Wednesday's Read

Last night I went to my ward book club and had a great time.  The book we read for January is this weeks Wednesday Read.  The book is called The Beekeepers Apprentice, or Segregation of the Queen, by Laurie King. The title kind of threw me off but this is a great book.  We have all heard of Sherlock Holmes and his mystery solving legends. Well what if Mr Holmes in the latter years of his career met a very young girl who had the potential to possibly be a greater detective then him? And what if she had no family so he trained her and tested her and in turn she brought out his youth and fun again? This book is about this unlikely duo who have some mysteries to solve, mysteries that I did not figure out until the villain was revealed.  I really loved this book.  When I heard we were reading it, I will admit that it did not sound that interesting to me, but I was wrong.  I love the characters in this book and their relationship and I always love a good mystery!

Excuse Me...Waiter!

So in my post about Chicago I mentioned that we had a little incident at TGI Fridays that I would post about later. Here is that post. 

 Have you ever met someone that just has a certain "thing" that always happens to them.  You know, those people who just have bad luck when it comes to a certain area in their lives.  Well I am one of those people, and my thing is food. I know it sounds weird but let me explain.  I am that one person that when you go out to eat, my plate is going to be the one that goes back and believe me, I am not picky AT ALL.  Here are some examples that I can remember (there have been so many :) 

*I will try to save face for some companies here. 

Ordered chicken fingers in bear lake, bit into chicken fingers and they were completely uncooked. I mean pink slimy and cold. Sent them back to cook a little longer. They came back and I cut into them, uncooked again. By the third time, still uncooked everyone else was done eating so I bagged it. 

Justin for Valentines Day gave me some really nice chocolates from a great little Logan chocolate company. They were these huge delicious cherry cordials. I was down to my last one and as I was eating it, noticed a weird hard something in my mouth.  I spit it out, rinsed it off and low and behold it was a piece of wood about the size of a dime. 

We were out to eat at one of the nicest places in logan and I ordered my favorite chicken dish and it was completely uncooked. Whole entire cold pink chicken breast. Worst part, I took a big bite and swallowed before realizing. 

One time we were driving to the airport and we stopped to fill up on gas.  I love doughnuts and so I went in the gas station to get me a maple bar.  As I was eating it my senses picked up on yet another weird object.  I reached to my lips and pulled out a long piece of wire that had been baked into my delicious morning treat.

And now on to Fridays. On our recent trip to Chicago we decided to get some dinner at TGI Fridays.  We had a gift card from Christmas (thanks mom) so we were going to go all out. The appetizers were all half off with the purchase of an entree so we got an appetizer and then our entrees. I ordered this amazing gourmet chicken mac and cheese.  It was delish, but when I was about half way done I noticed something blue in my food.  I examined it closer and it was a sticker with some expiration date info. I was not going to say anything, I mean it's not like it was going to cause me bodily harm but our waiter saw it and told me not to take another bite of my food.  The manager came over and I told him it was totally fine but he said nonsense. I was pretty full at that time so they gave me my meal for free plus a free desert and a card for a free appetizer on our next visit. So we got an appetizer, two meals and desert for like 13 bucks and it only took half our gift card. 

And when we were at the nice restaurant in logan they also brought me out a new meal and gave it to me for free and desert too. 

We have decided that it really pays to have your food messed up. They really treat you well when something like that happens. 

Ice cream weather

So tonight my dear hubby and I went on a little date night. We went out for some italian and after dinner we decided we needed to get something sweet to take home while we watched a movie. We went to my favorite ice cream shop, Sebastian Joe's and on the way we talked about how crazy it is that we were going out for ice cream on such a dang cold night.  As we were ordering we noticed a sign that said something like, "Sine it's so cold out and you are still buying our ice cream, you get a discount based on the weather. The colder it is, the bigger the discount."

And there was a chart below that went as follows. 

20-10 degrees- 5% off

10-0 degrees- 10% off

o to -10 degrees- 15% off

-10 to -20 degrees- 20% off

-20 to -30 degrees- 25% off

And guess how much our ice cream was discounted? 25%! Thats right, it was -21 degrees tonight and we went out for ice cream. We may be crazy, but I just finished my Pavorati ice cream and it was totally worth it!

