Halloween time!

Every year Halloween kicks off my favorite time of year...Fall! It's the best! You just can't beat this time of year. I started having a Halloween party a couple years ago. My good friends and their families come over and we play games, carve pumpkins and eat tons of food. This year we kind of skipped all the games and such and just talked all night long. The kids went off and played outside until it was too cold then they moved down stairs. They looked like they had fun even without the games and carving so I'll call it a success by those standards. Annette, James and family where there, along with Rachel, Alex and Judy, Jessica and her darling little ones and Hailey, Clint and their little dude. Jessica had the best adult costume by far. She came as OctoMom and Hailey's little dude Max was the best costume overall with his Lord of the Rings' Hobbit costume! He was adorable! Annette made the best food dish. She made chicken noodle soup but the noodles were in the shape of worms and she added red food coloring to make the broth look bloody. It looked a little kind of nasty but tasted delicious! Way to go Net! Thanks everyone for coming over and making this year's Halloween party a blast! The Thursday before Halloween I and my parents caught a plane to Phoenix for my newest nieces blessing on Sunday, Nov 1st. We had a great time down there. My little nieces are just the cutest little girls! My brother Jason decorated the house all spooky for them and blew up balloons to play with. We started watching a movie later that night and Paisley was so transfixed that instead of walking over to the couch to sit down she grabbed the closest thing possible to sit on. That turned out to be a balloon and to all of our surprise it didn't pop when she sat on it. It was so cute to see her sitting on the balloon watching a movie that I couldn't resist taking a picture. For Halloween Aspen dressed up like a Mermaid and Paisley was a Fairy Princess. You had to make sure not to leave off the Princess part our you'd get in trouble for calling her just a Fairy. So cute. I got together with some friends I hadn't seen since before my mission and went out to lunch on Halloween. It was wonderful to catch up with everyone! I forgot my camera of all crazy things so I'll have to steal it from someones facebook account when they post it. Marlowe's blessing on Sunday was very nice. Joey got a little choked up at the end of it. He's such a softy! Teri used the same beautiful blessing dress her other daughters were blessed for Marlowe and she looked adorable of course. She doesn't quite know who I am so didn't really like it when I held her but I got a few pictures of her. Her hair is the absolute best how it sticks out all over! She is so stinking cute! My parents and I flew back to Utah this morning and I raced over to work. Another fun weekend but now it's back to business. Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!

Behold, the power of cheese!

Went to Melting Pot with my Mom and Dad the other day and it was delicious! For those not in the know, the Melting Pot is a fondue place in downtown SLC. It has tons of different types of fondue, some cheese, some chocolate and then there are some broth fondue's that you cook your meat in at your table. So cool. This was our chocolate desert. I'm drooling just looking at it. For our appetizers we had cheese fondue with veggies, bread and fruit to dip in it. I'd forgotten how cheese can make everything taste like heaven! I was grabbing anything I could get my hands on just to make sure I could dip SOMETHING in the cheese...a penny, breath mint, anything! I couldn't spoon that stuff into my mouth fast enough! While we were eating I couldn't help remember back to when I was a little kid. My parents were always trying to make us be healthy by torturing us with "green, leafy veggies". I despised them. Especially brussel sprouts, spinach and lima beans (I get that lima beans are technically a "bean" but they are so odious to the taste buds that I have always lumped them in this category. Plus, their green so it kind of works.) It never failed. Every night at dinner something green and leafy was placed on the table, and the war of wills would start! Michelle, was the brown nosing, oldest child and would take her heaping spoonful of glop with a smile on her face, and then pass it on to me. I'd hold onto the bowl for a few seconds and maybe stir the contents, so it looked like I was dishing it up, and then pass it right onto my brother Jason, without putting any on my plate! Jason, oddly enough like everything green, except for peas. Go figure. But I digress. So after fooling everyone with my trickery, I'd dive into the main dish or the mashed potatoes with relish, until the bowl would get to my father, then the jig was up. My dad would look at everyone's plates before dishing up his helping and would ultimately see something missing from my plate. "Zan, did you take some veggies?" he'd ask. I'd just sit their staring at him like I didn't understand what he was saying. Then he'd ask again. Now you couldn't lie or you'd get spanked, so I usually had to fess up at that time, and to reward my honesty, he'd dish me up a huge spoonful of whatever crap was being served. But that was only half the battle. He still had to get me to eat it and that's when the real war would start. The rule was you couldn't leave the table until you'd eaten everything on your plate. Normally I'd just give in and eat them but there were some nights I'd end up falling asleep at the table because I was so stubborn. Man, I was a brat, wasn't I? But this terrible behavior did have some reward. Every now and then, taking pity on us, dad would make a cheese sauce to pour over the greens so we'd eat them without complaint, and it worked. Ladies and Gentlemen, if a simple cheese sauce can get a brat like me to eat BRUSSEL SPROUTS without crying and whining, you know it must be the most powerful substance on the earth! The CIA should use it in their interrogations! Forget water boarding, just have have someone in the room eating something smothered in cheese and tell the insurgent that he can't have any until he spills the beans on his terrorist organization. They'd be amazed at how fast he starts talking. :) Mmmmm...cheese.

