Alright, if John’s not going to blog about it…

Then I will! Come on now, we have posterity to think about here! ;)

Remember how I scored major wifey points for finding that wood model ship kit that John really wanted for his birthday? And do you remember how I tried to document his progress in building it? So that part didn’t go as well as planned. Oh well. But now I’m here to show you the finished boat!

This was also really exciting because we got to use my new light box to take the pictures and I gotta say, they turned out pretty awesome :)
And of course, after taking the pictures, I got to edit and play around with them in Photoshop. I really like this Old Paper effect, what do you think?

Now I know what to get John for Christmas! I wonder what model he’ll want next… ;)

An Experimentation in Organization

….

That’s right. I’m talking about meal planning. I actually don’t mind meal planning that much. It’s my mom who hates it. And who I think of when I look at the picture above ;) But I have to admit, it’s not my favorite either. And I don’t know about you, but I find myself reusing the same 10 or so recipes all the time, even though there are other yummy things to make that I actually have recipes for…I just forget about them, I guess. So I was feeling the urge to be a little more organized and efficient with my meal planning…and hopefully that means I’ll be better about saving money when I go grocery shopping. That part remains to be seen ;)

Anyway, I found this on pinterest (man, I love pinterest) and so I modeled my calendar after hers. If you want specific details that I don’t include, it’s probably on that site. And her pictures are prettier. ;)

I started off by writing down all the meals that we eat. I was actually surprised at how many different things I could make! This made for a great start! I went through all my cookbooks (although considering my chosen profession, it’s hardly surprising that most of my cookbooks focus on dessert…not that John would complain if we had sweets every night instead of dinner…) and categorized them by type, such as red meat, chicken, pasta, salad, soup, etc. Once I had all that written out, I could get started.

I went to Joann’s and got a dry erase calendar. I forgot to take a picture of the front without anything on it…so this is from the internet ;)
I totally recommend getting dry erase and cork boards from Joann’s because you can use a 40% off coupon! Mine came out to be about only $12 with the coupon.

I hot glued some magnets onto the back so that I could hang it up on the fridge – so that it’s right there in the midst of dinner making.

I ended up needing quite a few magnets because it was a little heavier than I anticipated and when I had only 8 on there, it would fall every time we opened the freezer. And that was NOT going to work. So I added another 8 and it stays on the door quite nicely now.

Using my list of meals, I made magnetic labels of each meal that I can just stick onto the calendar. I made the labels in Word and then printed them off onto magnetic paper. I got pretty excited when I learned there was such a thing as magnetic paper. The stuff is awesome. I found mine at staples and it worked like a dream. If you want to check out my labels, I have them as PDFs HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. Heck, if you wanted you could print them off for yourself on magnetic paper! Although you might not need as many waffles labels as I do…we take waffles seriously around here…

I then had to cut them all out by hand…which took forever. My paper cutter decided to be stupid and refused to cut cleanly through anything and my replacement blade was DULL! what?! …I need a fiskars…but since I cut them out by hand, some of them look a little wonky because I apparently can’t cut a straight line to save my life. Thankfully, I cannot foresee an event in the near future that would require me to cut a straight line to save my life. Because I’d probably end up dying…

But I digress…

I also made monthly labels to put at the top of my calendar for each month, as well as little gray labels for side dishes, depending on what the side is. B for bread, S for salad, V for veggies, P for potatoes, and R for rice. They go underneath the meal label. The corkboard side is nice – I can hang up clipped coupons for when I go grocery shopping.

Here’s my color coding key. I also made some labels for when we go out to eat, or when we try a new recipe and Thursday is leftovers night. And of course, Waffles every Sunday ;) The dry erase board also came with these little markers with magnets attached, so that was perfect to hang one next to the calendar to write notes on which veggies I’ll be making and for rewriting out the calendar when the month changes.
Underneath I have 6 little clip magnets for Monday through Saturday (because waffles on Sundays are a given around here) with which I use to hang the recipe cards for the week on their corresponding days. Nifty, huh? I don’t know how well it will work…they might fall off the fridge as this part has not gone through rigorous door-opening testing yet. I’ll keep you posted. I also think it looks kinda hokey…opinions, anyone?

