Love is in the air

Ok so I know a lot of people like to complain about having holidays where you are forced to do something for someone like Valentines, Mothers day and Fathers day.  However even though I agree that I have a husband who shows me his love all year long, I still think it's fun to have a day designated to go above and beyond for your loved one.

With that being said this is how our "love" day/month went.  For Chase I decided to do the 14 days of Valentines.  I bought 14 little "gifts" for each day leading up to Valentines.  I really enjoyed this and I'm pretty sure he did too.  Even though he kept asking if I was trying to make him fat since I bought a lot of candy.  No that was not my intentions :)  Below is what he got.

This one says I've always been carazy for you, in case you cant see the first word.

With his can I also added a note that I was armed and ready.  He walked in the door and I started spraying him.  Uh he wasn't even ready :) Oops. Oh and the note says "I love that we can be silly together."

This one came with mint chocolate chip ice cream, but our freezer is too full so it's at Mom and Dad Birks' house.

For myself Chase kept telling me he got me a puppy, however I have yet to find this cute puppy :(  Anyway I apparently messed up his plans.  He planned on putting a note on his pillow so that I would find it when I was ready to get out of bed, instead I jumped out of bed to help him pack some snacks for lunch since he doesn't usually have time to eat.  So I found all 3 of my cute notes and presents right at the start of the day, instead of finding them throughout the day.  My first one was on the table, the 2nd in the fridge which was deliciousness from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and my 3rd was a rose on my office chair.  I loved them all and it was so sweet.  Little did I know there was another present waiting for me to find it.  I'll explain the 4th later.

Ok so for our Valentines date or dinner instead of going out somewhere I wanted to stay home.  So I found a bunch of cute ideas for at home dates on The Dating Divas website.  Which by they way they have a butt load of ideas.  I decided that I wanted to combine some of our first dates into one date night, so we were going to go camping, watch Cars and eat funnel cakes for dessert.  Camping because on our very first date I had invited him to my families annual trip up to Jackson Hole to go rafting and camping.  Watch Cars the movie because our first date was to the race track.  And eat funnel cakes because our 2nd date was to the carnival.

Since I knew it would take a little bit of time to really clean our apt, go for a run and set up for the date I got off of work early.  I guess I was too slow though because Chase came home before the date was set up and I wasn't even home.  I had gone up to my in-laws house to get ready because our apartment's water heater wasn't working all that great and I didn't want to have my 3rd chilly shower that week.  So I ran up there and when I came home I had to make Chase hide in the bedroom so that I could set up the tent in the living room.  Once I got that all set up I let him free from his prison and we started making dinner.  Hobo dinners (tinfoil dinners) was on the menu, because who doesn't think of camping when they hear hobo dinners.  Which by the way took a lot longer to cook than we expected, haha oh well.  While dinner was cooking we started watching our movie.  Once our tummies had room for more we made our very own funnel cakes that didn't turn out very well.  Haha they still tasted good it was just a pain to cook.  So even though things didn't run smoothly we still had a lot of fun!  I think we need to have more date nights like it.

Ok so my last gift.  When I got home Chase sniffed me saying that I didn't smell like myself.  I had just been thinking about that on the way home so I chuckled and said yeah that's because I used Carissa's shampoo and conditioner, Carissa's body wash, and Carissa's lotion.  So I ended up smelling like Carissa, which is not a bad smell since she likes her smell goods :)  I'm pretty sure he then told me I should put on some perfume but I didn't.  So later on that night he sniffed me again and said I should put on some perfume, I told him I didn't want to since it was late.  After multiple more comments of me putting on my perfume I finally went to put it on to oblige.  I opened up the door and found my last present hiding by my perfume.  That morning he had hid an iPhone by my perfume with the logical thinking that I would put my perfume on when I would get ready for the night.  Since I didn't get ready at home and didn't put on perfume he had to finally pretty much force me to go find my last present.  After finding the present I had to ask him if he still wanted me to put on my perfume :)

So that was our Valentines and I loved everything about it!

Vacation needed

It's weeks like this one that I feel the need to be on a vacation!  Oh how I wish that I could leave work behind me, board a plan and go somewhere refreshing for the soul and mind.  I'm a day dreamer and lately I've been day dreaming of being on a warm beach!  Somewhere kind of like this.......

I think I could handle that.  

Other places that I would love to visit that isn't summed up in one word like BEACH, would be Ireland and Germany.  Of course there are many other places in the states and outside of the states that I would love to visit too but right now I'm not dreaming of them. 

