July Update

Hey guys! Its been awhile. Justin and I have been keeping super busy this summer and it doesn't look like things are going to be slowing down for awhile. A lot of good things have happened to us in the last month. HOORAY! First of all, Justin got promoted! He has worked so hard for it and really deserves it! We were really hoping he would get it sooner but now that everything is said and done I wouldn't take any of it back. We have learned a lot of priceless lessons, and I think we so much more appreciate it now then we would have then. So he will still be doing the same thing, but will be training new DT's and doing more paperwork (not jealous). And for the other good news. We found a new apartment. We have been looking for about 3 weeks and we found this one that we loved and in a ward that we loved. That one fell through and we were so discouraged. Well we kept on searching and we show up to this one on the other side of the free way, after driving around in circles for what seemed like forever! So the guy shows us the apartment and we start talking a little and the guy goes, so how would you guys feel about working here? It turns out he is graduating from school in December and he and his wife will be moving. I guess he really liked us and thought we would be perfect to take over his job. Its not a for sure thing but if everything works out we would get free rent and internet plus a thousand dollars. And its low key enough that we could both keep the jobs we have now. I think it was meant to be that we didn't get that first apartment. And finally... I turned Justin into a Gleek. :) After over a year of begging, he finally gave in and started watching it with me. Now he loves it and doesn't even wait for me to get home. Thank you Sue Sylvester! And in between all of this we have had a ton of fun with all of our friends. And a lot of new recipes to share because they are delicious!

St. George Trip 2012

I {heart} vacation. I {heart} sitting by the pool doing nothing but catching some rays. I {heart} spending time with family. Justin and I got to do all of this, this last week. Last Sunday, in the wee hours of the morning we left for St. George. And we all know how I feel about waking up early. But the eight hour drive was so worth it. We were all pretty tired and some of us couldn't see very well. lol but it was actually an enjoyable drive. I think most of our time was spent in or by the swimming pool. I like to think I look normal now, instead of being my usual pasty white. Tuesday we went to Snow Canyon. It was super pretty, and we went on a really fun hike that took us to a really cool over look. 

Wednesday we went to this place called fun fiesta in St. George. We played on Go Karts, Bumper Boats, and Miniature Golf. I wanted to take pictures but Justin told me to leave my camera. I'm glad I listened to him because I got drenched on the Bumper Boats! So anyways, on Thursday we went to Zion National Park. It was gorgeous! I think my favorite part was going to Weeping Rock. Weeping Rock is an overhanging blind arch which “rains” every day of the year. The spring water seeping out of the rock 100 feet overhead takes nearly 1000 years to travel through the porous Navajo sandstone above. The percolation slows at the underlying dense, less porous Kayenta sandstone layer, then follows a downhill course, raining on the observers below. Weeping Rock’s charm sometimes draws visitors to sit beneath its cascade of raindrops for hours.

Justin & I at Weeping Rock.

 Love this picture of Steph. And aren't those colors behind her super cool?

Here are a few more pictures from Zion's.  

 This is a super cool tunnel, cut out of the side of the mountain, that is over a mile long.

 Checkerboard somethin' or other

 On the hike to the Narrows. Next time we will be prepared and make it all the way up!

 Mount of the Patriarchs. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

 Cool ankle tans, eh?

Ready to head back to the Condo and play games.

Speaking of games, Justin and I discovered this last week that the game Carcassone is very bad for our marriage. lol. We are way to competitive with each other. So to the people who let us borrow it... You will be getting it back very, very soon! lol

Struesel Topped Banana-nut Muffins

I don't know why I buy bananas. We hardly ever eat them, and then I am scrambling for something to do with them so that we don't waste food. I love bananas. I think I just forget they are there. I bought a ton of bananas a couple weeks ago and we didn't eat hardly any! I usually make banana bread but that is getting old. So I started searching for banana recipes. This Hummingbird Cake almost won out but I decided I wanted to go a lot healthier and make these Banana Streusel Topped Muffins. I have no regrets. These are such an easy grab and go breakfast. I didn't put in pecans, that would have been a deal breaker for Justin. This is a great muffin batter and I'm already dreaming up other uses. I'm thinking Raspberry... or Pumpkin... or Apple...  

Banana Streusel Muffins:
12 T Butter, room temp
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, room temp
1 1/2 t pure vanilla extract ( I used vanilla bean paste, but if you don't have any just use what you have.)
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
3 cups AP flour
1 t cinnamon
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t kosher salt
4 large bananas
1 cup pecans, optional


Struesel Topping:
3/4 cups brown sugar
3/4 cups AP flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 cup butter


  Preheat oven to 350, line muffin pans with liners or grease just the bottoms. 


