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!

Painting Class

For Christmas my parents gave some money to use to take a painting class. I've done art all my life, but have never really painted. I did a couple things in high school with no real direction at all (after going to design school, I actually prefer to have someone behind me telling me everything I'm doing wrong), but I don't really count those as something that really taught me anything.

I'm currently studying under Derek Hegsted- a guy who's done a lot of LDS art for Deseret Book. It's been a lot of fun to learn such a different side of art- it's definitely not sketching up 150 views of a toothbrush in an hour or drawing paisleys in Adobe Illustrator. It's really refreshing. I feel like being part of an art studio is such a part of me- I've really missed it the past year.

I just finished my first painting. I have to admit- I'm probably one of the worst in the class right now- but I feel like I'm learning so much, so I'm still proud of my little painting! I've just started my second and am really excited to go through the process again now that I know so much more.

Featured!

Wow, I've been blogging about work a lot lately! I guess it's most of what I think about during wedding season. But this one is so exciting!

My little stationary company is being featured on crazibeautiful.com- a website focusing on information for women in Utah. They have a business section where they feature a Utah business (has to be run by a girl too) each week- and this week the feature is Me! How fun is that?

You can see my feature at www.crazibeautiful.com/SharingDreams/

AND if you leave a comment you'll be entered into a drawing for a set of FREE thank you cards designed by me :)

A Morning in the Garden

On Saturday my Aunt Lolli organized a gardening day down at my Grandma and Grandpa Chris' house. Just about all the Utah cousins came down and we spent the day together planting, mulching, cutting, spraying and painting. It was great to have everyone there working on it together. (sure wish I could get that many people working on my lawn at once!)

I think we all loved Grandma's yard before Saturday, but we'll all love it more now that we know first hand all of the perfect, tiny details Grandma puts into make her yard look just right!