Confession TIme

A List of Confessions:

• Jenn and I used to skip seminary to go play tennis. We weren't great at tennis by any means, but we enjoyed playing. A time or two, Jenn had to go under/over the fence to get the tennis-ball and ripped a coat, a pair of pants, probably some shirts... We weren't very good. Good thing our eternal salvation didn't rest on those games.

• I used to speed. Not really on the highways, but more on the back country roads. A lot. I would go very fast (at least as fast as my GEO would go). It only took a couple of tickets to fix that! I know, that doesn't seem to be that big of a deal, but if you know me very well now, I drive like a grandma.
  

• Jessica and I toilet papered a good friends house. Okay, we threw a couple of rolls of toilet paper, were too afraid to get caught, and ran before we did any real damage. I still feel bad, even though, really, it was literally only a couple of rolls. And they didn't really unroll that much.

• We would go to the city library to do projects or use the computer. On our way there, we would often stop at the store for Snapples or other goodies. When we were done, we were too lazy to go throw the bottles out, so we would stuff them in the couch. They were always gone the next time we came back. I'm sure they knew who was doing it and thought bad things about us when we walked in. Stupid kids

• During church, I wouldn't go. I think my mom always thought I was going. Instead, I would go to Shopko and buy chapstick. They always had a giant selection of weird flavors.
  

• I worked at McDonald's. But almost every night I would stop at Burger King and get a whopper for the drive home. It never lasted more than a mile down the road. I'm such a traitor.

• Every morning, I would wake up literally ten minutes before school started, and go to school in my jammies. Typical lazy bum senior. By the end of the day I was a grease ball because I never showered before.
  

• I was very self conscious of everything, especially my body. So I used to wear my coat around school all day every day. That probably didn't help my non-showering self everyday.

What a rebel.

Cinnamon Swirl Pumpkin Bread

I found this yummy recipe for Pumpkin Swirl Bread. This is the picture that came with recipe, doesn't it look yummy??


If you want to just skip down, the recipe is on the bottom, or you can go here.

I get great satisfaction from my home ground wheat, as I'm sure you do also.


Look how pretty and light it is? I ground it on super fine, mostly because it's easier for me to eat if it's not chunky. Just the way it is.


I always say it's easier, more fun, and just better to eat your food when it's pretty. So here it is starting out breathtaking!


I forgot to take pictures during most of the mixing process. This is the only one I got, when it's all rolled out with the sugar after rising once.


Here's the final loaf! Very pretty, and I must say, the entire house smelled beyond heavenly. I woke up in the middle of the night and could still smell it and it made me so hungry!


I didn't get to cut into it because I delivered these loaves around, but I did have a slice and I can tell you it was very, very yummy, and it looked just like that picture up top! A great seasonal bread!

PS-The second time I made it, I quadrupled the cinnamon, and added some nutmeg.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 4-1/2 to 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 cups quick-cooking oats
• 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2-1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 1-1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 packages (1/4 ounce each) active dry yeast
• 1-1/2 cups warm water (120° to 130°)
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 
  FILLING:
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

• In a large bowl, combine 2 cups all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, oats, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, salt, sugar and yeast. Beat in the warm water, pumpkin, applesauce and oil just until moistened. Add eggs; beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining all-purpose flour to form a firm dough. Add raisins.
• Turn onto a lightly floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.
• Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; divide in half. Roll each portion into an 18-in. x 9-in. rectangle; brush with butter to within 1/2 in. of edges. Combine brown sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over dough. Roll up jelly-roll style, starting with a short side; pinch seam to seal.
• Place seam side down in two greased 9-in. x 5-in. loaf pans. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.
• Bake at 350° for 55-65 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks. Yield: 2 loaves (16 slices each).

Hmmm....

Hmmm....

Junior year was decent. I had nearly a 4.0 all year, I had leadership positions in several clubs, I was dating and playing around every night. I loved to hang out anywhere but home with my friends.

