifeguard, and I talked about some things things I learned in school. I'm glad we could take time to just visit and enjoy each other's company.

In the evening, Greg went with Dan's family to play laser tag and get pizza for dinner. They had a fun time, and I'm sure Dan's kids slept well that night. I had planned to go too, but I was feeling a need for some quiet time to recharge. I'm not used to having so many events and things in such a short time. I was glad too that I stayed home because I was able to get a picture of Chrissy in her Karate clothes. She went to a Karate lesson that night and was pretty excited about it when they got home.

California Trip (Day 3)

2010-07-26T17:38:00.000-07:00

On Monday Greg and I went out for breakfast at a place called Panera Bread. We shared a cinnamon roll and some other breakfasty things that were pretty good. (Side note: Cinnamon Roll for breakfast = Holly very happy.)

Greg's Grandma had gotten tickets to the Laguna Beach Art Festival, so we all went together with Grandma, Chrissy, Bob, Dan and his little family.

It was fun to wander around and see all the different paintings and sometimes odd forms of art. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures of the art, so I'm not able to show you anything. One that caught our attention was the garbage cans...Yes, garbage cans that were bashed in with a large hole cut in the front, hanging on the wall. There were 3, so maybe that's symbolic or something. There was also a pitchfork stuck in each garbage can. I forgot to look at how much the artist was selling it for, but everything there was in the range of thousands of dollars. Yikes! There really were some beautiful things that I enjoyed looking at though. I especially loved the paintings of the ocean and beach, and other scenes of nature.

After looking at all the art we came upon a table of art supplies that was open for everybody to use. We all had fun painting and drawing with water color pencils.

There was also a live jazz band performing in the center of the festival. They were fun to listen to. It's not very often that you get to enjoy the music of a live band. There were various singers who joined the band for certain songs like the Chatenuga Train.

There was also a saxophone guy. He had a collection of rare and unusual saxophones. (I'm sitting in front of the case for the 6 1/2 foot sax.)

The first one was designed to sound like a french horn. It was made in 1928. The story goes that too many kids at school wanted to play the saxophone, so they made a saxophone that sounded like a french horn and you could then play the french horn part for the band. It never caught on though, and they stopped production in 1929. It was so bad that the guys in the factory would toss the instruments out the window of the 3rd floor and let the repair guys on the first floor gather them up. They would practice repairing those dented or broken saxophones because there was nothing better to do. There are only about two dozen left in existence. I thought it sounded beautiful when he played though. It was a really smooth nice sound with a shadow of a saxophone tone mixed with the french horn sound.

The next one he played was a slider. It had a slider part on it like a trombone, and he used it to play the notes instead of buttons. He could slide the sound up or down and make the notes slur. That was interesting.

The third saxophone I think was the most impressive. It was HUGE! He came out carrying it up high on his shoulder so he could tip toe through the band up to the front. It is 6 1/2 feet tall! They only made 9 of these total. The sound is so big and deep, it sounds really cool. He had to set it up on a stool and then stand on his toes to reach the mouth piece.

The last saxophone I got to see was this cute little tiny one. It was only about a foot tall. We were leaving at the time he was taking it out of the case, so he let me hold it and took my picture for me. Unfortunately I wasn't able to hear it, so it will always be a mystery about how it sounded. He told me it was very high pitched--higher than a normal soprano sax.

After the Art Festival we all headed down to the beach. It was nice to go see the water and run around in the sand with Greg and the kids.

Greg thought it would be funny to tease the seagulls with a pretzel, so he held it up high and then would pull it away before the birds could get it. (It gave me a flashback from Seattle and the birds at Ivar's. Greg teased those birds for about a half hour, and some how he didn't get pooped on!) Again, magically, Greg did not get pooped on or pecked at, but we were all running for cover! Hahhaha!

We had dinner at a little restaurant on the water and then headed back home. It was fun hanging out with Greg's family and playing with Dan and Becky's kids. Lizzy especially enjoyed getting an extra long piggy-back ride for most of the way back up to the cars. She's a cute girl and I enjoyed her company that day.

Thanks Grandma for the fun day and getting our tickets to the Art Festival!

California Trip! (Day 1 and 2)

2010-07-26T08:26:00.000-07:00

We went to California and got to visit lots of Greg's family!

