Big Green Tractor

Thanks to Jason Aldean- at the moment I can't think of anything more romantic than taking a ride on a big green tractor with an amazing guy. Kenny Chesney's classic made it sound sexy, but Jason takes it to a whole new level of being sweet and romantic sounding. Too bad I don't have any real prospects at the moment, not to mention one who has a tractor... But Hey! A girl can dream right?!

It's ridiculous how so many songs give me such unrealistic expectations! What songs have done that for you?

Hooray for Pizza Day!

(Before I begin my actual post I'd also like to add a hooray for the Aquabats and their brilliant songs including Pizza Day)

Weekend before last, I came in from mowing the lawn on a Saturday afternoon- hot, sweaty, and hungry. It was a fairly chill day for me, so I had time to make something, but not a lot of energy after all that yard work. It was about time for a trip to the grocery store, so the cupboards and fridge were a little lacking in easy prep food.

I first found some leftover shredded mozzarella, and thought it would be yummy melted on a tortilla. We usually keep tortillas on hand, but being so close to grocery day- we were out! I was bummed, but soon decided to let my creative juices flow and put together an easy tasty meal. I hunted around the kitchen some more and found the following:

-1 & 1/2 leftover hamburger buns

-a jar of spaghetti sauce

-a handful of shredded mozzarella

-a slice of ham

Here's what I made:

Yummy little mini-pizzas: Lightly toast the hamburger buns, spread sauce, add cheese and toppings, then bake on a cookie sheet (around 375) until cheese is melted. Perfect!

Can't Touch This!

This past weekend was pretty much marvelous for me- not perfect, but overall rather delightful. My original plan was to spend the entire weekend, from Thursday night to Sunday night, playing in Las Vegas with my brother Justin and my friends that live there. That plan however, died along with several others, following Justin’s knee surgery. He tore his ACL playing soccer and needed surgery to repair it. His recovery has been solid and fairly consistent, but more difficult and painful than anticipated. Considering his post-surgery state, combined with him dealing with Strep Throat earlier last week, we reached the inevitable conclusion that our Vegas road trip was a no-go.

So we decided to still spend some quality sibling time here in Utah, which included a fun little mini-trip to Salt Lake to play at The Gateway. Enjoy the following highlights and photos from our remarkable weekend:

Thursday Night-

Our weekend technically got started Thursday night with an exciting trip to the salon. Justin has naturally very curly hair (like mine only thicker), but has had it chemically straightened for the last few months just to switch things up a little. He decided it was time to return to the curls, and that the easiest way to do that would be to just shave his head. And logically if he was going to shave his head, he might as well rock the Mohawk for a few days! So off to the salon we went, where the fabulous Kristi helped Justin to fulfill his Mohawk dreams.




We wrapped up our evening with some exciting stops at Wal-mart and Walgreens. We’re cool like that.

Friday Morning-

I went to work for a few hours Friday morning, and then came home around 10:30 to take Justin to physical therapy. After dropping him off, I ran home to change out of the ridiculous outfit I wore to work. APX has dress up days every Friday and it was “Crayon Day”.

Ridiculous to wear in public- I know. So I changed and went back to wait for Pickle (Pickle= Justin, Justin=Pickle) to finish up w/ physical therapy. It took longer than expected, but I was able to chill and read, and notice the cute guy coming out of physical therapy. It was all good. After Pickle finished, drove home, and showered... it was time for our first attempt at Mohawk styling. It’s harder than you might expect, and it turned out differently every time- but by the third time I did it on Sunday, I was quite the Mohawk styling pro.

Friday Afternoon-

Around 2 pm, we were finally on our way to Salt Lake. The drive was up was uneventful , and I ended up sleeping most of the way. Justin woke me up when we were almost there so I could help navigate. As we drove through downtown we enjoyed taking note of some of the fascinating people we passed. Our favorite was this man:

He seemed like such a tough, manly man until you saw the fluffy, tiny, little dog he was carrying. Justin gave him the benefit of the doubt and thought it might be his girlfriend’s dog or something… That thought was only valid until we saw him and petting and rocking the doggie with the most sincere affection… and talking to it…. And giving it kisses… It just was quite tender and entirely amusing.

Our first priority was finding some food. We decided to try a cool looking burger joint called “The Counter”. It was A-MAZ-ING. I ordered a 1/3 lb. beef burger on a honey-wheat bun with honey-cured bacon, imported swiss, tomatoes, Bermuda red onion, mixed baby greens, and the most delicious buttermilk ranch sauce ever. I’m sure Pickle would love to comment on here and share what he ordered, but besides ordering the same meat and bun as me, all I remember is that he ordered his with a goat cheese spread. We also split sweet potato fries with horseradish mayo. They were quite heavenly, but our burgers were so intense that we didn’t even finish half of them. It was rather pricey, but worth every penny. It’s probably a good thing it’s all the way in Salt Lake or I’d probably go broke. We agreed that the restaurant was very “food network-esque” which only made it twice as enjoyable for us. We LOVE the food network.

We followed up lunch with a little shopping (more like store browsing though, because neither of us bought anything) and then a show at the Planetarium. We saw “Bugs! In 3-D” in their I-MAX theater. Not only was the show pretty rad, but we also got to rock the sweet glasses.

Before heading home we enjoyed a little photo shoot.

Friday evening-

The drive home was delightful. Traffic was pretty heavy, but Justin let me play DJ on his iPod and I’m pretty sure that was one of the best playlists ever. We rocked to Vanilla Ice, the Temptations and everything in between. We took a little break at home, and then headed down to Provo to see Stacy dance beautifully in her Pioneer Legacy show. The show is more than a little cheesy, but StaceFace is always fun to watch so it was enjoyable. Before calling it a night, we made an appearance at Deba’s birthday party. This involved ice cream cake, gawking over Justin and his “freakin’ Mohawk” as we lovingly referred to it all weekend, and modeling a sexy 80’s jacket.



Saturday-

Saturday was pretty chill. We both did yard work and did a decent amount of nothing productive. We restyled the Mohawk which Justin enjoyed displaying at his 5-year high school reunion. I ran some errands and finally finished finding shoes and accessories for my bridesmaid dress, before meeting up with Pickle to watch his indoor soccer team play. He misses playing so much.

Sunday morning/afternoon-

Going to church on Sunday was awesome in every way. Everyone loved Justin’s hair and we took some more pictures after we got home.

People kept mentioning to me how different Justin and I are. I can't say it's not true- we are very different. But in a lot of ways we're very much alike, and no matter what, we're definitely siblings. I just love us!

Sunday Evening-

It was time for the "freakin' Mohawk" to go, but before getting rid of it we had some fun coloring it, and then parting it different ways after it was washed. And then... the glory of the Mohawk was gone.

Our splendid weekend came to a close with a little quality time watching the food network. Thanks for a rockin' weekend Pickle :)