6.30.2011

Adventures in a Box

Today at work our new chairs arrived. In big glorious boxes! With smaller boxes and pieces that came with The Big Box. I promptly volunteered to take one or two.


Of course I could only fit one Box in my car at a time.


But Baby was so incredibly excited to meet The Box.


He brought the box in the house and promptly pulled everything out. I told him if he didn't use something to throw it in the recycle bin.


He replied, as he got cozy with The Box, "There won't be anything going in the Recycle Bin!"


Stay tuned for Baby's Adventures in a Box.

6.29.2011

Halloween in July

Some crafty people call Christmas in July an excuse to get started making Christmas crafts. I think it should be Halloween in July instead. So in honor of my own Holiday I bought this fabric in June.



I know I'm a little morbid, but I loved the caskets falling out of the hearses.



Skulls and bats on orange are great.



And owls. Who doesn't love owls? They're so in style right now.

I thought I was all set to make some Halloween bags or somethings cool.




And then I found this fabric. It matches the fabric I used to make a Halloween bag last year. I have to have some of this, otherwise I'm incomplete.


See how it matches last year's bag? What to do? Too much fabric! Wait, I didn't just say that. Most women feel like they can't have too many shoes. I don't think it's possible to have too much fabric. I know, it's a sickness. Please don't schedule an intervention.

6.23.2011

Zombie Burger

  1. Guess what is opening in Des Moines this August? 
  2. And guess who will be there this August? 
  3. Guess who's going to be Jealous?
Do you REALLY want the ANSWERS? Here they are:
Zombie Burger + Drink Lab
from ZombieBurger
  1. Zombie Burger!
  2. My Whole Family!
  3. You will be so Jealous!
They better be open while we are there. Cuz I will get in line AGAIN for another Opening Day.

6.19.2011

Cafe Rio Updates

Sometimes I feel like I live in the Middle East. In the Middle East Women are considered a temptation. If a Man attacks a Woman, he is not held responsible, the Woman is because she provided a temptation. Forget Free Will and Self Restraint.

Sometimes here in Utah I feel the same restrictions, not on my person but on society. When a Tattoo Parlor opened its doors on Main Street there was a small public outcry. It didn't last for long, the store not the public outcry. The public outcry won this fight for today. And then there is Dirty Jo's, the local Lingerie Shop. Several years ago I spied an article in the local paper describing a new city ordinance prohibiting Sex Shops in town. Dirty Jo's was grandfathered in and allowed to stay. I bet they were ecstatic about the law, they've got a Legal Monopoly here in town! And the best part is, all the Mormon Moms that frequent the shop.

There's nothing wrong with a Sex Shop or a Tattoo Parlor but we've got the Locals who have never stepped foot outside of Utah that want these things out of sight. They figure if they're out of sight, we're safe! There's nothing farther from the truth. You should have been around for the hullabaloo Hooter's caused when it opened, and it's 40 miles away!

How does this apply to Cafe Rio you ask? When I left the other day, on my second trip to the restaurant (finally!), I noticed that it's Open on Sunday! I'm wondering if it will be run out of town for providing an Inescapable Temptation for the locals.

6.16.2011

Failed Parental Controls

The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries

Netflix is a pretty cool invention. I pretty much like it. Most of the time.

The other night Baby wanted to watch some old Hardy Boys shows. He had heard they were on when Olaf and I were kids. So we searched for them. And we actually found them!

We hit "Play" and were instantly told that this movie was outside our rating system and forbidden. Maybe Forbidden wasn't the exact word, but that's how I felt. We had sent the Parental Controls to only allow shows rated "R" or less. We didn't want the kids accidentally watching porn while we were at work. Apparently 1970's TV shows are above an "R" rating. Looks pretty risque to me.

6.14.2011

The End is Near

Glorious Cafe Rio has finally come to Spanish Fork! I'm pretty sure The End is Near and we won't be able to enjoy it for long.

In the meantime, I foresee a drastic drop in the revenues of other restaurants in the foreseeable future.


Last Wednesday Cafe Rio finally opened its doors to an overly anxious population that had been counting down the days. They had a truck out front advertising the Countdown to Opening Day, but I really don't think it was needed.

For the last month people could be heard in excited conversation,

"Cafe Rio opens June 8th!"

"I'm going Opening Day!"

"Finally, I don't have to go to Provo to eat ever again!"

Maybe that last one was a bit of a stretch but I'm sure more than one person has made that statement.

