Our Summer Trip!

I'm very late at posting this, but better late than never right?
We were able to have a fabulous whirl-wind vacation in Utah and brought back a few souviners!
We celebrated my Mom's birthday with a delcious dinner at Johnny Carino's and some yummy French vanilla birthday cake! We played at the new playground at Majestic Elementary and watched Katrina walking and Tiffany talking (and singing - the reptoir includes: "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" & "Old McDonald's Farm E-I-E-I-E").
Tiffany & I (Ryan was there too, but I don't think I would admit it) went to East High and got some "High School Musical" pics. You can buy a map for a buck and it will show you every locker, room & hall that they used in the movie. I touched Zac Efron's locker!!!!
We then headed to Bear Lake with Ryan's family & had a blast. Minature golf, dinners, pools, hot tubs, tubing in freezing cold water, suckers, games, singing & learning that carcinogens produce cancer and you DO NOT want to get "Dumping Disease" (My sis-in-law Jana is studying for her registered dietician test and I helped her with flash cards).
We came back for the fireworks & popcicles! It was Caiden, Katrina & Tiffany's (first time she wasn't too scared to watch) first firework show. For those of you who are wondering why you are looking at a brightly lit ladder. We found that lighting the fireworks atop a ladder provides a more entertaining effect as everything sprays down instead of just popping off the ground.
We also got to meet, for the first time, Ben & Ruth's little one - Cooper James Shelton - so sweet!! He really enjoyed the motorcycle noises that Ryan made...very soothing sound for a Shelton boy.
We had so much fun in Utah we brought some of the party back with us. Jeanette, Tiffany & Katrina came back up with us and will spend a few weeks up here.
More pictures to follow!!!

I know how Two Face feels!

So I got my wisdom tooth taken out today and it was ALOT easier than I thought! A dentist who wears tropical scrubs can't be too mean, right? He was awesome! A big shout out to Dr. Morgan. I didn't even feel the needle and barely heard my tooth crunch at all!! This numbing feeling is really weird! To drink water, it's cold on one side & warm on the other - crazy! And right when I started to wonder what on earth I was going to eat today my faithful friend Candace brought be over a big bag of wisdom-tooth-extraction-loving food! Ice cream, yogurt, jello & pudding. Thanks Candace for taking such good care of me!!

Can I Swap My Tooth?

So, I thought I might be one of those lucky people that never have to get their wisdom teeth taken out - I have a big enough mouth, there's room in there. Wrong! After going to the denist with an emergency visit of a possible abcessed molar (which was confirmed). The only way to get out of this pain is to get them taken out. Blah! Since we currently don't have insurance we've been shopping around - insane what dentists are charging for wisdom tooth removal!! But I have to say - if you want to get it done, get them taken out up here in Burns! My dentist was by far the cheapest with $136 a tooth!! (There is one office up in UT that specializes in wisdom teeth only and it would cost around $1100 for the complete visit)
I know that there are reseach centers that will pay you and/or will take your wisdom teeth out for free if you take whatever meds they are researching on, but there is nothing like that up here and our time in UT is short enough that I can't really spend 20 hours in an office filling out a questionaire every hour. Unless they'd let me have visitors.....hmmmm.
So to the dentist tommorrow (June 24th) I will go and get my main, problematic, vain-of-my-existance-if-it-didn't-come-in-I-wouldn't-have-this-problem wisdom tooth taken out.
The dentist said that I shouldn't swell up (I have perfect cone shaped roots that should slide right out) - I hope that he's right!
I found a cool website (no, not mine, although - it is pretty cool). http://www.swaptree.com is a fun little place that you can swap books, movies & games with others for free! It's pretty cool. I'm going through all of my stuff to see what I can swap. Check it out.
Too bad I couldn't swap my tooth!!

Last Weekend & Crazy Things!

Aaaah, as the season of summer begins I am itching to have the school year over and the vacations to start!! I haven't posted in a while so I thought I would give everyone a good ole update!

