Mike and Madison

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Easter 2013 With the Fam

For Easter we went to my parent's house for dinner with the family. Thanks to Jessica for taking a photo of Mike and me. We had lots of good food, namely a ham that Mike prepared. Mike's mom sent a raw ham down to us over the holidays....it was SOOO GOOD!

After dinner the kids got to play with cascerones. This is a tradition that was started with Mike's family and then we shared with my family. It is loads of fun as you will see, we just need to start planning a little early. We didn't have many eggs. If you want to find out how to make your own cascerones follow this link.

Mom passing out the cascerones.

Merlin being the awesome unlce that he is put an egg down Porter's pants and smashed it...yep Port was dripping confetti the rest of the night.

Tanner's in for it now.

After the egg smashing fun the kids stayed outside and played while the adults went in and played games. I absolutely love how the older kids still play with the young kids. Porter and Fisher absolutely LOVE Tanner. Can you tell from these pictures?

Here a couple other photos from the night. The kids were doing magic tricks to Miles had to show them how it was done. I wanted to catch the quarter mid fall. The girls all in pink. They are best friends...most of the time.

Young Women's Conference

For those of you who don't know my calling (assignment) in my ward (church) is with the young women. I LOVE my calling! I was put in just over a year ago as an advisor to the laurels (16-18 year-olds) and then I was called to be the secretary. It has been nice not having to teach every week but still getting to be around the girls and hear amazing lessons each week from the other advisors.

Saturday was the General Young Women's Conference and our stake was lucky enough to get tickets to go down to the conference center in Salk Lake to go.

The theme for all of the young women this year is "Stand ye in holy places, and be not moved."

There were 4 talks given. One by each of the young women presidency, Sister Dalton, Sister Dibb, and Sister Cook, and then a talk given by President Dieter Uchtdorf of the first presidency. Each of there talks were so amazing! I felt the spirit of the Lord the moment that the prayer was said and all the way through. Even though these messages were directed toward the youth I felt that the messages applied to me as well. If you would like to view the conference you go follow this link.

One of my favorite quotes from the night came from the talk that Sister Dalton gave. Her talk was all about the things that we should "be not moved" from.

“Be not moved in your acceptance of the Savior’s atonement. The atonement is for you and for me. It is an enabling and redeeming power. If you are not feeling worthy to stand in holy places don’t carry this burden one day longer. In mortality we all make mistakes. Be assured that the savior loves you so much that he made it possible for you to change and to repent if you make a mistake. Now Satan doesn’t want you to think you can change. He will try to convince you that all is lost and that is a lie. You can return, you can repent, you can be pure and holy because of the Savior’s infinite sacrifice.”

Elaine S. Dalton

Young Women’s President

2013 Young Women’s Conference

If you would like to find out more about the LDS church follow this link.

Monday, March 25, 2013

Spread the Word

As most of you know we are going through the adoption process to begin our family. Many of you have helped us spread the word by linking our blog or itsaboutlove.org website to your Facebook or handing out our pass-along cards. We appreciate all of your help! After many hours of reading on blogs and trial and error I have created a button that you can place on your own blog. If you have a blog we would love if you would grab our button by copying the text in the grab box under our button and pasting it in the "add gadgets" section of your blog. Once there you will see a section called "HTML/JavaScript" click on this and paste our code. You should then have our button on the side bar or your blog! Yay for technology and smart people who are willing to do tutorials so not so computer smart people can do this.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Mom and Dad Come to Visit

Each year for Christmas we give our parents "A night on the town" with us. We are taking my parents to Les Miserables at the Pioneer Theater and to Ruth's Chris in May and Mike's parents came down for a visit for their night on the town a couple of weeks ago. We had such a great time! Mike's brother Jon is getting married at the beginning of May and so Mom, Dad and I went shopping looking for wedding stuff. We also went and visited Mike's grandparents and had lots of family time and good food. This year we took them to Bambara. We each got something different so we were able to taste more things on the menu.

I got the sea bass. It was so good! After they cook the fish they put it under a salamander (a really cool broiler that makes things really crispy on top). The top of the fish was golden brown and crunch. Underneath it was a bed of leeks, and lentils cooked in duck fat.

