Just a Walk in the Park

Its good to be home and walking again - I missed it while I was gone and then had a Dr. appointment on Monday morning so Tuesday was my first day back at the park and was it gorgeous. It was the morning AFTER that huge snowstorm. The snow was so heavy.

I actually remembered to take my camera and I probably took too many pictures but every time I turned another corner it was just too beautiful to not snap a picture



what a spring snowstorm can do!




Yes - this is at the Layton Park
Winter Wonderland!
A bend in the River
The same bend but a few feet further where the rocks create a mini rapids
All the ducks were farther down the river - and they WERE HUNGRY!!
I love the lacy look of this one with just a bit of the blue sky peaking out

A snow laden tree
More of the lacy creations of a snowy morn

Green tree trunks

The walks were cleared and everything was so peaceful!

Isn't it gorgeous?

Quartzsite 2011

We have been down here in Quartzsite since Thursday afternoon. It stormed the first several days but now it is trying to warm up; - We went to Church on sunday - I still feel like I am one of the youngest women there!! I was talking to one lady that used to live in Kaysville and I asked her if she went to Davis - she said yes, but didn't graduate as she got married instead. She would have graduated in 1946...that was a whole year BEFORE I was even born!

We went on a fun four wheeling trip yesterday with our friends that are already down here - there were about a dozen people and about 9 vehicles. Quartzsite is ticketing people that are riding double on normal 4 wheelers because of the sticker on the machine that says we shouldn't do it. We have our razor that of course rides two people but we also have my Suzuki and we want to be able to have kitty and Larry ride on it!! I don't know how we are going to handle that.

Today is supposed to be 4 degrees warmer than yesterday (probably about 65 NO WIND!! There is a good breeze blowing but there is not a cloud in the sky! Beautiful!) I am sitting at the laundromat right now (we could have waited a few more days before doing laundry but I wanted to check for emails!!) As soon as I get back to camp I am going to find a lounge chair in the sun!!

Tomorrow all the ladies in our group are going to carpool up to the Blue Water Casino outside of Parker and go to lunch and then to a movie!! FUN!

Not too many open air stalls left - we definitely missed the big shows ...oh well, less temptation to spend money.

We are enjoying ourselves and watching lots of movies so far because of the cooler weather.

We are missing you all but excited to have this vacation!

My bathroom to be!

I don't know why it has been so difficult to blog lately!! I keep trying to figure out what I want'/need to share with the world and my life has been pretty much so so for this year. I haven't flown anywhere or done anything extra special - just life.

However, things are coming up. Ed mentioned the other day that he is planning on starting to re-do our bathroom in March. He wanted to know if I thought we should replace the vanity and top - along with sink. We have been 'going' to redo the floor with tile since 2002 when we came back from Texas...every year we have talked about it and planned it - it needs it badly with a big split running through the laminate flooring. But it was so easy to put off -

NO LONGER>>> YAY!!!
Since we started planning way back when I have wanted to go with a warm brown slate tile. Probably the 12x12 size. With a cream colored grout.



we feel like it would match the cabinet shown here (I don't know why it copied over so teensy) but this one has 2 drawers and three cabinets - in a warm pecan. We have just begun to start looking though - we know we don't want a cabinet like we had before (even before it was painted green) and we don't want white or really dark wood - the room is too small already. When we saw this cabinet we really liked it.I really really really want a stand alone sink - it sits above the vanity with a solid slab of granite under it. I liked the look of this clear glass sink but there is another one amber in color that would look gorgeous with the colors we have picked out for the room.


This is the color of the granite that we want - it picks up the colors of the vanity and the floor.
When we get back from Arizona we will pull out the old tub and start chipping out the old tile around the tub because it is all white. We will replace our 28 year old tub and toilet with a new ones that are colored 'biscuit' I want to put the same tile that is on the floor on the walls around the tub - probably using the 6x6 tiles...and I would like to put a couple rows of decorative tile in there too.