Wednesday's Read

Thats right, after a small hiatus Wednesday's read is back in action! Todays read is a little different then reads of the past, in that it is not a book.  One of my online pastimes is obviously blogging and reading blogs. I know that we all read the blogs of friends and relatives but there are blogs that I love reading that are are not people that I know. I want to share with you some of my favorite blogs that I read that you may or may not have heard about

Click on any of the links to go to the blog.

Cakewrecks-  "When professional cakes go horribly and hilariously wrong" is the slogan. This blog is devoted to really bad cakes.  I found myself laughing out loud on so many of the cakes.  The blog is ran by a gal named Jen, and I love reading her witty commentary. To get to some of the really bad/great ones you have to go back in the archives but it is worth it. I have read this entire blog all the way through.

Fail Blog -A blog devoted to pictures and video clips that have failed horribly. See examples below. Also check out the English Fail Blog, it is devoted to misspelled and bad english.

"Sneaky Restaurant Fail"

"Sticker Placement Fail"

Making Memories Blog- This blog is always full of cute scrap-booking and craft ideas

Becky Higgins and Lisa Bearnson's Blogs- Both of these ladies have great ideas, sometimes giveaways and Becky has great recipes on her blog. Lisa is the founder of Creating Keepsakes magazine.

The Movie Blog- I have found this site to give really good movie reviews that are very in depth but with hardly any spoilers. They also have great best, worst, etc... lists. 

NieNieDialogues- A blog about an LDS mother of 4 named Stephanie Nielson. I had just started reading her blog last summer and thought she was just such a fun, beautiful mom who is mad in love with her Husband and then in August she was in a plane crash with her husband who is a pilot. She was very critically injured and her sister took in her kids and continued to blog about the kids and about Stephanie's progress. on the 16th of this month, Stephanie started blogging again. She and her sister Cjane both have great blogs.

And here are a few other pretty funny blogs if you need a little laugh:

Quotation Marks- The blog of unnecessary quotation marks.

Crummy Church Signs- Critical analysis of critically bad church signs

Cute Overload- Some are cute, some are kinda creepy, and please stop dressing up animals!

Kitten Wars- Some of the hardest decisions of my life have been made here. Choose wisely.

Lovely Listings- Pictures from Real estate ad's that do more harm then good for the seller.

Go Fug Yourself- Really funny commentary on really fugly celebrity attire.

So those are some of the blogs that I browse when I am putting off more important things. Let me know of any great blogs that you guys love to follow.

Chicago!

On January 12th Justin and I left for Chicago.  When we were looking for places to stay in the city, we decided we wanted to stay at the Wyndham but while doing our research we found that hotels in Chicago do not provide free parking, and the charges are outrageous! It was going to be 49 dollars a night to park at the Wyndham. While looking we found there was a best western downtown that had free parking but it was the only hotel in the city that offered it. We decided to stay there one night, and then the Wyndham the other night. When we got to our hotel the first night they randomly upgraded us to a suite. It was Sweet! (pun intended) Then we decided to go out and get some dinner and walk around. It was snowing like crazy, but it made the city look beautiful. We walked along the "Magnificent Mile" which is a mile of high end shopping and we stopped for some dinner at TGI Fridays. We had a little incident there, but I will post about that a little later.  Then we walked around some more, got some goodies at a little market and went back to our hotel.

(not a great pic, but one of the only ones of the city I have. It was too cold and snowy!)

 Then next morning we headed out to go see the home of Frank Lloyd Wright.  He is a famous architect and his homes are incredible. I became a fan of his when I took some interior design classes at USU and have been lucky enough to see some of his homes. I was so excited to actually see his own home that he built.  Justin and I both had a great time on our tour. I guess I am kinda nerdy because that was one of my favorite parts of Chicago! 

Then we did a little more shopping, and then we went out to get some real deep dish Chicago pizza. When we sat down our waitress said that it takes about 45 mins to cook. We were a little hesitant but decided to wait. There was a big sign that read "Worth the Wait" and let me tell you, it was! It was some of the best pizza I have ever had.  The slices were huge and cheesy and delicious.  