Greg's uncle Bob picked us up from the airport and took us back to his Grandma's house. We visited Grandma and Chrissy for about two hours, and then borrowed Bob's car to go to Huntington Beach where we met up with Uncle Tim. Greg was so excited to be at the beach. It was cloudy and getting late, but we still wanted to go play in the water a little. We played the game of chasing the wave and then running back up when it comes to get you, because we were trying to keep our clothes dry. Greg's shorts got a little wet on the edges, and then more wet, and then finally he just dove straight in to the next big wave that came! Luckily there are outdoor showers at that beach, so we were able to wash most of the sand and saltwater off before getting back into a car.

On the way to Tim's house we stopped and he treated us to some delicious hot chocolate at Starbucks. The best thing is to add hazelnut flavoring to your hot chocolate, and Greg likes adding caramel. We spent the night at Tim's house, and then we went to church with him in the morning. He teaches the Sunday school class at his church, so it was kind of fun to be in his class and see him teach.

He also made a wonderful Belgian waffle breakfast for us before church. After church we went out to lunch and had a really nice visit. I had only met Tim once about two years ago, so I was glad to spend a little more time with him and his family. His kids are close to my age, so we all got along very well.

On a side note, as Greg and I were sitting in the car in the parking lot, I noticed a dark cloud of something flying by. It looked like small leaves blowing in the wind, but there were a LOT of them, and they appeared to be flapping. As the cloud got closer we realized it was some kind of bug! I wasn't able to tell exactly what it was, and I was glad actually that they didn't come close enough for detail. The cloud kept moving on, and pretty soon it was a dark black mass on the other side of the parking lot. How strange! Any ideas of what those bugs might have been? There were probably thousands in that big swarm that passed by. Yuck!

After lunch we parted, and Greg and I headed to Aunt Patty's house. We played games and had a good visit there, and then we all went back to Grandma's house. Uncle Dan and his little family came too, so we had quite the party!

(Greg and I each found a friend to play with. Uncle Dan's kids are pretty cute. Lizzy and I became friends and Sean and Greg had fun building and playing together too.)

After dinner, a few of them worked together and made peach pie and peach crisp using the peaches from Grandma's tree in the yard.

We played cards until the peach desserts were done baking...it smelled so good! I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into the peach crisp, and it was as good as it smelled! Yum!

Here's a few pictures from Grandma's yard. Greg always says he thinks of his Grandma when he sees or smells roses. Maybe you can guess why....

There are also lots of citrus trees around: Tangerines, very LARGE lemons, grapefruit, as well as peach and I think nectarine? I could be wrong about that one.

Wild Flowers are Everywhere!

2010-07-23T19:19:00.000-07:00

...except in my garden where I planted them. I give up. I don't care anymore. It's over. I will just enjoy the beauty that nature has provided and not try to fight nature to make beauty exist in my garden.

Here is a large clump of cute daisies...

And behind the storage units and pretty much in any open field area are millions of these pretty purple flowers. They are even growing around the edge of my garden, but not IN the garden. But I'm not bitter. I'm just happy that there are so many beautiful flowers growing all around Pullman spontaneously. It's like the Garden of Eden.

Greg's new game

2010-07-20T19:12:00.000-07:00

I heard a strange sound outside, like a really big ball bouncing hard on the pavement. I went outside and found Greg playing with a new toy--his bike tire. It bounces really high!

Girl's Camp is coming up!

2010-07-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to go to Girl's Camp again this year. I wasn't able to go last summer because I couldn't afford to miss a week of my math class, but this summer I'm not in school. Our stake uses Camp Wooten for Girl's Camp. They have cabins and a kitchen/cafeteria, and bathrooms with showers. Some girls say that isn't really camping, but I think it's nice to have a shower and regular toilets to use. It is kind of lame that we can't have fire and cook our own food though.

We have 9 girls and 2 leaders in each cabin, and our ward was assigned a color this year. We are orange. (Two years ago everybody was assigned to be a kind of home...we were the "Beautimous Bungalos.") Today I got some orange shirts to wear, and I also found an orange jersey that I can put over other shirts during the week. I also got an orange sunflower clip that I can stick in my hair.

Our YCL's are planning to decorate the cabin in orange Hawaiian theme decor. It's fun to see how excited they get to be in charge and get things ready for camp. I have to say though, I think Girl's Camp is more fun as a leader. I'm planning to make a name tag for myself that clearly states my name, "Sister Kelley" and something like, "Adult Leader." It got really old two years ago when I kept getting in trouble for not being in the activity with the 4th years. The other people in the stake thought I was 15 I guess.

