DID YOU KNOW....

WALMART has this???

it's only about 500 dollars

cheaper than this...

sure there are differences...but not 500 dollars enough. Thank you Walmart. I really didn't know you had it in you. (this one's for mary....)

When I am pregnant no more......

I will eat these. Not because they completely lack in nutritional value (which is totally the case), but because they sorely tempt me to lick my plate when others are around.

By the way, they don't look as healthy as the picture provided by Rachel Ray. Trust me, they aren't as good with fresh green beans as they are with the canned....and yes, I actually said that!

SOUTHERN GREEN BEANS, ARE-KANSAS STYLE:

4 cans green beans

1 package of bacon, cut up and cooked till almost done in the microwave

3/4 stick of butter (the reason I'm not eating them now, :(

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 cloves garlic, minced (or if you're truly from Arkansas and resist any freshness...use garlic salt)

salt and pepper to taste

melt butter, add: bacon, garlic, salt and pepper, stir, pour over green beans and bake for 45 min. at 375 degrees.

After reading this recipe you may wonder if my hormones have gotten the best of me, but rest assure hormones have nothing to do with it....they are that good!

A day in the park.....

goes something like this..

with a little of this....and this.....

some more of this....

and when we're this...

it's time to go home.

So long summer!

Brother's weekend....kindof.....

except I'm a sister......

Mark and I decided to spend the weekend in St. George while Maria had her sister's weekend and Joe was in Miami. (Wasn't loving Joe going without me until he came home bearing gifts from afar....gotta love that!) After a few minor car troubles (I'm total bad car luck) we both made it to my cousin Rachel's house to hang. And hang we did, till I'd say about 5 am in the morning. Put the babies to bed and the boys to bed and just talked and talked and talked...... it was so much fun. If I hadn't been pregnant, I'd have lasted I swear....but they beat me by about an hour. Of course, I paid for it all weekend. You forget how being pregnant kind of limits you in ways that you've never been limited. Totally worth it though. Wake up the next day to Rachel's thirtieth birthday! So much fun to be a part of all of the well wishing, and awesome adolesent pictures places throughout the neighborhood! Thanks Rach! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!! (okay, the picture is a little bit bigger than I thought it would be.......)

The next day was spent trying to make it up to Gunlock. We made it and then realized after a few hours of the boys playing guitar hero and DS that it was time to head on out. Dinner at Veyo was fun. The kids had a great time. Afterwards we took our chocolate shakes to go and dropped in on Kip and Lisa. You know, walk up to the back door, check out the show their watching, pet their cats, then knock. It was so fun! The boys ran around with their two and had the time of their lives. Kip turned on the arena lights and they took shovels out there and had a ball. The best though was baby Jessica and Kate. They were playing in the dirt and loving it as if it were the first time they'd ever done that. Totally content! I think Mark and I both didn't want to leave, not only because the company was great, but our kids were completely entertained! It was such a good visit! We kept them up way too late, and after the kids got a ride on the back of the Gator, Kip turned out all the lights and we actually got to see the stars....and tons of them! Thanks so much Kip and Lisa. So good to see you two!

Then Sunday came around and we got to see the other side of the family. Steven had his farewell and it was so good to see them all! My mom blogged the pictures of that event here.
We came home, Joe came home, had a pre-Christmas, then crashed. Two days later and I'm still trying to stay up at least until 9pm. Geeeez. I will close now. I feel sucked dry of anything remotely interesting to say....until then.

LOgan TO JAckson.....aka.......

LOTOJA CLASSIC....

We are back and alive with no major parts missing....unless your car counts as A MAJOR PART!

Let the story begin....

It all began with dropping these two off...which is not my favorite thing to do, Butsince it was with these guys, I could do it. (Picture them all without green hair! :)