Girls night out.

This weekend was General Conference and while the fellas went to the Priesthood Session us girls got together and went shopping! Ton's of the local craft and home decorating shops have caught onto this event and have special sales just for the girls. This year we went to Ti Pan Trading Company and got some fun decorations than ran over to Gardner Village to check out their deals. Gardner Village is one of the cutest places to go. They have tons of little shops that they decorate for all the holidays. One of the funniest things I found in one of the toy shops were these Twilight Bella and Edward dolls! I can only imagine what type of crazy nutcase fan would want to buy those dolls. Sadly enough the sales lady said they had sold tons of them. Wow! Who knew! I guess they are kind of like Barbies and I did have a couple of those growing up, so maybe it's not that weird. But only if your under the age of 10! We took some fun pictures with the witches they had scattered around. We had a blast! Too bad Conference only comes along twice a year. :)

Last of Summer and Kick off of Fall!

So I've been a slacker and have neglected my blog these last few weeks. School is going well but is tough. I try to squeeze in as much studying as possible but still fail miserably at getting as much in as I'd like, but that's OK. B's get degrees right? :) My goal is to get an A on the last 5 Unit tests I have so we'll see how it goes. These first few pictures are from our Ward Camp out that was back in August. We had a great time there and had a pretty good turn out. It was in a little camp the church owns back in Midway, with a pond that has a zip line. The kids took turns riding the zip line across the lake but it always got stuck in the middle so they ended up getting to take a dunk in the lake. There was even a moose and her baby that paid us a visit, from a safe distance, thank heavens. They had canoes and we had some canoe races. It was a great spot. We had a potluck for dinner one night and ton's of ward members drove up just for that and the little program around the camp fire. I made my famous chicken and veggies in a butter cream sauce. Delicious! We roasted marshmallows and had Smores, the last of the season. Everyone had a great time. My awesome friend Kim turned 33 and her family threw her a fabulous birthday party at their house. Check out her cake!!! Burgers, swimming and ton's of fun! To top off the great day we even watched the BYU vs. Oklahoma game where the mighty Y beat Oklahoma!! Take that ya Sooners! I have to admit that win had visions of a National Championship dancing in my head. Those visions ended just a few weeks later when the Coogs met up with Florida St, but it was good while it lasted. Happy Birthday Kim! Love ya! Sept 10th was a day I look forward to every year. It's not exactly because of the date but because that is when the State Fair is here!!! I love the Fair. It's just plain luck that my office is within walking distance from the fair grounds so a friend and I have made a tradition over the past few years of going to the fair for lunch. It's the one time a year that I have to eat a giant corn dog, no exceptions and just about everything else there. This year I had the corn dog, half of a Phillie cheese steak sandwich and part of the strawberry smothered "Elephants ear" that Laurel got. I was in fair food heaven! There were some super cute bears at the fair this year that performed and so we sat and watched them play in the water and roam their cage. Kind of sad if you think about it too much it gave us a very rare opportunity to see one of these beautiful creatures up close and personal. I was about 5 feet away from that big guy when I was taking pictures. The fair never let's you down and this year was no exception. We checked out the pigs on the way back to work. Cute little piggies! I recently got called to be the 2nd counselor in the Stake Young Women's and our first big event was to put on a Standards Night for the youth. The topic was about dating and all the do's and don't they should follow. It turned out really well. The speakers had that perfect mix of seriousness and humor that helped the kids see how much fun dating can be when you stick to church guidelines. I think the kids got some great dating advice, me too for that matter! I should be a dating queen after this, right? :) My friend Annette came up with the decorations and I just had to take a picture of them. So talented Annette! She's the best! We served chocolate cake, plain and strawberry cheese cake and carrot cake with some punch at the end of the event. I ended up getting season tickets to BYU football this year and it's been fun going to the games. Well, the Florida St game was the most painful game I've ever sat through but the other's haven't been too bad. I took my niece to the Colorado St game and it was fun to sit and talk to her about all the fun things happening in her life. She turned 14 this year and is really looking forward to driving and dating in the future. I was trying to think about what I was doing when I was 14 and we had just moved to Phoenix. Wow, that was a long time ago. :) She is a really good kid, for the most part. I guess we'll keep her. :)

