Boutonnieres

My sister is getting married tomorrow and my aunt and cousin are doing all her flowers; the bridal bouquet, the corsages and the boutonnieres. I went over to visit with them and they looked really busy, so I asked if they needed any help. My cousin said yes they did and asked if I would like to learn how to make a boutonniere. I have never put together any type of flower arrangement but thought it would be fun to learn, so I said yes and she taught me how to make one. I actually made a few of them including the one my husband wore for the wedding day and you know what it didn’t even fall apart. I wouldn’t say I’m ready for a wedding, but who knows maybe with a little more practice I might be. (Look out Rebecca.) :-)

(The picture is of one of the boutonnieres I made. Pretty good huh?)

Halloween in August?

I guess it is never too early in the retail market to capitalize on the Holidays. I went into the grocery store today to buy a summer basket and when I went down the seasonal/promotional aisle what did I see; pumpkins, ghost, spiders, tombstones and scary monsters. Gone were the plastic jugs with watermelons on them, cute colorful picnic ware and my summer basket. (I will say this, all the Halloween stuff was sooo cute and I really am excited to decorate, but we are still two whole months away. Let's enjoy September before we jump straight into October.) However, I guess if they have Christmas in July they can do Halloween in August.

Weather Station Clock

We have one of these cool weather station clocks in our house and we love it. Unfortunately it stopped working a while ago. First the outside temperature display stopped showing up. This was ok during the summer time, because everyday I knew it was going to be hot, hot, hot, but now that fall is approaching I’d really like to know the temperature outside so that I can dress and plan my day accordingly. Then a week or two ago the inside temperature display stopped working too, so now our weather station has just turned into a glorified clock, which is super boring, so we are going to buy another one at Costco. (Side note: They are building a new Costco about 10 miles from our house, it's scheduled to be finished Spring 2008. Needless to say we are really excited.)

Yummy Summer Dessert

Mike and I went to a BBQ last night and were in charge of bringing a dessert. I got this yummy ice cream sandwich recipe from a friend and everybody loved it. It’s really easy to make so I thought I would share. Enjoy!

Ice Cream Sandwich Dessert

½ cup fudge topping (warmed)
16 oz cool whip (thawed)
1 small package chocolate pudding
12 oreo cookies (chopped)
12 ice cream sandwiches (unwrapped)

Mix together ½ cup fudge topping, 2 cups cool whip, dry pudding mix and oreo cookies.
Place 4 of the ice cream sandwiches, side-by-side, on a piece of tin foil. Spread the cool whip mixture on top of the ice cream sandwiches. Repeat layers. Top with remaining 4 ice cream sandwiches. Frost the top and sides of the dessert with remaining whipped topping. Freeze at least 4 hours before serving.

The Woes of a Warcraft Widow

It’s a hard life being the wife of a "gamer." My husband loves playing computer games and before he started playing the latest one called World of Warcraft(WOW), I was warned by some girlfriends to NOT under any circumstances let my husband start playing. Did I listen? No. Do I wish I would have? Yes. He plays it all the time. While I was in Europe, he told me he played the game for 30 straight hours, no shower, no sleeping, just a little food and water so that he could keep his strength up to move his fingers across the keyboard. My friend’s husband also plays the game and sometimes he and Mike even play together, so at least we have each other for support. Someday I’ll get my husband back. For those of you whose husbands love computer games and haven’t discovered WOW yet, consider yourself warned.

She sure is a pretty bride!

My sister, Mariah, got her bridal pictures taken last week at the Great Salt Lake and oh my gosh, they turned out gorgeous. She took Rebecca and I as her entourage. We were there to make sure she looked beautiful. We checked her hair to make sure every strand was in place, we held her bouquet and veil when she didn't need them, we fluffed her train to make it look pretty, etc... She looked lovely and the pictures turned out great.

Girl's Camp

I have loved attending girl’s camp ever since I went my first year when I was twelve. This year going as a leader was no different. I loved it! It is such a wonderful experience to be able to reflect on God and my relationship with him, enjoy nature and bond with the girls in our young women group. There were 19 girls and 7 leaders that attended. Our camp director did a great job planning the activities, crafts, food etc… Our camp site was located in a beautiful meadow with the mountains on one side and a river on the other. It was so nice to go to sleep each night to the sound of the river. The morning we left for camp we made a stop at Snowbird first to do some fun activities. We all went on the zip line and alpine slide.
One of my favorite things to do at camp was getting the river. Almost every night it rained, so in the morning the temperature was comfortable, however by the afternoon we were all hot. It was fun to play in the water. The girls taught me a new game called, Little Sally Walker. How the game is played is someone stands in the middle and everyone sings a song about a girl named Sally Walker. The song explains that Sally is walking down the street and doesn’t know what to do, so the person in the middle has to do something. They stand in front of someone else while they are doing it (the girls favorite thing to do in the water was to dunk themselves) and then that person has to repeat it and then it is there turn to be in the middle. I also loved singing camps songs and could even remember most of the words. We did lots of other fun things too like having a water fight, playing games (Mad Gab was a favorite), painting fingernails and I enjoyed lounging around in my lawn chair reading my book, etc…
It was a great experience to be with the girls and each one of them impressed me so much.

And then there were Three (Books that is)

The stars were aligned Monday for the release of Eclipse. I was getting myself all hyped up for the party that night at Barnes and Noble when my friend called me with some awesome news. She had gone into Desert Book to buy some missionary supplies when she saw the book on display. Like a light shining in the darkness, there it was. The store had received their copies that day and was setting them out early. She called and asked me if I wanted her to buy me one. Hello, of course I did. I left work, went straight to my friend’s house to pick up the book and went home and started reading it. I read until it was time to go to the party. I didn't really need to attend the release party since I already had my book, but I still thought it would be fun, so I went with some friends who are twilight junkies like me. The party was tons of fun. Barnes and Noble had some games. We played them all and I won something at every one of them. (I told you the stars were aligned.) First we played Alice Bingo. If you won you had to shout out Alice. I got “Alice” when they called out Italy. Next we played pin the tail on Jacob. The gist of this game was you had three chances to shoot a tart gun and hit a bullseye, which by the way is where his tail would have been. My first shot was too high; the second shot was too low. My third shot, hit the bullseye. I won a cute little stuffed wolf. On the trivia game, I technically missed two questions; however I'm only counting it as one, because I think the girl marked my key incorrectly. She said I missed the question; Which of Edward's sister's doesn't like Bella? I mean who doesn’t know that, it is so obvious. The answer is Rosalie. Anyway I got a cool Edward tattoo for playing. The last game we played was pictionary. I had to draw, Alice, Eclipse, Clock Tower and Florida. After the 4th draw it was tied 2 to 2. My team won with my awesome sketch of Bella's truck. By this time it was approaching midnight, so we got in line to buy the book. There were at least 300 people there, so I was glad we were in the front of the line. We had a lot of hard core fans in our group so we ended up buying eight books. When I got home I read until 3:00 am. I put my day off to good use and nearly finished the book. I'm all done now and can't wait for number four.


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