Of course Ed will do the tiling with my help. I know we will paint the room too before we do much of anything but I don't know yet whether or not I want to tile up the walls or just do a mopboard of tile. We will see. Then we get to pick out faucets and towel bars etc.

We are trying to get our house all shipshape before we retire and run out of money. This should keep us busy all spring!!

Updated ...Just call me spoiled!!

Since I am doing the 12 Days of Christmas for my kids and our parents, Ed has decided to do the 12 Days of Christmas for me!! WOW!! He said he basically has taken my Christmas wish list and added to it but he has added in a big way!!

Day one - my new 34" tv
Day two- a new bra from Victoria Secret
Day three - we took my rings to Kay Jewelry to replace the missing smaller diamond
Day four- a new freezer
Day five- a new magazine for my pistol
Day six - a new alarm clock
Day seven - a spin toothbrush
Day eight - $50 gift card at my favorite bead store - Avery Beads!
Day nine - another alarm clock (Ed says one is for our trailer in Boise and the other is for our toy hauler)
Day ten - two Christmas CD Albums - one by Susan Boyle and one by Kenny Chesney (All I Want For Christmas...) I loved them both
Day eleven - $50 gift card to Kohl's
Day twelve - I figured at this point I would have ONE present to open on Christmas Day - NOT SO!!
Ed had wrapped up a Kindle;
plus a leather cover for it with attached light,
another alarm clock!! :-D...this is the one for MY bedside
a gift card to California Nails
a gift card to Forever Shoes
a set of shooting ear muffs - you can hear people talking but
it protects your ears when the gun is shot

We had been talking about replacing the freezer and TV for months but I love the way Ed has pulled it all together! He laughs and says this way he doesn't have to wrap anything - but he did!!!!

I told you I am spoiled !!

I gave Ed his own Kindle, plus leather cover, two shirts, socks, a fun Christmas tie, the shooting ear muffs, old spice, and a large Craftsman tool chest on wheels that he really wanted.

I think that this is the last BIG Christmas we will have since he will retire this next year and we will have to go on a budget again!

We as a family had a wonderful Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the on the Sunday after Christmas we drove to Orem and Leah was blessed - then on Monday we got to go see the Lights of Layton with Shawn and Kris, Cade, Makae, Ethan and Jace - and then we all went out to dinner afterwards. So we had a marvelous and wonderful Christmas

Fun stuff at the Boutique

All week long I have been posting to my Petal Soft Jewelry blog spot getting ready for the Boutique - this time I am going to show you some of the stuff from the other Vendors.

































These cute little boxes are picture boxes... The Christmas ones are really special because when you open it there is a little Christmas tree inside. Plus lots of 'petals' where you can paste pictures. $10 each for the Christmas boxes...$8.00 each for the generic picture boxes.











These are accordian picture books. Some are made with Christmas paper and others are Halloween and many are school books and some are just generic.











When you undo the bow and open the book you have accordian pages that will hold pictures.
I believe these sell for $6.00 each

Joan Meldrum makes these adorable Scripture totes - This one is made of faux leather. Each of them are line with double pockets inside.

As you can see she has quite an array of them - all sorts of choices. I think they would make cute little diaper bags or fun purses too! And best of all they sell for only $10


I hope to see you at the other half of our boutique - tomorrow, Saturday, from 10-2

A Day in MY life!

What a day! I was going to facebook this but I decided there was NO way I could get it all in the 465 (or however many) characters permitted. So here goes:

Went for my 2 1/2 mile walk with Cheryl at the Park in the snow
Voted
Went to Home Depot and bought a new toilet seat
Went to Avery Hill Beads and bought some new silver beads (FUN!)
Spent 2 hours at the Doctor's office
went to Ross for Less and took back the toilet seat I bought there yesterday cause it wouldn't work right
went to Michael's and bought a 14 kt gold chain to make another necklace (I got out of there with ONLY that one item...miracle!)
went to America First and deposited the checks from Saturday's boutique
went to Kim's fashions and bought some jewelry to take apart for beads
made a gorgeous brown chunky necklace and earring set
chopped up tomatoes and onions and cilantro and canned 7 pints and 2 quarts of salsa!
and its only 5:45...I still have supper to fix!

