YW Overnight Retreat

When we told our girls that we would be going to Utah this summer instead of Girls Camp, I think they were actually more disappointed than excited so we decided to throw together a mini "camping" trip to make up for it...

Aren't they cute? We didn't get much sleep, but we had a blast.

Yeah, we know how to rough it. Let's face it, staying in a cozy cabin is a lot more appealing than staying in an ice cave.

Lots of sledding and only minor injuries.

They actually gave each other these lovely 'staches while they were awake. Others weren't quite so lucky.

The very clever Paula Campbell came up with this game - "Jeepers Creepers, Guess Whose Peepers". The prize of course, Peeps. (Can you guess which eye belongs to me??)

Terrace Lakes Hot Springs

Crazy Girls. They broke the previous record of 3:30 in the snow with a new record of 10 minutes!

Color Me Beautiful

The theme for New Beginnings this year was "Color Me Beautiful" so I decided to do a colorful Photoshop project for our lovely young women...(Photo cred to Diane Smith)

Yum

2 new recipes that are definite keepers:

Pioneer Woman's restaurant style salsa. Click here for recipe.

Love my new "Ninja" food processor!

Typically, I like more of a fresh, chunky, pico de gallo type of salsa, but this is pretty tasty - esp. for cilantro lovers like myself.

This was a yummy mediterranean chicken panini.
1/4 C sun-dried tomatoes
1/4 C pimientos
1 T balsamic vinegar
1/2 t oregano
1 t minced garlic
black pepper
mozarella
grilled boneless chicken breasts
wheat buns or sour dough
zucchini and fresh tomatoes optional (but delicious!)

Bounce

Why should little kids have all of the fun?? We went to "Bounce" for my little 5 y/o nephew's birthday party, and I think the adults had more fun than the kids. Jousting, obstacle courses, slides, bungee chords and velcro, etc.. On the big inflatable slide, we big kids would have competitions to see who could get up the stairs and down the slide the quickest using as many dirty tricks as possible (ie. tripping, hair & clothes pulling, shaking the entire inflatable, etc.) Needless to say, we got in trouble. Just a warning. He said he would hate to have to throw the adults out...we were supposed to be the example. Whoops.

My sweaty nephew Braden sporting a cool do.

Superbowl Commercials

This year, the Super Bowl did not disappoint. Good game, good company, good food & good commercials.

Good game: Pretty close one, esp. in the 2nd half. And it was fun because all of us were cheering for Green Bay ... except Eric :) P.S. Not to brag, but Cassie won the prize for closest final score prediction (27-23, actual: 31-25) Eric was the loser, and as such, was supposed to dance to an embarrassing pop song for us on Kinect. Somehow he got out of it last night, but I'll ensure that it happens at a later date. Stay tuned.

Good company: It's always fun watching the super bowl with crazy fans. Cameron, thanks for the entertainment.

Good food: And lots of it. Pizza & breadsticks, hot wings, salad, brownies, chips and salsa, french bread with spinach & artichoke dip, etc. Excessive and unhealthy - just the way Super Bowl party food should be. :) P.S. This was my first time making homemade salsa with my new Food Processor, the "Ninja". I love it!

And finally, Good Commerials: These were some of my favs; which did you like?

Eminem Chrysler Super Bowl Commercial - Imported From Detroit

VW - Darth Vader

Bridgestone - Reply All

Bridgestone - Beaver's Got Your Back

Doritos - "Keep yo hands off my mama. Keep yo hands off my Doritos." (This was actually from last year, but a good'n)

Birthday lunch with the girls...

The birthday girls!

 


Mom, me, Robbie (sis-in-law), Tiffany (sis-in-law), Amanda (sister) & Sheri (sis-in-law)
Nothing fancy, just a nice relaxed chit chat lunch. Can't go wrong with Olive Garden! :) Love their salad and breadsticks.

 

Minute to Win It

click to enlarge

Ok, so you saw a preview of some of the "Minute to Win It" games from our McCall trip, but that was more of a trial run for the big event. A couple of weeks ago we did a big Minute to Win It challenge with all of the YM/YW, and they did awesome!

McCall Weekend

My friend Kristin organized a fun little getaway this past weekend. Her husband plays ice hockey so when she found out he was having a tournament in McCall, she invited us and one other couple to join them and go in together on a little cabin. We only stayed 2 nights, but it was a blast. Lots of snow with blue skies, yummy food, hot tubs, hot cocoa, late nights, fun games, good company, good laughs & beautiful scenery...

Brigham's Ice Hockey Game Friday night



Cameron & Hollie Kuehne



Eric entertaining us with an impressive showing in our Minute to Win It challenge. This game is called "Junk in the Trunk", and the goal is to "shake" 8 ping pong balls out of that box strapped to your back/bum in 60 seconds.