  In a medium bowl, sift together; flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, kosher salt; set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar, until nice and creamy. Usually 4-5 minutes. This is really important and makes a huge difference. Don't skip. Trust me. While mixer is running on low speed, add eggs one at a time, followed by vanilla, sour cream and milk. Add in slowly the flour mix from earlier, just until combined. Don't over mix!Set aside, and grab those bananas. This is the part where we mash them. You can do it by hand, in the blender, or in a food processor. I did the food processor, but whichever you choose just make sure they are mashed well. Add mashed bananas to muffin batter and combine at low speed just until mixed.  So for the struesel combine all ingredients in a small bowl until it is all crumbly. One of my favorite kitchen tips is to use a cookie scoop to fill your muffin cups. My cookie scoop holds a Tablespoon of batter. I did three scoops in each cup and it worked out great. After you fill the muffin cups sprinkle on your streusel topping. Stick in the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Start checking at twenty five. Mine weren't ready at twenty five but never made it to the thirty minute mark.

Happy Birthday to me!

See that chocolate cake I'm holding? Yep, Justin made that for me! I was so excited! I love the little things in life. It even tasted good. It was way better than any store-bought cake. It was a low key birthday, which if I had my way, would be like that every year. It started out with us skipping church. But don't you worry! We will be back next week.. I actually hate skipping church. It makes me feel like the last week never ended and the following week goes SO slow! And I always feel like I can handle life better if I have gone to church. So we stayed home and in our PJ's all day, gave Punk a bath, almost adopted him a twin brother, cleaned our apartment and made seven layer dip and guacamole. Yum! Oh, and we played the Black Eyed Peas Experience on the Wii. Which is really hard! I think we will stick to Just Dance 3 for now. So after all that, my in-laws came to celebrate, and to help us pick up a grill. Now Justin can finally use HIS birthday presents. He is planning on entering an amateur grilling competition this summer, so he is hoping to start practicing soon. If anybody has good grilling recipes, let us know! So after that we did all the usual. Opened presents, had cake and ice cream and played Apples to Apples. It was a perfect day. Now I just feel old. It feels weird being twenty four! And I definitely feel like I should be smarter by now. LOL Here is a few pictures of how our day went.   

And here are some of my favorite memories of being 23. Goodbye 23!

Pineapple Upside Down {Cup}cakes

 So Sunday is my birthday. Awhile back Justin and I decided we would take the Friday before my birthday off, but our scheduler forgot to schedule him off(BOOO). So only I got it off. We decided we would just keep the hours and take home more money. So I decided I was going to do one of my favorite things and cook a really good dinner. Dinner was sooo good but it was dessert that really got us. I found these Pineapple upside-down cupcakes this morning while looking through some of my favorite blogs. darlingdoodles.blogspot.com These are so simple to put together! On Darling Doodles she uses a yellow cake mix. I fully intended on doing this. We got a ton of cake mixes for our wedding, but I went and looked in our cupboard and ALL of them were chocolate! Well Martha came to the rescue, because a second trip to Wal-Mart was not going to happen! I was a little nervous because I have only used, like, one recipe out of her cupcake cookbook. These were so good though. Next time I make these I will definately ditch the cake mix again and go this route. So to start out you will need your cupcake batter.


White Cupcakes adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes 


 3 cups cake flour 
 1 1/2 Tablespoons baking powder 
 1/4 teaspoon salt 
 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 
 1 cup plus 2 T milk (instead of 2 T milk I put in 2 T pineapple juice from my drained pineapple) 
 1/2 cup plus 6 T butter, room temp. 
 1 3/4 cup sugar 
 5 large egg whites, room temp.


Start by mixing together your flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, on medium speed, cream butter until smooth. Gradually add sugar and continue mixing until pale and fluffy. Add in vanilla. Now you are going to turn your mixer to low and alternate adding your milk and flour mixture, three times. In another bowl, with electric mixer on medium speed, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold in one third of egg whites into batter and continue doing so, until all of it is folded in. Set aside.


Now here is what you are going to need for the Pineapple upside-down Cupcakes


1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 can of pineapple tid bits


In a bowl melt the butter and brown sugar, stirring to incorporate. Now go spray your cupcake pans and put  a spoonful of the butter/brown sugar into each little cup. Throw on a spoonful of pineapple; then you'll put two to three Tablespoons of your cake batter into each cup. These made about 24 cupcakes. Bake at 350 for 18 to 20 minutes or until a fork inserted comes out clean. After you pull them out of the oven invert them onto a cooling rack, and try not to lick the counter.... not that I had that problem...These are so so good! Thanks Martha and Darling Doodles!x

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! I hope yours was as fantastic as ours was. We started off by going to church. Today was our first day in our new calling in our wards nursery. We really enjoyed it! It was great to play with all the kids and teach them about Easter. After church we headed to Blackfoot to spend the day with Justin's family. We had a barbecue, played basketball, went on a family walk, and of course the Easter bunny came to visit us and left us with a bunch of candy and one of our favorite movies "The pursuit of Happyness". We had such a great time. 

1st Blog Post

Welcome to our blog! I decided to make this blog just for fun and keeping family and friends updated on what we are up to. Hopefully I won't bore you all to death. I also may or may not post recipes and crafts. We'll just see where it goes.