girls nights

wednesdays & thursdays, miss 'Zosy' (as my nephew calls her) & i are home alone without dad to play with.

(and that's soon to change to tuesdays, wednesdays, thursdays, and fridays..... 

not happy about that, so we won't talk about it.) 

our nights often look like this.

 

but tonight, it's friday night. which means we'll get dad home. 

which makes us both very happy.

sunrise

i took a quick picture of the sunrise today. mostly, it was just a bright red/orange ball of light peeking over the mountain top.

i love our Utah mountains and moments like this to brighten my morning drives to work. 

happy wednesday.

rodeo & BBQ

only in West Bountiful do you have rodeo's for church ward parties.....

it was a new experience for Jae and i, and it was pretty fun :) we got to be on the committee to get it all planned. we held it on the adjoining properties of a couple families, and it was perfect! we realize more and more every day how we so do not fit in in this cowboy farm territory haha. luckily my whole family came so they helped us feel slightly less out of place.

besides the BBQ part, the activities included:
*chicken chase
*archery
*paintballing
*pig chase
*muttin bustin (no, i had no idea what this was at first)
*petting zoo
*horse riding
*dunk tank
*a shoot-out
*a rodeo clown

geez, is that enough? it was quite the party and there were TONS of people. and it was a blast!

the BBQers, Jae and Cody

the clown getting ready

sooo many people

chasing chickens!

chasing pigs

Elias liked to just look at the chickens

Hyde got in on the muttin bustin action. my picture taking was too slow.

Zack refused to smile.

little Hana girl hit all 3 targets with the paint ball gun. stand back!

that's what you get for being in the bishopric....dunked.

bear lake - mini reunion

i finally got the rest of the bear lake photos uploaded to my computer.

i'm calling it a mini reunion for two reasons:
1 - we were missing two family members.
2 - the entire trip lasted about 36 hours.

too short.
it was seriously perfect weather.
i could've stayed there for another week, at least.
now onto the pictures.

Grandpa was "watching tv" with the kids. River decided he needed a hat & pillow while "watching tv" ;)

Petrice came up for the day with her cute kids!

little Eli. how cute is he? and no, he's not really that little ;)

 

i have to make these next two extra big so you can see their faces....all 12 of the grandkids. so funny!

emphasis on the ears...

Liam randomly mooned us. it was SO.FUNNY. i couldn't get a picture quick enough - he had just pulled up his shorts.

and for my favorite picture from the trip..........

back to reality

hey there.
we spent the last couple of days at the Lake of Bears (as Jae calls it).
aka Bear Lake.

i've always loved that place, but when i'm up there, i remember just how much i really do love it.
we got home late last night, and today we're back at work.
i'm sleepy.

i'll share the fun pictures and events from the Lake of Bears soon.

what she said

{a year ago, today, we were here. oh, how lovely it was.}

"Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with with such things as ye have: for he [the Lord] hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5).

Torrie pretty much said everything that i've been thinking in my head on and off the last little while. i'm not great with words, but she is (clearly) so you should probably just head on over and read her post. and pretend i'm saying the same things.

k.go.

happy weekend loves.

this one time i tried to make simple brownies and messed it up

leave it to me....

i was mixing the ingredients, getting it all ready to pour into the pyrex, and thinking it was looking/feeling a little thick. i'm no brownie/baking/cooking/anything of the sort expert, so i just went with it. after i had poured about half of it out into the greased pan, i realized i hadn't added ONE of the THREE ingredients...

water.
lovely.
i mean, come on, there's only 3 ingredients!

well, at least i noticed something wasn't right...right?
i wasn't sure how well it'd work to add the water at that point or how well it'd work to put the batter back into the mixing bowl, with all the PAM mixed in with it now, so i just decided to continue pouring, bake it, and see what happened. i had another brownie mix so i'd make that (the right way) too.

at that point, i wasn't sure whether i should take this as a sign to bake/cook more often and try to improve my (lack of) skills, or if i should just stop trying altogether.

so here's how both looked when they came out of the oven.
can you tell the difference?
probably not just by the picture, but honestly, you couldn't really tell in person either.
at least, i didn't think so.
i took both to family dinner, and everyone tried some of both.
and you know what?
some even preferred my dehydrated brownies better!
so there ya go.

in case you ever happen to forget to add water to your brownies, know that they'll probably still turn out ok.