Hopefully I get some good pictures at Camp. I'll let you know how it goes!

Snow Fox

2010-07-16T11:38:00.000-07:00

I know it's summer time, but I thought this was fun to watch. Greg showed this to me a little while ago. It's amazing to think about the kind of senses this fox has to be able to hunt like that!

Good News!

2010-07-13T22:25:00.000-07:00

My good news is that I just cleaned the bathroom, and I will NEVER again clean this bathtub again! Yipee! It has had a crack in the bottom that is annoying and leaks water. While I'm gone at Girl's Camp the guys will come in and fix up our bathroom with new flooring and a new bathtub/shower. Isn't it great? Just in time for us to move out. (Well, we will get to enjoy the new bathroom stuff for about a month before we move on to a new place...that will probably have a crappy old bathtub. Hahaha!)

Happy Birthday Greg!

2010-07-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

Greg's birthday was on Wednesday. He has the coolest birthday I know: 7/7/77.

We had to poke a lot of holes in the cake to get all those candles in!

It was a lot of fire when they were all lit!

This is The Kelley Cake. You can do a search on my blog to get the recipe--I posted it a year ago I think. Also note, it's best to double the frosting so you have enough. It's delicious!

I got a new flashlight and play dough for Greg's birthday. We also went to see Toy Story 3 today in 3-D. That was a great movie. I was laughing out-loud for a good part of the movie.

I thought this was an artistic picture.

Again, this is Greg making me laugh. He's such a goofball.

Ha Ha, the balloon man died from a bite of cake! Death by chocolate! Hahaha!

After the movie, we went down to the river to roast kielbasa and float around in our raft.

We found some good roasting sticks and carved them. It's a tradition to find and carve your own roasting stick. We roasted marshmallows later after paddling in the raft.

The scenery is so pretty there. I love floating in the raft and just observing the beauty.

Greg tried his hand at spearing a fish with a 4-pointed spear he made. They were took quick though. We could see lots of big fish jumping all around, but they were able to evade his spear.

Alder Lake Camping Trip

2010-07-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

We went camping at Alder Lake for the week with Greg's family. Between good company and games, playing in the water and on the boat, and good meals, we stayed busy and had a really nice time. I'm so happy to have married into a great family. I enjoy spending time with them as much as my own family. It was especially nice to spend some quality time with Greg--uninterrupted by business calls or doorbells. =)

(That's our tent. We camped on the same site with Greg's cousins in their tent trailer.)

(That's Greg's parent's RV. They camped across the little road from us, and the rest of the family was on their site.)

(This is where David slept. He said it was very warm and comfortable, and he stayed perfectly dry through the day and night that it rained.)

Greg got a lot of good "brother" time with his family, and I spent a lot of time with Greg's girl cousins. They are a family of three girls (just like mine). I felt like they helped fulfill my need for girl/sister time that week.

One of the fun things we did was go on the boat and ride on the inner tubes. That was a lot of fun! It was entertaining to watch the girls because they held on and got bounced around and flipped a lot!

On a side note, we kept laughing about our meals through out the week because--just by coincidence--we planned the same meals (or very similar) all week that Greg's cousin's family planned! Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches on Monday, Hot dogs and chili on Tuesday, Foil dinners on Wednesday, and Mexican on Thursday.

On Monday night, just as we were finishing dinner, a friendly guy on a bike came to our campsite and started asking us questions about the little store that went out of business and how to get a camp site. He was a "serious" biker (bicycle--not motorcycle) and he was riding from Seattle to somewhere in Montana I think. He was on Day 2 and planned to be riding for almost a month! He was counting on the little store right outside the camp ground to provide food for his dinner and breakfast, but he didn't know that it had gone out of business a couple years ago. We invited him to share our dinner and I gave him an apple to take with him the next day. We also let him use the extra campsite Greg's parents had paid for (and we didn't need). He sat with us around our campfire that night while we made s'mores and talked. It was fun to hear about his plans and imagine myself going for a big ride like that some day. (Sorry, I didn't get a picture. I thought about it but felt funny asking him to get his picture.)

There's a swim beach on the lake that also has a field and toys for kids to play on.