Mom got the filet. She had fingerling potatoes that were also cooked in duck fat. The two sauces on the plate were to die for.

Mike had the new york steak and frites (aka fries).

Dad got the salmon. This came with brussle spouts and cauliflower puree.

While we were wandering around Costco we found the most amazing thing.

I refrained from buying anything that day but I soon returned to buy some. How could I let these treasures go! These are the cartoons from my childhood! They just don't make them like they used to.

I also got my Christmas present from Mom. She sent it home with Jon after Thanksgiving and I finally got it. Can I just say I LOVE IT!!! Thanks Mom O!

Yes, that is a giant pink Tupperware bowl!

Real Belgium Waffles

This year our friends Katie and Reed introduced us to a little place in downtown Salt Lake called Bruges. It is a little hole in the wall place across the street from Pioneer Park. Since then I have fallen in love with the "Waffle Monster."

Thanks to Urbanspoon for this photo.

After trying this delicious treat I had to find a recipe and make it. Although I haven't made it yet I was able to find two of the most important ingredients, Belgium pearl sugar and speculoos.

Thank you Trader Joe's and Gygi's for these great finds.

Cool, Crunchy, Chicken Tacos

One of Mike and my goals this year is to eat healthier. I don't know about you but when you hear something is healthy the first thing that comes to mind is "flavorless, boring, gross." This is not one of those recipes. This recipe is packet full of texture and flavor. I adapted the ingredients to make it more healthful. The original recipe is from The Pampered Chef.

I Know this isn't the best picture but I was really hungry and didn't want to get out the nice camera.

Ingredients

Whole wheat tortillas (original recipe calls for hard yellow taco shells)

1 small head romaine lettuce

1-2 limes

1/2 C. plain yogurt (original recipe calls for mayonnaise)

2 t. ground cumin

1/4 t. cayenne pepper

1/4 t. salt

3 C. diced grilled chicken breast (I use some of the sauce as a marinade)

1/2 small jicama

1 small mango

1/2 C. cilantro

Directions

Sauce: mix 1 t. lime zest, 1 T. lime juice, yogurt, cumin, and cayenne pepper.

Salsa: Peal jicama and mango and cut them into 1/4 thick strips. Chop cilantro. Combine jicama, mango, cilantro, salt, and remaining lime juice and toss to coat.

Set 1/4 sauce aside to used as a garnish. Coat the uncooked chicken breast with 1/4 of sauce and then grill the chicken. Once the chicken is grilled cut into strips. Pour the remaining sauce (1/2 of the amount) over the chicken and stir to coat.

Chop lettuce.

Get tortilla and put some of the reserved sauce. Add chicken, salsa, and lettuce. Wrap and enjoy.

Give me a V-E-G-A-S

See that cute girl behind me? That is my amazing niece. Each year she has a cheer competition in Las Vegas and Mike and I tag along with her family to go and route her on. Last year we went to plenty of delicious places to eat but didn't get to do much else. This year her competitions were at night so we got to do some pretty fun stuff. This picture was taken at Cirque Du Sole's "O". This was the second time Mike and I saw it but we sat up higher and were able to see more of the performance.

The stage and auditorium is pretty amazing.

My stud nephew if one of the Cirque masks.

Before the show we walked around the gardens in the Bellagio. They change the frequently and it was Chinese New Year themed.

There weren't as many things made out of flowers like the last time we visited but these people were pretty amazing.

We were also able to go to Hoover Dam. It was love at first sight for Mike. We had a great time walking around and going on tours of this amazing piece of American History.

This was Mike's favorite. He loved learning about the traffic bridge that was built between 2005-10.

From the traffic bridge you were able to get a stellar view of the dam.

We also took a tour of the power section of the dam. It was amazing to learn how they create energy for millions of homes.

It is pretty crazy to think that all of these tunnels were made so long ago by using dynamite.

These are the turbines where the electricity is created. Depending on the time of day and day of the week there are a different number of these going to meet the electrical needs of millions.

A representation of the men spreading out the drums of concrete that were lowed to build the dam. Once they opened the bottom and the concrete poured out these drums would shoot off into the air.