Attention All Christensens!

My Grandma Chris tells the best stories. She's been telling them for years and each one is just a treasure. She and my grandpa have to stay home just about all the time now, and I wanted to find a way for her to tell her stories to all her grandchildren and great grandchildren all over the world without ever having to leave my grandpa.

So when I found some digital recordings of five of Grandma's stories I was SO excited. I transcribed each story, illustrated it and put it in a book- complete with an About the Author section full of pictures of Grandma and Grandpa's life. I got the books printed and burned some CDs with the digital recordings to make a 'Read Along with Grandma' book. I just love how they turned out! I gave a copy to Grandma and promised to get the word out so that each of her grandchildren and great grandchildren could get a copy and hear her stories.

So if you're one of my Christensen cousins listen up! To get your very own read along book you'll need two things: The book and the CD of Grandma's voice. Here's how to get them.

The Book
There are two was to get the book. One is easy, the other cheap.

-The easy way is to go to this address http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1031190 and buy your own hardback copy. They cost about $30 + shipping (you can order up to 5 books and pay the same for shipping, so if you live close to a sibling that might be beneficial)

-The cheap way is to go to this address http://jessicageorgedesign.com/TheGreatestFarmerOnline.pdf where you can find a PDF version of the whole book that you can download and print from your own computer. (because of the large size of this file it will only be up for a limited amount of time so get it while it's hot!)

The CD
The audio files can be found at http://grandmastories.posterous.com/ this site will allow you to listen to the stories or download them to create your own CD.


*end note* after I made this I've heard of quite a few other recordings that Grandma has done. If there are enough, I might just work on compiling a volume 2 book. (If I get some people to help me- this was a big job! Let me know if you'd like to help on the next one. Even transcribing one story would help a lot) If you have any of recordings please email me (jessicaageorge {at} gmail.com) a digital copy so we can all enjoy it!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

My brother Andrew and I have this tradition of watching A Charlie Brown Christmas together each Christmas Eve. We started when we were little and have found it's much harder to keep since we've gotten married. But we're still staying true to Charlie Brown.

This year Andrew and Lauren were in Maryland at Nathan and Alisa's house and we were in Utah. But never fear, we still watched good old Charlie thanks to the amazing abilities of Skype. We met Andrew, Lauren, Nathan and Alisa online on Christmas night. After taking them on a brief tour of our home (Alisa hasn't ever seen it, so I carried our laptop around for her to see how it looked through our web-cam) we watched our movie. I think it was even cooler than watching it all in the same room. Here's a picture of our computer monitor- our computer was facing the movie on our TV so that the Maryland folk could watch the movie through their computer. So on our screen we could see them watching (and of course hear them make comments all through) and a reflection of our TV playing good old Charlie Brown.

The rest of Christmas was also great. It was nice and simple since I've been so stinking sick lately, but honestly I kind of enjoyed having an excuse not to get involved in all the holiday stress this year. No neighbor gifts (sorry guys) or Christmas cards and I bought just about everything online. It was really nice to just enjoy the season.

My parents flew in for Grandpa's birthday and Mom was able to stay here until Christmas day. It was our first Utah Christmas -both Doug and I had a hard time really believing it was Christmas since we've have gotten so used to traveling to either Idaho or Ohio. It's almost like the flight/car ride is always what marked the beginning of the Christmas season.

Christmas Eve dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Chris and Christmas Day dinner with Doug's family definitely made staying in Utah worth it. It's great to be so close to family.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

On the weekend before Christmas, Doug and I got to attend what I believe is one of the best birthday parties I've ever been to. My Grandpa Stacey turned 90 this month and literally hundreds of his family members (nieces, nephews, grand kids, even a great great grandchild) came to celebrate. There was beautiful music and a great slide show of his life. My personal favorite was the cake. I mean, how many times do you get to see a birthday cake with 90 candles on it? I also love how, in a very typical act of Grandpa's constant thoughtfulness, he let the kids enjoy the honor of blowing out all his candles.

Our Photoshop World

This Month

It's been a while since I wrote about what we've been up to lately. I wish my reason was because we'd been SO busy there just wasn't a moment in the day to write about things. Instead, I've been sick... a lot.... and while blogging is super fun, lying in bed and staring at the wall has been my most common pass time the past few weeks.

