Sunny beaches

This week has been amazing weather. Right now it is 86 degrees and I love the sun! This past sunday after church and nap we went to the beach for a walk. It was so nice out and when the sun was starting to go down. The tide was so low, so it was a great time to look for shells. We found a weird looking thing but couldn't decide what it was. It looked like a sharks tooth or something but it was hallow. Yay for global warming, sorry polar bears... kinda.

Board Games

I haven't posted in a while and mostly its because me and Tim were in Folsom for about 10 days! It was so much fun to just hang out and not have to worry about school or work. While we were in Folsom we discovered two new games. First is called Ticket to Ride it is a fast paced game where you have to build train routes, it is really fun! The second game is called Settlers of Catan, its kind of like an old school monopoly because you build lots of stuff to get points. We were able to play this game a lot because my sister bought an expansion game that basically gives you 5 other ways to play the game!! These games were so addicting we would stay up till 3 or 4am each night playing. For Christmas me and Tim bought ourselves Guitar Hero World Tour which is amazing but we didn't really play it that much because we wanted to make sure we could play the board games as much as possible since we wouldn't be able to take them home with us. On one of our last nights we invited Mary over to play settlers because we always play games with Mary and I knew she would love it like we do. Luckily I was right and once we went home, Mary bought the game!! The first day we played it a lot, I won't tell you how many hours we played for because its kind of embarrassing but it was kind of a marathon of Settlers.

turkey (part 2)

We finally cooked the turkey we got from Hyatt at thanksgiving time. Lately I have had a lot more time off of work, because of the economy- blah blah blah, so we decided to cook the turkey this week. Tim was really nervous about the whole thing because it was the first time either of us has cooked a turkey. Also I don't like turkey and Tim wanted me to like this turkey so he wanted to make sure he didn't mess it up. First Tim called Mike to get tips which I think really helped, we also watched a Conan episode that had a cooking lesson on cooking a turkey, it was funny but not very helpful. We defrosted it which takes forever, I didn't know. Then added the marinade, and finally we cooked it. I wasn't supposed to work today but at the last minute I had to work for a girl who called in sick so we had a thanksgiving-ish lunch. A couple days earlier I made my favorite rolls and we had stuffing...mmm so good! The turkey tasted amazing and it was really really moist which is always important!! Tim did an excellent job especially for his first turkey, if i would have made it something would have caught on fire for sure, especially if we would have used the fryer!

Reflections of Christ

Last sunday we went to a fireside that our stake put together. It was an awesome experience. It was centered around the Christmas devotional which is always something I look forward to this time of year. Our stake also added a lot of musical numbers which were well put together but they were in place of the mormon tabernacle choir which was disappointing because I LOVE their christmas stuff, it is amazing! The highlight of the night was an art exhibit called Reflections of Christ. A photographer had his art work on exhibit and they were absolutely stunning! We attended because we are ward missionaries and everyone was encouraged to being someone not of our faith to join in this wonderful experience. Our job was to make sure a dvd played continuously. It was a movie of how the photographer, mark mabry, created his photographs. All of the photographs tell about the life of our Savior. It starts with angels and ends with the Resurrection. I really enjoyed the art because it just added a realness that made me feel so close to my Savior and His life. It was such a moving experience and many of the photos are really spectacular. Now that I have immensely talked all of this up there are two things to look at, first there is a video that shows some of his work to the music "come thou fount." Second I have attached a link that shows all of his pictures. It's a great thing to look at during this season.

8 dozen cookies

I have been in my new ward for about 2 months. I am still pretty new and since I am shy I dont really make a lot of friends fast, it also doesn't help that ALL of the younger people have callings that take them out of relief society. Since I haven't really been outgoing I decided to sign up for an activity as a chance to meet some new people. The activity was a cookie exchange I thought that tim would really like the cookies since he can't ever get enough sweets. After I signed up I recieved a call telling me that we were going to be in groups of ten and that I needed to make 10 dozen cookies! Yep that is 120 cookies, I called my mom beacuse I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. After I talked to her I found out that making 10 dozen cookies was pretty much standard, also I found out that I was one of the 10 so I only had to make 9 (later I found out I only had to make 8 dozen because someone dropped out from the group). My favorite kind of cookies are sugar cookies and even though they are a little more labor intensive I was determined to make them, it was my first cookie exchange and wanted to bring my A-game (if you know me my A-game really is just bringing something store bought).

I took my mom's adivce and made the dough on thursday. It wasn't that hard even though I ran out of flour and tim had to run out and get more. It was nice to be baking and while I was baking tim was fixing our dishwasher. It was a very stereotypical moment -woman cooking, man fixing stuff- it was fun especially becuase tim kept spraying water out of the dishwasher onto himself and everywhere else.
I rolled out all of the dough on friday. It didn't take as long as I thought but it was a long process. Mary came over and helped and tim helped also. Saturday I woke up nervous but excited to get 8 new kinds of cookies. When I showed up to the cookie exchange the first thing that caught my eye was the peanut butter kiss cookies these are so yummy and I was excited but little did I know that that would be the peak of the excitment. As I started counting out cookies from the 8 other people I started to get the feeling that I made a horrible mistake and I wish I could have acted on that feeling and took back my cookies and ran. The idea of a cookie exchange is a great idea and I wish I would have known the group a little better because then I probably would have known what I was getting myself into. I don't think I am too picky when it comes to cookies but these were some of the weirdest cookies I have ever seen and tasted. First there was a shortbread cookies which looks good so I am excited about those ones; then there is a pumpkin and raisin; then white chocolate chip and walnut with a maple frosting on top, I have never had maple frosting on a cookie it definitely was a new experience. The next one definitely seemed like it was made because its chirstmas time. When I first looked at it I thought of fruit cake but it was made with lots of oatmeal, coconut, and gum drop gummies. The clincher for me was the last type of cookie, which were burnt. I tried looking throught the container to look for not burnt ones but all of them were. All 8 dozen! I was just in shock. I probably sound like a complete brat but this was a very disappointing experience. I really want to make some more sugar cookies beacuse I feel very unsatisfied. I just can't believe I did all of that work, oh well live and learn, i'm probably just really spoiled or really sheltered because I have never even seen cookies like these. If any of these cookies are your favorite, sorry, maybe I should send them to you.