I was playing with Ellie when I noticed Greg apparently sitting on the water.

I started laughing when I realized he was trying to paddle around on a log. He always cracks me up.

He also decided to ride his bike into the water to help wash off the bugs. Then he had sand in the brakes and his bike made some funny noises after that.

The beginning of the week was warm and sunny. When I went inner tubing with the girls we were able to enjoy a fair amount of sun with clouds scattered through the sky...but on Thursday we woke up to the sound of rain. It rained almost the whole day and night. I kept hoping it would blow over or clear up, but it just kept coming. I didn't mind too much except for the rain that soaked through our tent. I moved everything out of the tent and put our bed (air mattress) directly in the middle of the tent so it wouldn't get wet. In the afternoon, Greg's parents treated the family to a ride into town and some excellent ice cream! It was nice to go do something together with the family, and I will never turn down an offer for ice cream!
(Greg's cousin Johnny)

After dinner I heard some talk about people going down for a boat ride and to swim. I wasn't planning to go because I thought it was just a boy thing, but then Chris started asking if I was coming too. I thought it was a crazy idea, but since I was freezing cold anyway I figured I mind as well have fun too. It was just getting dark when Greg and I got down to the dock, and the rest of the "big kids" were already out on the boat skiing or knee boarding. They came back to pick us up, and then we went out to the middle of the lake and jumped in the water. Well, the boys jumped in and the girls "got ready" for a long time. I really really didn't want to get in...but once I did it wasn't so bad. I floated around on one of the inner tubes for awhile and then floated around in my life jacket after that. It was overcast and raining, so we didn't get a lot of moon or star-light. We could see by the lights from the boat. The boys tied two inner tubes together and started playing King of the inner tube. It was fun to watch them fight and knock each other off. David's girlfriend was brave and joined the game, but I was happy just floating in my life jacket. When everybody was sufficiently cold, Chris, Greg and I all got on inner tubes and let the boat pull us back to the dock. The boys all stayed to tie up the boat and put the cover on while the other two girls and I ran back to camp for hot showers! It was cold, but we had fun that night.

This is the trail Mom walked on with me last time. The level of the water was so high this year that the trail was all flooded! It was odd to think that we walked along it and there was space from the edge of the trail to the water last time.

You can get a feel for how high the water was in this picture too. Usually that ramp down to the water actually goes down. It was perfectly flat this time.

On the last day we packed up camp and got ready to go. Everybody else headed home, but Greg and his brothers stayed so they could take the boat up the river that feeds the lake and leave it there while they hiked around and "survived." As Chris was about to get on the boat, his truck keys fell out of his pocked and into the water near the dock. It was a tragedy really. David volunteered to drive partway home and meet their dad--who was driving towards us with another set of keys. While David set off, Chris and Greg decided it was worth a try to see if the park maintenance guys might have a really big magnet. It turns out they did! Apparently the loss of keys in the lake is fairly common. So we headed back to the dock with our magnet, doubtful but hopeful. The boys tied the magnet to a ski rope and put it in the water near the edge of the dock where Chris had been standing. It was a long way down (about 35 feet) so we sat in silence as they fed the rope down. The magnet hit the bottom. Chris moved it around a little and then carefully began pulling the rope up again. He had to be very careful, just in case by a miracle the keys were stuck to the magnet--he didn't want to lose them again. Then the moment came. We could see the yellow magnet nearing the surface of the water! Chris pulled it out and Greg looked under it crying, "You've got to be kidding me!" There were the keys, dangling from the bottom of the magnet.
Chris called his Dad and David and told them about the recovery of his keys. Then we went out on the boat to play while we waited for David's return. The story was so good that we decided to re-enact it to get pictures when David came back.

Christopher treated us to pizza after because it was getting close to dinner time, but I felt like we were celebrating the miracle of finding his keys.

Wild Flowers?

2010-06-30T18:38:00.000-07:00

Well, it's hard to tell now what exactly is growing out in my garden. It looks like more weeds than flowers...but then again, aren't wild flowers basically weeds that look pretty in bloom? Hmmm, I guess we will have to wait a bit longer for the beautiful rainbow of color that's supposed to be out there.

I just hope it doesn't all turn out to look like this. I had to spend a few hours pulling all of these kinds of weeds already...

Plant Book!