After dinner we got all dolled up and went to go see Wicked.  I had been wanting to see it for so long and I actually had butterflies in my stomach when it started because I was soooo excited.  The show was amazing! I loved it! The music is fabulous and the costumes and scenery and special effects were awesome.  We both had such a great time. The only downside was parking again. It was going to be 30 dollars but our validated price was only 19.....only.  When we got back to our hotel we decided we had the munchies so we went out into the freezing cold to find something still open.  We ended up with Slurpees and Cheetos and took our feast back to our room and ate it all in our big fluffy hotel bed. It was such a great night! 

We were sad to leave and get back to real life the next morning, especially since it was a blizzard! I fell asleep but Justin counted about 32 cars off the road as we were trying to get out of the city. It was a mess but we made it home in one piece. It was a great little getaway. Chicago is such a cool city and we can't wait to go back when it is warmer and see more of the sights.

This is the view from our room at the Wyndham. Much more impressive in person!

Christmas 2008

First and foremost let me apologize for being the biggest blog slacker ever! We just kept too busy and we were having too much fun with all of the fam, but that is not a very good excuse to abandon my dear blog. I am going to attempt to condense 3 weeks of holiday bliss into one post.

Here goes.....

Dec 18th flew into Utah and met up with Justin's Mom and Dad, brother and sister in law and niece and headed up to logan. Played lots of games, watched movies, dined at our much missed costa vida, I got my hair cut, Justin went skiing, played with 3 puppies and one normal sized dog in the snow, went to family parties, played with niece and laughed a lot!

On Dec 22nd we drove to Saratoga Springs where my brother and his wife have a house and met up with all of my family. We were together for the first time in 2 years and it was a blast. Watched lots of movies, ate good food, met sisters fiance, more family parties, played games, went shopping, watched christmas vacation in our new christmas jammies, had an amazing christmas day, went to some movies, went to Body World with some friends, got professional pics taken of the family, held nephew a LOT, fed nephew, rocked nephew, watched Nephew get blessed on the 27th of December, and said goodbye to family that night and drove back up to logan.

From the 27th to the 6th of January we played lots of poker, went out to dinner a few times, slept in, played with dogs, played with niece, got my hair colored, Justin skied some more, opened presents, watched Utah win the Sugar Bowl, went to movies Boys went bunny hunting and girls watched chick flicks, and had a great time hanging out with family.

Then on the 6th of January we flew to Las Vegas for a little get away before returning home to Minnesota. We stayed at Treasure Island which was way nice and had a great time going to dinner and playing the nickel slots. We are still not quite sure if going to 60 degree weather and then back to 1 degree weather was a good idea or not.

Then on the 8th we flew back into Minnesota and came home to a cozy, quiet little apartment that was warm and in perfect shape and a car that was not stolen, that ran great after not running in below zero temps for 3 weeks. We miss our families already but it is nice to be back to our life and our routines and our frigid Minnesota winter. Christmas was amazing and we were spoiled! 

Here are a few more details...

Movies we saw in the theater: 7 Pounds, Marley and Me, Yes Man, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Here are some things we got:

Her- LOTS of clothes, a North Face puffy coat, about 70 bucks in gift cards to bookstores(yeah!). And lots of other misc GC's to eat out, for clothes, pics etc..., A scrapbook kit, Photoshop Elements, a new font for my die cut machine, a scentsy warmer, shoes, a robe, money, some movies and my husband got me tickets to see Wicked in Chicago! And lots and lots of things like jewelry, makeup and fun little things that I love getting!

Him- a nice GPS, a blackberry, LOTs of clothes, some books, Gift cards for some Twins tickets, lots of other gift-cards for boy stuff, food, itunes etc.., cologne, a nice jacket, and lots of ski passes(yeah for him). And he got lots of other little things as well that are a lot of fun! 

We really got some great stuff this year, but better then that(well almost...) was getting to meet our niece and nephew and have 3 weeks to be with our families. I can't think of the last time we saw every member of our families during one visit. It really was a great Christmas and we are so grateful for all the nice gifts and the hospitality while we were in Utah. We love you all sooo much!

And now off to Chicago! We are seeing Wicked on the 13th and staying in Chicago for 2 nights! I could not be more excited!!!!

P.S I know the pics are weak. I am working on getting a few collages put together when we get back in a couple days! Stay tuned.....

Back in MN

We got back from Utah tonight and I know that I have not blogged since we left (sorry) but be prepared for a couple big updates about all that we have been up to. 

Hope you all had a fabulous Christmas, and stay tuned!