Jenn and I had our infamous Stats nights where we would study our statistics homework, and then it would turn into our chat nights where we didn't get much done at all, just girl talk and deep conversations. One night, Megan had the nerve to come with us and we actually had to study. For rude!

Jessica and I took many trips to Zuka Juice (Jamba) and to Barnes and Noble where we would sit in their cushy chairs, or in the corner on the floor, and have what I'm sure were also very deep and meaningful conversations. In the winter we would get the hot chocolate with real whip cream, oh so heavenly!

Jake just told me about when he was a Junior in High School, he decided to quit the football team, so him and his friend Nik were out driving around one game night. While they were driving, they were listening to the game on the radio when they heard the announcer say, "Jacob Ricks with the return!" Some how somebody was wearing his jersey, or the announcer got mixed up and put him in the game when he was out driving around! I think that's just great!

Anyway, back to meh.

The summer after my Junior Year, I attended Girl's State. I had a great time and learned a lot about citizenship and our government and things. I learned a lot about the importance of voting and being active in those types of things. But I realized how much I strongly dislike debating, governmental procedures, government in general, and anything else that pertains to that sort of thing. Bleck. But I'm glad that I got the opportunity to go! It sure looks good on stuff (resumes, etc), even now, 10 years later!

After I got back from Girls State, I got my first job. My first job was at McDonalds. That's right, I was one of them. Actually, several of my friends also worked at several McDonald's around town, so it was good to compare notes. I have to say I really loved working there! Once I got over the actual, "Oh my gosh, I work at McDonald's" feeling, I really got into it. I was quickly promoted to a trainer, and everybody there loved me. After many, many years of just being a face in the crowd in my town, I was working somewhere where it seemed that pretty much everyone actually seemed to like me, and I felt popular! I was good at my job and felt appreciated. And I loved it! However with that came a slight amount of over confidence.
*Sheepish Smile*
I got asked out by lots of boys, and I went out with lots of boys. Some of them probably weren't who I would bring home to my mom. And I didn't. I never did anything too terrible, but was slightly boy crazy by this time. I stayed out late with friends from work till the wee hours of the morning, driving all over the place. We drove up the Kelly Canyon ski resort several times looking for animals. ??? I don't know why. We would cruse the main drag in town, trying to pick up on dudes. We never did much with them. But looking back I think, how idiotic was I??

Anyway, as that summer ended and I went back to school, I went back with a new confidence, and I felt different. It was good, but I was still just a face. I think my new confidence and others maturing as well, changed some of our relationships. But more on that later!

I managed to survive though!

Laramie Weekend

We spent this last weekend driving to the other side of the state and back. Oh, it was such a long drive! I think by the time we got home it was almost 1,000 miles! No wonder we're still pooped! We were heading over to Laramie for the University of Wyoming homecoming football game. I tell you, I was looking forward to getting to know/see the rest of Wyoming. At first it was really pretty and I was enjoying the drive. Except for a lot of the areas that were industrialized, they were ugly. But after many hours of this:


and this:


I was totally jazzed to see this:


It's sad, I know, but it was a sign of civilization and human life! Then it was back to hours more of this:


We saw a TON of windmills. Probably because it is very flat and very windy in Wyoming. I took lots of pictures of the different flatness of Wyoming. I would post them on here, but I fear for all of your sanity!

We finally made it to Laramie after about eight hours of driving. We stopped in Afton to get our new, WYOMING drivers licenses (!!!), at a bird refuge for about ten minutes (the water was gone, and there were no birdies), and gas a few times. Other than that, we drove straight through.

We drove around the campus a litle bit trying to find our bearings, but we still didn't know where to park so we decided we would just get there early so we could find a spot.


By the time we were done, it was getting late and we were tired. So we went to our hotel. Anybody who knows us, knows how cheap we, specifically me, are. So I just couldn't bring myself to pay much for our room, especially for two nights. So we stayed in a hole. And we slept like it was a hole, but that's okay. Because it was cheap! And honestly it wasn't the worst hotel we've ever stayed in.