So why Ireland and Germany you ask.  Simple.  I've always been fascinated with Ireland.  I love how green it is and of course the movies make it look lovely too.  Oh and who could forget about the accent.  Sometimes I day dream about raising my kids in Ireland or England just so they can have the accent :)  Germany because Chase served his mission there.  After looking at pictures of Germany I can see why he loved it besides the fact that the Porsche factory is there.  Remember a couple summers ago when the mountains were super green and beautiful?  Yeah well he said Germany is always that green in the summer.  What can I say I'm a sucker for vibrant landscape.

Germany

Germany

Germany

Ireland

Ireland

Ireland

I'm sad about the quality of the pictures, but I'm too lazy to find more.  I told google only to give me large quality pictures.  They looked good on google but not on my blog, go figure.  

Now hopefully since I've looked at so many pictures today, I'll dream about being on vacation.  Maybe that will help my itch of wanting to be on a real vacation :)  Doubt it, but it's worth a shot!

Working from home

Did you know that working from home is not all that bad?

A couple months back my work was trying to get a bunch of people to work from home.  I had never really given it much thought beforehand.  So when I told my manager that I was thinking about it she strongly encouraged it.   She told me that it would be really good for me to work from home. You see, she thought a lot of the issues I was having was because I talked too much, so of course I'd do better at home right? :)  I will be the first to admit that, yes, I like to talk to people, but I personally don't think that talking was causing all of my problems.  Anyway, when I told Chase that I was thinking about working from home he worried that I would go crazy without being around people.  I too worried about that but we decided that I'd never know unless I tried.  So here I am working at home and I actually love it.  I'm surprised myself :)  I think what saves me is that I told Cierra we had to work out each morning before work.  We did pretty good but still have work to do :)   In other words, we both have a really hard time getting out of bed!

Even though some mornings it's made me really tired, it gives me the opportunity to get out of the house and be social.  Hopefully that's enough social interaction so I don't go crazy being cooped up inside all day by myself.

Ok so the story of getting my office furniture:

Since I was going to be working from home we had to get a desk and chair.  I tried buying a desk from some guy on ksl.  His desk had been listed for a week which to me meant go ahead and ask for a lower price than its listed for.  So I offered him half, mind you be was only asking $50 anyway.  So I offered expecting him to counter offer with a different price.  Nope he didn't.  Instead he started off by calling me a dude, uh I'm not a dude, I'm a dude-ette doesn't he know better, sheese.  We'll anyway he told me that even though its Provo his asking price was reasonable.  Bad idea buddy.  I was already in a bad mood, so I have gave him a piece of my mind.  So since he pissed me off and Chase and I were so sick of shopping for chairs and were starving, we decided to just buy this little desk we found at staples.  So with my chair and desk both being on sale, we were able to get them both for under $150.  Yeah for shopping deals, boo for how cranky it made me.

I work in our storage room haha.

So if you ever stop by my apartment during the day and see my car in the parking lot but I'm not answering the door, it's because I'm working.

Snowbird

Crazy or not somehow Snowbird always makes its way into our year.  Which we don't mind at all.  Snowbird is pretty awesome.  Maybe they should pay me or something for dedicating this post about them.  That would be nice, but I know I'm dreaming.

Anyway since Chase and I have been together we've tried to make our way up to Snowbird each year for Oktoberfest.  We haven't always made it, but it's been fun to go.  It gives me a little taste of "all things" German.  I say "all things" because I know that I'm not getting a true feeling of all things German.  I think I would need to go to Germany to truly experience it.  Maybe, hopefully, wishing that one day we'll get to go.

This is right down the street from an apartment Chase lived in during his mission.  Oh and I don't claim this as ours, I found it on pinterest one day.

You are probably wondering what do you do up at Oktoberfest?  Well first things first you find a place to park in their jammed packed parking lots.  Luckily they have a bus that will take you from your car to the fun.  Lets just say parking is crazy, but don't let that scare you away.  The activities, on the other hand, consist of drinking beer (or in our case, root beer), eating yummy food, like brats, waffle on a stick dipped in chocolate, candied nuts, and I'm sure lots of other things we didn't have.  Other activities are the zip line, the alpine slide, riding the lift up to the top of the mountain, going through all of the booths, a rope jungle gym thing for kids, and last but not least live entertainment.  Oh and drinking more beer.  I'm kidding it's not that bad.

Each year we've done something different and have always enjoyed ourselves.  The first year we rode the lift up to the top and froze our behinds off.  It was so cold!  We didn't have a jacket and were in lederhosen.  It was funny wearing our lederhosen because we got some funny looks from people.  I don't know why, don't they know that it's normal German attire, well maybe not for me but for the boys it is. This year we just ate food, walked around to the booths and enjoyed each others company :)  Chase wore his lederhosen and I left the other pair at home.  They are a little short and I didn't have time to buy leggings to go underneath. 