I love this because 1) I only have to plan meals once. a. month. YES! 2) I can see all my meal options when I pull out my magnetic labels and I’m not making the same exact things all the time and 3) I like to limit our meals to one red meat and one chicken meal per week (because meat is so dang expensive and hey, it’s healthier not to eat so much meat) and it’s easier to keep track of it this way.

I have pretty high hopes for this new system! What do you think?

Gwape Juice!!

There were gween gwapes and yeyyow gwapes and wed gwapes and purpole gwapes and…

(if you haven’t a clue what I’m talking about – go HERE to see the Kid History video. I promise it’s worth your time…it’s hilarious)

*ahem* Anyway. This week my mom and I learned how to can grape juice. And it. was. so. awesome.

And since we’re totally going to do this next year (right, Mom?) I’m going to write out how to do it…mostly so we remember for next time, because we’re both probably going to forget next time we go grape picking.

The Relief Society President in my Mom’s ward always sends out emails when different fruits are ready to pick and last week she got one about grapes! My family was in Tennessee at the time and so we planned on going together this week to give it a shot.

So on Tuesday we went way out to the boonies to the vineyard/orchard/farm place to get our grapes. Our goal was to pick 100lbs. Why 100lbs? Well, if you picked 100lbs or more, it was $0.50/lb!!!!!!!!! Awesome deal, right?! That was another reason we wanted to give this a try (because you know me and a good deal) Because we were picking so much, we knew we wanted to juice them. I loooooove grape juice. Picking the grapes was so fun!
(Don’t let this picture fool you: this one spent most of the time flapping her arms around squealing about bees and spiders – she was a good sport though and could spot the biggest clusters of grapes ;)
I think I was the only one who genuinely enjoyed the grape picking part… ;)
We had these big 5 gallon buckets that we put the grapes in. We filled 5 to get a grand total of 103lbs!

We took them home and washed them up so that they were ready for juicing. (I may or may not have stroked them and in sweet tones told them we were going to be sucking the life out of them…)

So just in case you randomly decide you want to juice grapes or apples or whatever, I’m going to tell you now you need one of these: a steamer juicer

It’s kind of like a triple boiler. The bottom holds the boiling water and steams the grapes that are put in the top. The juice drips down to the center compartment and comes out that little tube that you can put right into your jar. The problem was that we didn’t know we needed one of these until Monday. (but apparently my Dad did – what?!) And we were picking grapes Tuesday. And I had to go back home Tuesday night. And it turns out you can only get them online. Oops. So Monday afternoon my mom orders one on Amazon and ships it so it would come Tuesday. (super cool to have 1 day shipping!) But then the UPS guy didn’t come until 5:30 Tuesday afternoon (boo!) so we only had a couple of hours to work on it before I had to leave. But it was so fun once we got going!

We washed our jars and then put them into a 200degree oven until we needed them. We also prepped and sanitized the bands and lids.

We filled the bottom of our juicer with water and the top with grapes and waited for the juice to come out the tube. And when it did…I was so excited!!!!
Look! Look!! Juice!!!!!
Once we had enough collected in the middle compartment, it flowed easily into our waiting jar.

We had to work out a few kinks along the way – we learned from my Grandma Hunt (resident grape juicing expert) that it takes about 45 minutes to get all the juices out (we took that first batch out way too soon) and that we shouldn’t put new grapes on top of the old grapes in that top section. (oops – but we only did that once)

By the time I had to leave, we had almost 8 jars of juice ready to go and I could take some home! My mom continued juicing that night and the next day until the afternoon. That’s a lot of juicing! We got almost 40 quarts from our 100lbs of grapes! SO AWESOME! Next up: Apples this fall! YAY!

I made some up for drinking this morning by adding my 1 quart of grape juice with 1 quart of water and 1/3cup sugar.

Ahh…the sweet fruits of our labors ;)

Summery Cookies

So the original plan had been to make these cookies. Then we bought the ninjabread men cutters. And I got a little side tracked.

This happens to me a lot.

However, I still wanted to make these cookies because I had purchased the cutters on sale at JoAnn’s a few weeks ago and with us being gone and out and about for so long, I hadn’t had a chance yet.