Now, before you go thinking that I'm complaining here, let me go on. We have Netflix. A wonderful world of unlimited online viewing right at your finger tips. And Doug even went and got me some Bon Bons (yes, we did have to wikipedia 'bon-bon' first just to figure out what exactly they are...) just so I could say that I lay in bed all day watching TV and eating bon bons. Now who could complain about that? In fact, I bet the great majority of you are even feeling a small bit of jealousy.

In addition to my delightful bon bon consumption, we have been up to a few different things including-

Freezer meals. Just look at this freezer! Doug made all these so I wouldn't have to cook while I was sick. I'm pretty sure this is what our freezers will look like in Heaven.

Baby Booties. These have been my favorite project as of late. I just can't keep them- whenever I show them to people they insist on buying them from me even though I wasn't trying to sell them. I'm currently working on making a real pattern for them (I already 'made' the pattern for them, but right now it consists of a bunch of random pieces of fabric that no one would understand but me) and maybe evening selling it. Maybe. Unless I get too tired- and then I'll probably just stare at the wall some more. We'll have to wait and see.

Family Website. I already told you guys about the project blog. Well, slowly and surely other blogs have emerged. They are all in the VERY early stages. But I come from the most opinionated family in the world so they're bound to contain some entertaining conversation... eventually... I'm still not quite convinced that many of them will take off- but it will be fun to see which ones end up working. If you want to see our progress, you can check out updates of all the different blogs at OurPinata.com.

Vote for Laura!

So, remember a while ago when I made those dress designs for that Shabby Apple contest? Well, my cousin Laura also entered (she graduated with a degree in fashion design and is AMAZING) and she made the top 15! I'm so excited for her.

I think you should all go check out her design and vote for it (because it's clearly the best on there) Her dress is #13. Here's the link-

http://www.shabbyapple.com/blog/2009/11/final-15.html

Congrats Laura!

Project Blog

In attempts to stay better connected, my family is starting a few different blogs about our favorite subjects. As a little bonus, we've put some advertising on those same blogs to see if we can make a little money to help with travel costs so we can see each other more often. (we've made a whole dollar so far.. that's something right?)

I think it's a great idea and I'm really excited to see what everybody writes about. And if we could buy one plane ticket from it all, that would be pretty stinking cool! It's all very new still, and honestly I'm still not convinced that all of the blog ideas that we talked about will really take flight. But what I do know is that the 'project blog' we talked about is up and running and I plan on contributing to it often. (as does my amazingly creative sister)

The idea is to take pictures as we work on various projects (house projects, sewing projects, knitting, crafting, decorating, cooking etc) and use the pictures to help explain how to make the final product. So for all of you DIYers out there- here's the web address (you should all become our biggest fans!)

http://ourpinata.com/projects/

For all of you non-DIYers, never fear. More Stacey Blogs should be on their way soon- I'll let you know when they're started!

Ohio Trip 2009

This year instead of going out to see my family for the holidays, we decided to devote our trip to the room featured above. (Random picture, I know- but it's the only one I have that shows the true beauty of the amazing wall paper in my old bedroom. My favorite part was the grid of shiny white squares behind the amazing dashes of color)

We planned for months in advance to make sure everything was ready so we could finish everything. I sewed the curtains and pillows, painted a picture and got a few nice prints for the room before we left. It was so fun to plan! The trip was great- we got to see all my siblings but one. To help recall the whole week, I'm going to go day by day. Feel free to scroll down and just look at the pictures :)

Saturday: Our flight flew us into Columbus, so Andrew and Lauren picked us up and we got to spend the night in their home. It was so fun to see where they live and spend the evening with them and get to know Luke a little better.

Sunday: The next day we drove the 3 hour trip up to Novelty where my parents live. The room transformation could begin! Here's what the room looked like when we got there. My parents were kind enough to tear down the wall paper before we came. (boy do I hate tearing down wall paper) (Do you see how GREEN it is outside those windows? sigh. I miss the world where water falls from the sky for free...)

Monday: My dad took some time off work and the three of us went to the Amish flea Market, Cheese factory and Mary Yoder's (Mmmm.. I'm still thinking about that hot meatloaf sandwich covered in gravy...) Because, after all- not all of our vacation was going to be spent painting! Especially with my dad around- he's way too fun for that. Then we swapped-my dad went to work and mom can home from work and we went and did a big Home Depot run.