On Saturday, we got up early and made a quick morning trip down to Cheyenne. It's about 50 miles from Laramie. While we were there we stopped and got a sweatshirt for the game that afternoon. We didn't have a lot of time, so we only stopped at the old Union Pacific Railroad Station. It was actually really cool. I love this era of American history. The cowboys and Indians and the land settlers, the pioneers, the inventors. It's all great! Anyway, here is the Railroad Station. The Outside:


Out front, and all over Cheyenne, they had these awesome cowboy boots all over town. I insisted that we take our picture in front of it. I'm sorry, my face looks funny, but Jake's doesn't.


Here is the inside. It was pretty cool. They had a map of the old railroad routes painted/tiled into the floor. I dug it!


The State Capitol.


On our way back from Cheyenne, to Laramie, there were some funny rocks.


When we got back we started getting ready for the game!! Here are my ribbons that I tied in my hair. Those are cowboys on those rib'.


Here are our tickets! Notice we are in section CC, row 16, seats 9 & 10. My nose almost started to bleed!


Because we were concerned about finding where we were supposed to park, we went a couple hours early. We were pretty much the fist ones there. All those other people in the stadium are all staff folk.


But after all the tailgating was over, people started to show up. All of the students were on the other side of the stadium, so we got to sit with the old people and grandmas and grandpas. It was awesome! But here is the stadium filling up. We took lots of pictures of Jake and I together, but they didn't really turn out very good. Either the lighting was bad, or my face was. So if you want to see some, I posted every picture on my facebook.


But here is a good one of Jake. He is so cute! Notice his stylin' "W"yoming hat.


Here's the field after the game. I'm not sure that you can see the score board, buy Wyoming lost to U of Utah, 6-30. It was a great game, and I'm so glad that we went! But man! We aren't going back anytime soon, unless we fly!


We got up and headed out the next morning. We stopped at this awesome cafe in Rawlins for lunch. It was straight out of the 50's. Pretty much the most awesome place I've ever eaten at. The food was only okay.


I was wanting to stop at some Mormon History places while we were out and about, so we headed up to Martin's Cove in central Wyoming. The Oregon/California trails also went through the same place. So we stopped for a few minutes here. Here is the information on the LDS.org site about Martin's Cove. Here is an account given by a member of the party. If you don't know the story, I would encourage you to read about it! When the travelers were initially stranded, many of them stayed in this fort, but there wasn't enough room, so they then moved up to Martin's Cove where they waited for rescue.


There was a hike you could take up to the actual cove where there was a monument and things. But it was a six mile hike, and there was lightning and rain looming, so we decided to forgo and just walk to the Sweetwater River. The pioneer trail crossed this river SIX times! How crazy is that! In the winter sometimes! The story of those who helped carry them across is also included in that first hand account. A harrowing story, and I felt very close to those who came through here. Here is the Sweetwater.


We were only there for a little bit before we headed off back into the deserts of Wyoming. We drove and drove for a while, then drove some more. We went through the cute little town of Lander, and as we were driving through Fort Washakie, we saw a sign that said "Sacajawea's Gravesite", so we turned and headed up. This is where Sacajawea was buried. She's always been one of those historic characters that I can never read too much about, I love Lewis and Clark, so this was an awesome find for us!


As we kept driving we found some pretty parts of Wyoming along the Wind River. The leaves were all beautiful and I'm so glad we decided to got that way!


As we got to the top of Togwotee Pass (about 9500 feet), we ran into some snow! It's gonna be here before we all know it!


We came through Grand Teton Park to round our trip off.


It was absolutely beautiful! On our trip we saw hundreds of Antelope, several Elk, lots of deer, five moose and a bunny!

And guess who was waiting for us when we got home?

Porkchop!

Driver's Ed

My biggest, fondest memory of my Sophomore Year, was Driver's Ed. It created many, many memories for myself.

