Zarahemla or bust

You can blame Lonny that Eric is going to the
Tuxtla Gutierrez Mexico Mission.
Lonny and I have an ongoing debate about where to vacation. He prefers ancient ruins. I prefer clean sheets, food I recognize (just to clarify I can determine if it is a fish or not without the head and tail on my plate) and no lizards under the bed or hanging from the ceiling. Lonny has been trying to convince me for years that Belize and Guatemala would be the trip of a lifetime. I'm not talking cold refreshments or warm sandy beaches. What I really mean is warm Fanta. I remind him that I have been to the Yucatan. I have been to Peru. I have seen a live chicken in the kitchen. I have carried my own roll of tp. Let's go to Balmoral.
We have had the good fortune to vacation where our son's have been on their missions so you can see what this means. A big smile spread across Lonny's face when the realization hit.
Hey Eric, I know where you can get a deal on a hammock.

I could have been a $250aire

but no, I am a $450aire! It's a long story so I'll try to keep it short. I entered a contest last spring(on a girl's blog) to name a pizza restaurant. A friend of hers already had a pizza restaurant but was expanding and needed to change the original name. I submitted a name and then forgot about it. I don't know the girl that has the blog or the guy that owns the restaurant. (thanks M.Smith) I didn't even know where the restaurant was or where the new one would be.

Then I went to UT for Thanksgiving last year.
And I saw this.
And I thought to myself wasn't that my suggestion?

And to make a long story short I am a winner. Or maybe they are. My boys now have $450 worth of pizza! Geoff just emailed this morning and said he had eaten there every day this week. And to think I was worried they would be too self-conscious to claim their pizza. I am going to nominate myself for mother of the year.
Eat at PizzaPieCafe and think of me.

See it live

or see it on TV. This past Friday night Lonny and I went to the Church to see the broadcast from the Tabernacle of President Eyring talking about Seminary. Pres. Eyring talked about his time as the president of Ricks College. That was my first encounter with him when my sister was a student at Ricks. By the time I attended Ricks College Bruce Hafen was the president. I really enjoyed the talk because I really love Pres. Eyring, but kept on thinking how Lonny and I had just been on Temple Square and in the Tabernacle twice two weeks earlier. Once to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir practice and once to hear Stephen Covey speak. The choir practices are open to anyone but we attended as part of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society Conference and so we had to stand when we were welcomed and introduced. The choir members applauded us, ha ha. The choir and the orchestra sounded so good. I just loved being there to see them practice.

Yesterday we watched on TV the BYU verses New Mexico State game. Once again I thought about how two weeks earlier we were in the Marriott center live watching BYU play. I think I prefer the live version over the telly vision.

Of course, it didn't hurt that BYU won 2 weeks ago.

I had to include a picture of Noah Hartsock (34) from our stake. He played really well, his mom would have been proud.

I love this picture of Bryce because. . .

this is what he was looking at. I guess he doesn't care for the Bali dancing. We had a great time staying with Justin and Miranda over the weekend and of course seeing Geoff and Eric. Here's all the boys warming up before the game.

And here's my buddy Bryce and I.

Ghosts of Christmas past

The pictures from "The Nutcracker" arrived while I was out of town. They sat unopened like no one cared. Anyway the butterfly comes to the party in a box. Or so it appeared. I may have agreed not to reveal any behind the scenes secrets.

There she is. . .

the center of attention for a moment,

as she dances alone across the stage
and then. . .

it's over. Until next year.

This could be tragic.

I am getting a new oven today, in fact there already is an empty hole where this one used to be. Last night I was thinking about how many chocolate chip cookies have been baked in this oven over the past eleven years. I had just told Geoff that the US of A had a weight problem stemming from the invention of the remote control. Ha! I think it may have started when Michelle H. gave me "the recipe."

The tragedy may be what if the new oven doesn't know how to bake chocolate chip cookies like the old oven knew?

Happy Birthday

to the mommy of these two adorable children!

I have said it before but thanks for always being such a great, older sister. Jenny and Emily have their own private book club. The current read is "My Sister's Keeper." Here's to "keeping" each other.

It is still undetermined who will end up the taller sister.

Bed and Breakfast

This is my table after I unpacked one of my boxes from last night's adventure. And that's Emily's hot pad, front and center, that she made.

I remembered to take my camera to the "bed and breakfast enrichment night" but who knew the battery had died? I had spent some time preparing for this night and I wanted pictures. We combined with the young women. Their leaders presented a demonstration on making cinnamon rolls, and then we ate them. Too bad there are no pictures, they were delicious, but maybe later I can post a picture of what happens when you eat them.

Our stake is celebrating it's 5oth anniversary this spring and our stake presidency has encouraged us to accomplish some goals as part of this commemoration. One of the goals is to make quilts for service. Sometimes I just follow my leaders, sometimes I think about pouting. For this situation I figured they might be speaking to me. I have a stash of fabric that I am more than happy to part with for a good cause. I have spent the last three or four weeks cutting the fabric into squares. When I had the class "mass production" in college one of our projects was to start a quilt one day and bring it back the next day completed. The three plus weeks I had to cut out fabric was plenty of time to prepare 30 kits to make a hot pad and 9 kits to make a baby quilt. Anyone that wanted to learn to sew made a hot pad, the rest teamed up to make quilt tops.

We had several wonderful ladies helping the newbies with each step of the stitching from sewing the seams, to tying the fabric with the batting and finishing the edges. I wish I had a picture of how many finished hot pads walked out of the cultural hall last night. Emily said this brown fabric looked like a basketball. I say it looks like chocolate which is always a good reminder when you're cooking. Does this need more chocolate? Probably.

I had made some quilts to various stages just to show that the steps of the hot pad are the same for a quilt. You know, in theory, if you can make a hot pad you can make a quilt. Now I have some quilts to finish and I am happy about that.