My first experiment...

Ok, I was making up my first drink tonight. It is also the first time I'm using my LARGE container, the 64 ouncer!

I put in a cup of water, 1.5 apples- seeds and all mom!, a banana, about 3 large strawberries- the green leafy part too!, a handful of spinach and the rest ice!
All mixed up. It looks like chocolate, but I think the spinach and strawberries are fighting to have the winning color: BROWN!!

Getting ready to try it...

The kids weren't too sure about the first drink... I think I put too many different flavors in it... should stick to 2-3...

Kent said he liked it, Jade didn't like the banana at all- she hates bananas, Jeromy and I thought it was kind of bland... maybe it needed a little bit of honey to sweeten it up. I had everyone rate it. One * they never want to eat it again, 5 ***** means they LOVE it.

Jeromy: ***

Katie: ***

Jade: ***

Kenton: ***

Aurora: **

Tomorrow I'm trying the soup and the kale ice-cream!!!

Finally!!!!

Finally I got to try my Vitamix!

I ran my 9 miles today and I wanted to make my protein shake using the Vitamix!

First I cleaned the machine per the instruction manual.

Then I put in one cup of kefir milk, a scoop of my protein powder, a spoonful of local honey...

Then- I've never put spinach in my shakes before, but since this machine can pulverize and seems to hide vegetable flavor... I thought I'd throw in a handful of baby spinach...

Then I added some mixed frozen fruit: half a banana, some raspberries and strawberries...

Ok... ready to start blending...

I was so excited I had to try a drink of it before I took the picture... I could not taste the spinach... it was delicious!

ok... time to get ready for work.

:o(

I have been working so much over time that I STILL have not had a chance to open my Vitamix boxes... is it possible to experience "withdrawal" symptoms to something you've never even tried yet??? LOL oh well, hopefully I'll be able to play with it this weekend...

I GOT IT!!!

I have been researching this item for a while now.... and I finally got it today!!!


My very own... drum roll please....

VITAMIX

(in rainbow color cause those are all the colors of fruits and vegetables I'll be eating with my new blender!!!)

Today I went to Costco with my mom who was also meeting auntie Sharon, auntie Linda, auntie Susan, auntie Mary and cousin Laura! We all are getting vitamix's! Laura actually already has one and it is amazing.

We all went to watch the demo. This machine is amazing. I don't think I've ever been this excited about a kitchen appliance--- ever!!!

This thing makes ice-cream, smoothies- with kale and spinach that you can't even taste! I asked the guy doing the demonstration if it makes coffee drinks and he said "do you want it iced or hot?" I can't believe it! He made an iced coffee-- and get this-- he added carrots- CARROTS! I was thinking GROSS- but I could not taste the carrots and the coffee was delicious. He also made soup as one the demos! This mixer actually blends the soup and heats the soup- to boiling- if you want it! I am just in awe.....

Here it is! The main unit comes with a 64 (or was is 62??) ounce base. Then I also bought the smaller 32 ounce unit for wet ingredients. And surprise- my mom bought me the 32 ounce 'dry' unit for grinding grains. This blender is so amazing! It can make almond milk- which Jeromy drinks. It makes pancake batter, homemade peanut butter and humus... I feel like that little girl on Annie "Oh my goodness oh my goodness!!"

Ok, gotta go! I'm heading out to go pick Kent's senior pictures that we had taken last week- too much excitement I can't stand it!

Here's my Vitamix with the 2 smaller "wet" and "dry" units... I think I'm in love....

Getting excited!!!

I might be making a purchase Tuesday morning... it is something I've been wanting to get for a while now, and I think Tuesday it is going to happen... on pins and needles just thinking about it!

Ok, as soon as you find out you'll probably think I'm crazy! But you'll have to wait till Tuesday to think I'm crazy cause I'm not telling what it is!

I CAN'T WAIT

I CAN'T WAIT

I CAN'T WAIT

I CAN'T WAIT

I CAN'T WAIT

I CAN'T WAIT

Guess what? I can't wait!!!

