::yum::

Do you want to eat something delicious and not at all nutritious?
Try whipping up a batch of these brownies.

They're from my favorite foody blog, Baking Bites. I like to read it all the time and daydream about the yummy delicious food. I try to only make treats from it quarterly. They're just too delicious not to eat every crumb of them once they're made.

These brownies have a layer of oatmeal cookie crust at the bottom. The brownie part is really chocolatey in a dark delicious way. (all you dark chocolate lovers out there would love them--mom and dad!!).

Luckily I had a good excuse to make these tonight because I've been dying to! Kris met a kid at church who is applying to a master's program at RISD. He was here for interviews and had taken a cab to church. He was nice and Kris recognized the lost traveller feeling that he's had a lot during interviews. Kris invited him to dinner and gave him a ride home from church.
After we fed him a yummy spaghetti dinner and he left, I started thinking about all the people that were so kind to us when we first went out to Kansas City, that made us feel welcome and at home right when we got there. And the friends who have done the same here. We're just so lucky to have our church, to have a built in support system with great friends no matter where we have to go.

Anyway, we're grateful when we think back on it, and it was nice to share the love a little bit today with somebody who needed it.
And Max liked the brownies of course.



Tomorrow's a new week, and I'm going to blog more, yay! Another week closer to spring. We'll make it there eventually.

::blue eyes::

While in Utah I was able to squeeze in a visit to Megan.  She's my oldest friend and pretty much my sister.  At least my cousin.  Anyway, it was great to get to see her, and her adorable kids.  She just had twin boys a few months back, and has a little girl who's two.  They're quite the busy and blue eyed household.
I think Megan is amazing. Funny and creative and fabulous. And adorable.
Of course I had to bring my camera. It's fun for me to get to take pictures of somebody besides Max for a change. And I love getting more practice taking portraits!

Please note, one boy has a BYU blanket and one has a U of U blanket. Megs' husband went to the U, so they have a bit of a conflict of interest in the family. It makes for some interesting football seasons, or so I hear.

This is Mags. She's kind of like a fireball and thinks she runs the world. She has a sweet little face, doesn't she?
She showed me a few of her talents.

Quite the skill, huh?

She seems to be pretty good at this too. It's an impressive expression. I think if I made that face I might get a cramp.

She's a cutie.

And here's Will.

and here again.

But kisses make everything much better.


And little Cole.

He was kinda sleepy. But very good while I took pictures.



Well, he was good until he and his brother bumped heads. That made them very mad.

And sad. Pitiful, huh?
It was at this point that the boys got some kisses and were sent off to bed.
Megan tried to read a bit with Mags and Max, but it didn't go so hot.

Two year olds aren't the best sharers out there. But Max and Mags actually had a pretty good time playing together while we visited. It was nice.

I just love Megan. What more can I say? And I love the beautiful blue eyes she's passed on to all her littles. Just gorgeous.

::stink, stank, stunk::

So here I am, back to the blog. I'm almost caught up with all the bunches of stuff (like the 30 loads of laundry for example) that were waiting for me to get done while I was out of town for three weeks. Almost.
So what really stinks right now is that it's snowing. And it snowed all night. We've gotten something like eight or ten inches of snow. I'm bummed because when I got back in town all the snow had melted and we could actually walk on the sidewalks. So we got to be outside for a bit. But now it's back to snow. I know spring will have to come sometime, I just don't know when!

But speaking of stinky, when Kris picked up Sultan from the "dog hotel" we realized there was a problem. He really really stank. Luckily he's not a super stinky dog normally (ok, some of you with sensitive noses may disagree, but this is my opinion) Some dogs just stink all the time, and he's not like that.
Except for this time. It was terrible. And it's super expensive to get him groomed out here. It used to cost us about half what they charge out here when we lived in MO.
So anyway, Kris took matters into his own hands, thank goodness. He donned all his dental protection and went for it in the bathtub.

Poor Sul looks pretty relaxed here, but in reality this is how he felt in the tub:

If I saw any other animal making this face I'd run far far away, but sweet Sul is much to nice to ever try to do anything mean.