We are doing well. Ryan is working!! He got hooked up with an awesome job at the Argriculture Research Center out here and while the work isn't the most exciting thing ever (counting grasses, identifying weeds, driving out to experimental dirt plots out in the boonies) you can't beat the great government pay!! We are oober excited about it. He has work with them until August and then we'll see what happens! Ryan is still planning on applying for radio jobs this summer so keep your fingers crossed.

I'm doing well. I've been subbing a ton and I'm excited for summer. I have signed myself up to do a community theatre production of The Music Man! Call me crazy....I know that I am. In six weeks I will be showing Harney County what real community theater is! It's fun, good and no one will be reading their lines off of their hand (honest to goodness truth about the last play that was done here!!).

We had Ryan's parents visit us last weekend and that was fun. We went yard saleing, got bit by dozens of mosquitoes, watched movies, ate at Glory Days and one evening went up to Deliment Lake to do some dutch oven cooking & fish. I'm so mad that I forgot my camera - there were some beautiful shots that evening! The sunset was beautiful - never forgetting my camera again. We then enjoyed some Simpson's Clue (It was Mr. Smithers in Mr. Burn's office with the slingshot) & Catch Phrase ("Middle Evil", "Evil Times", "Dark Times", Dark Evil Times"....Medevil Times!). We enjoyed having them here and hope they come back again!
Hope everyone is doing well!!

Memorial Day Weekend

Our friends, Candace & Darwin Johnson and their boys Denver, Porter & Parker, recently purchased a camper trailer that can sleep 9! They wanted to go try it out and we were invited to try it out with them. The adventure started when the truck (that was pulling the trailer) ran out of gas and Candace & I had to drive out 10 mins away to try to find cell phone service to call someone and ask them how to switch tanks (the gray switch under the dashboard). We found a spot at Sage Hen Springs that had alot of trees, no mosquitoes (score!) and no bathrooms (the campers bathroom isn't ready yet and Ryan & Darwin learned about girls and well....how they need a bathroom). We ate like kings! Yeah for marinated steak!! And I won't tell you how many toasted marshmellows I ate, but .....you can't go camping without toasted marshmellows!! The beautiful thing about campers is the fact that you can go inside a room, sit on the couch and play cards at a table (I'm not knocking tents! they're great, but this was awesome). All I'll say is that I'm not good at Phase 10 and probably never will be!! The next day we went fishing at Yellow Jacket ("Porter has one of those" said Denver) Lake. Ryan tried to get a big one, but....it just didn't work out. But the fish really loved the bait and ate plenty of it! After a whole day of sun, sitting, watching Denver fish using a stick with "playdough" (that's what he thought the power bait was), eating handi snacks & Little Debbies Oatmeal cookies it was time to pack it up and take it home....where all the mosquitoes are!
We had fun and are excited to go with the Johnsons again!

The Perfect Brownie

A dear friend of mine is continually in search of the "Perfect Brownie". Well to Greg and to all of you who are in that same search.... I think that I have found it.

Cookie Dough Brownies (oh yes! They do exist!)

1 Box Brownie Mix, plus ingredients for the brownies
1/2 C. Butter, softened
1/2 C. Brown Sugar, packed
1/4 C. Sugar
2 TBS Milk
1 tsp. Vanilla
1 C. Flour
1-3/4 C. Chocolate Chips, divided (I also use whatever chocolate candy I have on hand. I used chopped up Reeses eggs in the recipe pictured)
1 TBS Shortening

1) Prepare and bake brownies according to package directions in a greased 13x9 pan. Cool completely.

2) Cream butter and sugars in a mixing bowl. Add milk and vanilla mix well. Beat in flour. Stir in 3/4 C. Chocolate chips. Spread over cooled brownies and refridgerate until firm.

3) Melt remaining 1 C. Chocolate chips and shortening, stirring until smooth. Spread over filling. (The brownies that are pictured are not iced)
Store in an airtight container in the refridgerator.

Enjoy!!! Sometimes dreams really can come true!