Three good things about today....

1. I don't have to go to work

2. Getting Kent's senior pictures taken

3. My mom's birthday!!!

So I'll go in order as the day's events occurred.

Having the day off from work is great.

Next, it's time for Kent's senior pictures!!!! I can't even believe it's been 2 whole years since we've done Jade's!!! Where is the time going????? Just let me tell you how excited I am about doing his pictures...

I'M LOVING EVERY SECOND OF IT!!!

I got him 4 new outfits (my co-worker reminded me that men don't wear "outfits" they where clothes LOL). And the 2 "dressier" shirts had the fold wrinkle in them, so I thru them in the dryer then ironed the last stubborn wrinkles out. Almost had a near miss with the iron. Grabbed it from the wrong end, but with my ninja moves I was able to snatch my hand away and just felt a little warmth on my finger- close call!! Again- this picture doesn't do these shirts any justice in how bold and brightly colored they are!
Here's one of his more casual looks. He will have the shirt unbuttoned in the picture. This shirt looks so nice on him.

So it took about 2 hours for his "photo shoot" and Kent was a great sport. At first he was kinda leery about hearing it would take 2 hours, but he knew I was so excited that he played along, and he said he actually had a nice time but he's exhausted and his cheeks are sore from all the smiling. It takes alot of effort to get that boy to have a natural smile... I'm not even going to mention what the photographers had to do to get him to laugh which is the best way to get his natural smile out... all I'll say is hand puppets... that's it...

Next we're moving on to my mom's 62nd birthday. So I asked my mom what was her exact favorite cake, I was pretty sure it was a light cake with chocolate frosting. I was close. She likes a white cake with Hershey's milk chocolate frosting.

So the other day, Jade and I went shopping, she took off to get the cake stuff while I went in the other direction to retrieve other food and we met back up at the cashier, paid and went home... did you notice that I didn't mention in there to Jade exactly what my mom wanted? Did you notice I forgot to see what Jade brought up to the cashier when I just blindly paid for the food? I think I was so focused on getting my donut I wasn't even thinking about the cake. When I got home, donut eaten, I looked at the cake mix... arrrrgggg it was a yellow NOT a white cake mix and fudge frosting NOT Hershey's milk chocolate.

So early this morning I rushed out to get the right stuff, I know my mom would have loved whatever we had gotten and eaten it with a smile- but what's the point of asking someone their absolute favorite cake and then getting something (sorta) completely different????

Ok, here we are... the correct cake mix and frosting- pheewwww!!!

My parents and Misty and Kelsey came over at 4:30 for cake, and Misty was bringing the ice-cream... and beautiful flowers for mom...

My awesome daughter made the cake while Kent and I were at his "photo shoot"...

Hey it's twins... nahhh that's just Misty and Kelsey- mom and daughter not twins!Mmmmmmmmmm cake and ice-cream....

Playing with grandpa...

Bunch of cute girls...

Jade, Kent and Kelsey...

Jeromy, Grandpa and Kenton...

Ok... time to rest. What a fun day.

Still here....

I'm still here.... just working alot of overtime, but will blog this weekend for sure! Love you mom!

Oh and Happy Birthday to my super awesome crazy-runnin' hilariously easy-going first-cousin-once-removed KYLE!!!! Happy Birthday dude!!!

Oh and to his dad, Jason, who had his b-day a couple days ago- happy birthday!!

And someone special has a birthday tomorrow also!!! Will be blogging that for sure! See you tomorrow MOM!!!

Man... I need a nap...

I ran today....

I ran 10 miles today!!!

(It took 1 hour 49 minutes- straight non-stop running... just sayin'...)

We also had our bi-monthly family fellowship with families from church. We had a great potluck, the theme was green! So I made my stir-fry with rice, ground turkey, kale, green onions and eggs. But to make it more green, I put a small amount of green food coloring in the water that mixed with the rice, and this is what I got: mint colored rice! Awesome. Jade and Aurora made some chocolate chip cookies and added green M&M's with the chocolate chips- and they all got eaten, but I forgot to get a picture of that.

