Christmas Craft time!

Tom and I will be going to Utah for Christmas this year to spend time with his family. So I thought it would be fun to put together a fancy Christmas dinner. Last year my Grandma made these cute christmas tree napkins and I needed about six more napkins so I set out to JoAnns to find some cute material knowing I probably wont find the same material that my Grandma used, but fate was on my side and I found the same exact material, I was so excited. When I was at the store I had Tom figure out how she made the napkins since he going to school to be a engineer and for the rest of his life he will be trying to figure out things. As soon as I get home we start cuting and sewing. Here is the finish product, it isn't as beautiful as my grandma's,(I don't have a embroider machine) but I'm pleased with it.

My next craft, it's a simple ornament I made a long time ago but I thought I make it again for people. It's a simple angel but it's a cute little gift for people.

Well I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

My First Bar Fight!!!!

Last weekend we went to Toby Keith's Bar and Grill for a concert.  Jerrod Niemann was in town playing for a charity thing to feed hungry people or something.... We were there for the music not the charity!  ;)

We got there about 1/2 hour early, but then they had some dumb guy as an opening act that wasn't advertised, so we were really there about an hour and a half early.  We walked around a bit and took in the atmosphere (mostly it was just Melanie walking around checking out guy's butts) and I was telling all the hookers to put their clothes back on. I'm a supporter of "Modest is Hottest"

Right before Jerrod came on some older lady shoved past us like she owned the place, but we didn't think too much of it.  Then about 2 minutes after the band took the stage a fight broke out between that same older lady and some young girl that I had scolded earlier about her attire (or lack thereof).  Once we realized what was going on and who was fighting it was only natural for Melanie to jump in there and defend our new "Friend".  She got a couple good shots in and the old lady was about to go down but I had to pull her outta there before security got involved.  The security guards, called 'regulators' at Toby's, came well after the fight had been stopped and the older lady had had ice thrown in her face. They ended up booting the old lady out.  And all the while Judge Jerrod and the Hung Jury never missed a beat!  They put on a good show and we had a really fun night.  We'll probably go back there again for another concert sometime, the tickets were only 10 bucks and at Toby's, the fights are always free.....

P.S.  The previous statements contain factual errors, please exercise caution in choosing which parts to believe and then re-tell as fact.

End of the world fun (10/21/11)

It's Tom's birthday later this month so I got him tickets to go see The Band Perry at the Arizona State fair. We went a little early and played around, went on some rides, watched some turkeys race around a track, and I volunteered to do an imitation of a turkey (I will say i'm pretty awesome at imitating a turkey... ) ate a corn dog, you know the usual fair stuff. Finally at 7 the concert started, I love country concerts you get all sorts of people, white trash folks, slutty girls and can't forget my favorite, drunk folks. It was a fun full day hanging out and celebrating with the birthday boy.

Once Groupon a time.... I know, I know, bad joke, but I had to....

Anyways... We got groupon tickets to go to our favorite pumpkin patch, Vertuccio Farms. So we went there this last weenend. They had added some fun stuff since last year. But by far the most time consuming portion of our evening was the upgraded corn maze. We thought it was going to be like last year where you walk around and find clues throughout the maze, which it was... but with a twist. At the entrance there was one of the little pedistals that you are supposed to find and we thought "why is this out here?" Come to find out 20 min later when we were lost that that pedestal had a MAP ON IT!!!! This was also after we had called Nikki to call the cops to come save us cause we were lost so bad. Well, after we finally found the first clue we realized that there was a map, so from there on out we knew where to go. I took a picture of the map so Tom could lead us where to go, cause I have no clue how to read a map. (typical woman, says Tom) It took us 45 more minutes to go through the whole maze and get all the clues. The maze is 10 acres and the correct trail is 2.9 miles long. We figure we walked a bit over 3 miles and made out in the corn 6 times... We'll be sure to go again next year!

children of the corn

Starting to Fall

This weekend officially marked the beginning of Fall.  We had General Conference AND we made some Clam Chowder!!!!  It was delicious.  Don't believe me?  Take a look for yourself.

We got the recipe from the San Diego Temple.  It it probably the best clam chowder in the world.  Yes, even better than Disneyland....  What I don't understand is how so many people will not eat clam chowder just because it has clams in it.  You can't even taste them.  It is pretty much just potato soup with some chunks of meat in there every once in awhile.  Good thing I like it, cause the Temple recipe makes a TON of soup, we even halved it, but I will still be eating this for a week.

Here is a crappy version of the Simpsons Classic involving our favorite soup

Until next time!!!!!


 Stay Classy San Diego  WORLD!!!!

Back to school

Tom's first day of school

This update is a little over due, but things haven't changed that much around here. I'm still Tom's sugar momma but Tom is finally back in school after a LONG summer break, with a full load of 19 units. After this semester he will have 2 more and he will finally be done with school and he will be MY sugar daddy.... ;)

This year I got to go to the Cole's annual beach camping trip at Carpinteria State Beach. The family has been going for over 35 years, it is a small hippie beach bum city. It is something I get to look forward to every year. Tom wasn't able to go because of school but I flew out Wednesday night to Ontario airport and Emily and her cute little dog Richard Millhouse Nixon, oh yeah and Nikki, picked me up. The next day we drove to Carpinteria to start the best family vacation. It was a lot of fun we played on the beach all day, walked to the harbor seals in the morning, rode bikes, went into town and had camp fires every night. On Sunday I packed up, got dropped off at the airport and came home. It was a nice get away can't wait to do it again.

