Hello Camry

This is our new car. Well, not exactly. This is like our new car. Ours is black. We love it. Especially J.Paul, as it has been quite nippy the past few days and the heater works great in this car. I think J.Paul feels like he's driving a luxury vehicle, compared to the Taurus. And if we ever needed to, we could fit both the kids' car seats in the back. Oh, yes, we like it.

A few of my favorite things...

After thinking about that pink cookie, it got me to thinking about a few of my other favorite things. I mean food, of course, and we'll just start with snacks for now.

1. Chips. I love chips, especially tortilla chips. Doritos are really yummy. Also on my mission I had an affinity to lime flavor and still do. One of my companions and I (Monica, aka Hna Schmitt) always had a bag of lime tostitos in our car. And we wondered why we gained weight! But I have recently found some chips that are even better. Dare I say, the best chips ever. Introducing Kettle Chili Lime. Try some yourself and see what I mean. Extra crunchy and perfectly seasoned. I just finished off a bag with the help of my partner in crime, Amzie.

2. Ice cream. Hands down, best ice cream ever goes to Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby. The mere mention of this ice cream makes me weak in the knees. The only problem with this ice cream is that every once in a while they'll stop making it. Then a couple years later, I find it again. I don't know if they do this with all their flavors since I am not devoted to any other flavors, although I have recently found that the strawberry cheesecake is REALLY good.

3. Cookies. We're talking store bought cookies. My favorite is Almond Joy cookies. If you like coconut and you've never tried these, you're doing yourself a great disservice. These are awesome cookies.

4. One of my favorite snacks in the past year or so is Ritz crackers with peanut butter and chocolate chips. I like to spread a generous layer of PB and have found 6 chocolate chips to be the perfect amount. I know, I'm a dork. As you can see, I'm a sucker for sweet/salty.

5. Popcorn. Popped in the air popper with a lot of butter and salt. This remains my favorite snack of all time. Good thing I'm married to a dentist - may need a lot of dental work in the future, but I try not to chew on too many seeds.

6. Dr. Pepper. Although this is a drink, I consider it a snack because, well, it's just junk, right? But it's junk that I love. The way I try to avoid drinking gallons and gallons of this stuff is just not to buy it at the grocery store. But whenever I'm at any sort of restaurant, I'll get my fix. And no extra flavors, please. It's perfect just the way it is, over ice, thank you.

Granny B's pink cookies

This is no ordinary cookie. Not by a long shot. This is a Granny B's original pink cookie.
Yeah, the frosted sugar cookies at the grocery store that you buy in the bakery section are good, but they are no match for the Granny Bs. These were a staple of ours in college. We'd walk down to the Maverick station and pick one up. Or sometimes we could even find them in a vending machine on campus. Those were the days, to have a Granny B's right at your fingertips. I think Granny must be from out west cause that's the only place I can find these blasted cookies. Oh, and here. Kirk recently sent me one of these little jewels from the MTC and subsequently became my favorite sibling, based solely upon this event.

El Calafate

Kirk is finally in Argentina. His companion is Chilean and he says he can't understand a word he says. So funny. His first area has just been open a few weeks and he is so excited to be there. We are all totally taken by this area, El Calafate. El Calafate, a little town of 7,000, is on Lago Argentino (lago is lake) and home to Perito Moreno glacier in Los Glacieres National Park. Do I have your attention? Anyone up for a trip to El Calafate?

above: Lago Argentino

above: Perito Moreno glacier

*most links link the Wikipedia, the fountain of all truth :)

Mitford

Have any of you ever read the "Mitford" series books? I always had an aversion to these books for 3 reasons. (In order of importance)

1. Blue haired women carrying canvas bags reading "I'd rather be in Mitford".

2. It's a series.

3. Premis- the life of a priest living in a picturesque town in West Virginia, or maybe it's North Carolina.

Pretty good reasons, huh? Well, I must say that I am now in the second book of the series and I'm really enjoying it. I think it's because it's unlike the books I usually choose so it's nice to just read a simple story. It's also quite uplifting (hello, it's all about a priest). Anyways, I'd recommend the Mitford books, even if you don't have blue hair.