In Shelley, we had an annual break, Spud Harvest, the last week of September and first of October. Normally, those two weeks were spent hard at work in the spud fields, picking, sorting oh the back breaking hours- oh wait! I didn't work in the spuds! Those were usually the weeks we went on vacation! Ha!

Anyway, the spud harvest of my sophomore year was a quick, speedy class of driver's ed class everyday, followed several times a week by a drive. Things have changed now, and the kids are now required to drive for hours and hours of supervised hours before they can get their licenses. Back then, we only had three hours, our classroom time, and passing the final test. Then we could drive to our hearts content, in the daytime, and after we turned 16, then we could drive at night.

Well, since it was spud harvest, and there wasn't an extra soul in the school, we often found ourselves with extra hours to burn between class and our drives. What did we do with that time? Well, funny you should ask!

On more than one occasion:

• Checking out the boy's bathrooms to see what the big deal was.
• Swiping large pieces of construction paper from the big rolls that sat at the end of the hallway. We would draw strange pictures (monkeys, aliens, famous people, etc.) and hang them up in the hallway. When school started back up, we loved to see the reactions of people... "What the...?"
• Several mini stage productions of various sitcoms, our own personal lives, or shameless reenactments of other people's lives.
• Facing our fear of the "L" hall way. Without lights, windows, glowing computer screens or any the like, this hallway was as black as a black hole. I'm pretty sure one of got several black eyes as we found the same door jam with our faces...
• Several quick trips to Arctic Circle to get pumpkin shakes, or Huntsman's for whatever we were hankering (usually Snapple and donuts).

I saw my life flash before eyes several times during driver's ed. I am still eternally grateful for that little extra brake over on our teacher's side. One day my teacher told me to practice my diagonal parking in front of the Post Office, but to not park in front of the ally. In my nervous state, knowing that everyone is watching and what not, I parked in front of the ally. In my defense, it was a perfect parking job! Either way, by the time I did, my teacher was on the phone, involved in a very important conversation. She couldn't yell at me, only throw a pen or something in my direction. By the time she was off the phone, I had re-parked, and everything turned out fine. I was always in disgust because she always made me do extra backwards figure eights around the light posts in the church parking lot. Over and over! Nobody else had to do it as many times! My friend and I ended up being the only ones in our car, so we got our driving done early, thank goodness for that!

Since then, I've only got a couple of parking tickets, one speeding ticket, and an illegal move ticket. But you all know I'm an excellent driver, thank you very much.

Good Times!

Freshman year of High School/Jr. High was a lot of fun. I remember starting to hang out with friends, listening to real music (not old people, parent music), playing school sports, working on the yearbook committee... Lots of different activities. And I remember really enjoying it!

This year I played Freshman Volleyball and ran track. On one particular Volleyball trip, the song "Insensitive" by Jann Arden came on and the entire team of volleyball players busted out the entire song.

Anna and I always used to pair up during drills, leaving our other friend to be stuck with the last player picked, a kind of nerdy girl. We were never mean to her, but we didn't go out of our way to be her friend. And sometimes she didn't smell very good. Sorry, Lindsey.

Anna and I used to slack during track practice every day. I really enjoyed running the hurdles, but was really stinky at them. Anna tripped over one once and broke her wrist. Oops. At one meet, my coach made me run the 300 Meter hurdles. I had never even practiced that race. Anyway, I ended up coming in fourth! Except, you guessed it, there were only four people in the race. While everyone took off, I was left in their dust. I really should have been disqualified, because I ended up running around a couple of the hurdles at the far end of the track, thinking that nobody was watching, because I was SO far behind! Anyway, as I was coming up the last 100 M, passing all the bleachers, I couldn't run around the hurdles because they started to line up together. As I was coming up to the very last one, I had absolutely no energy left. As I lifted my leg to jump it, somehow I ended up smearing myself all over the track. I got some serious track burn. But everyone was cheering for me, so I HAD to get up and finish. Ugh. Very embarrassing. I don't remember being embarrassed, just relieved to be finished!