This is an old photo but this way you see us both in lederhosen :)

Next up on Snowbird's fun activities, family movie night.  This was a blast!  I mean seriously who wouldn't want to watch a movie outside in the summer in the mountains.  We made this activity into a double date and enjoyed our company.  They were really sleepy :) and I think they slept pretty much the whole movie, haha.  That's alright we can forgive Chelsea because she had just gotten back from London.  Todd on the other hand, we don't know his excuse.  Don't worry though because when they were awake they were a fun couple to hang out with.  After we had dinner we drove up to Snowbird with a bunch of blankets and started our journey.  We weren't exactly sure when the movie was going to start because Snowbird only tells you that it starts at dusk.  Well we got there early, but that's alright.  We found ourselves a good spot, got snuggled up and comfy and waited to watch our movie.  It was really cool.  If you have ever been to Snowbird they have this big open area right by the tram which is where they had the movie.  Plus let's don't forget that were watching the movie outside, awesome!  Even though the movie was weird (the boys picked the Gremlins) it was still fun!  We will definitely be doing that again :)

Oh and let's not forget that skiing/snowboarding is always fun to do up there :)  We've enjoyed a few runs up there as well.

Thank you Mike for the picture

So there you have it, Snowbird is a place that's full of fun activities.  We will be visiting again sometime.

Oh and p.s. if you have to scroll your screen because the pictures are too large please let me know.  Thanks.

Teaching Young Women's

So on Sunday I taught the very first lesson with the new curriculum that we have for the youth.  I was really scared being the first one to teach, since my ward wasn't doing any training beyond what the church website provided I freaked myself out.  How are you supposed to teach a lesson if you don't even know guidelines to doing it.  Luckily my mom-in-law's ward had multiple training's and since she is also in the Young Women's, she invited me to one of her training classes.  I'm so glad that I went.  It really helped me as I prepared my lesson.  Which by the way was a week long preparation not a night before deal like I used to do.

Anywho the whole reason I brought this up is because my girls along with myself made it through the lesson!  Wohoo.  However I do have one regret :(  I was asking one of the girls a question about a scripture we read.  I unfortunately was not articulating myself very well which confused her and most likely made her feel awkward.  It wasn't until one of the leaders spoke up and told her that it's a confusing scripture and it's okay if she doesn't understand it.  Well duh!  Why didn't I think of telling her that!  So to my young women, I'm really sorry that I made it awkward.  I vow to be better and it's probably a good thing that I don't teach again until May.  Lot's of preparing coming my way :)

Now if you are wondering what lesson I taught you can find it here.  I decided to teach on "How can I know my Heavenly Father?"  I loved the lesson and I learned a lot as well.  At the end of class I challenged the girls along with myself to pray morning and night and study the scriptures.  I know it is kind of a tall order if this is not already a habit, but I truly know that if we all make this part of our daily habit that we will come to know our Heavenly Father better.  What a wonderful thought that is.  Who wouldn't want to know him better?  I also showed a video that when I watched it, it gave me the goose bumps.  Which I know was the spirit telling me that the girls needed to watch this video over the other one.  I hope in any way that my girls got something out of the lesson and that they will continue working on building a relationship with their Heavenly Father.
Oh and in case you wanted to watch it as well here is the video.  It's good I promise.

If you need to take anything away from this post take these two thoughts.  First, it's okay to make mistakes as long as we can recognize and learn from them.  Second, we need to come to know our Heavenly Father better and some of the best ways to achieve this is by praying to him and studying the scriptures.  

Put your Shoulder to the Wheel Push Along

We're going to be a Ma and Pa!  Yay :)  Ha did I fool you again?  Hopefully not.  Actually we're going to be a Ma and Pa for Trek, and boy are we excited.  

You're probably wondering why they picked such a young Ma and Pa.  Simple... I pretty much volunteered us.  You see being in the young women's presidency you get to talk with the Bishop a lot more than you normally would.  Well one day I had mentioned to Megan our YW president, before that I would love to be a Ma and Pa one day.  So while during a meeting our Bishop brought up the fact that the stake is doing Trek next year.  Megan quickly informed him that I would love to be a Ma and Pa and of course I couldn't deny the fact.  A couple weeks later wa la we were called to be the Ma and Pa from our ward. Wohoo! 

Now you're probably wondering why in the heck I wanted us to be a Ma and Pa so bad.  The answer to that takes me back to my trek experience.  I absolutely loved trek!  I loved the entire experience and I loved my Ma and Pa.  It probably helped the matter that I was a favorite trek child of theirs, haha.  Anyway, my entire trek experience made me want to be involved when I got older and I decided that being a Ma and Pa would be the best way to experience it again.  Boy do I hope I'm right.  However, you see Chase didn't enjoy his trek as much and I did, so it took just a little convincing on my part to make him believe he would love it too.  Luckily he wasn't hard to convince :)  What a sweetheart.  