Goodbye, golden bull

Our car, the 1997 gold Taurus has gone the way of all the earth. I'll have to say I'm sad, but not really about that particular car (it was ugly, stinky, the heat didn't work, neither did the tape deck or cigarette lighter so you couldn't listen to ipod, etc.), but just that we have to now fork out the money for a new one. The good news: President Bush gave government employees a 3% raise this year. Thank you, Mr. President! When we made our budget at the beginning of the year, we didn't know about this raise, and therefore didn't factor it in. Meaning, this little 3% will cover our new car note. Now you may be thinking, how do you get a raise when you don't have a job? I must say THANK YOU also to the U.S. Navy for paying J.Paul to go to school. We have absolutely loved this program so far. Especially when J.Paul is on break from school. We'll be at the park, swimming, sleeping in, whatever and J.Paul will look at me, smile, and say, "I'm getting paid right now". God bless America, oh and that car we will be purchasing that it will not break down ever or need lots of repairs, please. Amen.

Small Victories

Evan has been sleeping in our room since he was born. He was in the pack n play. And just recently decided to start waking up in the night and cry til he got held. The plan was for him to share a room with Amzie, since we really need the office right now for J.Paul to be able to study. But I was so worried about putting them in there together, since it takes her so long to go to sleep and she is certainly not quiet about it all. Evan just likes it dark and quiet. Well one night we forgot the pack n play at the grandparents so we decided we might as well try to put Evan in his crib. We went ahead and put him down, then got Amzie ready and read her books and by the time she went in there he was asleep. (by the way a very thoughtful grandma brought the pack n play over that night "just in case"). But things have been going well since then. There are still nights that they want to stay up and make noise, but for the most part, they go to sleep! Who would have thought? I love these small victories!

TCT

I don't know about you guys, but TCT's are pretty much a staple around here. For those of you who don't know TCT is a toasted cheese tortilla. Melt some cheese on a tortilla and viola, you've got lunch. I like to add sour cream and salsa on mine but Amzie likes it plain. The other day I made her one. When I took it out of the microwave I noticed I cooked it too long and the cheese around the edges was pretty hard. I went ahead and rolled the thing up and gave it to Amzie. When she was all done, I noticed there were a few pieces left on her plate. When I asked her why she didn't eat those pieces she said, "They were too hard. They had stems on them."

Writers Strike - a good thing?

Did anyone read the article in the January Ensign about turning off the TV? If not, you can view it here. It was pretty inspiring. Basically this lady's TV hook-ups got buried in the attic by insulation and she went with out TV for a while. She discovered she had time to do tons of things, finish projects, read books, spend more time with her family, go to the temple more often. Things she thought she didn't have time for. I thought that now, with the writer's strike, there's nothing good on anyway, so now would be a good time to start leaving it off. I have to admit it's hard, especially after a long crazy day, I just want to turn the TV on and my brain off. But I'm going to start. Last night the weather was on all night because of tornado warnings. So I turned it off, I finished my book while J.Paul did some studying. It was nice to not have the noise.

So, who's with me?

RADICAL!

Our 80's party was a success! We had such a good time, a great turnout, good fun, good times, and especially good costumes. The highlight of the night for me was the arrival of each couple to see what they looked like. Especially when the last six couples arrived together and just watching one after the other walk through the door. I laughed til I cried. Here are some highlights. We hung cassette tapes from curling ribbon between the living room and kitchen and geometric shapes with black squiggley lines all around. Also, you can't tell from the pictures but we put pictures of 80's icons in picture frames around the living room. Scott Baio is hanging over the couch.



The preppies! Check out those hurraches!

Nice pose. Chad (left) wearing original high top vans and a swatch watch. Greg was going for the yuppy look - inspired by the Griswold's next door neighbors. Hair band rocker with flashdance girl!


Madonna wannabe with the "Members Only" stud.

Valley girl with aforementioned yuppy. I must also mention that Greg had a rat tail. Hallie actually cut a piece of her hair out to super glue on the back of Greg's hair. Can't believe we didn't get a close up.

A few other highlights include: Shauna's feaux hawk, Quin's flourescent turtleneck, Rebecca's Guess denim vest, Reed's mullet, Amber's beauty mark, Garbage Pail kids, 80's karaoke and Rockstar!