London, England

This cute brother of mine received his mission call today. We all met at my family's favorite restaurant, El Gallo Giro. (Same place that we held my Dad's 50th birthday party... haha.) We are all excited to announce that Dan is going to the London, England Mission. He leaves on the 28th of May and will be attending the MTC there in England. We are all excited as this is the first missionary from our family! Congrats Dan!

Bob's Puzzle Update!

Bob got this puzzle for Christmas from his parents. We started it about a month ago. When I say we, I mean I helped with the edges and then I was done. Puzzles are hard for me, I don't have the patience and can't see the connections between pieces. haha.

So Bob has been working on this puzzle for the last month when he has a spare minute I can always find him in the kitchen. I am excited for it to be done, so we can eat at the kitchen table again. We plan on gluing it together and framing it when he is done.

{A Clue Valentines Day}

This weekend I planned an overnight getaway for our first Valentines as a married couple. The suspense all started a week ago when Bob asked what we were doing. Somehow he guessed that we were going to Chef's Table for dinner. I let him think that we were, and soon he was studying the menu on their website.

On Friday, I got home from school a few minutes earlier than Bob and waited eagerly. We got in the car, and awaiting him was CLUE #1. This led us to a B&B that we would stay the night at. Thank you GPS!

After checking in, Bob was able to open CLUE #2 which led us to dinner at Brick Oven. Where we shared Bob's favorite pizza, BBQ chicken and pineapple.
After a wonderful breakfast of fruit parfaits, fresh fruit, stuffed french toast, and bacon, Bob opened CLUE #3. This address took us to the Temple where we did Sealings together. (Bob knew we were going there that day, so it wasn't too much of a surprise.)

CLUE #4 sent us back home to take a break. Bob worked on his puzzle and we both prepared our lessons for church tomorrow.
CLUE 5a gave us an address that took Bob to the marriott center, and 5b contained the tickets to the BYU basketball game. - Sorry no pictures!

*When I was packing for our overnight trip, I on accident saw my present on Bob's side of the bed. He got me a new waffle iron. I am so excited. It will make lots of waffles, it is a family style iron. Bob accidentally broke the one we got for our wedding, so we haven't had waffles for a long time. I got Bob a gift card to Uinta Golf. With that and some money he had been saving he got a few new clubs, and a little something extra special.... haha.All in all, we had a wonderful weekend. We are happy to be home tonight together, and not out fighting others for a table at a restaurant. I have a wonderful husband who I love. He puts up with me, strengthens me, and makes me a better person. I love you babe! Happy Valentines Day!

February update!

I have wanted to share a lot of things that have been happening, yet I haven't sat down and actually done it. I have a few minutes until lunch is over and thought I would get started on my list:

At the beginning of the year Bob opened up a puzzle he got for Christmas. Since that day, we haven't eaten dinner at the table. Here is the first week, and soon I'll post a picture from this week to show the progress.Yes that picture does show that this puzzle is 2,000 pieces!

On February 3rd my Dad turned 50!!! A week or so before we threw him a surprise party. We had both my Mom's and Dad's family meet at El Gallo Giro for dinner. It was a very busy weekend. Andrea and I did everything for the party, and my Mom's job was to get him to the dinner. The night before the party Andrea and I went on a search for 50 presents. Let me tell you, it is hard to find 50 presents for a reasonable price. Some included: a tall tee from Gen X, tapioca pudding, popcorn, braces cleaners, and lots of other fun and small things. It was a lot of fun to celebrate my Dad's 50th! I love you Dad!

On February 7th- We celebrated Bob's Dad's birthday. And also one year from our engagement. It's crazy that is has already been one year. We are 4 months shy of our one year anniversary. Time sure does go by fast.

We have gone to a few BYU basketball games and have been watching some new movies. We recently were called to be Ma and Pa for our stake trek this summer and are excited to prepare and go on that adventure.

Hopefully by the end of March we will know where we will be going for Pharmacy school this fall. We are still waiting to hear back from a few schools and have an interview scheduled for the beginning of March with a school in South Jordan.

Boys hate Girls

You may remember this post-- it was a LONG time ago. Over a year ago I had a boy who hated the girl who sat next to him in class. They were in resource together, and they were always pestering each other. He got mad and wrote a hate letter along with a picture of him shooting her. Little did I know that that was the thing to do in 3rd grade.

Today one of my students was acting a little off. He was in a bad mood and wouldn't do his work. A few minutes before my first group of kids went home, the assistant principal came and got him. I knew something was up when he was still gone 30 minutes later.

While reading with T, he said "I know why D is in trouble." So of course I asked why. T told me that at recess D drew a picture on the wall of him shooting this girl in another class that he hated. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. When D came back we talked, but he wouldn't tell me anything. It was all confirmed after school, and I couldn't believe it.

D spent those 30 minutes being told how serious it is to draw or talk about shooting someone, while he scrubbed the walls. Wow. Who would've known, 2 years in a row.

Cooking more = more dishes!

One of my goals for this year is to cook more. We eat dinner at home most days, but only about once a week was I cooking a meal. Most days we were eating sandwiches, soups, or other just assemble meals. This week was a lot of fun, but I remembered why I didn't like to cook a a lot. We don't have a dish washer, so the dishes pile up, and they pile up fast!

Monday: I didn't have to do anything but make a salad. Bob came home from school and cooked some amazing Ribs. Mmmm they were so good. All I know is he put salt, pepper, BBQ sauce and some brown sugar on it. (I might be missing some ingredients!)
Tuesday: Lettuce wraps and Orange Chicken
For the lettuce wraps we used THIS recipe. We substituted the beef for ground turkey. I also added a cup of chopped up mushrooms to it. We eat this as our whole meal sometimes, but today I went a little crazy.

Costco sells this sauce, it's the Panda Express orange sauce. It is amazing. I used this RECIPE and this is one of our new favorite dinners.

Friday: I made my Mom's famous Sour Cream Lasagna or also known as Cheaters Lasagna. It is so so simple. This is one of the few recipes I can make from memory! Sorry no picture, we ate it too quick.

1. Brown 1 pound ground beef (drain fat)
2. Add 1 bottle spaghetti sauce, 1 tsp garlic salt and a dash of pepper
3. Simmer for 5-10 minutes, while simmering boil 1 12oz bag of twisty noodles
4. drain the noodle and add 1 cup sour cream and 1 cup cottage cheese.
5. In casserole dish, spread one-half meat mixture. Top with sour cream, noodle mixture, then rest of meat. Top with shredded cheese. Bake at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes. (I cover with foil and for the last 5 minutes bake without it.)

New Traditions

Our Temple-Pizza Wednesday night is no more. This Sunday Bob was called to be in the Young Mens Presidency as the 1st counselor. (He is in charge of 1 teacher, we only have 5 young men in our ward.) And their mutual night is on Wednesdays. We knew it would be too intense to try and go to the temple right after school and get home 5 minutes before mutual started. So we changed our temple day to Tuesday. And there aren't any pizza specials on Tuesday night.

I loved being able to come home from the Temple and swing by Wise Guys getting a couple pizzas. I never stressed about dinner. So now that we go on Tuesdays, we need a new tradition, that doesn't cost too much.

This week we went to In and Out. I am pretty sure I could handle In and Out every Tuesday- but I doubt my body could! Haha.

Don't worry about the huge zit on my forehead, it's taking it's own sweet time leaving. Goal- be zit free in 2011!