Tonight we started reading Proverbs in the Bible, since that is what our Pastor Kevin is going over tomorrow morning. The book of Proverbs was written by King Solomon. God told him he could have anything he wanted and he asked for wisdom to help guide his people. He didn't ask for wealth, or health or death to his enemies. He asked for God's wisdom, and God blessed him with that. So proverbs is a pretty amazing book of wisdom and knowledge, so relevant even for today!

Gotta go to bed now. So tired...

Thursday stuff...

So Jade has really been my little cook lately! I think it really did skip a generation mom... well actually your cooking gene lied dormant for a while, too, mom right? So there's still hope for me- I do cook a little. But Jade is seeking out recipes!

Last night she made home made meatballs- yet another new meatball recipe. And tonight she's making chicken strips. But I'm kinda glad I'll be at work tonight for this dinner cause the chicken marinades in... wait for it... pickle juice- for 2 hours- NASTY! I hate pickles, though. So anyway, she's got the chicken in a baggy with (nasty) pickle juice, then it marinades in milk and an egg for another 2 hours, then she mixes it with some stuff including powdered sugar. Ever heard of that? Sounds so weird. Jeromy says she's just trying to find recipes with sugar in them LOL.... maybe. We'll also got some chocolate chips cause she wants to make some cookies tonight... maybe Jeromy is right- but he says he's been craving her chocolate chip cookies also!Got Kent's hair cut today, his senior pictures are scheduled for next Friday the 23rd (Grandma Cindy's 62nd birthday)!!! Kent is so handsome I can't stand it. I told him when he's 18 ( 3 more months) he can do what he wants with his facial hair- he wants to grow out his "beard, mustache and sideburns" his exact words. But until then, and for his senior pictures he's going to be clean shaven. He's too handsome to cover up all that cuteness, but he doesn't listen!Ok... so this dreary rainy weather is bumming me out and I'm not being disciplined on my running... so all you runners/walkers out there, you know who you are: mom, Laura, Kyle, Misty... help me out and give me some words of encouragement. Even if it's to say:

"get your lazy butt up and RUN RUN RUN!"

Ok, off to work... love you all... don't forget to thank God for the little things, no matter how small!

Neck pain and popcorn...

Well.... was supposed to go run 8 miles today... but my neck had a different idea...

So, last night, I totally tweaked my neck (again). You'll never guess in a million years how I did it. Well, all I did was walk into the computer room, and as I did, I looked up an angle at the time on the microwave and must have strained it just enough to almost make my cry when I looked back straight ahead.

Nope, no major work out, no wrestling with Jeromy, not working hard at work, not lifting any thing heavy... just innocently looked up at the time. The pain almost knocked me to my knees.

So last night I slept miserably :o( ya, you can feel sorry for me. Spent most of the day trying to sleep the pain away. Didn't work. Finally went to urgent care where they gave me some muscle spasm-reducer medicine and some pain killers.

I called my mom, while waiting to get my prescription filled, to get the sympathy I needed and they were just taking Jade out to the Olive Garden. They told me to come right over! So I got my prescription filled and headed straight over. The Parmesan encrusted tilapia really did help mom and dad- thanks again for dinner.

So I headed back home and I'm going to rest the rest of the night. Dealing with the pain in my neck for so long finally gave me a raging headache on top of the neck pain. But the medicine is stronger! I feel better, but I can still feel the underlying pain. The doctor was talking about working "light duty" at work- I don't think so scooter, can't do that. My job's not that physically demanding- most of the time. I just work alot of hours.

Ok, enough of the neck pain talk- you probably want to know how popcorn fits into this blog.

So Jade and Kent got one of those cute little popcorn makers from their grandma Claire, we've been wanting one of these for a while, so we thought we'd try it out tonight!

