Easter Sunday

Easter morning came and it was a beautiful day.... I woke up early, like at 5:30 in the morning so I could get our turkey on the smoker and let it cook all morning for our Easter dinner. I love Spring, and in the early morning when the sun is just coming up it's awesome, and you can hear the birds chirping happily. And to me Spring is re-birth... the trees start blossoming, the flowers start coming up, and the grass is green! I always feel re-newed... and while I was cleaning up the kitchen after having my turkey soaking in the sink, I had beautiful music playing softly and I looked up and out my kitchen window and there was this cute, fat robin, who had landed on my whiskey barrel planter and he looked at me for about 5 minutes......

he looked right at me... I could even see his eyebrows... yes, some robins have eyebrows. :) But it was if he was there to say 'Good Morning and Happy Easter'.....
and that brings up what Easter is all about, the death and resurrection of Christ and the fact that we will all live again, kind of in a re-born or re-newed body, it's so awesome that Easter is in the Spring... I really liked the article in the April Ensign by Elder Bednar called "The Atonement and the Journey of Mortality"... it was all about the atonement and what it means to each of us. I read it in the early morning and REALLY read it ... it just hit me, and I almost cried. Here is a quote I really liked from it....
"I suspect that many Church members are much more familiar with the nature of the redeeming and cleansing power of the Atonement than they are with the strengthening and enabling power. It is one thing to know that Jesus Christ came to earth to die for us—that is fundamental and foundational to the doctrine of Christ. But we also need to appreciate that the Lord desires, through His Atonement and by the power of the Holy Ghost, to live in us—not only to direct us but also to empower us."
I LOVED this article... and that quote is just a hint of what it's about, I encourage you to read the whole thing, I would like to copy it here but since that would be a copyright infringement, just read it, it's amazing. In our daily struggles, and I know we all have different struggles in this life, emotionally or physically, and it's awesome that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ give us the strength and endurance to carry on because of the Atonement.
I love this scripture...
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30).

That is what we need sometimes in this world, rest unto our souls, I think. I'm very grateful for the Savior and the sacrifice he paid for me, and the pain and suffering he went through so he would know what it was like to go through what we go through so he can ease our pain and suffering, and empower us to get through it.
We had a lovely Easter together as a family, eating our smoked turkey, scalloped potatoes, and steamed asparagus with plenty of Reese's Peanut Butter eggs for dessert. And at the end of the day when my kids had to go back to there homes away from  home, I take comfort in knowing that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ will be with them and me.

A weekend in Salt Lake City

Sarah has been trying to decide to move to Salt Lake City instead of staying in Provo, and had some appointments to look at apartments there. I thought I shouldn't let her go try to find them and look by herself, she needs someone there to help her decide what to do, so I asked Jim if we could go to SLC and spend the night and shop (since it was just his birthday and mine was coming up), then we could be there for Sarah... and he said sure!! wee hoo!! So the Friday before Easter we were off! We puttered around the house in the morning, then hit the road around 11. It was a beautiful day! I remembered that there was a new mall across from Temple Square so we thought we'd go there first since we had to wait till later to check into our motel. It's the City Creek mall, and man is it huge and fancy!!! but it was sooooo crowded!
 We stopped at the walkway over the road for a quick photo moment! :)

 We wandered for maybe a half an hour, then it was to crowded for us so we went to check into our motel. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn out in Sandy.

We relaxed a bit before driving around and deciding where we'd eat. Finally we decided on Joe's Crab Shack. It's a pretty good place to eat, but not any better than red Lobster or other fish food places. Then we went to the Mall that's right by that motel, and we just walked around a bit. There's also a big Old Navy store and a Barnes and Noble right there too. And a Super Target... and we were hungry for Ice cream... So we went into Target and each got a couple of those cute little one serving sizes of Ben and Jerry's and Hagen das ice cream, then back to our motel for the night.
We had promised Sarah we would meet her at the Fashion Place mall and then go find the apartment she was going to look at. We had a hard time getting up and getting ready though.... don't you love little vacations and being lazy?

          Finally I had to go pounce on Jim to get him going!!

Once we were up and ready, we went to the Fashion place mall and browsed a little before Sarah got there... I found a new outfit for my birthday, and a scarf.. Yay! don't you love it when you find something! Jim still hadn't tho.... we would have to look more.... Darn. (I love shopping)

Sarah finally found us and we were off to find the apartment. It ended up being in an older part of the area around Sugarhouse. The apartment had been newly painted and carpeted and was big, but Sarah decided she wouldn't like it any better than where she was at so why move! She's so smart! So we went back to Fashion place and then ate at California Pizza kitchen...we got some yummy pizzas and avocado rolls. YUM!

 Our waitress was extra friendly with Sarah if you know what I mean... Sarah just thought she was extra nice... until we told her why she was being friendly.... Caught a pic of Sarah when she finally caught on!         LOL!

We finished eating, then decided to all head for Blackfoot to get ready for Easter Sunday. Sarah was going to 'Titanic' in 3D with a high school friend so she had to get home to get ready! And Jim and I thought we would stop in Kohl's in Layton to see if we could find some shirts for him for work. And we did!! Yay! He got 4! All in all we had a great weekend! And my kids both came home for Easter, nothing is better than that.!

Dream a little dream with me....