And if you ever want to know who I want to be when I grow up, click HERE! I'm dead serious! So far so good! We leave Vegas around 1:30 pm and are fairly pleased with our time! (Um, we're the couple that never leaves at our ETD, so this is a big deal (in a good way) that we are only 30 minutes behind.) We head up the road and when we are in the middle of the gorge, where there is NO cell phone service, our trusty little car decides that she isn't feeling up for the challenge. None of her gears are catching and she's only giving us 20 miles per hour. My silent prayer is catching itself and repeating over and over...PLEASE LET US GET OUT OF HERE SO OUR PHONES WORK!!! Thankfully we did. We made it to St. George and were able to use this... Thank you Grandma and girls for letting us take this sweet ride! This was our party car and the only one remotely like its kind in Jackson Hole! Okay, we get it figured out, leave our car in St. George and take off. Minor glitch, that's all. It only set us back about an hour. A few hours later, twenty minutes outside of Fillmore- pitch black, Joe talking on the phone- all of the sudden the tire blows to shreds, Joe chucks the phone, and seriously muscles the car over to the side of the road. It was the front right tire and I cannot believe how hard it jerked our car, good thing Joe was driving. Joe's personal injury history has him freaked that our car's going to get hit, so I have to get out of the car. I'm just trying to find a neutral space where I'm not going to get killed by either: A) a moving vehicle, B) something or someone creepy coming out of the too quiet and too dark brush at the side or the road, C) freezing to death. After about 30 minutes of trying to find the jack to even change the tire, the whole time using a cell phone as a flash light, Joe finally gets the process going. Pretty soon a friendly police officer pulls over and offers us a light! GOOD THING. Finally get the spare on only to find out it is flat. So me, Joe, and Mr. Officer drive Mr. Officer's car 20 minutes back to Fillmore and then 20 minutes back to the car. We get the spare on and we're ready to go! Only to figure out that by the time we make it to Provo, it will have taken us 11 hours total! We got there at midnight! At least we made it!

Next day, Joe goes for a pleasure ride (as if that even exists) up the canyon, I get the tire fixed! Off to Logan we go. After a minor Gateway stop, we make it in time to feast with the "Red Burrows." And feast they did, but not the fun way. No refined carbs, white sugar, white pasta, bread, red meats, sodas, cream sauces....and so on and so forth. You could see the pain in their faces, they all couldn't wait for the day after the race to pig out! Joe did pretty well the day before the race, only one cookie, a little candy, lots of white bread and Alfredo sauce....:) Then for the really party...ABBY BRONSON AND SAM!!!

So my darling cousin and her husband let us stay at her apartment! It was a so fun. We photoshopped, took the ugliest distorted pictures of me, and talked way too late! They even got up in the morning to see Joe and Abby's brother-in-law Dennis start the race.

The morning of....a little early for the two of us.

Off they go, and off I go. This is the actual map of their course. They are the red line, I am the blue. I have to head off on these back paths of dirt road and nothing! Lucky for me...there are only about 1000 other cars on as "official support" too. Literally.

I had a walkie-talkie to chat with my friends and my trusty ipod, of course two different phones with two different providers helped a ton. A little FYI, cingular/AT&T had the best coverage over all in the middles of nowhere! My T-mobile has sorry coverage!

First feed zone....not the happiest.

The last leg of the race.....actually happier.

The finish line!!! My batteries in my camera (previous entry) ran out just as we posed together for a shot! At least I got one of him....and look, it isn't even THAT dark yet! :)

He finished in 12 hours and I think 29 minutes. The results aren't posted yet, so I'm going on memory. He rode the whole time!!! 206 miles. They are crazy! Cycling is becoming one of my favorite sports to support! You cheer them on at the start line, and then show up for cheers at the finish line! It's fun! You don't have to sit through the whole thing...just the start and the end. What's not to love?!

STAYING IN JACKSON WAS A TON OF FUN! WE HAD A GREAT TIME! This blog is getting toooooo long!

Last but not least...the car wasn't going to be finished until Tuesday. So it is stuck in St. George because we had to come back Monday. We pulled in around 10:30 pm put our kids in the car, headed home only to find that we are locked out! The keys and garage door opener are in St. George with the car! AWESOME! Call the locksmith, to find that after hours it is 150$ instead of 40$. So we head back to my moms, spent the night and ARE FINALLY IN OUR OWN HOME!!!!

AND....the sweet ending is that our car part was recalled and under warranty...totally fixed and totally free! That counts for something, right?

SLACKER....

We are heading up for Joe's big race tomorrow! Wish him luck! It's a 200 mile ride from Logan Utah to Jackson Hole! The thought of driving that makes me tired...let alone riding my bike. No Thanks! Guess that means I have to wash my hair tomorrow, tie me over till I get back! I'm sad I don't have my NEW CAMERA! Joe's on the sugar-daddy track of becoming Jeff Lundin! (yeay) I know it will come, so I will be patient. The pictures I will produce of our little trip will come from the let-my-kids-play-with-busted-open-ghetto camera that will actually still take pictures if I recharge the battery after every use! Though do not take that as a complaint! There is something to be said about the convenience of not having to worry about breaking/loosing/throwing it around! Okay, blah blah blah....I'll be back. With hopefully something better than this entry!