2010-06-26T14:05:00.000-07:00

I have started a huge but satisfying project! I am going through my plant lists from the last year and picking my favorite plants to collect. For instance, I have collected all the Maples and Viburnums that I learned in the first semester.

I am pressing the leaves I collect so they can be preserved. When I finished collecting and pressing all the plants, I will begin making The Book!

Each page will have a few pressed leaves--showing the front and back of each leaf. I will type up a little paragraph for each plant that gives the scientific, family, and common names of the plant along with important features that are used to correctly identify the plant.

I will put those pages in plastic page protectors and put them in a large binder. I plan to continue collecting plants later in the year so I can hopefully make pages of the same plants with their beautiful fall color.

It will be fun for me to look through the book later to remember and brush up on the things I learned, as well as to teach my kids! And if you come over to visit I'm sure will get to see it too!

Foil Pita Pizza!

2010-06-25T09:50:00.000-07:00

For this week's activity my class of girls met at the park and made Pita Pizzas for dinner. We aren't able to have fire at the place we have Girl's Camp, so we had to take care of our cooking certification before we go to Girl's Camp. It was a fun activity and very simple to put together. I am looking forward to making these again with my family sometime.

Pita pocket bread
Pizza sauce
Pepperoni slices, ham, etc...
Mozzarella cheese
Olives
Heavy duty aluminum foil

1. Open pita pocket and spread about 1 tablespoon of sauce inside.

2. Fill pocket with meat, cheese, and whatever else you like.

3. Wrap in foil and seal well. (You may want to spray the foil with Pam first to help it not stick.) Set on coals (or camp stove) for 3-5 minutes per side.

4. Open foil and enjoy your dinner!

(Sorry, this is not my picture...I forgot the camera so I found a picture online.)

More Goodies!

2010-06-23T18:22:00.000-07:00

I tried some more recipes from the fabulous Sister's Blog. And I found another blog with good recipes too!

Click on the links and they will take you to the recipe on the original blog.

Magic in the Middle Cookies

That picture makes the middle look kind of yellow or green, but it's really just the peanut butter middle and it doesn't look that color in real life. These are a delicious variation of peanut butter cookies. They take a little extra time since you have to roll a ball of peanut butter dough and then roll a ball of chocolate dough to put around it. It would probably be a fun activity for kids, and they are well worth the effort!

Double Chocolate M&M Cookies

These cookies are delicious also. The dough is more like brownie badder, and the cookies kind of flatten out a lot when they bake. I was thinking of playing with the recipe a little so they don't get so flat...maybe take out some of the butter. It's fun to save some extra M&M's to put on top of the cookies before you stick them in the oven. That makes them look pretty after they bake. Oh, and the recipe says to melt chocolate in the microwave, but I thought it was easier to just use chocolate chips and melt them with the butter in a pan on the stove.

Greg Graduated!

2010-06-20T20:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry, this is way over-due. It seemed to all happen so quickly and then we were off to La Grande and Gig Harbor to celebrate in the following weeks.

Greg graduated from WSU on May 8th as a Mechanical Engineer. My parents, Greg parents, and his brother, Michael, came for the occasion. It was fun to have family here with us for the big day!

It was quite a production!

That's Greg on the big screen when he received his diploma.

Greg sewed robot parts on his cap. They symbolize the hours and hours spent designing and building robots at WSU. (That is part of "The Claw" from last year.)

After the ceremony we all went to the engineering building so Greg could show us around and say goodbye to the place that was practically his home for the past 3 1/2 years.

Greg is posing in front of one of the many posters he made for the ASME club. He served as president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, and industry relations officer.

Here's Greg sitting at the Presidential desk in the ASME office. That was a neat and exciting time, but I'm glad it's over. It's nice to have Greg home at dinner time and be able to spend time together. I missed him a lot during the last two years of school.

We made it! Now we have to work on getting me to graduation too!

The big question is when and where Greg will get a job. He has applied to a number of companies in WA, CA, and Utah. Wish us luck and say a prayer for Greg to get a good job soon! (...and hopefully we live next to a good school so I can finish too!)

Birthday Sweater

2010-06-20T19:45:00.001-07:00

I felt like a ballerina for some reason in this outfit. Anyway, this is the nice sweater I got from my Mom for my birthday.