Everytime we go to Walla Walla and walk in the downtown area I always start dreaming.... of owning my own little bakery. I don't know why it happens when I go there, maybe because Walla Walla has a downtown full of little shops, coffee shops, cafes, bookstores, wine tasting shops... and I always think it would be perfect for a little bakery. There is a bakery there of sorts, but last time I went in, the pastries seemed overdone and I wasn't that impressed. They do have a cupcake store but I heard the cupcakes weren't very good.  I think I always dream of owning a bakery because I love baking.... and I enjoy watching people enjoy what I cook...I daydream as we drive home from Walla Walla all the time (what better way to pass the time on a long road trip?)  and this time I thought of a name for my little shop.... "Baby Cakes n' Bites" what do you think of that? I thought I could have mini-cupcakes or regular size cupcakes, cookies, brownies, little tarts.....

and then I thought it would be fun to have soup? get it ? baby cakes for the cupcakes and then soup for 'grabbing a bite to eat'......I would feature a soup of the day and have scones on the side. Does anyone remember Aunt Fannies? it was in the Plaza where Little Ceasar's is, it had 31 flavor's of icecream but you could also get soup and they had these yummo scones on the side. I would have a soup for each day of the week, and have scones to go with it. I could also have homemade breads in a few different varieties...then if things got going well, I could do pannini's, but maybe just keep it simple with soup and scones, and just have that during the lunch hour time of day. I would have different mini- cupcakes or regular size  and and diiferent  cookies, biscuit scones, brownies, tarts, and special flavors for the seasons...and then make specialty cakes to order...

             and I would have one of those old fashioned bake shops.....

and I would have jars of homemade jam, and packaged breads for sale, and maybe some crafty things to buy as well....

Everyone needs to daydream now and then.... and maybe someday those dreams will come true.........



Happy Birthday Jim, dear!

Jim's Birthday is March 21st, and the weekend before I thought we would go out to dinner, my treat,  at a Restaurant of his choice. We got up and did our usual Saturday house cleaning, and I made cupcakes for a friend at work. Plus it was St. Patrick's day as well, so of course the cupcakes were Keylime... :)
But our day wasn't that good... the weather turned to rain, then snow, I got my cupcakes done, and delivered which was okay, and then we were off to Idaho Falls. We did some shopping, but didn't find any new shirts for Jim to wear to work for a birthday present... is it just me? or are the styles kind of odd right now.... I can't seem to find anything I like....and neither can Jim.
Then we decided to try Texas Road house for dinner... but it was packed with a line outside... not for us. So we went to Johnny Carino's... and got right in with no wait, and on at Saturday night at 6 ish that should have been our first clue..... the rest of the evening was horrible. Has anyone eaten at Johnny's lately?? they used to be my favorite place to eat! What happened? Needless to say, we ended up leaving without eating... well, we did eat our salad's but that's it. Jim was very unhappy. It just seems that it's hard to find a good place to eat out anymore, that we aren't disappointed afterwards and wish we would have saved our money....
But on to Jim's birthday.
Monday after work I went shopping, and got a card, and the 1st season of "the Big Bang Theory" which has started to be Jim's and my favorite show of late, and a package of Dove dark chocolate almonds. I hid them in a drawer. Tuesday I found a recipe for Cheesecake factory's Red Velvet cheesecake cake... Jim had looked at one of my Food network magazine's that had a picture of a Red velvet cake in it in January and had announced that that was what he wanted for his Birthday cake.... I did better because we love to eat at the Cheesecake factory when we can and try out different cheesecakes... So I got that started Tuesday evening.
Sarah even came home Wednesday, and was with us to celebrate Jim's birthday which was great!
I had wrapped Jim's gift and had it ready so that I could put it by his lunch box so he could see it first thing in the morning... and open it. He's not one for a big family party or anything like that. So when I got up and saw that he had opened it, I knew his day was off to a good start.
After work I stopped at Kesler's and got some sirloin steaks... since that is what he said he wanted for his B-day dinner. I also got mushrooms, and fresh asparagus. so we could have balsamic mushroom sauce on top of our steaks with steamed asparagus and roasted potatoes on the side! YUM!
Dinner was yummy! and Sarah made it home just in time! Then I finished icing the cheesecake and we went to Mom and Dad's to sing happy birthday to Jim and have a piece of cake. It did look lovely....

I don't know why I don't get any co-operation from my hubby when it comes to taking his picture... I wanted a pic of him blowing out the candle (which is a long story in it's self.. it's our singing candle) and this is what I get...

Either way.. he's cute...

                                      Then I did a self-timer pic of all of us... aren't we cute??

 a piece of cake for the birthday boy.. I tried to make it look like how they serve their cheesecake at the Cheesecake factory

 It had red velvet cake (although the pics don't look very red) and Cheesecake, then more cake and cheesecake and then a yummy cream cheese frosting with white chocolate slivers shaved on the top! YUM!

 It was delicious... but really rich! Jim was happy with it though. And I saved a piece for Andrew when he came home for the weekend.
We then decided to play a game of scrabble, it's tradition to play scrabble with mom and dad, it's usually just Sarah and me with them, but we talked Jim into it. We always say that if you can write a word that has to do with the holiday that was close to the day we play, in this case ST. Patricks day, and we had a bonus of a birthday, so if you could write green, lucky, or happy, or older or something like that you get double the points of what the word would have originally had. It's way fun and ads a challenge to the game. Jim won!!! can you believe it?? but he's really smart, (and consulted his smart phone) I even had the dictionary and came in 2nd to last... but it was his birthday so he deserved to win.
All in all Happy 48th Birthday Jim!! He's my old man for a month, (and believe me I give him a hard time about it) at least until I turn the same age on April 19th.