So I compromised (with myself…?).

One batch of dough. Some would be ninjas. And some would be ice cream. And a few cupcakes for good measure.

And if you’re wondering, yes, I did put those sprinkles on one by one. With fancy pants tweezers. When I mentioned I had used tweezers to put all the sprinkles on, John freaked out for second and thought I had used his personal hygiene tweezers. Um. NO. I have fancy pants ones, thankyouverymuch ;) Anyway…they are cute, no?I haven’t mentioned yet that my in-laws got me a LIGHTBOX for my birthday! And it is currently at my parents’ house. *sigh* So I still feel my photos to be lacking. So sorry.
But I guess that means I’ll have to make some MORE cookies to photograph in my new toy. Oh darn. John’s coworkers are going to love me! ;)

Happy Summer! :)

Ninja VANISH!

Welcome to my Cookie Dojo! Where only the finest cookies can train to become ninjabread men


Here at the dojo, cookies must train very, very hard to attain mastery of all that it means to be a ninjabread man. You must start as a lotus warrior, and learn to be light on your feet and in the stomach.


Even after rigorous training, few may be able to succeed in becoming a dragon warrior, where a cookie will learn the arts of attacking the taste buds with ferocity.


If a cookie can master these arts, then – and only then – can one become a shadow warrior: the ultimate master of body, mind, and sweetness.


At our Cookie Dojo we train our warriors with the greatest precision and exactness.


Here a cookie will train under the greatest chef-ninjas of the age.

Are you ready to embrace the challenge? Are you ready to master yourself?

 

Are you ready to become ninjabread?

Happy Anniversary!

3 years ago today John and I were married in the LDS Draper Utah Temple. I remember sitting with John, waiting for our marriage to take place and feeling sick to my stomach I was so nervous! :) 3 years seems like such a long time, but it has simply flown by! I feel so incredibly blessed to have been able to spend these 3 years with my best friend. And I can’t wait to see what new adventures are in store for us!

This also happens to be our first anniversary that we’ve been able to spend as just the two of us! Our first year we were in Hawaii with John’s family (not that we’re complaining – that was one of the best trips we took!!) and then last year John’s family came to visit for that weekend when we were living in Chicago, but on the day of our anniversary, I was working a 12 hour shift for my internship. And this year we almost spent it in Arizona! So while we have certainly had fun times the last two anniversaries, it was nice to have the day to ourselves this time ;)

So we’ve tried to be “traditional” and give each other gifts based on the traditional material by year. (For example, the 1st year gift is paper, 2nd is cotton, – we think it gets progressively more exciting the longer you are married because you’re typically dirt poor in your first year of marriage ;) This year’s material was leather. What?! Leather?! Both of us were at a loss as far as gift ideas went. I think it took both of us to the last minute before we figured something out, but it was a success! Yay! Go us! ;)

But first, I have to show you how awesome my gift wrapping scheme was. I happen to try to keep up with the crafting trends of the day and baker’s twine is so in right now ;) So are monograms. And book pages. As a result my gift wrapping was super trendy. Let me just show you
Awesome right?! John came home from work yesterday and was so impressed he let me put my initials on my gifts after he wrapped them. hee hee hee!! I went to the thrift store and found an old Webster’s dictionary for $1.20, which is what I used to cut out the letters. For the J’s I used a page from the J section, and an A page for the A’s! I even managed to get the words “anniversary” and “Auf Wiedersehen” (why is a German farewell in the English dictionary? no idea, but I loved it!) into one of the A’s too! Clever?! I know! ;)

But anyway, we started off the morning with a favorite: fruit smoothies and we exchanged gifts. We had decided that one gift would be the traditional material, while the others could be whatever we wanted to give. For John’s leather gift, I found a leather craft kit to make a leather belt buckle with an eagle on it and some leather finish. John does have a belt that uses belt buckles, if you were wondering and he loves it, so this was GREAT! I also found this really funny book at a store called Marbles (It sells games and books for your brain) called Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction and it’s filled with ideas and instructions on how to make little weapons out of office supplies and then I compiled a kit of the typical supplies that the book calls for:

So fun, right? I see lots of interesting Family Home Evenings/Date Nights in our future… ;)

