No Regrets

A young father in our ward died last week. He had a 6-month old baby. Andrew learned in Elder's Quorom (Priesthood) that this young father was probably one of the less-active members in the Church. Andrew told me that in Priesthood, they talked for a little while about always being prepared. Have we done all that we can do? As visiting and home teachers, have we visited our families, especially the less-active members? We never know when someone is going to leave this life.

We watched the movie "Love Happens" over the weekend. The guy had lived for 5 years with the feeling that he had killed his wife in a car accident that happened during an argument about paint colors. I know it has been said before, but we need to treat the ones we love like we really love them.

It is one thing to have regrets like never owning a helicopter. But hopefully, whenever it is our time to leave this life and join our family that has gone before us, we will not have spiritual regrets.

White Leaf

On my daily walk around the block, I found something that I have never seen before. Laying in the dead yellowish-brown grass was a white leaf. This leaf was as white as freshly fallen snow. If I was in Rexburg, I would not have ever seen this time of year, but here in St. George, snow-white on the ground is an unusual sight. The leaf is mostly destroyed, but it stayed in one spot for so long that the sun bleached every last bit of color out of it!

I will hopefully post a picture of it soon, but have you ever seen a white leaf before?

French Bread

You would think that French Bread would be harder or more complicated than regular bread, right? Well, let me tell you how suprisingly easy it really is!

You don't have to worry about letting the yeast rise seperately in the warm water.

The dough does not have to rise and be punched down a million times.

You can pretty much just throw the ingredients together, put the formed dough loaves in the fridge over night, wake up and toss it in the oven to bake!

And then you have fresh French Bread for breakfast!

How amazing and easy is that?!

The main reason that I decided to make French bread is because I really wanted to make some bread, but I have no bread pans! All you need to bake French bread is a cookie sheet, and I have 1 of those!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Sunday is the best day for Valentine's to fall on. Besides 3 hours of church, we had the rest of the day to spend together with no other obligations to worry about. It was so nice! Andrew got me some pretty yellow roses, a bag of Resse's, and sparkling grape juice. I made him his favorite meal: hamburger stroganoff. For dessert we had Grapefruit Meringue. This was a new experiment for me. Here is a link to the recipe:

Grapefruit Meringue

And a picture is worth a thousand words, right?!



I also made the best sugar cookies, ever! The recipe is supposedly the recipe for the big Grandma's sugar cookies. You know, the one's with the pink icing. Unfortunately, I didn't have any food coloring, so my icing is just white, cream cheese frosting. They are the best sugar cookies ever! Here's the recipe:

Sour Cream Cookie Recipe

In Bowl Add:
2 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Margarine
2 Eggs

In Separate Bowl:
1 Cup Sour Cream
1 tsp Baking Soda
(dissolve baking soda in sour cream before adding to rest of ingredients)

Add:
1 tsp Vanilla
1 tsp Baking Powder
about 4 Cups Flour (Or enough to make batter stiff)

This recipe makes about 3 dozen cookies
Chill dough over night
Bake - 350
10 min.

You should really try it...they are AMAZING!!!

St. George

We have now moved up to St. George, UT where Andrew & I are both working for a CPA firm. Andrew loves doing taxes and figuring them out. I have been working at the front desk. It is lots of fun to see all the people who come in! We are renting a 3-bedroom house, but we have no furniture! If you remember,when we were in Rexburg, we were sleeping on a mattress that was on the floor. Well, it's gotten worse! We took that original mattress back to the DI in Rexburg. We are now sleeping on an air-mattress!!! It is crazy, but just another one of our adventures! We have gone down to Vegas every weekend since we moved up here. I guess we haven't found anything to do up here when we don't have to go to work! Andrew is hesitant to make friends, because then we won't want to leave St. George! But we haven't really decided what we are doing when our jobs are done on April 15th! I guess if we don't have any friends here, that just makes our decision easier!

We miss all of our friends up in Rexburg! If any of you want to come down for this long weekend coming up, we've got a couple of spare bedrooms(but no beds)! Just give us a call!

Andrew took the GMAT a couple of weeks ago. He got a 700/800, which puts him in the 90th percentile! To get into BYU, one of the top accounting programs in the nation, he had to score a 630, so he blew the GMAT out of the water! Way to go, Andrew!!! (Round of Applause, if you will!)

I hope that everyone is doing well, and I enjoy reading all of your blogs to keep up on what is going on! We miss everyone and send you all our love!

Viva Las Vegas!!!

First order of business: Happy Birthday Elvis Presley! (Now get his Viva Las Vegas song stuck in your head...)

We have been in Vegas since graduation on Dec. 18th. It is crazy to think that I never have to take a full load of college classes again! I am pretty excited! We spent Christmas & New Years with my family here in Vegas, and we are now getting ready to move to St. George, where we will be starting our jobs on Jan. 18th. Not much else has happened. Just chillin in Vegas, but enjoying the warm, warm weather! It is nice to be in Vegas while the rest of the country is freezing their butts off! Well I guess that is all I really have to say for now.
I hope that everyone had a fabulous holiday season! I look forward to all the adventures 2010 holds!!!

Swim Meet

The week after the BYU-I championship swim meet, we got invited by the Utah State University Master Club Swim Team to compete against them in a dual meet. We were all very excited and continued to train for 2 additional weeks. When we arrived at the pool, we were all impressed with the fact that they had touch pads and a scoreboard! I have not been able to swim with touch pads in a long, long time! Not only did they have high-class equipment (compared to BYU-I), but when I jumped in the pool, I discovered that the water temperature was kept at competition temp...about 5-10 degrees colder than the pool here at BYU-I. It was very cold, but it made me feel like I am still a legitimate swimmer!

I swam the 200 yd backstroke, with a time of 2:35. I have not swam that event since high school, over 4 years ago. My best time back in the day was a 2:18. So less than a 20 second gain is good enough for me!

Here is a picture of everybody who went to the meet.