10-23-16

Aftershock

2 deer on campus

It’s been quite a week.  I have some perty good roommates and friends, that’s for sure.  I’ll share my top 5 favorite highlights:

1. Spending time with Drew, Cassie, Jen, Maddy, and the kids Thursday night for the Boise State game.  Wow, was it crazy!!!  ESPN said that BYU had the number 1 best play and the number 1 worse play all in one quarter.
2. My friend, Katie, and I went on a walk Thursday afternoon to the stadium farmer’s market.  It was perfect weather and the samples were delicious.
3. Friday evening, I watched Jen’s kids for a few hours.  They are quite energetic, but the highlight of the night was the Bean Museum.  Jaxon was so scared that the animals were going to come alive at night, so the whole time he nervously asked, “Can we leave?”  It was kind of cute J
4. I went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple with Kyra on Saturday afternoon.  We had poor communication and Kyra missed the session waiting for me in the waiting room instead of the chapel, but we took a walk afterwards and talk about our lives.  She is a sweet girl.
5. Saturday night, Katie and I carved pumpkins while watching “Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin.  I had such a cool carving with a ghost and 3d pumpkins on top, and I was telling Katie the whole time how I wanted to write BOO.  She didn’t tell me until after I carved the pumpkin that I wrote “BOB”.  Thanks for the dyslexia, Mom J  We also watched Star Trek. 

So… that was my week.  Live long and prosper.

10/8/16

Surgery Week

The happy weekend of babysitting quickly took a turn for the worse... surgery!  I hurt my groin/hip back in March while running a good amount on the treadmill.  At that time, it was difficult to even walk.  Throughout the summer, I have refrained from running to avoid the pain.  Recently I have began to jog again, only to feel that same nagging groin pain each time I finish running.  I finally folded to much pressure and went in to see the doctor.  MRI results showed that I had torn my labrum.  The labrum is the cartilage "lip" that holds the "ball" in the "socket."  The two options are surgery, or live with the pain.  I opted for the first option.

I reported for surgery at 9:30am.  Josh was nice enough to come with me, plus he likes the hospital settings so he can act like he knows what is happening.  I took a urine sample and then went up to the pre-surgery waiting bed.  I put on a nice gown and wrote "yes" on my right leg.  Instructions were given, and an IV was inserted.  I hate needles.  Then, we waited.  I began to become really antsy as we waited, so I paced around my bed, carrying my IV bag with me the entire time as Josh quizzed me on plant identification flash cards.  Finally at 12:30 or so, the anesthesiologist came in.  I received some "anti-anxiety medication" which wasn't meant to put me to sleep, but it did.

Ready for surgery

Going in

My surgery took an hour an a half, and I was soon out.  I was quite loopy upon coming out.  There was a man nurse that I kept on saying the "murse" and how I was glad he wasn't going to give me MRSA. :)  I was also quite itchy.  Josh made two videos of me in the hospital saying hi to Mom and Cassie, and I looked so sad!  My muscle was twitching so they had to give me more relaxer which made me sleep an extra hour and a half.  Josh was a trooper for staying with me :)  I was also VERY itchy EVERYWHERE on my body.

Upon exiting the hospital, we went to pick up my prescriptions at the drug store.  I was talking to the parents during this time.  I guess I was very happy to talk to them and very upset when Josh had to wait for my prescription and brought in Aspirin :) 

I spent the rest of the night at Drew and Cassie's house.  We didn't need to hire any entertainment, that's for sure.  I was the life of the party.

Josh brought me flowers :)

10/8/16

Babysitting Weekend

It's been quite a crazy week or so.  I was able to spend Friday and Saturday watching Drew's kids while He and Cassie competed in a Spartan Race at Tahoe.  Woot!  It was quite enjoyable playing with the kids and I was very pleasantly surprised with the happy attitude of Dieter THE ENTIRE TIME!!!  Bennett is getting very big, and Nolie was a great helper.  She also kept great notes the entire two sessions of General Conference on Saturday.  Go Nolie!!! Conrad was also busy playing with friends.  I was SOOOOOOOO happy to have Katy down helping me babysit.  She was so helpful!!!  

playing games with the kids

Our failure that turned into something okay was chocolate Zucchini bread.  We requested the recipe from Sister Marks because we LOVE her recipe.  She emailed Sam this recipe: 

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

½ cup butter

½ cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

½ cup sour milk (put a teaspoon or so of vinegar in the milk and stir)

2 cups peeled and shredded zucchini

½ cups flour

4 Tbsp. Cocoa powder

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

(Some people put in ½ tsp. cinnamon.)

Cream butter and oil and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat. Add dry ingredients alternately with milk. Mix in zucchini.

Makes 3 loaves or 2 large layers. Top with topping and bake 325 for 40-45 minutes.

Topping

¼ cup chocolate chips

¼ brown sugar

¼ cup chopped nuts

As you can see, the recipe appears like a standard recipe, but if you look closely, you see that there is no sugar mentioned in the recipe, and there is only 1/4 cup flour!!!  I should have trusted my food scientist intuition, but I figured that Linda has some secret up her sleeve to make such a good bread.  (I ended up adding a whole other cup of flour and a cup of sugar just to be safe.)

The results were a disaster.  There was no structure to the loaf, so the toppin ended up the foundation as it fell through the loaf.  We ended up making a homemade chocolate pudding and whipping some cream to make a layered chocolate trifle.  It turned out pretty good :)

P.S. Cassie also helped me patch my roommates pants.  Mom went through a whole skype lesson with me, but it's so much easier to pretend to sew with your finger than to actually do it with a sewing machine, just saying :)

9-11-12
Fun times

It's great to be back in Provo Utah.  I enjoy going to the temple every week too.  This is an awesome picture taken by Sam's friend Sarah Crooks.

Josh and I took a bike ride last Saturday before going camping.  It was a beautiful picture of the valley.

We spend the weekend in the middle of Utah forewheeling with Josh's family.  Tons of fun and great views.

Angels landing above Powell Point

Deflating the air mattress

We woke up at 1:30 in the morning to climb mount Timp with Josh, Kierra Clark (my favorite mission compantion), and her husband Sebastion.  It was a good 11 hour investment, but I had to do it before I or Josh graduated.  It was so fun to see Sister Clark again.  Tons of Mountain goats as well!!

I got my portrait taken for BYU grad school.  I chose the least worse of all the bads, but it's good enough for a new linked in profile pic.

The Gardens at Thanksgiving Point
August 30, 2016

Josh and I had a really fun date on Tuesday this week.  Thanksgiving point has these gardens that are absolutely beautiful, and if anyone knows how much I like flowers, I was in heaven.  Normally, the cost is $15 per person, but they do $2 Tuesday every Tuesday in August.  We made the last one.  Josh is so smart with his money, and we have a $50 date and eat out limit for each month.  We choose our outings carefully, and look for good deals :)

 Largest artificial waterfall in North America.  That may be a completely made up fact, but there's something big about this waterfall.

 The carousel gardens

 The Italian Gardens

 The Secret Gardens

 These fish were crazy!!! They completely attacked whenever food was dropped in.

What a beautiful night.  If anyone is around in August, I would recommend a trip to the gardens :)  Have a beautiful week!