I discovered this combination of clothes last night when I was trying to come up with something to wear to church. It seems that I always wear the same blue dress or khaki skirt. My friend thought I got a new black dress, but it's actually just my old black skirt with a black shirt that is kind of stretchy, so it was nice to have the white sweater with it.
Thank you again Mom!

Family Pictures

2010-06-17T14:18:00.000-07:00

I went to visit Summer for the weekend and she took some pictures for us. It's kind of strange but we haven't gotten any nice pictures of our little family since our wedding pictures 3 1/2 years ago.

Greg doesn't like taking pictures, so it took an extra long time, but I think we got some good ones in the end. This one is my favorite.

Summer is going to play with them in photoshop and fix them up to look professional. (So you won't see that I'm wearing pajama pants or that Greg is sitting on our red ice chest in some pictures.)

Thank you Summer!

The Best Buttermilk Biscuits!

2010-06-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

Yes, another from the Sister's Blog. (Pink Blinking box on my sidebar)
These are wonderful warm out of the oven, and they are even good the next day cold! Greg put honey between the layers of this one. They are heavenly with butter and honey!

Deliciously Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits

2 cups all-purpose flour (9 ounces)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup fat-free buttermilk
3 tablespoons honey

1. Preheat oven to 400°.
2. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl; cut in butter with a pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse meal. Chill 10 minutes.
3. Combine buttermilk and honey, stirring with a whisk until well blended. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture; stir just until moist.
4. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; knead lightly 4 times. Roll dough into a (1/2-inch-thick) 9 x 5–inch rectangle; dust top of dough with flour. Fold dough crosswise into thirds (as if folding a piece of paper to fit into an envelope). Reroll dough into a (1/2-inch-thick) 9 x 5–inch rectangle; dust top of dough with flour. Fold dough crosswise into thirds; gently roll or pat to a 3/4-inch thickness. Cut dough with a 1 3/4-inch biscuit cutter to form 14 dough rounds. Place dough rounds, 1 inch apart, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 400° for 12 minutes or until golden. Remove from pan; cool 2 minutes on wire racks. Serve warm.

It's time to Garden!

2010-05-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

Hello, I'm sure you remember my funny looking garden with the fire hydrant in the middle...

This year we will be moving at the end of August, so I decided not to do a vegetable garden. Many tears were shed at the arrival of this decision...well, not really, but I kind of felt like crying.

Instead, I will be planting wild flowers. I spent the last few days weeding the garden and preparing the soil. Yesterday I sprinkled the wild flower seeds all over the garden and that was kind of fun. I really hope they grow! You have to water them for the first bit until they get established, and then they don't require very much work at all.

I'm hoping that will add some color and beauty to this ugly place. The flowers are supposed to keep coming back every year, so if the next person doesn't want to work in the garden it should still look nice without having to do much or any work.

I'll post more pictures if my flowers grow!

Sisters Cafe--Easy Chocolate Cookies!

2010-05-06T13:15:00.000-07:00

Yet another fabulous recipe I found on the Sister's Cafe Blog~ (Here's the link to their post.)

It's super easy and really quick! I didn't have Devil's Food Cake so I used a Triple Chocolate Cake mix instead. (It has tiny chocolate chips in the mix...I think that's better than just plain chocolate.)

Fudge Crinkles

1 box Devils Food cake mix
2 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together first 3 ingredients. Dust hands with powdered sugar then roll dough into 1 inch balls. Roll in powdered sugar and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes. Don't overbake! They should puff up during baking and flatten with cooling.

Sisters Cafe

2010-04-28T20:44:00.000-07:00

I just have to share this blog with you. There is a link to it on my sidebar too--it's a bright pink box with flashing words. I have made a handful of their recipes now and they all turned out really good. I was going to post some recipes, but I think you should just check out their blog for yourself and try them too! Recently I made the "Grandma's Dinner Rolls,"...

...and Reece's Chewy Chocolate Cookies.

I made the chocolate cookies for my girls at church (Sunday lesson) and they passed the cookie container around three times, and then asked for more at the end of class. (Yes, I brought a lot that day.) I made the dinner rolls for a special Mother/Daughter dinner we had tonight for mutual, and after the dinner was put away the girls kept sneaking rolls out of the bowl to snack on during the other activities. So it passed the teenage girl test! I'm sure you'll find some things on their blog that your family will love!

