Iron Chef???

Last night after dinner I was looking up recipes for sticky buns because we were given a bunch of pecans from Andrew's grandfather and that sounded like a yummy way to use them. Many of the recipes had mixed reviews and lots of them took much more time than I was willing to invest. Andrew kept saying he could just make them from scratch without a recipe, I was skeptical but he said if you add enough cinnamon and brown sugar you can't go wrong.

So while I kept looking up recipes Andrew headed into the kitchen to get started. He toasted the pecans and added flour and eggs and margarine. He kept narrating as if he were on a cooking show, "we'll just add another 1/4 cup of flour so we get that nice doughy consistency." After making a few suggestions and being assigned to make the glaze I was given the title of the "Trusty Assistant."

Andrew was so cute and so excited about making the treat, and I must admit except for the bread being a little thick Andrew's sticky bun creation was pretty tasty.

While cleaning up Andrew said he should be on Iron Chef, now I have never seen the show but I am pretty sure he has a little way to go before he is ready for that.

July Adventures!

For the 4th of July, well actually the 5th we made homemade ice cream. I hope the next recipe we try turns out way better though because I was not a fan of this one. Andrew made us yummy turkey clubs because his pregnant wife craves them quite frequently. I have to include the picture because he for some reason likes to document meals. He's cute!!

Hobo dinners, again with the documenting meals, he asked me to take this pic. They were way yummy though, he did a great job!

Andrew LOVES camping, he seriously gets so excited about any type of camping trip! Last month we headed way beyond the crowded Yankee Meadows to a little camping spot way up in the mountain. We planned to hike a little but it started raining way hard before we had the chance to get started, it was still great to be together and to see Andrew so happy!

Gross!

I know I shouldn't complain about free couches for my wonderful sister and her new husband but I think this is total proof that some people should not own pets... or furniture for that matter. Luckily the couches have been cleaned twice and smell a lot better. Someone owes us dinner!

Sick I know!!

June Fun

Lindsay and Carson's wedding!

Fun at Left Hand!

Tori and Adam's wedding!! For some reason Andrew took lots of video of Tori and Adam on the wedding day but no pictures of the couple.

Growing Family

For those that haven't heard our exciting news yet, we are expecting!!! The little one is should be arriving sometime around January 17th!!

Summer Rocks!!

Wow! This post is a long time coming... We had an awesome camping trip back in May and have been waiting on me (Andrew)to get the pics from Jake so we could post about it.

After a fun couple of days hanging out with Lilly we collected the traditional firewood and were off for Sand Hollow

along with Jake and Mindy Porter. We pulled onto the beach as the sun was setting and after starting the fire and making camp we took some cool pictures and then ate some tasty tin foil dinners prepared by Jake and Mindy (thanks guys!). Next day we ate some tasty breakfast that had a hint of burnt bacon flavor throughout,

played bocce ball and swam in the so-stinking-cold-you-not-only-go-numb-but-are-in-pain reservoir for a short while. Before long though the day grew hot and the sand burned our bare feet so we took off, vowing to return when the water was only uncomfortably cold.

After Sand Hollow we got to go on an AWESOME anniversary day date where we went to Gardner Village (of course we stopped by Sweet Afton's), went to the Hale Center Theatre to see the Three Musketeers, and ate dinner with Lara and Brian!

Since then we have had a pleasant mix of exciting and somewhat exciting experiences (loving every minute we're together). We had a lot of fun going to play with Nathan and Tonya and their sweet girls,

and loved going to Lindsay and Carson's WEDDING! We also got to enjoy the Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti Saturday night as well as the blessing of Kayla and Kendra yesterday. Hopefully we'll have more exciting news to post soon!

Summa Cum Laude

Congratulations Kelsey and Megan!

SUU's Most Beautiful Graduate
(the one with the metal on a blue ribon)

My beautiful bride graduated this weekend as Summa Cum Laude, and was chosen as "Outstanding History Student." We went to a special award ceremony where they said they had over six hundred students, and Megan was selected as being an outstanding student (because she ROCKS!). Her senior thesis was a hit, and her professor mentioned she showed an excellent ability to process information and displayed a strong understanding of the material she chose to study. It is easy for me to tell her she is great and smart, but hearing her instructors praise her work was a great experience for us both! Great Job Megan!