Bear Lake fun and New little niece in Phoenix

This weekend was probably the last weekend for some fun before school starts on the 26th so I had to really pack it in. Annette and her family and I went to Bear Lake for a couple of days and had a food extravaganza while we were at it. On the way there we stopped at LaBeau's in Logan and had the Mammoth burgerJame's brother in law had been talking about for a while and I'm glad we stopped. It was the biggest burger I've ever seen! It was seriously the size of your face and piled about 6" high with nothing but meat! Well, that's not true, they did through in the mandatory piece of lettus and a slice of tomato but the rest was meat heaven! There were honestly about 10 layers of the stuff! It had hamburger patties, slices of ham, pastrami, bacon and cheese, and there were two layers of everything! It's insane! Annette chickend out and got the chicken cordon bleu sandwich which looked really good, but me and James went for the mammoth! James finished his and was actually able to walk out to the restaurant under his own power instead of us needing to carry him out. I wimped out and only got through about 1/4 before I though I was going to explode, but it was well worth the tummy ache. Two thumbs up LaBeau's! We also went to Bear Lake Pizza for the Old Ephraim I'd told them about last year and dug in! It was as good as I remembered it! The crust seriously rocks! That's my favorite thing about pizza. Annette's showing you just how enormous this puppy is! It's crazy big but delicious. Bear Lake it's self was beautiful, the water was awesome and we had a really fun time playing in it. The trick is to stay in the water long enough that you get numb, then it really does feel good. :) We arrived in Bear Lake on Thursday night and I took off Friday night because I'd scored a really good deal on a flight to Phoenix for Saturday morning and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go down and see my new little niece Marlowe. She is just adorable, as expected, and I had fun seeing the rest of my family. Aspen is a crack up! We were eating dinner and we had corn on the cob. Joey asked someone to pass the margarine and Aspen said, "Do you know Spanish Dad?" We all cracked up over that one. Who knew margarine was a Spanish word? She also got mooned by a boy cousin and started fanning herself with her hand and said "Us princesses aren't used to that." She is seriously a crack up! Paisley, will go over to the couch, sit down and then pat her lap, thus signaling that she wants to hold Marlowe. It's so cute to see her do that! Man, I miss those little kids when I'm gone! Paisley and Aspen were a blast and boy do they love their new little sister! It's always hard to come home after visiting with them. I wish we lived closer together. I'll have to start working on them to move up here.

Coming up for a breather!

