Merry Christmas from Utah

Talk about a whirlwind! This trip has been jam-packed with awesome fun-ness.

We got about 4 hours of sleep and then got ready and headed to the Richmond Airport for our 6:00 AM flight to Minneapolis. Then we connected to Salt Lake City. We weren't able to sit next to each other on either flight, but that's ok because we were so tired and wanted to sleep. Jim and Wendy picked us up when we flew in at about 11:45 and we went to the Henderson household to see everyone. It was so fun! Wendy, my mother-in-law, always outdoes herself. The decorations, the gifts, the food - it was all wonderful. The little boys are obsessed with trains this year and got some Thomas the Train engine play sets. They also got some foam swords and played with those. They couldn't seem to get the helmets on quite right though :)

After opening gifts at the Henderson's, we went down to Grandma and Grandpa Cuthbert's house in Lehi. They had some amazing food, and we were so stuffed. Homemade soups, rolls, and hand-dipped chocolates were so delicious. It was so wonderful seeing everyone!

We then went to my parents house. We opened gifts (and got some sweet turquoise Vans, thanks Jared), among other awesome presents! My parents got us this awesome game with magnets and you have to avoid attracting everyone else's magnets. It'll be a great game for game night with our friends back in Richmond! We watched Salt, had hot chocolate, and then went to bed.

Sunday was also packed. We got all dolled-up for family pictures at Wheeler Farm with the Lassig side of the family and had a great time in the cold (no, seriously)! The photographer never showed up, so uncle Mark took pictures instead and they turned out fantastically. He also got some great shots of the "golden rooster." You had to see it - I'll ask him for some of the pictures and post them once I get them.

We went to David and Marci's for a late breakfast and chilling. It was so fun! I love just sitting around, talking with family members. Except about politics, which Omi and Buppi found out (lol).

Then we went back to the Henderson's to get ready for the Henderson family party up at Classic Skating in Layton. It was good to see everyone!

THEN...(are you getting tired of our itinerary???) we went to Centerville to see Grandma and Grandpa Beers and visit with them! Wayne and Annette also showed up with their kids so that was a fun surprise :)

Monday we decided to go to Classic in Salt Lake City to play with all the little boys. It was exhausting, but SO fun! They had a blast in the ball pit and sliding down the slides. The Blast Zone is a favorite for sure :)

After Classic, Jordan, Josie, Beckham, and I went to see Great Grandma Wood. She was pretty tired, but it was good to see her. She is 94! We then decided to go see Grandpa Larry and Grandma Della. They are so sweet, I always love talking with them.

And that's our trip in a nutshell! I left Monday night at 12:50 AM. Jordan stayed until Thursday morning and almost didn't make it to the airport with the huge storm - but barely made it for both flights. VERY lucky, considering that people were stranded all over the country with freak snow storms.

We were so glad we could come out for a bit and see almost everyone! We are going to hopefully come back out to Utah next March. My dear brother Jordan is going on his mission to Argentina on March 2, and Jordan's best friend Colin is getting married on March 5! I love how everything works out :) Love you all!

Getting Ready for Christmas

Jordan and I are SOOOO excited for Christmas! The week after Thanksgiving, I decorated our front porch with lights and our front room with some Christmas decorations. For some reason, we waited until 2 weeks before Christmas to get a tree. A real tree, mind you! I LOVE the smell of Christmas trees. That, and the smell of "smoker-men" incense brings to mind so many Christmas memories from growing up. We weren't sure where to get a tree, so I kept my mind out while driving in Richmond. There really weren't many places it seemed! We also needed to get a tree stand. Target was all out of them, so we went to Home Depot and lo and behold, they had Christmas trees! For really good prices too. So we got a cute 6-foot Douglas Fir, a tree stand, and some tree food. Isn't it cute!?

We've gotten all our shopping done and I'm loving just taking in this Christmas season. It snowed last week (2 inches) and all the schools had a snow day and a lot of businesses shut down. It was pretty hilarious! We decided to go to the mall that day, and it was perfect because NO-ONE was out! Then the snow melted over the next couple days and we're supposed to get a "big" snow storm this weekend. I hope it doesn't interfere with our flight home!

