What You Been Up To?

Went to Idaho for Easter and took my camera and didn't take one picture so here is my last week in a nutshell.

Thursday was the kids day...Saw Rio...adorable movie! Went to Kohls and the kids got some new summer/ spring clothes, thanks to grandma. Then some dinner at Red Robin.

Friday I got to visit with a childhood friend, Ruth. We were inseparable all through elementary but grew apart as we got older...so wonderful to see her. Went for pedicures with my moms good friend, Sherry. I picked the second color on the left...it is part of the Katy Perry collection and it is called, "The One Who Got Away". Then lunch with my Aunt Jackie and Cousin Brenda, wonderful to see them

We then got some yummy dinner at cheesecake factory with some cheesecake of course...Chocolate Coconut cheesecake...yum!

Saturday morning we spent at the farmers market. I love farmers markets..the food....the food...the food....so fresh, so good.

Saw Lincoln Lawyer with Matthew McConaug "Hey" "Hey"......good movie....

P.S. We got mom to go with us...the late movie...she can stay up past 10:30 ...who knew!

Easter I spent with my dad in the morning and he had an amazing Easter egg hunt and brunch, and then dinner at moms with my niece Gabby..............




P.S. Kenzie sneaked and found her Easter stuff a few days before...that kid is going to be the death of me, to busy for her own good.

Drove home Monday...walked in the door and had to go to Calculus...pthffftttttttt....yuck!


P.S. Seriously worried about my final.....why is math so hard for me?

See this cake above...I made this cake today for my humanities class. We had to bring something homemade for our last class and because I lack crafty skills I volunteered to bake something homemade..I can't craft but I can cook and this is the cake I chose.



P.S. This cake is found on Bakerella's website .....her recipes are divine..try her cake balls!

It is a 14 layer cake all made from scratch. All layers individually baked, then you begin to layer the cakes with a chocolate icing that drips and oozes and as you stack it, it begins to resemble pancakes with syrup oozing down the sides. Then I frosted it with a homemade chocolate buttercream. It was a hit in class.....I got a couple of marriage proposals and a lot of people wanting me to bring this cake to them on their birthday. It is decadent and delish and beautiful.

That is my week in a nutshell, now on to two more finals and then summer classes start immediately......




P.S. ......why I am taking summer classes again? Oh that's right......I am glutton for punishment!

Field Trip

So the last two weeks have been chaotic. Lots of school stuff so my face has been in a book or at school. I had procrastinated a science project. We had to send in pictures of something to do with science...animals, earth, sky...anything really and talk about it. So I had a destination in mind...Bonneville SeaBase.

It is just a few minutes outside of the town we live in. It is a natural geothermic hot springs and because it is near the Great Salt Lake it has the same salt content as an ocean. It is a mini ocean in the middle of the desert..no other place like it. They have 60 different species living in these springs. Most come from aquariums...they call this place a fountain of youth for fish. Fish do well here...really well... they live longer than most fish in captivity and some of the breeds who do not breed in captivity breed in this environment.

They teach scuba and for those who already are certified they only charge 15 dollars for a day pass.

One of the workers gave me a personal tour, he fed some of the fish and it brought a lot of them to the surface...it is hard to see in this picture but there is an angel fish the size of a dinner plate having some chow.

If you come in the mornings they charge 5 dollars and you can help feed the fish and sharks...even pet the nurse sharks...I am so bringing the kids out one morning to feed the fish.

This is the abyss..the deepest of the springs it is over 60 feet deep. There was a clown fish that greeted us at the entrance...guarding his territory :)

Funny to see people scuba diving in the middle of the desert...it made me want to run in and say sign me up...I wanna play! It was a fun break from school work. It is fun to tour these little quirky spots that crop up all around us...just makes me want to see more quirky spots all around the world but in the meantime I will appreciate what is out my back door.

The Circle of Life.

We all have a weakness...things that we just are not very good at...things that frustrate us, aggravate us, something we always fail at. Mine for example is sewing, I can't sew, it frustrates me, aggravates me, and I seem to fail at it anytime I try. I live in the state of Utah where sewing seems to be an inbred genetic that everyone can do, somehow that gene skipped me.

My mother has a weakness....technology. So I want share the experience of my mother getting a new cell phone. My mother and I have gone the rounds on such things as computers and her satellite dish, we snap at each other, we tease at each other, and somehow whatever issue she has we figure out either from long distance or we fix whatever the issue is when we go up to Idaho to visit.

So at Christmas time we told her it was time for her to get a new cell phone, the one she has is very outdated for what she was paying for. It would go to roaming as soon as she left her county in Idaho. She does not need anything elaborate...a phone that does not change to roaming once she leaves Nampa, a phone that she can do basic texting and receving of texts from family. For example, my sister and I exchange photos through text and we would like to include mom in these pictures and daily updates on our lives since we all live in different states.