John’s leather gift to me was a beautiful pair of black leather gloves! I am so excited to wear them this fall/winter! He also got me a gift card to amazon for my kindle (YAY! more ebooks!!!!!), and because I love me a good kitchen gadget, a cheese slicer. ha! Right before I opened it, he goes “this is probably the cheesiest thing I’ve ever gotten you”. It’s too bad our anniversary hadn’t been yesterday, when I actually really needed a cheese slicer when I made dinner. Funny how life works out sometimes…

John was able to get the day off today so that we could celebrate. We spent the day in DC and checked off a few more items on our bucket list! First off, an old favorite, the International Spy Museum! We LOVE that place. We successfully completed our ‘missions’ and didn’t blow our ‘covers’ and spent a good 3 hours there. The only bummer is that we can’t take pictures. I can kinda see why, but still – boo! But we had a great time learning about espionage and spymasters and looking at real life spy gadgets. We are both pretty sure we would never make it as spies. ;) On our way out through the Spy Museum Store, we got THESE!

Words cannot even express how excited I am to own these. Three guesses on what kind of cookies I’m making next!!! Mwa ha ha haaaa

After learning to be sneaky, we headed over to our favorite eating stop: Good Stuff Eatery! After stuffing ourselves with burgers and shakes we rolled headed over to the National Postal Museum. I was certainly surprised at all of the interesting things there were to learn about the history of the postal service. Unfortunately, we got there an hour before it was going to close, so we had to breeze through most of the exhibits, but we will probably go back at some point.
There were lots and LOTS of stamps. A collector would go nuts in a place like this.
I found some Bavarian stamps I liked :)

At that point it was already 5:30! The museum closed and it was time for us to head home. On our way back on the metro, we saw the Discovery Channel building on the outskirts of DC. How do we know it was the Discovery Channel? Well…I’ll just show you:

Happy Shark Week! ;)

And that is our 3 year anniversary celebration! It was such a fun day and I love being able to go on these adventures with John. I found one amazing guy! I sure do love you John!! Happy Anniversary!

It Rhymes!

How many instances can you think of in which a city rhymes with the state in which it is located?

I can think of one.

…

Sedona, Arizona

(I know it’s not a perfect rhyme, keep your hair on)

But let me just tell you I had plenty of fun saying it while we spent a week there with our good friends the Skankeys.

(Yes, that’s really their name. You’ll need to get over it, because they are awesome.)

Last week we spent a lovely and HOT (I think we broke heat records every. single. day.) week in Sedona, Arizona. I might just keep saying the city and state together. I like the way it rolls off the tongue. I may or may not have been singing it to the tune of Weird Al’s “Yoda” song…I know that’s also a spin off…but I can’t remember the original…

But I digress…

I need to back up just a little though. I flew out with my family to Las Vegas – John would be joining us later – back on July 31st. We got in super late, well, it felt late since we were experiencing a 3 hour time change, and stayed the night in Vegas until we were picked up and we drove to the Skankeys’ house. We spent a couple of days there before making the drive to Sedona…Arizona ;) But while we were still at the Skankeys’ house, there was definitely fun to be had!
There was Olympics watching and ice cream eating and grocery shopping and BBQ eating...

There was jet skiing and snorkeling
And for those crazy enough to do it, cliff jumping!

Some of the boys also went to spend a night at Camp Stuck-in-the-Mud. What is Camp Stuck-in-the-Mud? Well, long story short, the Skankeys own a couple of acres of land out in the middle of no where and there have been several instances in which someone’s car (at least I think it’s been the car) has been stuck. Hence the name. Camp Stuck-in-the-Mud. Anyway, I snagged some pictures from them of their time there

On Friday, the 3rd (my birthday! Hurray!), we drove up to Sedona, Arizona and checked into our fancy condos. One thing is for sure, when we vacation with the Skankeys, we vacation in style. And we were lucky enough to all be in the same building! AND I got super lucky and my friends the Brintons came to see us! (and Elizabeth, would you pretty please send me the pictures you have on your camera? I don’t have any of us! eek!) That was a good birthday present :) We got settled in and watched more olympics – I loved having cable to watch them! – and went swimming. John got in that night, but since it would feel really late for him to drive two hours from the Phoenix airport, he stayed the night at his aunt and uncle’s house in Peoria.