Yesterday at work we had a potluck and I was the only one who remembered. Haha. We were supposed to bring foods from where we were from (A lot of the girls I work with are from Africa, so they were going to bring African cuisine). Well, I brought funeral potatoes, and everyone loved them! I also brought Martinelli's, but didn't have a bottle cap opener. One of the patient's daughters brought everyone doughnuts from Krispy Kreme. Then one of the CNA's bought some Fanta from the gas station. So my dinner consisted of funeral potatoes, Krispy Kreme, and Fanta. Delicious :) It's a good thing that I burn so many calories during a shift, otherwise I would be getting fat, lol.

Good Old-Fashioned Cheesy Potatoes (Funeral Potatoes)

6 large potatoes, boiled and grated OR 24 oz. thawed country-style hashbrowns

1 (10 3/4 oz) can cream of chicken soup

2 cups sour cream

1 cup grated cheddar cheese

1/2 cup melted butter

1/3 cup chopped onion

2 cups corn flakes

2 Tbsp. melted butter

Combine soup, sour cream, cheese, 1/2 cup melted butter, and onions. Gently blend into potatoes. Pour into 9x13 baking dish. Crush corn flakes and mix in 2 tablespoons melted butter. Sprinkle on top (or omit corn flake topping and just sprinkle with paprika). Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes.

Delicious!

Thanksgiving 2010

This year, I had to work on Thanksgiving. Jordan and I decided to "postpone" celebrating until the weekend, and we had a wonderful time! I had bought the smallest bone-in turkey breast I could find (5-ish pounds) and cooked the bird, made mashed potatoes, rolls, and pumpkin pie! It was a Thanksgiving to remember :) The turkey turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. And since I bought one with a pop up thermometer, roasting it was easy. I'm going to do that from now on! I heard from my grandparents that my little cousins raised a turkey that was over 30 pounds, and they had it for Thanksgiving! Talk about a lot of meat! Our little bird lasted us for about a week.

For the turkey, I rubbed it with olive oil, salt, and pepper and cooked it for 2-3 hours. The rolls are freezer rolls. Pumpkin pie came from can (and was yummy). The potatoes are 4 large potatoes, with sour cream, cream cheese, milk, butter, salt, and pepper. I've found that you can have a delicious meal without the hassle of cooking all day long - meaning you can make things from a can or the freezer section and they'll still taste good. Yay for shortcuts! :)

Halloween

Halloween weekend was great. It was especially sweet because of the good news of Jordan's wrist and shoulder. Because we are on the activities committee, we helped to plan our ward's Trunk-or-Treat. We brought our pumpkins and lanterns to help decorate and I made Pumpkin Chicken Chili (Amazing) for the chili cook-off. Surprisingly, I won second prize with my chili! For those who have the Dining with Duchess cookbook, it's on the last page of the main course section, page 84. The recipe is as follows:

Saute:

1 onion

1 yellow or green pepper, chopped

1 T. garlic, minced (3 cloves)

Oil

Combine saute mixture with:

3 c. chicken broth

2 (15 oz.) cans black beans, rinsed and drained

2.5 c. chicken, cooked and cut in bite-sized pieces

1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin

1 (15 oz.) can diced tomatoes

2 T. parsley

1 T. chili powder

2 tsp. oregano

2 tsp. cumin

1.5 tsp. curry powder

0.5 tsp. salt

Cook in crockpot on low for 4 to 5 hours.

Notes: I accidently used pumpkin pie mix instead of pumpkin and I think it added a lot of flavor - it was so yummy!

Approximately 200 people came to the party, and it was so fun to see all the little kids and even some adults dressed up :)

The next day, Halloween, we went to church and then watched The 'Burbs with Tom Hanks. Hilarious, and sort of Halloween-ish. I made a pumpkin cobbler for the Richmond Mormon Chorale party/rehearsal and it was delicious. I think pumpkin desserts are my favorite! Jordan said that a total of one person came trick-or-treating at our house, and he didn't even answer the door because he was playing Starcraft. Lame!

