Sunday, October 26, 2008

These are a few of my favorite things

1. Rick

2. Julee

3. Alexis

4. Fall in New York


Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Hot Stuff!!

Hello Everyone, Rick Here.....

So... the other day I was feeling culinarily adventerous, and missing the Southwest in general to boot, so I decided to try out a variation on Jalapeno Poppers that I discovered.

Basically, you take the Jalpenos, slice 'em in half, fill them with a grated cheese/cream cheese mixture, wrap them in Bacon and bake them in the Broiler for 15 Minutes.

WOW!!!

They turned out super-yummy! The combination of pepper, cheese and bacon is a literal taste explosion. I do think, however, that we were lucky this time around. The jalapenos had all of the flavor, but not too much of the searing heat (They must have been East Coast jalapenos from NEW YORK CITY, or something....)

Steph, being the great sport that she is, took on the role of sous chef as she did all of the slicing, de-seeding, and bacon wrapping for me. I think it's the only time in almost 3 years that I have been in charge.....

Below are a couple of pics of how they looked as they were coming out of the broiler...

Anyways, I was wondering ...what are some of your favorite regional foods? Or dishes that make you think of "Home"?

Monday, October 13, 2008

Tag - You're It

I got tagged so all of you are tagged too!

The point of this tag is to list 5 joys, 5 fears, 5 obsessions/collections, 5 surprising facts, and tag 5 people.

5 Joys...
1. Movie night with my family
2. Hanging out with my friends
3. October in New York
4. A long bath and a good book
5. Music

5 Fears...
1. Heights
2. My girls' saftey
3. Our basement (or the dungeon as the girls refer to it)
4. Snakes
5. Rodents

5 Obsessions/Collections...
1. Chick Flicks
2. Scrapbooking
3. The need to organize everything
4. Emailing
5. Staying up late

5 Surprising Things about you...
1. I hate shopping
2. I dislike surprises
3. I can never tell you what I want for my birthday or Christmas
4. My DVDs are not currently in alphabetical order
5. I can change the oil on a car

Tag 5 People...
1. You
2. You
3. You
4. You
5. You

Sisterhood and Service

As you may or may not know, I am currently serving as the Enrichment Counselor in our ward (in the women's group at church). Our stake is currently working on a joint Relief Society/Young Women Humanitarian project. The project is to make T-shirt dresses or simple A-line dresses that will be sent to the Humanitarian Fund in Salt Lake City; and then ultimately to little girls in less fortunate countries. What fun it has been to be part of the planning in what has turned out to be a very successful and spiritual experience. It has been so exciting to see the sisters (both young and not so young) serve in such a capacity. We planned a couple of joint Enrichment/Young Women activities where sewing machines were stitching, gathers were pulled, and wrinkles were ironed out ~ all to the less than silent hum of laughter and sisterhood. There were older sisters teaching the Young Women how to sew, and Young Women teaching older sisters how to sew. Many of the sisters who were not able to participate in our Enrichment night activities, took it upon themselves to make dresses at home out of fabric pieces found in sewing closets or just recently purchased at the fabric store.

A couple of weeks ago, our ward had a project celebration dinner in combination with the Relief Society General Broadcast. At this dinner, we chose to hang up (in the gym) all the dresses (88 to date) that had been so selflessly made so that the sisters could see the impact that they can make by opening their hearts to others. Since I was mostly in charge of the project and partly in charge of the dinner, Rick and the girls (and my good friend Cindra, the RS president) were lucky enough to get to help me hang the dresses What a treat that was for our family. With EVERY dress that was hung, Alexis would say, "Oh mommy, some little girl is going to love this dress! This one is the cutest!" Little does she know how loved those dresses will be and how much they will be appreciated. Anyway, it was a fun evening with a yummy dinner (we introduced the sisters of the eastern US to Hawaiian Haystacks), a sight to behold, and wonderful messages from our church leaders! How blessed my life is to serve and how fortunate I am to partake of the strength of Spirit that comes through sisterhood and service. I hope these pictures tug at your heartstrings of service like they did mine!



Thursday, October 2, 2008

Primary Talent Show

This past Saturday morning the Primary had a Talent Show. Julee and Alexis both participated and did an awesome job! They wanted to share their performances with all of you.