My dear friend was in love with a boy named Rayce. As we would pass notes back and forth, I would tease her, "You know you love Rayce!" One day, our note was intercepted by our less than genius teacher. She read, "You know you love Rayce?" I said, "Yeah, it's a song!" She totally fell for it! Unfortunately, this same boy was in our class. Everyone but the teacher knew exactly what was going on! Poor, poor girl.

I could go on and on with small, funny stories about Freshman year.
Do you have any fun memories of me from this time??

Heeby Jeeby

So Jake squished a very large Hobo Spider in our basement a few days ago. So first thing the next morning, I ran to the store to get some traps. Before today, the only thing we had caught were a few crickets. Which made me happy, because as bad as that is, crickets don't bite and possibly kill us.

But alas, to my much dismay, I went downstairs to put some stuff away, and I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Jake had mentioned he had lured a millipede onto a trap. But as I looked at it from across the room, I thought, that's the biggest millipede I've ever seen. As I got closer, I realized what it was. And it's giving me the heeby jeebies just thinking about it.

A small little water snake. Dead. In my spider trap. In MY basement. Not outside where he should be.


We have seen many little of these guys out in our dead lawn. And I've seen a giant one once. All I've got to say is that, they need to STAY OUT OF MY HOUSE!!!! Any suggestions on how to get rid of them or keep them out??

What's Up With That?

A few weeks ago, we were at Bed Bath & Beyond and they had these really nice pillows on sale. They were like 150% off, so we got a couple on a splurge, because who doesn't love a new pillow? They're probably the nicest pillows we've ever bought. We put them in the top of our closet until we moved. We pulled them out a few nights ago, probably five nights ago, and put them in our chosen pillow cases. I thoroughly enjoyed my first night with it. It was so cushy and soft and wonderful. The second night, and each subsequent night, it seems my pillow is getting flatter and flatter. Which would make sense if we had gotten really cheap ones, or if I slept for 21 hours a day. But that is definitely not the case.

But the worst part of all of this, is that Jake's pillow is not reacting in the same way. It is still soft and cushy and plush. Here are our pillows side by side.




What is going on here??? Do you see how plush his is, and how flat mine is??

Jake told me this morning that he switches them while we sleep. It would make sense if that's what really happened, but it's not.

Last night, I made sure that he was laying firmly on his pillow by pushing his head deeply into the squishy plush. Before he was sleeping, just in case you wondered.

This isn't the first time I've squished my pillows. Looking back we noticed some of my other pillows have flattened out, too. Sometimes I steal Jake's pillows after he leaves for work. I bet he won't let me do that anymore.

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas on why this is happening?? Or how I can quit squishing my pillows? I miss the fluffy!

Jello-jiggler

I'm having trouble coming up with a great story about eighth grade or 1995/1996.

Things that happened during this time period:

• My parents divorced
• I attended Girl's Camp and pretty much hated it (don't be mean, girls!)
• My mom and I moved into a little apartment in Shelley
• My mom remarried
• I met and became friends with Blake (how do ya like that shout out?)

Chris got his driver's license around this time. He always refused to give me a ride to school. I still had to walk down our long muddy road to catch the bus. We stopped hanging out together as much because it was not cool to hang with your sister.

When I was at Girl's Camp, most of the group went voluntarily went on an non-required hike. A friend and I decided to hang back and have a shower. There were always pranks going on, although, I was never the perpetrator because I didn't want to make people feel bad. Anyway, at this particular Girl's Camp, there were several shower stalls. Some of the older girls were upset about a prank that was played on them earlier, so I think they just needed to take it out on somebody. While we were showering, they brought in the hoses and sprayed us down (VERY cold!) and dumped packages of red jello on us. Luckily the jello rinsed off. But that always stuck with me with that particular ward. I think that was the last year I went to camp as a youth.

Sorry there isn't much to share this year. I've got a couple good ones for next week though!