Hollie showing us how it's done with "Stack Attack". (She had to stack and take down 36 cups in 1 min)



On Saturday all of us kind of did our own thing during the day b/c Brigham had a couple of hockey games, Eric and I were scoping out cabins for our family reunion this summer and Hollie & Cameron went snowboarding.



Lovely day in McCall...

I picture Santa's elves living in a place like this :)

So much snow, the roof of this van was caving in

Oh yum. Can't go to McCall without getting one of these from the Pancake House. And only $3! That thing fed 4 of us.

E-Mealz

Pssst...I want to let you in on a cool little secret.

First, a little background. One day I told Eric I wanted to start eating healthier...not a new year's resolution, not a diet, just healthier. Eric quickly agreed and suggested a program he heard Dave Ramsey recommend over the radio, E-mealz. I later learned that he had been wanting to propose this idea to me for a while, not for health reasons, but for budget reasons. He was just hesitant to mention it because he knew it meant I would be doing all of the work.

Admittedly, it's not the health makeover I was looking for, but it is a clever little meal program, and they have several different meal plan options for various family sizes and needs. See image below.

Eric and I are doing the low-fat Wal-Mart meal plan for 2, and so far we've been really happy with it. It does cost $5/mo, but if it does as it claims, it should still save us a decent chunk of money. It's tough to judge this early, but it seems promising. If anything, we'll just do it for a few months and rotate through the menus that we collect.

The meals are fast and easy to make. I enjoy cooking, but don't do it much. There was always an excuse - working late, missing ingredients, picky eater husband, etc. The great thing about this program is having your whole week laid out for you. In fact, the grocery list even lists the items with prices and organized by grocery sections! Genius. See samples below.

Nice, right? Eric, of course, loves it because suddenly I'm cooking dinner for him every night. We've tried to be brave too and at least try every meal whether it sounds good or not, and we really haven't disliked a meal yet. In fact, neither of us thought we liked salmon, but one of our favorite recipes was a zucchini salmon bake (revised a little bit with the help of martha stewart).

It's a fun little challenge for Eric and I to split up the grocery list and try and track down items we've never had or even heard of before - couscous, liquid smoke, bok choy, various obscure seasonings, etc.

Not sure how long we will keep it up, but so far, so good.

Merry Christmas Manda Jean!

My sister Amanda & her son Daniel

This past Thanksgiving, while the family was gathered, we tried to come up with some fresh ideas for Christmas 2010. We typically just do the standard gift exchange, but this year we wanted to focus our attention on someone who would really appreciate a special Christmas. Several of us immediately thought of my sister Amanda (who happened to be out-of-town for T-day). Amanda is a single mother of 3 young children. Life for her isn't as simple as it is for most us. Despite it all, she's done an amazing job of balancing her family life, work & attending school full-time. And, she's one of the most positive, generous people I know. So, it seemed natural to want to spoil her for a change this Christmas.

And so the planning began for our crazy surprise party. We waffled a bit between low-key and full-out, but we decided in the end not to hold anything back because, of anyone, Amanda could handle it. (She's not the type to embarrass easily.)

We disguised the party as a "game night", and planned everything around this hilarious little board game called Quelf. We played the first round normally, and then we pulled out our custom-made game cards focused all on Amanda...

Sheri's card read, "Whip out your pom poms and create your own cheer for 'Mrs. Pickle Feather'" (aka. Amanda)



Up to this point, Amanda was still clueless, but not for much longer... 



Aside from Sheri's peppy cheer and Jason and Eric's superb performance, the rest of the game was mostly dedicated to us showering Amanda with gifts. For example, one card read, "Treat Mrs. Pickle Feather like she is Cleopatra and adorn her with extravagant gifts" (jewelry). Another card read, "Share a story that will keep MPF captivated for 4 hours." (DVDs x2) Another: "Brighten someone's day (highlights gift cert.) by making their life a little easier (free house cleaning GC) and a little less hairy (waxing GC)." The 3 grand finale gifts were...


1. A massive, custom-made woven blanket of her favorite celebrity crush, Mr. Wentworth Miller (The card read, "Wrap someone with love." so we gave her a big Wentworth bear hug)



2. A Gift Card for Broadway in Boise. She gets to choose between Wicked, Grease, Fiddler, etc. (The Quelf card read, "Give a memorable performance"...so after all of the women, and Eric?, did an impressive Can Can kick line, we gave her the broadway gift card)
3. And, finally, we gathered several 3x5" notecards from family and friends expressing why they love and admire Amanda (there were well over 100 cards from nearly 40 ppl). The idea was to have the whole night be fun and lightheared and then let the more serious gift be one that she could read on her own time without an audience. Here are a couple of examples of the sweet notes that people gave...

I think we were all really touched by Amanda's reaction to the final gift. She immediately began to cry. And the night ended with a big mooshy group hug.