Serendipity and Black Friday

Having now had swine flu and seasonal flu in the last month I've had lots of time to catch up on my movie watching. When I came home sick the other day and the weather man was predicting snow I decided to have a Christmas movie marathon. I started with some of the more traditional like Miracle on 34th Street and The Santa Clause and a few others and then started on to the less traditional. I seem to watch Serendipity around this time of year and can't really decide if its a Christmas movie or a regular movie. The menu is a giant snowflake, it is mostly based in December and seems to involve many trips to the retail shops for Christmas shopping and lots of snow... but then it does not center around some type of holiday disaster, it could be set in any time of year and if I worked in a movie shop I would recommend it to viewers year round. Just wondering.

I've decided that I want to go Black Friday shopping this year. I've worked it once but I've never actually participated in the shopping mayhem. I've been looking up advertisements online. My problem with Christmas shopping is that most the people I shop for I don't have advanced plans as to exactly what I want to buy them. Pretty much every year my strategy is to start by buying the one or two things I know for sure I am buying and while I'm getting those ones I browse and get a few ideas for other people and if something really jumps out at me then I do a little investigating and I pretty much continue this cycle until I've finished my holiday shopping. I don't usually end up with too many impulse purchases so I've never really felt the need to change the cycle but this doesn't seems to be a good strategy for Black Friday shopping. There are very good sales so the ability to get as much shopping done as possible would be a good thing that just brings me back to how do I decide what to buy for everyone?

On a side note- I used to have this pair of shoes that I really liked. I think everyone goes through a few favorite pair of shoes. Its been about two years since I last saw those shoes, I seemed to have lost them when I moved to Utah from Seattle and I checked a few places to replace them but never had luck so I moved onto better shoes and never really looked back. I went to the store the other day for some Halloween supplies and there were my shoes. I tried them on again for old times sake and they fit great. I kinda think I need to buy them again. (also you could claim serendipity in randomly finding them again...)

Julie & Julia... & Sheryl?

I enjoy to cook. I do fairly well at it, cooking, baking, I really enjoy being creative with food and like to experiment with new recipes and combinations of foods and really like adding various spices to my creations.

I got interested in cake decorating after watching the TV show Ace of Cakes on the Food Network (http://www.charmcitycakes.com/) and discovered that that was a fun way to combine my art degree with my love of food, I would do more of it except that having that much cake around is not a good idea, I prefer not to eat my weight in cake. I have made an Easter Bunny cake (it actually looked like an rabbit) I like using fondant and can make pretty good white chocolate and marshmallow fondants and like to use chocolate clay to do the detail work. They usually turn out really well.

When it comes to cooking I can usually get decent results with most things and really like to start with something basic and elaborate on it. There is however one basic food item that eludes me. Rice. I cannot for the life of me make rice. It either ends up burnt or crunchy and I have no idea how to fix this. Rice in a box is fine but to actually make white rice, yeah, that is quite a gamble. Even today, I came home measured 3/4 cup of rice, 2 cups of water and covered it on med to boil for 20 minutes later. Fifteen minutes later I started to smell something, sure enough it was burnt. I have no idea how I managed to do this. somehow I only burnt half the pan! (to answer the obvious question- yes it was over the heat evenly) on one half of the pan it was black on the bottom and the top layer of rice was very brown around the edge and the other half of the pan looked very wet still. How is this possible? As we speak I'm working on my second attempt. so far so god but I'm only 10 minutes in. The problem with my inability to make rice is that it is a staple in quite a few food items so I really need to overcome this.

Perhaps I should be watching this more closely, they say a watched pot never boils, does that mean it also never burns?

Any tricks to making rice?

Our Favorite Family Pics

We also got our family pictures back, I think they turned out great, here are our favorites!

Claire Alivia

Yeah!! Claire Alivia is here! Whitney had her Monday, September 28th at 2:22 p.m. She was 10 pounds, 4.6 ounces and 21 inches long. We love her!

Family Visit Part 1

So my blogging isn't the best but I think this is a huge improvement and give it a little longer and I'm sure I'll be right up there with the best of em!

This week I'm enjoying some time off to enjoy a last few days with my family before they head out on their new adventures and we have had a few fun things so far!

We kicked off their visit with a yummy dinner at Mike and Whits where Brian and Whit were able to finally meet. It is weird to me that people that are such big parts of my life had not met before but now they have and the fun can begin. Wednesday we went to dinner at Spaghetti Factory and all of the Smith family was invited to join us. We took our first family picture with all 6 of us there and this one is just a sample of the ones still to come this week.


We have had an action filled weekend, we also threw a big family baby shower for Whit where she got some really cool gifts and a bunch of adorable onesies!

Saturday we (finally) had a low-key family night and played a very close game of Pop 5. I still like to say the girls one, we did get to 21 points first but the boys are arguing that they hit 22 in the same amount of turns and that means they won. Sunday night the girls dominated the boys so I think that settles it!

The week is only half over so far so stay tuned for more great pics and a few funny stories!

The girls in the family

The Smith Family

Smith Kids

(sorry to my cousin we blurred out in the back but I wanted one of just the 4 of us!)

What a summer it is kicking off to be!

So it's official, Blogging is not my biggest strength but I'm going to get better! I've had a busy summer so far though so there is plenty to talk about! My family took an unscheduled trip to California and we got to go to the beach for part of it. If you know me at all you probably know that I love the ocean that that single-handedly made the trip a highlight point of my summer!

I also got to introduce Mike and Whit to Boogie Boarding and their soon to be daughter who I have every intention of teaching when she gets older!


I also have gotten to have my parents visit twice and am loving hearing when they are learning about Oman. I am very excited to start planning our trips out there!
My youngest brother Brian will be home from his mission this Wednesday and I cant wait! He's spent the last two years living in Romania and I'm so excited to have him back in Utah with us! Last time he moved to Utah I moved to Seattle so this will be the first time we are all in the same place at the same time. We are planning to do a triathlon as a team later this summer! I will be swimming, Brian will bike and Mike will be our runner.

We also had our cousins come for a visit and we spent a few days at Park City. The trip was really fun and quite the adventure. There was a little problem with our reservation so we spent the first night piled into a one bedroom condo with a couch bed but that just made it more memorable! (The gnome was our trip mascot- his name is Henry.)


All in all, we are off to a good start for the summer and even though it is now August, we are just getting started! I promise to be better at blogging too!

Long Awaited and Probably Overdue... MY BLOG!

So I've been told for awhile now I needed to start one of there so here it goes! Hopefully I can keep up with everyone a little better now! Enjoy!