Reunion: Fishing

Our house had this cute little fishing pond within walking distance.  I kid you not, the kids did not have to wait more than 2 minutes to get a bite.  It was great!

George Reunion: Harry Potter Dinner

Last week Doug's parents rented this great house in Heber and we all got together for a reunion.  It was such a great week!  Doug and I got to plan the first dinner together.  We wanted to start the week off with a bang so we planned a whole Harry Potter themed meal, including Butter Beer, a Potions Station and a little trip to Honeydukes.   Planning everything was so fun, it's almost embarrassing.  Is it ok to be an adult Harry Potter fan?  I'll just say we planned it for the kids... 

Easter Quilt!!!

I'm done!  Any of you who have seen me in the past 6 months or so will have seen this thing in some stage of its creation.  I've been working on it it for SOOOOO long, planning to enter it into the LDS International Art Competition, and have to turn in my entry in the next couple of days.  I just had to ask you guys a favor first!  

With my entry I get to send in a photo of my entire piece, plus 2 detail shots.  My quilt has a lot of symbolism and so I made a little chart to explain what everything meant, but I'm wondering if it's worth giving up one of my detail shots to send in the chart.  Here are my three shots plus my write up (which cannot be even 1 character longer so I can't add any more explanation). Here's my question to you- can you figure out what everything means with only the photo and write up? Could you leave a comment answering yes or no?   (the write up is ALL of the words below the photos including the list of symbolism.  The chart I made is a picture of the quilt with arrows pointing to what each part means.  I didn't put it on this post because I wanted to see if you could figure things out without it)  

If no one can figure it out I'll add the chart, if you can I'll go with the two detail shots.

THANKS!!!

He Lives: Christ’s Final Week

It is no easy task to visually represent Christ's wonderful works in the week of His Atonement. I prayerfully sought a way to, among the commercialism of Easter, catch the interest of my family and teach them of the events leading to Christ's ultimate sacrifice. This quilt, sewn completely by hand, visually represents the eight days surrounding the center event-or center of the quilt- The empty tomb.

Symbolisms include:

•Palms: Palm Sunday

•Cursed Fig Tree: Monday

•The Ten Virgins, The Great Commandment, Widow’s Mite, Marriage of the King’s Son: Tuesday & Wednesday

•Olive Branches of Gethsemane: Thursday

•Crown of Thorns: Friday

•Darkness: Saturday  

•The Empty Tomb: The Glorious Sunday Morning

Steph's Shower

One of my very best friends from college is getting married next month and this past week I got to throw her a shower! It was so fun to plan. I've helped with a lot of showers before, but have never been in charge of one. I have to admit, it was a lot more fun when I didn't have to work with someone else. (should I really be admitting that? Oh well, too late now) I just really like to over do things like shower themes and when I'm working with someone else I always know that if I let myself get into 'theme mode' they'll just get annoyed. So I always hold back which, in Jessica terms, means I stop having fun.

Anyway, the shower was great. It's been so fun to see Steph meet, date and get engaged to her fiance. I'm so happy for them!

Stacey Reunion

We just got back from a week with my family up in Heber. My parents rented this great house and everyone was able to make it. How fun to see everyone at the same time! The week was full of touch football games, sand volleyball, T shirt tie-dying, family pictures, practical jokes (gotta love that the nieces and nephews are getting to be teenagers now) delicious food, puppet shows, a talent show, fishing and so much more. (and that was just the days we spent at the house- there were two days when everyone out hiking and site seeing that I was way too sick to participate in.)

Now I just have to get over the fact that it will be so long until I see them again!

Stacey Reunion: Catapult Competition

My brother Nathan invented a competition for our reunion. We split into four teams, each team was given the same materials (a couple lengths of wood, two long pvc pipes, some pipe connectors, three bungee cords and the use of some basic tools) to build the best catapult.

So we set off working. After a while the kids wandered off. Then the women. But the guys were addited.By the end of the day each team had an amazing entry for the competition.




(You'll notice that Marika and I were both members of Team Pink did make sure to come back to put some amazing finishing touches on ours. )

We set up the target, aimed and fired!

and fired

and fired....and even turned our devices upside down to see if it would help...
but even after all that firing, I think only one water balloon hit the pinata. Oh well! At least my team won the prettiest award!
In the end we found that 4 year olds are much more efficient water balloon launchers than anything we could make!

Stacey Reunion: Corn Dinner

My Aunt Lolli organized the most amazing dinner for our reunion! Somehow she got all twenty something of us (I'll keep track of how many of us there are when people stop having babies- it just changes too often!) all in the kitchen at the same time making an entire table full of from-scratch dishes. Everything was done about the same time, we didn't have to wait for any major appliances and when we ate, all the hot things were still hot and the cold things cold. That is organization that I didn't think was possible. (can you tell she makes her living as a project manager?) We did it a little like iron chef- we split up into teams and everything had to have one ingredient in common: corn.


Luckily Lolli also provided recipes (which allowed dinner to be fun and delicious!) Here are a couple of my favorites-
Cream Corn

Ingredients

• 2 (10 ounce) packages frozen corn kernels, thawed
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. In a skillet over medium heat, combine the corn, cream, salt, sugar, pepper and butter. Whisk together the milk and flour, and stir into the corn mixture. Cook stirring over medium heat until the mixture is thickened, and corn is cooked through. Remove from heat, and stir in the Parmesan cheese until melted. Serve hot.

Grilled Corn and Bean Salad

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup canola oil, divided
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon chili powder, divided
• Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• 6 ears corn, shucked
• 1 lime, juiced
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 yellow bell pepper, cored and diced
• 1 medium red onion, diced
• 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Directions

Preheat a grill or a grill pan over medium heat.

In a small bowl, add 1/4 cup of the canola oil, the cumin, 2 teaspoons chili powder, and season with salt and black pepper, to taste. Stir to combine. Brush each ear of corn liberally with the seasoned oil.

Arrange the corn on the hot grill and cook for about 12 minutes, giving each ear a quarter turn every 3 minutes. Remove from grill and let cool for 5 minutes. When cool enough to handle cut kernels from corn.

In a medium serving bowl, whisk together the remaining 1/4 cup of canola oil, 1 teaspoon chili powder, the lime juice, garlic, bell pepper, onions, beans, and cilantro. Adjust the seasonings with salt and black pepper, to taste. Add the corn kernels and stir to combine. Mix the ingredients well and serve with tacos, if desired.