Wow, has this summer been busy! I feel like I've been going non stop since it began. Here are just a few more things that have happened this summer. I went to girls camp and was the assistant camp director to my fabulous camp director Rachel and we had a great time. Annette was the Stake Camp Director and she put together tons of fun activities! The crappy part is that I misplaced my camera after the hike so I only got pictures of the ski lodge at Snow Basin where we did our hike then nothing else. But this ski lodge is something else! It really didn't look like that impressive from the outside but the inside knocked my socks off! It was like a castle inside, with huge dining rooms with long tables and chandeliers. Enormous fireplaces and stuffed animals on the walls! It honestly was breathtaking. I will stay there before I die!!!! I will, I will, I will! But girls camp was really fun, harder than I had expected but still really fun. The best part was floating down the stream that ran right through our camp. That was a great day. After getting home and unpacking I felt like sleeping for a week and the next Sunday Rachel and I got to speak in Sacrament Meeting about all the fun we had. It was kind of funny because we both spoke, then all the young women came up on the stand and we sang the song we learned for camp and then I taught the lesson for young women's. I'm sure they were all pretty sick of me after that was all over. I was supposed to run a 10K on the 24th of July but didn't get to because I didn't get my race packet the day before the race. They didn't have packet pickup the morning of the race so I was out of luck. Actually it was probably a blessing in disguise because it probably would have killed me off. I really need to get in shape! But anyway, I was happy to settle on watching the parade later that morning. The parade was great and we got to see President Eyring , he was in the parade, and President Ukdorf, who was just sitting in the stand in front of us! We had a great time. We followed the parade up with our weird tradition of going to Crown Burger to get a burger, frys and the most delicious FrySauce you've ever eaten! Weird tradition, yes, but we love it, so take that. :) On the 25th of July we went to the Beez baseball game to watch my brother in law through out the first pitch of the game! It was awesome and, unlike the wimpy through of President Obama, Israel's pitch went all the way to home base. He did a great job! My big brother Jason came down for the 24th festivities and on the 28th was Stake Lagoon day, and since Jason hadn't been for over 20 years, we decided he was way past due! Jason dropped me off at work that day and came and picked me up at noon to head on over. We made the HUGE mistake of eating lunch right before going on the rides and ended up getting sick after the third ride we went on! We're pretty pathetic now with being able to ride the crazy rides. Sheeze, I used to love going on all the rides that flipped you around and spun you in circles, but now being older my head and stomach aren't quite up to the challenge. It stinks, but oh well, the train was fun. :) We really did have a fun time. We went on the Tidal Wave twice and scram our heads off, and went on the swings. There were tons of cute little kid rides that I hadn't seen before so hopefully when Joey, Teri and the kids come up in the next few years we can all go and have fun. The next day, my sister and her family along with Jason all went up to camp at the Spruces in big cottonwood canyon and did some fishing. I went up after work on Thursday and spent the night. The next morning we woke up early, ate a delicious breakfast of french toast and bacon, then went on a hike to Twin Lakes Reservoir. It was a pretty steep hike but the like was worth it! So beautiful and crystal clear. Jason and Chloe brought their fishing polls and they each caught a fish. They were very tiny fishiesthat they let go but it was still really fun catching them. This was Chloe's first time catching a fish and she was really excited. We rounded out this last few weeks of adventure with a birthday party for Chloe's 14th birthday on Saturday(her birthday is in May but she wanted a pool party so she waited until it was warmer) and another party for my mom's 65th birthday on Monday. My mom's so excited that she's old enough now to receive Medicare! You go Mom! My parents left this morning to spend a few weeks in Phoenix. My sister in law is due any day now with her third little girl. They are naming her Marlowe Mae and I just know she is going to be adorable! I can't wait until she gets here! I need to go shopping! :) Well that's what's been happening for the past few weeks. I'm tired just thinking about it. :) Next weekend is Bear Lake with school starting sometime around then. Then its the ward camp out, Isreal's birthday and the beginning of BYU's foot ball season! Go Coogs!