Man I thought we got a dud- turns out I put double the amount of oil needed. Woopsies- let's try that again....

Can you hear the pop-pop-pop??? I love popcorn...

Fills up the bottom of the tray, which pulls out...

Looks pretty good, eh??

Ok, time to go work on my Bible study for a while, then on to get a good night sleep... I hope!

Friday-Saturday-Sunday

Josh, Jade and Kent's dad, came up to visit the kids and the rest of his family over the past week. His youngest brother just had his first baby. So now there are 3 grand kids on their side of the family- I know grandma Claire is sooo excited!

Can anyone say twins??? They look so much alike, Kent's voice even sounds like him, but I guess that's what happens when you're father and son right? ( I still see a little bit of me in that face... just a little bit)

A close up of Jade and her dad- yeah, they look alike also....

Since I didn't have to work Saturday, I spent the first part of my Saturday sleeping in to my heart's content!!! After I finally got up I went to the YMCA and ran 9 miles in 1 hour and 39 minutes- felt pretty great!

Soooo, we are getting ready for Kent's senior pictures. I CANNOT WAIT!!! We still have to get his hair cut, then I think we are planning to get them the week after next!! So yesterday we went shopping!

First we headed out and got a special coffee- just mom and son! Kent's such a great kid, I know he could probably care less about his pictures, but he knows it means so much to me that he goes along with it.

Then we headed to the mall... check out these nice shirts! Awesome blue and purple, Jeromy isn't too hip on the purple, but I love it and Kent doesn't care. But Jeromy said the tie makes it looks nice! DUH! These colors are actually alot more bold than this picture is showing. The sitting fee I'm getting is for 4 clothing changes, so we got 2 fancy looks...

Here are the 2 casual looks... I really wanted Kent to like what he was wearing, and he said he wanted something orange! ORANGE people, for senior pictures? I think he says crazy colors cause he knows I'll freak out! So we got this orange look, and also that nice black/gray shirt over white...

Ok- after church we headed over to my mom's house for a yummy pizza lunch! Can you tell I'm excited by the look on my face? I've been thinking about this pizza lunch for several days now! Good thing I ran 9 miles yesterday!

Jeromy and I have fun putting on exactly what we like to make the pizza perrrrfect!

Doesn't that look awesome????

Are they not the cutest or what??? Love those faces!!! They love making their own pizzas, too!

Grandma and grandpa make their own pizza, too! Grandma had doubled the dough recipe so we all pretty much got to make our own whole pizza.... soooo fuuuull!

Wow- is your mouth watering? Mine is and I already ate half my pizza!

Jeromy loves his pizza with his goat cheese- tastes pretty good, too!

The kids were spending the night at grandma's house tonight. Even though they are 17 and 19 they still love to spend the night at grandma's house, which I know makes my mom happy since she was worried about them getting too old to want to stay over! But they love their grandma. Doesn't hurt that she had cupcakes, ice-cream, cookies and what ever else she feeds them when I'm not looking! Love you mom! Thanks again for the yummy lunch! Jeromy and I ate the other halves of our pizza... I can't believe I did that- I should have ran 15 miles... I don't think I'll be eating pizza again for a while soooo fuuuull!!!

Back home, some other misc. things....

At work, we all have tool bags we use to hold our tools for where ever we are working in the shop. Well, the guys, of course, use the manly navy green tools bags that are shaped like these ones. But I, along with alot of the women, make our own- more stylish tool bags. I usually make a new one after every couple of years just cause I get bored. So here are the ones I had over the last couple of years... first the green one, then I got a little more creative and made some stripes with the different colored naugahydes that we have... and then of course I doodle all over them...

So this is the latest one I made last week, did different thicknesses of stripes again, but made them at an angle. Pretty sweeeet... I also make them with PVC pockets on both sides to slide family pictures in them to keep me happy while I work...