PS. The picture of the dinner rolls is not good. She said on the blog that she baked them too long. Mine were a lot lighter in color and were very good. However, the pan of rolls that I forgot about in the oven wasn't so great. I wouldn't recommend baking them for 45 minutes....it's not pretty.

My new favorite dinner

2010-04-25T17:50:00.000-07:00

I made this for dinner last night. It's steamed fresh broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower. I put it over a little bit of rice and grated cheddar cheese over the top. Yum!

I'd say I made a comeback, wouldn't you?

2010-04-20T21:37:00.000-07:00

I got my test back today. This is what an electron pushing problem is supposed to look like. (Those red check marks mean I did it right on that spot. The score is 11/11.)

It really is an odd sort of miracle...I got full credit on the electron pushing portion of my test. This problem was a bit more simple than our quiz problems. Let's hope I can do that again on the final now...and that will be the last time I ever do it again!

Quickie Birthday Post~

2010-04-18T23:08:00.000-07:00

I'm just doing a quick post since we got home late from Summer's and I gotta get ready for school tomorrow...

This is a basket my sister sent with some of the things I got for my birthday. She made up the basket really cute with fun girly things in it. I was just organizing the things I got from different people all in the basket and then thought I should put a picture on my blog. Most of it is from Wendy, and then other things are like those cards from my mom or the big candy bar from a friend at church. Thank you!

Also, I wanted to include this picture to show what happens if you drop something off.

My visiting teacher was very thoughtful and left this for me on my doorstep with a gift bag of lotion and shower gel. I'm amazed it was all still there when we got home! (I don't think she knew we were going out of town for the weekend.) Anyway, I just want to let people know that it's not usually safe to leave nice things for us on our doorstep because we have everybody in town who wants a storage unit ringing our doorbell every day...or the people who have a unit already come visit their unit too. I would feel bad if somebody left something for us and it was stolen.

Thank you for all the nice birthday gifts and cards and well-wishes! I'll make a better post next time~

Happy Birthday

2010-04-15T17:31:00.000-07:00

It's my birthday tomorrow. I can't be excited yet because I have a chemistry test tonight at 8:30pm. I'm supposed to be thinking about the citric cycle and the structure of glucose, but all I can think about is tomorrow and my plans to visit Summer. I like school, but I'm also looking forward to the days when I don't have to make myself sit still all day and study.

Since blog posts are no fun without pictures, here is a lovely picture of the back of my last quiz in chemistry. (I didn't want to show the front with my Student ID number. Somebody might steal it and do who knows what.)

(I used the red and black pen...all those purple marks are from the teacher...)

I've actually been doing very well on my quizzes this semester (96% average), but this quiz was awful. For some reason, my teacher has had it in his head that we all know what electron pushing is and how to do it. He believes we learned it in a previous course. The fact is, all the students who have taken 101, 105, and 106 have never seen electron pushing before. (This is Chem 102.) If you don't know what it is, you can study my quiz a little or look it up online. It's very complicated, and since it is like a puzzle--you just figure out each problem case by case, it's almost impossible to teach...and even harder to learn.....Especially when your teacher is in love with chemistry and thinks it's great and thinks we love it and know as much as he does.

He finally gave in last week and had our T.A.'s in lab spend two hours teaching us how to do it. Then we took that quiz. We were able to use all our notes from the previous two hours. I spent 45 minutes working on that quiz, and I got a zero. My T.A. said that out of the whole class (about 300 students) nobody got better than 10/18. Lame. In my section, nobody got higher than 6/18. Wouldn't you think that would send a message to our teacher? On the last exam we had an electron pushing problem worth 10 points, and nobody in the class got better than 5/10.

Electron pushing is not in our book. We're just supposed to magically know it already. Fortunately, I know the rest of the material about disaccharides and the electron transport chain pretty well, since it is in the book.

...So wish me luck on my test tonight!

Elegant Easter Éclairs--On Second thought...

2010-04-05T21:15:00.001-07:00

If you decide to make these, they really are better with chocolate frosting on top. I used the leftovers for FHE tonight, so I made chocolate frosting so it would seem like something new. I made the frosting pretty dark by using a lot of coco powder and it turned out like the frosting on a donut. Delicious!

Oh, and they are best fresh. The second day they get kind of soft and moist...the container you keep them in will have water droplets inside, and that makes them not as good. (It's not supposed to be like a sponge.) Anyway, it says you can make them a day ahead, but I think I will just make them the day of the event.