Today I got called off work, which is always nice. I've been needing a little bit of a break. I'm so excited to see Jordan's side of the family next week when we go to Disney World! It is going to be amazing!

I asked the scheduling person at work about getting a couple days off around Christmas so that we could come home, and she said that it's company policy that there are...NO vacations from December 15 to January 15. How retarded and lame is that. I couldn't believe it. The only way we will be able to come out is if I can get someone to cover one of my shifts. So I'm going to keep trying to get coverage, but we'll see what happens. :(

A little note about commenting on blogs - The reason Jordan mentioned that I feel no one reads these is because of the lack of comments. You don't have to be a member of Blogger to comment, just click "comments" at the bottom of a post to comment as anonymous (just remember to leave your name) :). This is really the only way for me to communicate to you, our family and friends, about what is going on in our lives, and it makes me happy to read your comments, kind of like reading a conversation. Because that's what this blogging is all about. Communication! We love you so much and thank you for reading!

Dodged a bullet

Well, to follow up on the last post, it turns out my bike injury may have been more serious than I initially thought. That evening when I got ready for bed, I noticed my left hand and shoulder were still hurting pretty bad. Then I noticed that just above my wrist there was lots of swelling and bruising. Plus, it hurt a lot when I pressed directly on the bruise. Uh, oh. Those are classic signs of a fracture. I started to get real worried that I had broken my hand or wrist. On top of this, Melyn and I haven't had the greatest of luck this year with medical bills, starting with her visit to the ER last April. Our health insurance has a pretty high deductible, and though Melyn has a job, we obviously don't want another large expense this year. Plus, wrist fractures often require surgery. So I started to panic. On top of all this, I wouldn't be able to ride my bike to school!

I'd like to mention that when Melyn came home, she did a great job at cleaning me up and dressing my wounds (it's so nice to have a wife who's a nurse!).

The next morning I called the local clinic and was able to get an appointment with the doctor for that afternoon. They took some x-rays, did a physical exam, and to make a long story short: No fractures! The doctor told me, "You dodged a bullet." Yes, yes I did. The whole last night I was so mad about the whole thing, of possibly having a broken bone and to go through all the treatment that would require. I thought that since we had been so blessed for the last little while, it's certain that trials would come along too. In the morning I prayed that the injury would be as least serious as possible, but I honestly didn't believe that I could go through this incident without at least one broken bone. Oh me of little faith. Well, we're pretty happy to have gotten through this ok and excited for the Halloween weekend. Melyn is off work today and tomorrow. Sweet!

October

Well, not much has been happening here in the past couple weeks. Jordan has begun his anatomy course and is working with a small group on a fresh cadaver, dissecting it and learning all the different parts of the body. He enjoys it, but complains that the fat that they have to cut out is very greasy and slimy. Yum. :)

I've gotten my official work schedule and I work 40 hours a week, 5 days a week. It's been a good learning experience. I had 5 days of orientation and now I'm working by myself. To be totally honest...I am not truly enjoying working at this place. The patients see me as a "pill-pusher," which is really sad. As a nurse, you do SO much more than give medications. The problem with working with over 20 patients is that half of your shift, literally, is spent giving medications. Then you have to complete tons and tons of paperwork for everyone. It's very frustrating and really a lesson in time management and multi-tasking. I hate multi-tasking, because I always feel like I'm missing something. In addition to all the paperwork and medication passing, I need to keep track of the work of 5 CNA's, and they don't really communicate what's going on. A few are decent, but below standard work is so frustrating. I can't stop dreaming about work and Jordan has witnessed me sleep-walking and sleep-talking about stuff I've forgotten to do at work. It's exhausting! This is really why I haven't written a post for a couple weeks, because I don't really have anything good to say about work.

I've committed myself to work there for at least a year, and then I'll start looking for a job in a hospital environment. They'll for sure hire me after I've worked somewhere for a year.

We haven't decorated for Halloween, but I'm going to decorate for Thanksgiving. Our finances have been extremely tight. Imagine two poor college students living on nothing anyway, moving across the country, and living on meager savings for 2 months while paying exorbitant amounts of college tuition and trying to find a job. Not a pretty picture. Things will be tight for a couple more months, but then we'll be ok.