Yesterday my mom informs me that she is getting a new phone finally and asks for advise on getting one. So over the phone the first thing I tell her is not to go to a Verizon dealer, you get better prices through places such as Wal-mart. The dealer will try to sell you everything under the sun, "DO NOT GO TO THE DEALER"! I tell her to shop around to see what phone is going to fit her needs. We talked some more and we hung up and my first thought was....she is going to go to the dealer.

You see I have a theory that the older we get we begin to regress. My mother is in her regression "Teenager" stage. We start in diapers and someone feeding us and we end our life in diapers and someone feeding us. So I am thinking my mother is in her 60's so I will call this her late teens stage. I lecture her on what she should be doing because "I know best" and she goes and does the opposite...just like a teenager. Somewhere along the lines parents become children and children become parents.

So anyways I call her this morning and ask, "So did you find a phone?" .....she snorts out of frustration and says..yes....after going to one place that didn't have what she was looking for she headed straight to the Verizon deal. "MOM"! I exclaim,"I told you not to do that"! Immediately my next question was how much crap did you buy and how much did you spend"? My mother recalled her experience and the pushy salesman and all the unnecessary accessories that she purchased. So like a parent I ask, "Are you going to listen to me next time"? She says yes but I know she won't because that is what "teens" do.

So the conversation ends with her wondering why her phone won't stay on. I ask, "Did you charge it"? They didn't give me a charger only the car charger she purchased ....."Look in the box the phone came in", I tell her....."Oh, there it is, I have to charge it"?..."Yes, mother charge the phone".

We ended the conversation with me banging my head on the table. So I invision my future, me talking to my children when I am in my 60's, and them lecturing me about whatever current technology I don't understand, and them telling me what I should be doing, and because I will be in my "teen" stage......... I won't listen.

What's Your Theme Song?

As I left my admission counselor at the university yesterday with a list of things I need to make sure I accomplish and maintain for acceptance into nursing school I felt mounting pressure on my shoulders....a mounting urgency....I heard this song in my head...."Under Pressure" by Queen featuring David Bowie

Have you ever heard that question, what is your theme song? Well I know my theme song is not "Walking on Sunshine" (Katrina and the Waves) or "Taking it Easy" (The Eagles). I know it is not "Living La Vida Loca" (Ricky Martin) or "I Can See Clearly Now"(Johnny Nash).

Nope...I didn't hear any of those songs when I left that appointment, I heard faint sounds of Dr. Demento's, "There coming to take me away" and Ozzy Osbournes "Crazy Train" but Queens..."Under Pressure...pressing down on me, pressing down you...lalalalalalalalalalala....was right up front.

I seriously need to find a new theme song........sigh..............

A Holy Revelation From The Food Gods!

You know when you have an idea that is so right, so epic, so awesome.. well,I had this experience at Wal-mart last Saturday.... Yup, I said Wal-mart. So I have growing children in my house who eat non-stop and I am stressed so I relieve my stress through the consumption of baked goods....( yes, back on a diet in the very near future!) Instead of buying cookies I can save money and make my own because I double the recipes and it is enough to last us the week and they are much yummier anyways.

So I had not made chocolate chip cookies for awhile and those seem to be everyones favorite so I set off to get the ingredients I needed. I include instant pudding into my cookies, it keeps them soft and fluffy and that is the perfect cookie for me. I pick up the vanilla instant pudding and out of the corner of my eye I see Oreo instant pudding. It was like heaven shined a light on this box and I received a holy revelation. Use Oreo pudding this time and then my mind started turning...buy Hershey cookies and cream candy bars and break them into pieces and put them in the cookies and add some white and milk chocolate chips to fill in the spaces. I was right...it was epic....it was awesome.......they are delish! It is like cookies and cream ice cream in cookie form.

The recipe itself is nothing new and you can add any pudding you like...I am sure someone else has thought of this concoction so if they have they also had a revelation from heaven because these cookies are yummy!

1 cup butter, room temp

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 c sugar

1 small package instant pudding of your choice (I usually use vanilla but may I recommend Oreo this time :) )

2 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

2 eggs

1tsp vanilla

1 bag of chocolate chips of your choice (If doing the Oreo add the Hershey cookies and cream candy bars..it was what put them over the top of yumminess).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine flour and soda and set aside. Cream butter and sugars together. Beat in the pudding powder, mix until blended then add eggs and vanilla. Add flour mixture till well combined. Add chocolate chips. Bake for 8-10 depending on the size of your cookies.

I usually double the recipe because I make big cookies and usually after the first dozen comes out of the oven our family usually eats them within 10 minutes so I consider the first dozen a wash anyways. Enjoy.......................