Tuesday: oil based primer on walls, painted walls, painted lots and lots of trim, painted more trim, painted, and painted, and painted

Wednesday: painted ceiling, painted second coat on walls and trim. Then picked up Mom from work and went to the Kirtland Temple! This is a big deal since Doug has been to my parents house quite a few times now and something has always come up to make it so he couldn't go inside. We were excited. They even brought us up to the third floor where Joseph Smith had his office- something I hadn't done since I was little (they stopped bringing people up there for safety reasons). It was a really good tour.



Here we are standing in front of what may or may not be one of Martin Harris' (Doug's great great great great grandpa) old homes. The tour guide told us it was. But then the owner came home and told us it wasn't. Hmmm. I guess we'll have to do a little research on that one.

Thursday: Worked on the room some more. It's all starting to blur together... can't remember what we did each day in the room....

Friday: Woke up and saw Marika, Nathan, Alisa, Christopher and Ella who had driven in the night before! Mom took the day off and we all went up to Cleveland State to watch my Dad give a lecture on his research. None of us had a clue what he said, but were all re-convinced that he is very, very smart. The students, however, did seem to understand him so it sounds like it went really well. We went home and worked on the room as much as we could so we could be done before we left!

Saturday: After a bit of work, the room is done! Well, as done as it will be before we leave. We were going to hang up all the art on the walls and bring in all the furniture and leave it all perfectly arranged.. but... instead we sat and talked to family who we probably won't see for a very long time. I say it was worth it.

Here's what it looked like when we left-

(Sorry for the horrible picture quality... I didn't get a chance to take these until right before we had to leave for the airport so I was a little hurried...)

These are the things to hang on the walls- the big mirror fits right into the big middle square on the side wall, a quilt made by my aunt will fit just right in the square above the bed. The picture of the flowers is the one I painted to go in the room.

Sunday: Fly home while trying not to think of how far away we'll be from everyone until next year's trip out there.

Thank You Internet

I'd just like to take a moment and personally thank Wordpress, Google Adsense and all of the Utah brides who clicked on the ads on my site for making us enough money to buy our new laptop!

I can now work from bed when I'm sick, or from the library when I'm going crazy from being in the house all week (working from home sounds so much better than it really is).

I love the internet!

Bet Your Cat Can't Do This

Georgie has gotten really good at tricking us into picking her up so she can quickly jump to our shoulder and jump on top of the door. She just loves to walk back and forth on that thin little strip.

Who knew?

Recipe of the Week

A kind, little stomach flu bug decided to come and interrupt our fun for last week. So, rather than write about how our week went (be glad I'm sparing you the details...) I decided to celebrate the return of our appetites by sharing one of our current favorite recipes.

It's not very often a side dish is good enough for me to actually put the effort into making it when I've already spent time preparing a main dish. Knowing that, the fact that I make these ALL them time should let you know how much we like them!

Baked Onion Rings
-1 1/2 c cornflakes
-1/2 c plain dried breadcrumbs (if you don't have breadcrumbs just throw in some extra cornflakes, still tastes good!)
-1 large egg
-1/2 c low-fat buttermilk (you can make your own with 1/2 c milk and 1/2 t vinegar or lemon juice.. because who keeps buttermilk on hand?)
-1/4 flour
-1/8 t cayenne pepper (this isn't enough to make them spicy, don't worry! You can't even taste the spice, just adds to the flavor)
-salt and pepper
-one medium sweet onion quartered crosswise and broken into rings (discard small center rings)
-2 T olive oil (they're still really good with just 1 tablespoon)

Preheat oven to 450. In a food processor (I use our blender), pulse cornflakes and breadcrumbs until fine crumbs form, then transfer to a medium bowl. In another medium bowl, whisk together egg, buttermilk, flour, and cayenne and season with salt and pepper.

Dip onion rings in egg mixture (letting excess drip off) and dredge in cornflake mixture. Place on a large plate. Pour oil onto a rimmed baking sheet. Place in oven and heat for 2 minutes to heat up the oil. (This makes them crispy!) Remove sheet from oven and tilt to coat evenly with oil. Arrange onion rings on sheet. Bake, turning once until onion rings are golden brown- about 16 minutes. Season with salt.

