Christmas Eve :)

Skyped my family tonight.  Love my cute little Snuggie nerds.

We pulled out the china and had Thai food for dinner.

And finally, I finished my nativity puzzle!

A brief intermission...

The Most recent picture of the happy couple.

 

 Yay for sisters coming to visit and for the hot springs!!!

That's all you'll get tonight.  I'm out of things to say until the break is here.

Happiness...

I was thinking yesterday about some of the things that make me happy and I thought I'd share with my humble followers:

1. This face.  Even if it does have a beard.

 2. E. Pluribus Unum (The Art Show)

3. This song (the video is not much but the song, oh goodness).

4. This student.

5. This idea.

What I Really Believe

I've been thinking lately about the upcoming election with Mitt Romney (who I don't endorse).  While I was watching general conference this weekend I felt that I should write this little blurb about my faith.

I think with all the publicity The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or as you may have heard--Mormons, that it is necessary to simplify some things for those who are curious.

The following are a basic nutshell of what we believe and are called the Articles of Faith written by Joseph Smith (who, by the way, we do not worship, but revere just as any Christian reveres prophets of old; i.e. Moses, Noah, Adam, etc.).

1. We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
2. We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression.
3. We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
4. We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.
5. We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.
6. We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.
7. We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.
8. We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.
9. We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.
10. We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.
11. We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.
12. We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.
13. We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

If you are curious even further please visit www.lds.org and/or locate a meeting house to attend where you can find out more.  I find the best place to find out about something is to go directly to a source--at least that's what they taught me in school. :)

Oh Hello

So fall is here and I'm slowly beginning to emerge from a school induced coma.  All I've been able to think, breathe, or talk about lately is school and our show coming up this month in Logan.  So today we decided to get back outside and give a little bon voyage trip to my Chacos.  A few years back Noah and I hiked Stewart Falls and were extremely out of breath.  This time we were rock stars.

One of my favorite things to do with Noah--GO HIKING--check!

Prepare yourselves...

For everything that could have possibly happened to us:

This happened back in the summer, but Paola came to visit!!!

And so did my family at the beginning of September.

We took a trip to Goblin Valley and went cayoneering,

Besides that, Noah and I are back in the full swing of things and are both working.  The End.

Zucchini Hostile Takeover

Second week of school is almost complete(woo) and August too!

Turns out, the month of August is really great for Zucchini.  Now, if you've never grown Zucchini before, you may have received some from your neighbors, because IT NEVER STOPS GROWING!  You end up with so much Zucchini that you have to give it away or your brains will turn into Zucchini.

Anyway, so we decided this month that we would only spend $20 on groceries because the garden was doing pretty good (and because we frequently overspend our grocery budget).  As you may have surmised by now, the thing that has been most in season is the Zucchini (which are HUGE plants by the way).  Nevertheless, we have been eating a LOT of our friendly green gourd (much too the amusement of all of the teachers at lunch).

I've used a lot of parentheses.

Without further ado, here are a few of our favorite Zucchini recipes:

Crustless Zucchini Pie

Zucchini Tots

Ratatouille

Vegetarian Lasagna

Curried Zucchini Quesadillas

*Grate, throw in olive oil and curry powder and cook until you feel like it's done, then top your cheese with it!

Zucchini Turkey Meatloaf

*Make your meatloaf, except, use less ground turkey, instead throw in some grated zucchini!

Zucchini Bread (It's not my grandma's but it's better for you!)

Spiced/Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

Sauteed Zucchini

Roasted Vegetables (Mostly Zucchini)

*Spray a pan with cooking spray and broil veggies until soft.

--and of course, if all else fails, grate and freeze it for later use.

Also, a few never to be tried suggestions from the other teachers:

Zucchini Smoothie

Zucchini Ice Cream

In honor of his birthday...

We had a fabulous day celebrating the day of this guy's birth..

And on honor of him I entered a giveaway on The Color Issue.  Check out that Copper River bag giveaway!

Zombies???

So I've been told on multiple occasions that if there was ever a zombie apocalypse that we would survive.  Here's ten reasons why:

1.  I love my 72 Hour Kit and food storage.
2.  Noah makes our milk(from almonds).
3.  We love camping and have plenty of gear to high tail it to the middle of nowhere.
4.  We can make sprouts!(Thanks Esther.)
5.  Noah bakes bread(and sometimes he hand grinds the wheat.  I know you are all jealous of my domestic husband.  Don't tell him I called him that on the internet.)
6. We garden.
7.  I know how to make cheese.
8.  We dream of living on our own farm/B&B in the middle of some abandoned stretch of land.
9.  We own a book about dying our own clothes from plants.
10.  I sewed my own dress.

Which brings us to the real reason I'm putting up this post.  I made a dress.  I spend quite some time on Pinterest oogling over maxi dresses and decided I didn't want a pattern--I was going to make it up.  Scary right?  If you think that is scary, try reading or attempting an actual dress pattern.  The dress I just made took: 3 yds. of fabric cut into 4 pieces, a sewing machine(and other various sewing equipment), and about 3 hours.

I didn't make the belt.  I bought that at Downeast.

So this will be my first day of school dress.  Bring it on zombies!

The Great Mt. Timpanogos

So, Wednesday last week, Noah and I decided on a whim to hike Mt. Timpanogos.  That lasted about an hour (unfortunately, we ran into a thunderstorm and turned back).  Along the way, we heard that the other side of Mt. Timp was prettier, so for our next attempt we decided to try that route--and boy are we glad we did!

Attempt #1 

Attempt #2 (Noah is going off to use the restroom.)

I kept getting mad because it kept moving, but then it was just trying to pose for a closer shot!

There were wildflowers the entire way.  It was BEAUTIFUL!

We found a spring!  It saved our lives.

Me sliding down on my bum for fear of sliding down against my will.

We camped next to this waterfall coming from Emerald Lake.

The mountain goats that invaded our campsite.

The view from our campsite.

Where we slept.

I think this was at like 4 a.m.  The beans kept us up most of the night.

Sunrise. 

A fossil!

So, a short funny story(of which there were many) from the hike:

I woke up that morning and we looked at the stars for awhile and I discovered a little mouse under my backpack.  I thought, "Oh it's so cute!" and turned on my flashlight and it scampered away.  Noah goes to get breakfast ready and I'm packing up camp and I go to put on my shoes, but my sock is missing!  I had tucked it in to one of the mesh pockets on the side of my pack to let it dry.  I quickly realized that the mouse must have taken it!  Darn sneaky fellow.  I did have an extra pair of nice fluffy wool ones, which is exactly what you want to wear on a hot July day down the mountainside.  Noah says it was just looking for a sleeping bag for it's next mousy sleepover.  :)

One word of advice before I leave you.  Mt. Timpanogos is a very popular hike, while hiking from Aspen Grove is in fact shorter, it is also not for the faint of heart.  We highly recommend hiking from Timpanooeke side which may be longer, but is a much easier/prettier hike.

Dearest Body,

You are welcome now at any point to look like this again.  Anytime now would be great.  I know you're missing a tiny little organ, but I was told you could function fine without it.  So suck it up and get with the program body.  Nobody likes a party pooper and you are pooping at my party.

Love, Becky