So let's be honest I can't wait for Trek to come!  Obviously right, since I am doing a whole post about.  However I hope our stake starts being more fun, because if it's anything like our kick off fireside, I'm afraid it's going to be hard to get the kids wheels spinning so that they can make it fun experience.  No need to worry though because they'll have me as a Ma and Chase as a Pa and we're load's of fun as it is ;)  

This is me on trek.  My Pa was a germ-a-phob so I started a mud fight, chased him down and got him a little muddy.

Come July we will become a Ma and Pa to a handful of teenagers and I hope they love us.  I actually have a lot of expectations for trek and I hope I don't end up disappointing myself.  I tend to do that a lot.  All I can say though is that I truly hope that we will be able to help give our "kids" an enjoyable, spiritual and uplifting experience.  I really hope I'm as good of a Ma as mine was to me.  I guess the experience of it all will only tell.  So here's to reenacting what the pioneers did, to pushing and pulling handcarts, to feeling the spirit of our pioneer ancestors, to being on a spiritual high, to doing hard things, and to enjoying our journey along the way.  We will have a great time and it will be memorable enough that we are all going to be talking about it for years to come. :) So bring it on, we're ready to put our shoulder's to the wheel.

Oh and if anybody has any advice, we would love it :)

Asparagus

Do you like asparagus?  Because I do!

Growing up I wanted nothing to do with asparagus.  I had heard that it makes your pee stink so therefore I hated it and wouldn't eat it.  Once I got older and wiser I realized that asparagus is really yummy!  I think of it as kind of having a slight mint flavor.  Everybody has their own opinions though.  So you might think differently.  Well the reason why I'm bringing this vegetable up is because Chase and I tried a recipe the other day and it was to die for.  Not literally, but kind of.  The soup takes about an hour and a half to make so I was really happy to have Chase's help.  However a lot of the time is simmering :) so I'm sure I could do it on my own next time.  When Chase and I went to do a taste check, to make sure we didn't need to add anything else we about passed out.  Ok ok I exaggerated a little.  I tasted it first and immediately told him it was soooo good.  Chase then took a bite and I started thinking he thought I was crazy from the expression on his face, but I was wrong!  He said "oh my gosh this is the best soup I've ever had".  I then started giggling because it really was the best soup and I couldn't believe that we actually made it on our own stove top, from a recipe of course but still you can mess up a recipe.

So instead of reading about my new found fetish with this soup, I have provided it on the blog so you can try it yourself.  Here's the recipe, it's from the foodnetwork.com and has five stars, but we would give it 10 stars if we could ;)

This is our picture (not the food network's)

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

• 3 pounds fresh asparagus, rinsed
• 8 cups chicken stock
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 cup minced shallots
• 1 cup minced leeks, whites only, well rinsed
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan, garnish
• 
  

Directions

Trim the attractive top tips from the asparagus, about 1 to 1 1/2 inches in length. Cut the woody stem ends from each spear and reserve. Cut the remaining tender stalks into 1/2-inch pieces.

In a medium pot, bring the stock to a boil. Add the tough woody stems, lower the heat and simmer to infuse with asparagus flavor, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and discard, reserving the stock.

Add the decorative tips to the stock and blanch until tender, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. Remove with a strainer andrefresh in an ice water bath. Drain on paper towels and reserve for the garnish. Reserve the stock.

In a medium stockpot, melt the butter over medium-high heat. When foamy, add the shallots and leeks and cook until tender, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the chopped asparagus stalks, salt, and pepper, and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the reserved broth and simmer until the asparagus are very tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the heat.

With a hand-immersion blender or in batches in a food processor, puree the soup until smooth. Adjust the seasoning, to taste. If serving right away, return to medium heat and add the cream and reserved asparagustips. Cook, stirring, until the soup is warmed through, about 3 minutes.

Alternatively, if serving the soup later, do not add the cream and let cool at room temperature (or in an ice water bath). Cover and refrigerate. Before serving, add the cream and asparagus tips, and warm the soup gently over medium heat, stirring occasionally.

To serve, place the soup in a soup tureen and sprinkle with cheese. Ladle into demi-tasse cups or small coffeeor tea cups, and serve.

Trust me you need to try this.  You wont regret it I promise.  If you do regret it, then I'm sorry that your taste buds don't like delicious-ness.  Anyway there's my little rave about the best soup Chase and I have ever had.  I hope you enjoy! :D