For your 'gluten free'ers out there, tonight I made these with just corn flakes (no breadcrumbs) and substituted the flour with coconut flour. (we're not going gluten free or anything, I just sometimes like to give myself a challenge while I cook)The breading didn't stick to the onions quite as well, but it was still delicious! Next time I'd probably try a little less coconut flour (instead of the full 1/4 c I'd probably start with about 1/8 and just add as needed so it doesn't get so thick)

Busy Week!

We've had quite the busy week, and yesterday was the perfect way to end it!

My Aunt Lolli works for L3 in Salt Lake and yesterday was their 'Family Day'. It was so fun! All the different departments planned a hands on activity to explain what they do. We got to freeze Otter Pops in liquid Nitrogen, watch people solder electrical stuff.. (hmmm this part would be a lot more detailed if Doug was writing it...) into pennies and then take on of the pennies home, send our name to Mars (and get a certificate to prove it), make charm bracelets with the different colors of wire Cabling Department etc etc. It was a lot of fun. I love watching people in their chosen environment, so my favorite part was just seeing all the scientist and engineers get so excited to explain what they've spent their lives working on.

After that Doug and I went on over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for a wedding reception for Mike Anderson, one of my good design friends. We had a little mini reunion there and it was so great to see the guys I literally spent all of my waking hours with for my three years of BYU before my mission. It's still kinda sad to me that we're all so spread apart now. It's amazing how close you get to people when you see them ALL day every single day. I'm glad I got to see them for a couple of hours at least. I'm looking forward to the next wedding when we get to do it again!

Shabby Apple Design Contest

I have approximated 35 thousand projects on my 'To Do' list right now. So what do I do? Add another of course!

My cousin recently sent me the link to the Shabby Apple 'Dare to Design' contest. It looked like a fun idea (you get to design a dress and if you win they'll make it and you get a kick back from every one that sells) but I'm usually not one for contests. I'm always just so disappointed when I lose! But this time I gave in. Shabby Apple makes all modest dresses, and I've actually been thinking lately about how the world of modest wedding dresses needs to take a little advice from the past. There are so many beautiful designs from back when modesty was fashionable. Shabby Apple doesn't make wedding dresses, but the ideas I've picked up translated well into everyday dresses as well.

It was a lot of fun to pull out (and dust off... and hope they hadn't dried out...turns out wedding invitation design doesn't require much marker use...) my good old Prisma Color Markers and try my hand at fashion design. Here's what I came up with-

My dress designs for Shabby Apple dresses:

Dress #1
Historical Inspiration: Jane Austen



Ok, so Jane Austen isn't exactly a 'historical period' but I just keep thinking- what girl HASN'T thought about how much she'd love to wear one of the dresses from these classic films? Obviously the full on dresses would be a bit much for today's fashions, but I think they could be modernized really easily.

I just LOVE the red dress in the photo above. My first dress is designed to allow the owner to feel as though she was walking right along with Liz Bennett, but still fit into the world of 2010. I'd add a beautiful lace into the neckline for modesty and shorten the sleeves and skirt length. My favorite feature would be the flowing 'train' of the dress. It would be slightly longer than the front and would include a few gathers (or maybe a big inverted box pleat) up on the empire waistline. This would allow the dress to be fitted along the front but still flow like these classic, old dresses. I'm envisioning this dress in dupioni silk in classic colors- like black or deep red.


Dress #2
Historical Inspiration: Jane Austen (..again...)Same idea as above. This dress is a modern day version of the ball gown worn by Jane Bennett in the latest Pride and Prejudice Movie.. Less gathering in the front doesn't pack on the visual pounds, but a bit more gathering in the back still allows the dress to flow like the old fashioned ones. The neck line would have a large band, giving the visual appearance of the old, large scoop necks but still keeping the dress modest. I'd love to see this one made up with a few layers of thin, flowing white cotton.

Dress #3
Historical Inspiration: 1830s Gown



I just love the neckline on this old dress! Take it and add a slightly puffy skirt (maybe some lining edged with lace that peaked out from under the skirt when you sat down) and I'd say you've got the perfect summer party dress. I think this one would look great in any spring fabric: white linen, a light knit with a fun floral print etc.

Friday Night Perogies

This fall marks seven years since I moved to Utah from Ohio. It's hard to imagine that it's been that long! I keep counting and recounting to make sure it's right. I've really started to love a lot of things about Utah. Doug and I live in this great neighborhood and we just love our ward. Even with all the things that I really love here, there are so many things I miss about Ohio.