I was excited enough that I met a friend on Opening Day. Both our husbands thought we were crazy. We really didn't care. We weren't bringing kids. We didn't care if we had to wait outside in line for an hour. We were finally getting the Famous Sacred Pork Barbacoa right here In Town!

We got lucky and only had to wait in line for 15 minutes! Talk about a Lucky Day.

That weekend as I talked to several others we all mentioned how Cafe Rio was finally open. And I even mentioned that against my Usual Crowd-Avoiding Tendencies I had even eaten there on Opening Day. And every single time I was met with the same statement.

"I've already eaten there twice!"

6.12.2011

The Field

This is the field that lives next door to me.
Do You See What I See?


I see Allergy Relief in the next week or two! Hallelujah!

6.09.2011

Bragging Rights

As a Mom I get Bragging Rights every now and then. It's a Mom's Privilege. Middle Child has completed the Project part of his Eagle Project. I wrote a week ago about how he was putting together a campaign to heighten people's awareness of Organ Donation and hopefully sign some more people to become Organ Donors.


He has worked so hard on this I was absolutely amazed! I wasn't sure he was anyone's teenage son. He called numerous places to ask permission to set up booths on June 4th. He even had to call a few Corporate Offices to get the Go Ahead. After that he had to call people to staff the booths. He easily spent 10-15 hours on the phone calling people. That plus he hunted down neighbors who he couldn't reach by phone. He was like a Tiger!


We also had to put together some sort of Display. We ended up making these to put at each booth.


That Saturday morning Middle Child and Olaf left the house soon after 6:30am to get the Gold's Gym booth set up since it started at 7am. Thank goodness the other booths didn't open until 10am.


Here's what one of the booths looked like.


We incorporated some of the Zero Fatalities things into the booth in an effort to get a few more people to buckle up also.


Here's one of the Gold's Gym groups.


Here's the Gold's Gym in Provo. These two are coworkers of Olaf's who were more than happy to take the whole 4-hour shift!


Here are a few of his friends at Fresh Markets.


Here's more of Olaf's coworker's at CAL Ranch.


Here's the Family helping at Macey's, not the Department Store but the Grocery store.


They sure are cute!


Here's Middle Child working the booth at CAL Ranch later in the day.


Here are some of Middle Child's friends who also worked a 4-hour shift at Macey's. He's got awesome friends willing to help out all Saturday afternoon!


Here's one of Calvin's friends with his Mom.


And Middle Child is working the Fresh Market booth with Calvin's favorite Scout Leader.


Here's another of Calvin's friend helping out that afternoon after a long day at work.

I was amazed at how gung-ho Middle Child has been about his project. We had to help him write things out but he had absolutely no problem calling people and stores. And once he got there he was aggressive in talking to people and signing them up to be Organ Donors. There aren't enough words in my vocabulary to tell you how proud I am of my son. He's just incredible.

6.07.2011

Quinoa is not Zombie Food

I don't know how to pronounce it either. But it's a whole grain thing. And after Middle Child chose the highest fat milk for ice cream at Sub Zero this weekend I decided we needed to discuss and model healthier eating habits.

So tonight for dinner I made a Mediterranean-style dish. It consisted of Quinoa and lots of veggies. It was actually pretty good. I loved it. Olaf loved it. Middle Child tolerated it and picked the cherry tomatoes out and pushed them to the side. Baby's BFF was there and ate the whole dish without complaining although he didn't ask for seconds. I'm thinking he liked it but didn't love it. That or else his Mom had just fed him right before. Baby cried and made puking noises. I kept telling him he could either eat or go to bed at 6 pm. So he kept trying to choke it down. Unsuccessfully.

Olaf had been working in the garden and apparently we all forgot to tell him we were eating. So much for Family Dinner at this house! So by the time he came in Middle Child and Baby's BFF were finishing dinner. They put their dishes away and headed out. Olaf noticed Baby was crying and I was threatening bedtime. He tried to come up with a few ways for Baby to be able to eat the food.

First he suggested he eat it on a Town House Cracker. Kind of defeats the purpose of eating healthy, but whatever. That didn't work either.

Then came the old stand-by. Ketchup. Baby poured some Ketchup on and ate as little as he had to so he could go play some more. It worked!

Apparently I have a Ketchup Child. No matter what we're eating I just need to put the Ketchup bottle on the table so Baby can eat without being poisoned by me.

6.02.2011

Hidden Pictures



Can you spot the two items in front of my double-wide that shows my age?