Some things I got from my grandma who passed away a few weeks ago. My mom painted this "Last Supper" of Jesus and the 12 disciples picture years ago, I remember it hanging at my grandma's as far back as I can remember. And my mom gave it to me. I also cross stitched this "I believe in angels" picture for my grandma in 1995, she also had that hanging since then, so I got that back and will hang it somewhere in my house.Sooo, Jeromy made himself a bowl of cereal. It's his peanut butter crunch cereal, which he decided to crumble up a warmed up brownie over the top, then he added his milk.... hmmm... weird...So now I just finished baking some banana bread, my mom gave me 2 bananas that were just ready to become banana bread- makes the house smell so good! Also made Jeromy's tuna fish and hard boiled about 10 eggs for the week for us all to much on- the chickens are going crazy right now in the egg laying department! We can't keep up!

So now getting ready for bed. It was a nice weekend, really nice not having to work....

So excited...

I'm so excited. You want to know why??? My baby is getting ready to have his senior pictures done! May not seem like a big deal to some, but I can't wait- you all know I love me some pictures- and the senior pictures are kind of the grand finale of the childhood years.

Kent and I went shopping today and got 4 new outfits (tops) and he is going to look so sharp! I'll be blogging them tomorrow cause I have alot to do and can't get to it till tomorrow!

What's kind of cool, is the photographers we use are Nelson's Photographic Design. They are the same people who did my senior pictures 19 years ago (wow...) and they also did Jade's 2 years ago- I can't believe Jade's are already 2 years gone by, I had soooo much fun doing hers! And what's even cooler is that the couple Cliff and Michelle Nelson of the Nelson's Photographic Design are also Christians and just so happened to start going to our church several months ago- small world!

I also had to say a small prayer to God and just thank Him for all He does for us, not only does he provide all our needs, He blesses us with just some fun things in our lives and I am so grateful! I think I'm a little more excited about this whole picture thing than Kent, but he's a good sport.

Jeromy and I are about to go see a movie tonight, then tomorrow after church we are heading over to my mom's for a yummy home made pizza lunch and then to visit for a while. The kids are also spending the night at my mom's and then Jeromy and I are going to continue our date night from tonight- sure is nice having 2 days off from work... I have worked 28.5 hours of overtime, after my regular 80 hours, over the last 2 weeks and I need to rest!

But I did run 9 miles today woo-hoo, and now I will rest the rest of the weekend. Be prepared for some great pictures tomorrow evening!

As of today....

I

HAVE

RUN

OVER

200

MILES

FOR

THE

YEAR!!!

GO AHEAD

AND LOOK!!!

--------->

It is March 6th right?

So why does it look like this in my backyard this morning? Pretty tho... but I am fully ready for summer now!!!

So Jade and Kent have a new cousin on their dad's side of the family- their FIRST cousin on their dad's side of the family. Their dad, Josh, had 3 other siblings who never had kids. Until now! Josh's youngest brother Jacob and his wife Marilyn had a baby boy in February- and he was over 11 pounds- OUCH! Here's Jade and Kent with their dad and their cousin Jacob Isaac Jr.- Jade said they are going to call him Isaac. Grandma Claire must be so excited to have 3 grand kids now!

That is one cute baby- I can definitely see the family genes in this little guy... that is definitely a SINK kid...

Sideways picture of Aurora and her dad- still super cute tho...

We went to Laura's after church Sunday. She and Jason made a delicious tortilla soup! They invited another couple from their church who have 3 teenages boys- who also brought some dessert. Then we watched an awesome movie about biblical daughters and biblical fathers and how those relationships can and should look today. Made me cry... made me angry (again) at Mike. But can't cry over spilled milk right? Well, I guess I did anyway.

Oh well, we did get to see one of the Trig kids: JULIA! It was so great to see you and hug you Julia! I wish I could have seen Tessa, Tae', Nadia, Beriah, Alex.... I did get to talk to Iana on the phone the other day... they are all growing up so fast... crazy how that happens. Here's Julia, Aurora, me and Laura...

Later