I'd have to say of all the things I miss, the one I miss the most is the cultural diversity found outside of Cleveland where I grew up. I just grew up thinking it was normal that every year at Christmas my mom's students would give her boxes full of fresh tabouli and an assortment of baklava, that every year we had to cancel early morning seminary for Rosh Hashanah, and that all the grocery stores carry fresh European breads and, on the other end, have a kosher foods section. It's so fun to go to my parent's house and know that if you go east to Middlefield you can be in Amish country, west to Beachwood and you'll see the Orthodox Jews walking to temple (if it's saturday), northwest to Mayfield where they teach Russian in the public school so the students can talk to their grandparents, etc etc etc.

*Sigh* Yep. I do miss that.

So what does all this have to do with perogies? Well, not too much. Except that Doug's really nice and he lets me make all the crazy food that I miss whenever I want :). It's a good thing he's not a picky eater.

So Friday night for our date night we made perogies from scratch. This was the first time I've ever actually made the perogies and I now have a lot more respect for the people who do! They weren't super hard, just time consuming. But we had fun and it was totally worth it. Yum! We now have a freezer full of perogies just waiting to be eaten.

Here's a link to the recipe we tried in case anyone wants to be adventurous and make their own! (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Ukrainian-Olhas-Varenyky-Perogies/Detail.aspx ) If anyone has a better recipe for them let me know!

The Perfect Day

I love Autumn! Just thinking about walking through crunchy leaves in the crisp, sweater worthy air just make my heart get all excited. I know it's still August, but I tend to have just as much fun anticipating my favorite things as actually living through them so I'm officially soaking in every second of pre-autumn life. On Friday I spent a good part of the evening curled up on the bench right by our big window in the living room reading a book (a task that will be so much more comfortable when I finally get around to braving the idea of covering a cushion for it. Making my own piping for the edges just sounds so scary to me!). The window was open and Georgie was perched, as she always is, watching all the neighborhood kids play on the street. Our new humming bird feeder was less than a foot from my head and I watched bird after bird come to it and not even care that I was so close (they must be pretty used to people) It was so amazing to get so close to them. The evening air is starting to get cooler and it reminded my that my favorite season is on it's way. As I sat there and soaked it all in I got pretty sure that life couldn't get much better.

A Little Taste of Hawaii

One of my very best friends from our stake growing up is now living in Hawaii with her little family. Her husband is starting his own business out there and I did a little design work for them. In return they sent us a great package full of a little taste of paradise :) Who knew there were so many different flavors of macadamia nuts? We've had so much fun taste testings each kind (I think honey roasted are my favorite... though actually the maui onion and garlic are pretty close!)

They also sent us stuff to make Spam Musubi. Yes that's right, sushi but with spam in it. It was a lot of fun to make and eat with the pretty chopsticks that came in the package. I'll be honest, it'd take me a while to get used to it enough to really like it- but I really love trying new things so even though it wasn't a sudden favorite I'm really glad I got to try it. Doug on the other hand actually craved it the next day so it did become a sudden favorite for one of us! If you want to be creative and try it out here's a link to the recipe.

Girl's Week

My sister has started a tradition of coming down to Utah for the first Monday of Education Week. I love getting to see her and going to a whole day of spiritual learning is always so refreshing.

This year my mom came out for a few weeks in August and made sure to stay so we could all go to Monday classes together. It was such a great trip. This is the first time Doug and I have had a guest room for people to stay in when they come visit and it was so fun to get some quality time with both my Mom and Marika.

Whenever I get together with just one of them we always work on some fun project. With both of them here I'm afraid we went a little craft crazy! It was a lot of fun. Our entire living room and dining room turned into craft rooms for the whole week. Our main project for the weekend were these great aprons (you'll notice the matching hot pad as well. Because I'd just hate to pull something out of the oven with something that clashed with my apron!) It was so fun, though I'm afraid I've hung my new apron behind my others. It's just too nice to actually cook in! I've decided it will be my 'company's over' apron :)

Happy End of Summer!

Today I officially finished my last invitation of the '09 Summer Wedding Season. If you could see me now, you'd be witnessing the biggest sigh of relief in the history of time. It has definitely been a crazy summer!

Doug and I went out and celebrated the end of summer with hot fudge sundaes and let me tell you- it felt SO good. The coming of Autumn has never felt sweeter-I'd definitely have to say it's now officially my favorite time of year.