4th of July and Dog Lake

This 4th of July was pretty relaxing. My parents were up for the summer and my sister and her family came over for some food, fun and fireworks. We had a blast! I had a recipe for home made girl scout Samoa's that I made. Delicious!!!!! We played card games and lit the fireworks when it got dark. Good times. My dad even played cards and came out for fireworks, normally he doesn't do either so this was a really good 4th. Saturday we finally got back on track with our hiking and went up to Dog Lake in Little Cottonwood Canyon, around the 10 mile marker. It was one of the prettiest hikes I've ever been on. The flowers were all out in full splendor. Bluebells lined the stream, Queen Ann's lace was about as tall as my niece and then there were tons of wild roses, Indian Paintbrush's and even wild snapdragons! It was incredible! The beginning of the hike was pretty steep then it leveled out until the last .8 mile. When you get to that last .8 mile there's a little sign that points in the direction of the lake and you think, wow we are so close, maybe another 10-15 minutes and we'll be there. That's where it gets you. They fail to tell you that even thought that last little stretch of the hike isn't that far away, it's almost straight up!! Holy crap that was steep! It took us 40 minutes to finish that last part. Then you get to the top and you're so excited to see this brilliant, crystal clear lake and you get a stagnant puddle. Such a disappointment at the end but the trip there was outstanding. The lake was cute but that's about it. One other annoying thing is that at the beginning of the trail and right when you get to the lake there are big signs that say that this is a water shed area and that dogs are not allowed. So what do you think we saw when we got to the lake? About 10 dogs running through the lake playing. Now it's always cute to see dogs playing in the water, having a great time, but come on people! Can't you read the signs? Pick another place to go with your cute little pooches. I really don't want to turn on my faucet and have a big glass of water with your dog's doo doo in it. Honestly! I really do like dogs, and if I had one I'd take them hiking with me in a second, but we would pick places that they were allowed to go. And what's this aversion of not picking up after Rover after he's done doing his business and not having him on a leash when he should be? We were sitting by the lake enjoying the view, when a HUGE orange dog came over and almost ate us. Well, OK, maybe he didn't try to eat us and he was pretty cute, but I know he was eyeing my cheese stick pretty closely. :) It really was a great morning and we ended it at the Cottonwood Cafe for an egg white omelet and the biggest chocolate chip pancake I've ever seen! It took all three of us to polish that thing off. Can't wait for next Saturday.

Youth Confrence

Three days after I got home from San Diego, it was time for our 3 day youth conference. We had a blast! Thursday was the first night and we had a Dutch Oven Cook off with the boys against the girls. The boys made delicious rosemary chicken, cheesy potatoes with almost more bacon in them than potatoes and a to die for strawberry rhubarb cobbler. The girls went with a pulled pork in a bbq sauce that was melt in your mouth, buttery squash and yummy peach cobbler. The judges vote ended in a tie but we were all the winners because we got to eat all that good food! The next morning we met up early and went for a hike up to the granite quarry that they cut the granite for the Salt Lake Temple for, and picked up trash along the trail. We each picked up a little piece of granite to keep so we could have a little piece of the temple with us. After that was over we drive up to Alta Ski Lodge and had a picnic lunch and snow fight. James and Marc pollished off the pickle juice and James followed that with a shot of mustard. Boys are so weird. On the drive up to the Alta we saw a Moose on the side of the road just chomping away at some leaves. We hit the breaks and turned around. By the time we got back down the road he had gone back in to the woods a little more but I was able to kind of get a picture of him. He was very cute! That was the first Moose I've seen in Utah. It was great. We finished up the snow fight and went back to cool off with some water games at the church pavilion. While the others were playing the games I was off making ice cream for later that night when we put on an activity night for the older singles in our ward. The ice cream was fantastic, the games were fun and I think everyone had a great time. We ended Conference Saturday by going to the open house for the Oquirrh Temple followed by lunch at Ab's. With all the eating we did for this conference I think I gained 10 lbs! Not good! I'll have to double up on some runs to get it off, but it was sure fun putting it on.