On Saturday we went on a hike. We went to a place called Fay Canyon. There were lots and lots of rocks. Red rocks. And dirt. Red dirt. We hoped to find some natural arches. We didn’t find any for a while, so we made our own:

Then a few people went up to see an arch and the rest of us came to this cobra like formationHere is the arch they found. Cool, huh?
I don’t know what the heck my hair is doing in this picture…but that little rock pile I’m standing on had a sign that said “End of Trail”. A little anti-climatic if you ask me ;)

After we got back, John had made it to the resort! Hurray for being together again! The rest of the day was still pretty mellow. We had yummy food and watched more olympics and played games. The Brintons had to leave that afternoon, but I’m so glad we got to see them! I’m hoping that at some point we’ll get to see them more than once a year (I went out to visit last summer)… but until then…see you next year! ;)

Sunday we went to church at the teeny tiny Sedona (Arizona) ward. I’m not exaggerating when I say teeny tiny. They don’t even have a nursery! Crazy, right?! But it was a nice ward and we stayed for Sacrament meeting. Since we were all in nice clothes, the mammas wanted to take a family picture when we got back to the condos. (and you can finally see a good shot of the dress I made!)
And of course, we all know how everyone really feels about taking the pictures… ;)
Then we went in and had the Hunt classic: Waffles! :)

After waffles we went to a state park to see Montezuma’s castle. It’s this huge structure built right into the rock. But we did learn that Montezuma never stayed in it. European explorers found it called it that and the name just stuck I guess.

It was pretty amazing. But I’m so glad I never had to live there ;) Studies of the structure and artifacts tell us that a community of about 35 people lived here. Crazy!
Jennifer is convinced she’s part of both families ;)
We found these trees with really interesting bark that reminds me of an impressionist painting.
“Okay, show me your tired faces!”

John and I also drove to the Flagstaff area to see one of John’s cousins and his wife. I had never met them and John hadn’t met his cousin’s wife. It was a very nice visit and I tried veggie lasagna for the first time ever – and it was delicious. I was also totally jealous of her interior decorating skills. I was having wreath envy for sure ;)

Monday was horseback riding day. At Dead Horse Ranch State Park. I know. Great name, right? What was even better was driving up to the horseback riding place and seeing this:
We found out later on the ride that the wind had knocked the horse sculptures over, but we still thought it was pretty funny.
My one request for the ride was to not get put onto a former racehorse. Because that’s what happened when we went horseback riding in Hawaii and it was a power struggle the entire ride! So of course when Tish asks the guides to NOT give me a former racehorse…well…they put me on a former racehorse. But I guess he was pretty slow in his career ;) so he was much easier to ride. His name was Noz, and we got along quite well :)
At one point during the trip, a guide was able to get pictures of all of use on our horses and they turned out really good! For the sake of space I went brady bunch style on this one. We nicknamed Mom’s horse Snacker because she had to have something in her mouth the entire ride and would constantly stop and grab a snack to go. The funny thing about this is that we were told not to let the horses eat on the trail…and so mom’s horse was very naughty.
We impressed the guides with our willingness to be a little crazy and we got the entire group to sing the Indiana Jones theme while riding and John won the Best “Yee-Haw!” Award. ;)
The ride was an hour and a half and most of us felt pretty bow-legged by the end, but I think everyone had a good time.

“Okay, Dead Horse faces!”

After riding, we hit the pool to ease our sore muscles ;) We played a lot of monkey in the middle. I hate being in the middle, by the way ;)
Mom and Tish went to the store and got inner tubes and these funny little squishy sea urchin looking things that had little eyes. When you squeezed them, their eyes would bug out. We had a lot of fun with this. (this picture is me going EEEE!!! while squeezing the little toy. It was really funny…I guess you kinda had to be there…)

Tuesday was the Grand Canyon. And we had a GRAND time! *snicker* John and my Dad had never been, so it was fun to be able to go. I still can’t get over how enormous it is. It doesn’t look real, even in real life!
And while it was fun, there was lots and LOTS of walking
After walking around the rim, we went over to another vista with an observation tower before we left. And by that point it was overcast and blessedly cooler than earlier.
John got some great pictures and panoramas
Then we headed up to the observation tower. Mom and Dad beat us to it – can you see them in the windows? ;)
We also saw some Elk hanging out over there and Cameron pretended to go hunting.
Most of the pictures we took in there didn’t come out because it was so dark. But the ones we did get…well…Jennifer really likes to be in front of the camera…;)
 
Wednesday some of the boys went mountain biking and I grabbed a few pictures that John took while they were out
Bryce crashed, but thankfully he survived!