Salem Days

On Saturday Doug and I went down to my Grandma and Grandpa Chris' house in Salem for Salem Days and to celebrate my Grandma's birthday. We love to go down for the grand finale on the last day of Salem Days for the auction (that's probably my favorite part) and big fireworks show. Their fireworks are seriously one of the best city shows that I've seen and my grandparent's lawn has the best view in town. So good in fact that we have to actually go claim a spot in her yard early in the day 'cause come night fall people will just wander up there to watch!

Hope you had a great birthday Grandma! Thanks for getting us have the best seats in town.

Happy Anniversary!

Doug and I celebrated our anniversary a little early this year since my family will be in town for the actual day. We had a blast! Instead of doing one nice, big day we decided to do a little something each day for a few days. One day we stayed home and watched a movie and ate Chinese takeout, the next we went up to Thanksgiving Point's Dinosaur Museum (just as a side note, Thanksgiving Point is doing $2 Tuesdays this month- you can go to their gardens, museum or farm country for $2. We'd been wanting to go check it out but never wanted to pay the $10/person so this was the perfect opportunity), and then the next day we went to see Harry Potter. It made for a really fun week without wearing me out with planning and such.

Thanks Doug for the best year- I'm looking forward to many more!

The Month of July

Ever since I got home from my mission, Julys have been a really sick month for me. How weird is that? I'll be doing so much better and then July will come and it'll be just like when I was super sick in Argentina.

weird. If this keeps up I'm going to have to start believing the people who keep telling me my health is directly affected by the phases of the moon. (strangely enough I've had a lot of people tell me that....)

So most of July was spent in bed for me watching more episodes of the Gilmore Girls than I'd like to admit. But we did end up doing a few fun things- here's a summary-

-We celebrated the fourth of July by getting an amazing tabletop grill (gotta love holiday sales) and grilling on our front porch. Doug had been saving up for a grill for a while (he's been wanting one since before we were married) so this was an exciting purchase for us. We love that it's so small we can tuck it away in the corner of our garage when we're not using it.


-We went up to Idaho for a great family reunion weekend.

- We watched the Orem fireworks from our living room (we could see them out our front window)

-We finished painting all the rooms in our house! (ok ok, DOUG finished painting all the rooms in our house- I was the one in bed watching him do it- Isn't he the best?)

Probably lots of other things... but it was all kinda a blur to me. Hooray for the coming of August! I've had enough July for one year.

Just Some Random Info

Just a couple things I wanted to put out there in case you might benefit from them :)

First of all, I'm working with this fun company this week for my Affordable Utah Wedding website's free giveaway. They're giving away a whole gift basket full of cute decorations- they've kinda got a natural/rustic look to them- so if you're into that style you should totally enter the drawing! Even if you're not, they're free so you should enter the drawing anyway:) They're officially for 'wedding decorations' but they'd totally work in a house too. To enter, just leave a comment on the post at this address-

http://affordableutahweddings.com/whispering-pines-gift-basket-give-away/

Second bit of information is that the company Doug works for is looking to hire a computer engineer. I know jobs are hard to come by right now so I just thought I'd put this out there in case one of you know someone who's looking for a job. If you know anyone, just let us know and we'll get you more info!

Cherries Cherries Cherries

My Grandma and Grandpa Chris have the most amazing cherry tree in their yard. First of all, this tree is actually three trees grafted together (is grafted even the right word?) so there are three different kinds of cherries growing off of the same tree. Take that and add my grandparents' green thumb (that I swear must be part magical) and you get a cherry tree that should only exist in fairy tales. It's branches are bursting with color and so full of fruit that I felt more like I was picking grape clusters than individual cherries. I could honestly just stare at it for hours, it is just so beautiful!

On Sunday we went to visit my grandparents and all our cousins who are currently in Utah and Grandma and Grandpa were nice enough to share their fairy tale cherries with us. We have been loving the world of fresh cherries all week! A huge bowl of cherries in the fridge, homemade cherry ice cream and piles of homemade cherry jam (four kinds- cherry limeade, cherry peach raspberry, cherry strawberry and cherry jalapeno. We had fun) Yum! I'm so excited to enjoy summer time flavors all winter long with our jam.

Next week we might try drying some cherries. Anyone have any tips on that?