SUU's Largest Graduating Class ever!

Congrats Grad! We Love you!!

Graduation Weekend!

We sure love our graduate! We also had an AMAZING weekend visiting with Megan's family! Everyone came but Nathan and Tonya (get better soon you two!) and we had a blast! Everyone got here Thursday, and Friday everyone hung out and had a good time, and then we got to go cheer on Megan. After the graduation we went to Winger's, where we all got far too full and had lots of tasty dinner. We also got FOUR pieces of pie because we had two birthdays, a graduate, and a certificate for a free piece of pie! Happy birthday Jeremy and Marion!

The Rowdy Table

The Popcorn Lovers Table

Friday Night we stayed up way too late playing fun games, and watching a movie! After a little sleep Saturday morning we went to the graduation, and then we had fun and celebrated all day!

Bocce Ball was fun, even when the neighbor's dog ran off with the most important ball!

Next we did some shopping down in Saint George, picking up a sweet arm chair for $25 at the Down East tent sale, and having fun shopping at Kohl's and Tai Pan Tading Company! Next we had a picnic of pulled pork sandwiches and other delicious food items, and went on a hike at Red Cliffs (near Leeds). After that, we had some ice cream and went on the next leg of our adventure, Snow Canyon Park! We went down into the caves and had a great time fumbling around in the big dark rooms. On our way out we had some heads jarred by the lava rock ceiling, but no one was seriously injured. Finally we went to Wendy's for a final bit of nourishment, and then we all headed home and promptly went to sleep.

Red Cliffs hike has some beautiful vistas!

Above we see our "Spelunkers" having a go at Snow Canyon Caves

Sunday after church everyone had to leave pretty early, but we got to finish some delicious "Hamburgers."

Below we see the hard work that went into putting the mini burgers together, and we got to try out Marion's new Cupcake rack!

The "Burgers" really aren't hamburgers at all. For more info click here.

Family Tradition

After Christmas last year Andrew decided that we should start a tradition of burning our Christmas tree after the new year. At first I said no because I thought I would cry at the sight of my beloved Christmas tree being put to death by fire, be he prevailed and we took it out in January. The tree was still pretty wet so it smoked a lot but we roasted hot dogs and had a good time. This year we waited for the weather to warm up and brought along some friends, and we of course roasted hot dogs. If you wait three and a half months the tree is way dry and it goes up in flames fast. It was so fun and the whole time we were out everyone kept talking about how excited we all are to go camping this summer. Come quickly summer vacation!!

Hot Passionate Kisses

A friend told Andrew about this, I have no idea why they call them "hot passionate kisses" but they do. First you take a grasshopper cookie and you bite a little bit off of opposite sides like so.
Then you hold the cookie partly in your mouth and stick the other half in the hot chocolate.

Suck until the hot chocolate comes all the way through the cookie and into your mouth, then eat the cookie.

When Andrew told me about it I thought he was crazy, then we just happened to be having cocoa and toast for breakfast so he tried it, he said it was amazing so I gave in and tried it too. He was right it was AMAZING!! Go ahead try it!!!

Half Marathon!!

Andrew kept asking me why I didn't blog about the half marathon. I kept telling him that I didn't have pictures since he took my camera (and lets face it, pictures make a post more worth reading), and that Lindsay posted about it so I would just be repeating what she said, plus I don't think that many people read my blog so it didn't really matter if I posted. But I stole some pictures from Lindsay's camera and since this is a form of family journaling he finally convinced me to write about it.

On March 20th I ran a half marathon for the first time in my life! 13.1 Miles!! My two goals were 1. to not walk at all and 2. to finish in under 2 hours. The last five miles were way hard and I gave up on goal #2. Who cares about time at that point? I just wanted to finish! But when I went into my sprint for the finish I was pleasantly suprised to see that the timing clock said 1:57.17 as i crossed the finish line! Yay!! I did better than I thought I would. My chip time was 1:56.08. Right after I finished my mom asked me if I would do it again, I said I would have to forget how hard it was first. But it was a ton of fun and I think everyone should experience the starting line of a race with almost 4,000 runners, craziness.