Dad and Robert had to leave Wednesday to go back to work, so we said good bye to the Daddies. We spent the rest of the day watching the olympics (and making fun of the commentary and the interviewers that ask the athletes stupid questions. “What was going through your head during the last 50 yards of your sprint?” “How did you feel when you realized you had just fallen short of winning the gold?” Um really? They are paid to do that?) and we taught the group how to play our favorite card game “BANG!”.

Thursday was our last full day of vacation so John and I went off to do something on our own. We took a Pink Jeep Tour! So fun. And yes, we rode in a bright pink jeep and went off-roading through the canyons. I should mention that the ride was SUPER bumpy ;)John got a video of us riding along – try not to get seasick ;)

I’m guessing John was totally wishing he was driving, but we learned lots of interesting things about the area. (And I’m kicking myself because we didn’t actually get a picture of the pink jeep itself – GAH!) We learned that Sedona, Arizona was actually named after the Pennsylvania Dutch wife of one of the early settlers in the area. We also found the only McDonalds in the WORLD to have a green M, rather than the traditional golden arches, and this is because of the city’s color codes. The buildings all have to look natural and blend in with the surrounding nature. Yellow was not allowed. There is also a rock formation called Thunder Mountain and it is that formation that inspired the Disney ride of the same name. Our guide also told us that on the ride, right before you get to the top of a drop, you can see four boxes that say “Sedona Mining Company” on them. Cool, huh? The next person to go to Disney needs to look for these for me ;) About halfway through our tour, our guide took us on a little hike to a vista where we could see pretty much allllll of Sedona, Arizona

After the tour we found a yummy fudge shop and checked out some of the funny stores they had in downtown Sedona, Arizona. We came back and shared fudge and played games and yes, watched more olympics :)

And at last, it was time for our fun to end. We checked out of the condos on Friday morning and John and I drove back down to Phoenix to fly home, while the rest of my family went back to the Skankeys’ house for a few more days. We did make a slight detour however…
My California Boy definitely needed his In-n-Out fix before we headed back to the East Coast! Thank goodness for locations in Arizona! :)

Our flight was fairly uneventful, unless you count John getting peppered with questions about being Mormon and getting lectured on doctrines in the Bible (that we already know) by the guy sitting next to him for the first hour and a half of the trip, as well as showing John every picture he had on his phone and learning the life history of all his family members and his cows (he was a farmer). I was finally able to interrupt and invite John to play a game with me and then our zealous friend backed off a bit ;)

Disclaimer: Please don’t misunderstand me, we are more than happy to discuss our beliefs and listen to yours, but it was more like he’d ask John a question about what we believe and John would give a clear, concise, easy to understand answer. Then our friend would launch into a 10-15 minute discourse on what he believed, complete with pulling out his Bible and reading passages. Let’s not shove our beliefs onto others, okay? :)

But the excitement wasn’t quite over for us. We got to the parking lot where our car had been patiently waiting for us all week and found that our battery was dead. Yikes! The real bummer is that the battery is only a few weeks old, because our last battery had died one morning when we were trying to leave to get John to work. Thankfully, the parking lot manager on duty had a nifty jumper cable cart and gave us some juice to get home. So far the car is still running…so we’re hoping that was a fluke, but we’re taking it in this week to see what’s going on.

We had a nice relaxing weekend, with the exception of having to speak in church on Sunday – public speaking stresses me out (but it went well, don’t worry) – and now we are trying to get back into a normal schedule. I think I’m gonna make cookies. :)

Thank you so much family and Skankeys for all the fun this week! Miss you already!