Since Jordan is going to school in the mornings, and I'm working in the evenings, we don't really see each other except for the days I have off. And even then, Jordan sometimes has school in the afternoons. Jordan suggested that we have "Family Home Afternoon" instead of FHE :) He also suggested that we have our meals Brazilian style, where the biggest meal is lunch, not dinner. On the days he gets out of class early, we'll have a big lunch and then I'll go to school. I loved his suggestions!

We've been trying to find a way to come out to Utah for a weekend in December. We'll keep you posted, but since the only weekend both of us have off is the weekend of Christmas, it may not happen. I might be able to switch weekends with the previous week though. We're crossing our fingers, because we want to see everyone. We miss you all so much and love you!

Shenadoah National Park

Our good friends Alan and Lyanna invited us to come camping with them in Shenadoah National Park (about 2 hours away from us) over the Labor Day weekend. Unfortunately, we don't have any camping equipment except for camping chairs and marshmallow roasters. So we decided to join them on Saturday for a nice day of hiking, tinfoil dinners, games, and s'mores. It was so fun!

We decided to go hiking on a trail that led to an old Episcopal Mission. I thought it would be awesome to see, plus the hike was only 4 miles round-trip. The hike was easy (compared to Utah hikes), with just some rolling hills. The forest was amazing. I couldn't get over how thick the forest was; the trees were towering and the wildlife was abundant. We had been strolling along for about 45 minutes when Jordan said he thought we had gone farther than the hike was supposed to be. Uh-oh. I thought for sure we were on the right trail, but maybe we had missed a turn? No, we had stayed on the main path the entire time. We did pass by a rotting shanty, could that have been the mission? No, missions don't look like that. We were so confused. So we decided to keep hiking a little longer and then turn around if it didn't look promising.

We hiked for approximately 3 miles in before we turned around. Jordan pulled out his iPhone, amazingly getting service, and the map said that we had almost hiked to the edge of the park! Wow! All-in-all, the hike was a good experience, and next time, we'll follow the trail markers more closely. I still have no idea if that trail was the one we were supposed to be on.

We joined Alan and Lyanna and started building a fire. While our tin foil dinners cooked, we played Scrabble, which I lost horribly at. All my letters were U, M, and Q. Can't really do anything with those! Dinner was delicious. If you've never had tin foil dinners before, this website has some really good tips.

We had s'mores and talked for a while then headed home! It was such a fun experience and we look forward to going to Shenadoah National Park again soon.

Ahhhh...

I feel relaxed. Today, I cleaned the house in 15 minute increments. I got a lot done. Our stuff is almost all decluttered and there is such a peace it our home. I absolutely love it. I went and got an hour-long massage today and it was amazing. The massage therapy place is only five minutes from my house and they are priced fairly cheap.

The couch gets delivered on Friday and then I'm going to get this chair from Pier 1 Imports if it matches well enough :) I also need a side table/cabinet and key hooks, maybe these, for the front door area. I'msoexcited.

It's nice to walk around the house and realize that there isn't much for me to do. The bed is made with fresh sheets, everything is dusted, all the dishes are in the cupboards, the candle is burning, and I have plenty of time and space in my house and in my head to actually do things I love. Like read. And crochet. And watch movies. And cook and bake. It's nice to have this time while I'm unemployed to work on all my projects that have piled up over the past ten years, from Young Women's and such.

I just have such a peace of mind. I'm planning on going to the pool and the library tomorrow. We're also going to shop for shoes, because all my heels are dead and so are Jordan's sandals. Life is good.

Oh, and in exciting upcoming events, Jordan and I are planning to go to Virginia Beach, possibly this weekend. We're going to fly a kite and go boogie-boarding. Yeah! We're also thinking about throwing a Halloween Party. There are a lot of new people in the ward in similar situations as us who also live close by, so it would be fun to have everyone over and dress up :) I love the holidays! And I'm already thinking about Thanksgiving...planning on cooking a small turkey!