All this fun didn't help the little boy down the hall that was supposed to be in bed.

Finally the fuzzy guy got all washed and clean and went to sleep on his bed and dry off. I'm so glad Kris is brave and strong and took care of the stink. Because I'm not sure if I would've lived any longer with it. And Sul is so strong it's hard for me to do stuff like wash him in the tub.

Even though he's cute and still tries to lick you while being bathed.

When we got home there were piles of mail of course. Max had several birthday cards as well as a package from Uncle Kelly and Aunt Lechelle. It was a cool molding kit with different colored clays. We were supposed to make a couple of shapes that would be refrigerator magnets. Max was super excited, so we did it.

They turned out cute and he enjoyed it.
But his favorite part was taking all the leftover stuff and mashing it together. He played with that stuff the entire rest of the day and the next as well. By the end it just looked gross.

He especially liked working with it on the radiator in front of the window for some reason.



It finally dried up and I talked him into letting me throw it out. But what fun in the meantime!

Otherwise we've just been cleaning up and trying to get things back in order after the trip.
I have a bunch of pictures and stuff to post from the trip and visits. I hope nobody will mind reading about things pretty long after the event. I just couldn't keep up. I like to take pictures too much, and then it takes me a while to work on them and decide which ones to post. That's always hard for me.

So look for some more fun stuff as soon as I can get slightly caught up with life the universe and everything.

::pinatas are cool::

Every year on my birthday growing up my parents would get a pinata for us to smash. It was truly awesome. I posted a few old pictures of it last year on my birthday.
It was a fabulous tradition, and our best friends down the street, the Williams would always join us. I can't think of a year that they weren't there.

So, my mom had a brilliant idea. She planned a mini pinata party for when I was in town, and invited the Williams! And since all of us who used to be the kids have kids now, they were the ones smacking the pinata around. It was awesome.

The Mercado Latino in Provo came through for us with a cool rainbow pinata. They had so many different kinds there I had a hard time choosing.
We smashed it in my parents (recording) studio, which is also traditional, since the 31st of Jan isn't usually the best weather.
My mom got all the big kids blindfolded, turned them around and then set them free.






The littler ones were kind of nervous and unsure.

But with a little reassurance and parental aid they went for it too.

And had fun.

A group of cuter kids I haven't seen. Honestly.
The pinata beating was fun to watch. Although I was really worried I was going to get hit in the head with something--a big stick, a rainbow, a kid. It didn't happen, thank goodness, although one of the valiant beaters did get a splinter. But luckily he was brave and it was removed.

Finally I gave the pinata a quick unobtrusive rip and opened it up and bit, and the oldest strongest kid was able to send the treats flying!
Everybody did a good job gathering and sharing around.

and enjoying the spoils.

And afterwards we got to enjoy big pieces of Costco birthday cake.  What could be better?  I even got a big huge yellow rose from Megan since it was my birthday (sort of--like two weeks before).  Awesome.
It was so fun to get to do this, thanks Mom! And it was just great to get to see Joel & Beth and their kids and Megan and Mags. It's been way too long (besides the meetings and greetings in cyberspace of course.)

And if you want to see more fun photos of the event and hear more about it go here to my mom's blog!

::slightly unbelievable::

So the super long, twisty turny drive down highway 1 from Monterey was worth it. Totally.

I have more fun seals to show you at a later date when I have more time.

::cali::

We finally have internet for just a few minutes, it's been hard to come by so far on our jaunt through California.
So here are a fun photos of the natural beauty we've been enjoying while driving through northern CA. It's beautiful, and the air is so fresh. It smells great.
Enjoy!

The beginning of the mountains north west of Sacramento. I bet with leaves on the trees they're even prettier.

Clear Lake. It was gorgeous.



The redwoods.

All the rain was worth it for this beautiful rainbow.

Humbolt Bay, way up north in Eureka.

We're having fun--we'll be heading south down the coast tomorrow.