Brothers, Cakes and Cherries

We had quite the adventurous week this past week!

My brothers all came into town for one of their manly camping trips. As it was a manly trip, I did not go along. I did, however, learn how to do a new craft (needle felting), go out for ice cream, visit some cute little shops in the SLC 'Shop Hop', and go see a chick flick in a real movie theater. All while they were gone. I personally think I got the better end of the deal. (but then, I was never really one for purposely going out and sleeping on a big rock...)

I did get to spend some time with the guys. They came over Tuesday night as they all trickled in from across the country and then spent the night. And then on Sunday Grandma Chris organized a big family dinner with all our Christensen relatives in the area. I love going to my grandparents' houses. There's just something magical about them. I can walk inside and instantly forget everything else that's going on in the whole world. All that matters is that I'm sitting on a comfortable couch, eating amazing food. Ahhhh... Just thinking of it makes me feel so relaxed....

All in all it was a great visit. Like always, I'm a little bummed to see them go. I'm usually pretty good at convincing myself that I'm 'ok' with living thousands of miles away from my closest sibling- but the day after they leave is always the hardest. I guess I'll just have to get busy planning the next trip when I get to see them!

Benefits

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a local bed and breakfast on my Affordable Utah Wedding blog. After reading their article, a representative from the B&B contacted me to see if I'd like a gift certificate for a FREE night stay at their location! She told me they were really appreciative for what I was doing and just wanted to say thanks.

So last week Doug and I got to stay in this amazing room, compliments of my crazy blogging habits :) Pretty cool, huh? I felt so important :)

The place was beautiful. I have to say my favorite was the bathroom! Ha ha, I guess that's what happens when you've been spending most your time fixing up a house. It really was a beautiful bathroom, and I can honestly say that I can now fully appreciate the effort it took to make it so nice.

I also really loved the dining area where they serve breakfast. I felt almost royal just standing in it!

Beautiful

One of life's magical moments- right outside our front door. I only wish I had better photography skills so I could have caught it better- it was actually a double rainbow, but the fainter of the two didn't show up with my camera.

Give-Aways

I started this new thing on my wedding blog about a month ago. Each week I've been featuring a different company and, in exchange, they provide a free give-away for one lucky person who leaves a comment.

All the give-aways are wedding related of course, so I don't often mention them on this blog. BUT this week's giveaway can be used by just about anyone- a gift certificate for 50% off a one night stay in any room at the Inn on the Creek in Midway. I just think it'd be fun to have for an anniversary or something (as well as a honeymoon, of course) All you have to do to be entered into the drawing is visit this link (http://affordableutahweddings.com/50-a-one-night-stay-at-the-inn-on-the-creek/) and leave a comment.

Since the give-aways are still pretty new, we don't get TOO many people even leaving comments, so you'll likly have a good chance of getting it. :)

Also, you guys were all so nice to enter into the drawing for my thank you cards! Thanks so much! While I was getting the files ready to print the winner's cards, I went ahead and made some pdf versions that can be printed from home. I just love having a couple files on hand so when I need a card all I have to do is stick a piece of cardstock into my printer and print one off. Who wants to buy cards anyway? (ha ha, says the girl who spends all day every day selling stationary...)

If anybody would like to have a couple files on hand for themselves, I've put a few of my files online for people to use if you want. They're set up for an 81/2x11 peice of paper and print 2 to a page, so all you have to do is print the file, cut the paper in half and then fold the cards down the middle. I was going to put up all the designs on here, but I'm feeling lazy so I'll just give you guys another link to visit :) You can see them all if you go here- http://affordableutahweddings.com/download-free-thank-you-card-designs/

enjoy!

Birthday Week!

Ok, so I just can't help myself- I have to post about all the great birthday finds we got this year for Doug's bday. If you're not into free stuff, don't bother to read further. But if you're like me and LOVE to get stuff for nothing- read on!

Doug and I really love getting free birthday stuff. Until this year we'd been signed up for a few birthday deals here and there, but this year I decided to go all out. A few weeks ago I 'hired' myself and Doug's birthday secretary. Our counter has literally been piled with free birthday coupons to use in the week or so around his birthday. We sure had a fun week! I wanted to tell you all of our great finds so you could sign yourself up if you like. All of these come just by going to the company's site and signing up for their email list.