Playing at the park


Our Biker Gang


Fitting in with the hippie town

Dad & Mom


Harbor Seals at the end of our walk



Best Cousins

Living the dream with my BFF

During a recent trip to California we were able to sneak some contraband back with us. That contraband came in the form of Nikki Chase. You would think that anything you could get in California would be legal to have in Arizona as well. Arizona lets you buy fireworks, carry a gun, drive a motorcycle without a helmet, so why would they not want a person such as Nikki entering their state? My personal guess is the hygiene issue..... I'm not sure exactly why she is banned from the state, all I know is that we would have been facing serious jail time if we were caught smuggling her in.

We were able to keep her hidden here for 10 days before the state kicked her out. And I have to say it was a good ten days! Nikki and I lived the life we were always meant to live, you know the one, the life where we sit around all day and make someone else go to work to pay for the bills.

We felt it was our obligation to show Nikki what a real summer is like so we turned the heat up outside to an average of 105º and a high of 117º that Saturday. She loved it!! Her and Melanie even went shopping at our outdoor mall that day. I know what you are thinking, "didn't poor little Nikki get dehydrated?" Let me calm your fears. We were well prepared for her visit. We had this stack of Powerade ready for when she got here.

And after her visit we were left with just this. I think we averaged 2-3 each per day....

Let me give you a brief rundown of a typical day for Nikki and me. Wake up between 9 and 11, watch some movies, eat some food, drink some Powerade, go to the pool, watch more movies, drink more Powerade, go to the pool some more, have Melanie make us dinner, go to the pool again, then watch another movie. (Despite anything Nikki may say, I did NOT watch the Bachelorette with her. I may have seen parts of it while she was watching it and I was taking a break from writing my final report for school. For the record I don't care what happens between Ashley and Bentley!!!)

After watching Into the West and Dances with Wolves, Nikki and I hated white people so we gave up our Wacisu names and took on the names of our ancestors. Nikki became Wakan Tanka and I became Conquering Bear, we forced our ways upon Melanie and she became Loved by the Buffalo.

Don't think that we let her sit around all day though. We took her to the Rockin' R Ranch for dinner and a western themed stage show where she fell in love with the fiddle player, Danny Boy. We also went ice skating to get out of the heat. We also went swimming at her favorite aunt Carol's house. And I also gave her daily beatings to keep her in line. All in all we had a pretty good time together. Here are some other random pics:

Lots of Celebration!!!

It has been a busy past couple of weeks, we were in CA for a weekend. My cousin got married and my grandpa was celebrating his 80th birthday. Tom and I got there late Thursday night, the next day we went to the beach, I felt like such a typical out of stater when they come to visit CA - "go to the beach". I like living here in AZ, but the one thing I miss about CA is the beach. Saturday we went to my cousin's sealing at the Redlands Temple, it was a beautiful day and a the couple were very cute too. It was an all day event, sealing in the morning, luncheon at noon, then we had a little break and went and visited my other grandma in Anahiem, and the reception in the evening. On Sunday everyone came to my parents house to celebrate my grandpa's 80th birthday, we had a great time LOTS of yummy food. (I will just say NOBODY left hungry) The following day Tom and I went around in the morning saying goodbye to everyone and we headed back home to AZ, but it wasn't just Tom and I in the car somebody else was in the car with us.... NIKKI!!! She was going to stay with us forthe next 9 days, basically hanging out with Tom while I'm working(seems kind of weird that he is hanging out with nikki when she is MY SISTER....LOL It was a good weekend very packed but fun. It was fun to see everyone, it is always fun to hang out with the family. I'm going to save next post for Tom to write because it really was just nikki and him "living their dream".... :)

Our Grand Adventure Weekend

We decided to take a little weekend trip since I was done with school for the semester and we had stake conference. We looked at what was around us and decided on a visit to one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, The Grand Canyon. At let me tell you, it was Grand.

On the way up we saw a sign for "Bearizona", a drive through animal park. It just happened to be on the exit for the Grand Canyon, so we took the little detour to see if it was as good as the one we went through in Idaho. Ten minutes and 32 bucks later we found out that it was not as good, BUT it has the potential to be better. They are still adding to the park and when it's done it will be a lot bigger than the one in Idaho and a bit more classy too. And since we are classy people we like to go to classy places. The best part of both of these parks is the baby bear exhibit. Baby bears are our favorite thing in the world to watch. I love to watch them fight, it makes me want to go in there and wrestle with them. During the driving portion you are supposed to keep your windows rolled up in the Wolf and Bear sections. But since my wife is a rebel she rolled her window down to get a good picture of a sleeping bear. She almost got eaten....

Here are some pictures.

After we saw the Bearizona bears, we headed to the Grand Canyon. We checked into our beautiful campsite and then drove to the visitors center. From there we took a nice hike along the South rim. We had some fun testing our fear of heights by climbing out on the outcroppings and looking over the edge. When I was taking a picture of Melanie sitting on the edge some guys walked behind me and saw her out there and said in amazement "nope, not me". After our hike we drove along the rim going to all the viewpoints on the way to the Watchtower to see which would be best for sunset pictures. The Watchtower itself was fun to go up in. they have it decorated with Native American art on the inside. You go up 4 flights of stairs to get to the top observatory point where you get a great view of the canyon but it very hot up there, so we didn't stay long. We then went back to Navajo point to get some sunset pictures before heading back to camp.

That's about it for our weekend. Next up - California!!!!!