All that and it wasn't even a go see dad day!!! Plus we had a tankless water heater installed today! WOW

Meal in a Bag

A few weeks ago there was an interesting article in The Standard Examiner about a book describing a fascinating method of food storage. The premise behind the book was that instead of (or in addition to) the long range method of storing wheat and rice, etc., that we should also store the food that we use everyday. The author came up with about 100 meals that she could store 'in a bag'.

Kecia and I decided to order the book and try bagging up some meals. She brought Emma and Leah up to my house on Monday and was going to bring the makings of 2 or 3 meals and I was going to organize the makings of 2 or 3 additional meals.

She called me at 9 am that morning and said that she had everyone bathed and dressed and fed and was starting to pack the car but had decided that she wasn't going to be able to bring the meal stuff - there was just too much to pack just to get the three of them here. I told her fine, I would have some food ready to bag.

This is what our first two bags looked like. The first recipe we took directly out of the book. I had all the different ingredients already in my fruit room It is called "Roast Beef Dinner" and consists two cans of chunked roast beef (I had bought a case of the beef a year or so ago when I had gone to the Ogden Cannery and helped can the stuff!), one can of beef gravy, one package of potato pearls (we pulled all the air out of the bag we sealed it in with my Seal-A-Meal machine - that was really handy), a can of vegetables and one bottle of water. The water was to reconstitute the potato pearls. We then scanned the recipe from the book and stapled it onto the bag

We put an expiration date of 10/11 - one year from now. The recipe also called for powdered milk but that was just to make the instant potatoes with and I used potato pearls. Each meal will feed about six people and costs about $5 - and comes with however much bottled water needed to reconstitute it or boil pasta in.
This is the other main meal - tuna noodle casserole. It has a can of tuna, cream of mushroom soup and evaporated milk. I need to find some packets of dried cheese to put on the top of it. We also decided we need to buy some mini packets of salt and pepper to add to each meal. Since this was a meal of my own imagination, we simply wrote out the instructions on the outside of the bag. Once we use a 'bag' we will refill it - when we get the plastic bags with better handles on it we will attach a CD sleeve to put the instruction in and we won't have to refill the bags with the same meals. We can refill the bottles of water though to replace what was used in the meal preparation.
The third meal we did was a breakfast. We seal-a-mealed quick oatmeal, added ziplock sandwich bags with sugar and cinnamon, added six packets of hot choc mix and you can see the two bottles of water - I need to buy one more bottle of water to add to this meal to give the water necessary to make the oatmeal AND the hot chocolate.
Here are the three bags we put together. We are looking for better bags that can be reused again and again. I put these three in my coat closet by my 72 hour kits so that if there is an emergency I can grab them and run - and eat a lot better than what I have in my 72 hour kit...not only that but have enough each meal to share with others since there is only Ed and I.
One of the most exciting things about this whole thing was that this was stuff I already have in my food storage - I just needed to organize it. This is what was left over from the food I brought up from the fruit room before I decided which recipes I wanted to sack up. I have cans of chicken and a box of Brown Rice. I have a spaghetti dinner with a vegetable. I have cans of whole potatoes... and I have packages of beans and rice which in and of itself is a complete protein...

The book is full of simple ideas that I can make up into meal bags or I can just take some of my own tried and true recipes and organize them also. Now I just need to start moving things around under my stair well to give me some shelves to store these meals in. Then when I can't figure out what to fix for dinner I can just go downstairs and 'grab a meal'!!

Kec and I had a lot of fun putting these meals together and plan on doing more together and separately in the future. I think it would be fun to get together with all my girls and make up some meals. And it could be a really fun Relief Society Activity too.