Here's how our dinners went during Birthday week-

Tuesday- Free entree at Rubios, Free corn dog and chili dog at Weinerschnitzel, free shake and chicken soft tacos at Del Taco

Thursday- Free entree at Noodles and Co, Free ice cream at Baskin Robbins

Friday- Free meal at Mimi's Cafe, free ice cream at Cold Stone

Saturday- Free breakfast at Mimi's Cafe

Monday- Free Meal at Red Robin

Tuesday- Free movie rental at Hollywood video

How cool is that?

We still have a few things we didn't have time to use- they all expire a week after his bday, so we have 'til Tuesday. One particularly good one is a free $15 meal at Lone Star Steakhouse (no purchase necessary!). Others include buy one/get one of the following- orange julious, Tucanos, Famous Daves, Ruby Tuesday, Smoothie King, and Chili's (we didn't have time for many of those offers that required us to BUY something...)

An added bonus was that a lot of the places emailed us a coupon for free stuff just for signing up with them, so a lot of this was a combination of birthday and 'thanks for signing up' emails. So if you're thinking, eh- my birthday isn't for FOREVER I won't bother- think again! You can get free stuff right now and then have a happy surprise on your b-day.

My favorite free sign up thank you was from Mimi's Cafe- each person gets a coupon for a FREE breakfast (no other purchase necessary) for up to $10. AND you can have as many coupons at one table as you want, so Doug and I both signed up and got our own coupons and got an amazing, FREE breakfast! I highly suggest it- Mimi's is SO good.

So there you go. Hope you all have fantastic birthday weeks from now on!

Happy Birthday Doug!

We did a lot of fun things for Doug's birthday this past week but my favorite was making his cake. I've been planning this cake for months... 11 months and a few weeks still counts as months right? It's pretty much been since his last birthday. I just love planning Doug's cakes because I can go all out and not feel like I awkwardly over did things when I show up to a casual birthday BBQ with a huge, intricate cake.

This year's treat: homemade crepes layered with fresh orange cream and topped with dark chocolate orange gnache and candied pecans. Yum.

I'm so excited to start planning for next year :)

Happy Birthday Doug!

Happy birthday to Doug! Birthdays have become a big thing in our little family and we've had a blast celebrating all week long. There's nothing quite like having your own, personal holiday after all!

I just love Doug so much. He makes every day better than the last. I honestly consider myself the luckiest person in the world because I get to share another year with him.

Happy Birthday Doug!

The Beginnings of the Perfect Weekend

On Friday I told Doug that I was quitting my little invitation design job and that all the brides I was working with would just have to deal with it. (sometimes I don't really like working with my clients.....)

I settled for taking the weekend off. (not an easy task when you work from home) It's already been such an great couple of days! I love weekends.

On Saturday we headed up to Park City to see my Aunt Lolli. Doug set up her two new computers and printer while she and I sat around and ate watermelon salsa. (sounds weird, I know, but it's really good! I'm going to put the recipe on the end of this post so you can all try the amazing refreshing flavor) Not a bad set up, eh? In my defense, I did put the ink cartridges into the printer AND plugged in the power cord, so don't think that I was TOTALLY lazy :)

When the computers were all set up Lolli took us out on the town. We had an AMAZING meal at Red Rock (SO good, I highly suggest it). I love going out to eat with Lolli 'cause she always knows the best places. After dinner we went and saw Angels and Demons and headed home.



Then today after teaching about how we smell with our noses and taste with our tongues (I love teaching Sunbeams) we headed out for another day out. We went up into the canyon and up to Squaw Peak. The mountains are SO beautifully green this time of year- it makes me happy just to look at them.


We finished up the day by pulling out my old juicer. (well, it's not that old- we just haven't used it in a LONG time) We made fresh orange juice, strawberry juice and watermelon juice. And then we mixed and matched the flavors to come up with the best combo. For me I think it's a tie between strawberry/watermelon and strawberry/orange/watermelon- just for reference.


All in all, it's been a great weekend. And we still have one day left. I love long weekends!


Watermelon Salsa
2 cups diced seedless watermelon (make sure you dice it really small- like the same size pieces you'd get if you dice up a tomato)
3/4 c finely chopped sweet onion
3/4 c black beans, rinsed and drained
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
1/4 c minced fresh cilantro
2 tsp. brown sugar
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Serve with tortilla chips.

YUM!