Photo of the Week 142

Harvard Library

Chalupas

It has been a while since I have posted a recipe. Probably because I don't cook that often anymore. However, Megan and I have started making food for people to come over after church on Sunday which has been fun. This is what I made this last Sunday. It is an old family favorite.

Chalupas

Flour tortillas (small)
4 cups chicken, cooked and cubed
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1 pint sour cream
1 lb jack cheese, grated
8 oz cheddar cheese, grated
1 small can green chilies
1 small can diced olives
Green onions

Combine all ingredients except for chicken and cheddar cheese. Divide mix in half and add chicken to one half of the mix. Fills tortillas with chicken mixture. Place tortillas into one sprayed 9x13 pan and one sprayed 8x8 pan. Cover with the other half of the mixture. Cover with the cheddar cheese and bake  for 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Honesty Award

Almost every Sunday I go to my parents house for the afternoon and for dinner. My Grandma is always there since she moved here almost a year ago, my sister Kristy and her family are always there and my brother Chad and his family are now usually there. Every week... my nieces and nephew are playing when I get there and coming up with creative games, shows and ideas. They love to perform for us. They also are creative with the games they come up with... like this. (each key on the piano was a space on the game board)

Well, when I came this Sunday... the kids had decided to do an awards ceremony. I'm not sure where they got the idea, but they made awards for 3 people and had a speech of reasons why they were receiving the award and so on and so forth. I guess they decided to do this right when I said I was leaving to go pick up Dave...

This was Dave's first time meeting my family and coming to Sunday dinner. As we came in the house, I introduced him to everyone and we sat down on the coach and the awards ceremony began.

First award went to Grant. He missed his Que to come in so we had to clap and cheer again once he made his way down the stairs. Reanne was irritated because they had practiced his entrance. I forgot what Grant's reasons for the award was. Probably playing well with others and being nice. I don't remember.

Second award went to Grandma Great.  Everyone clapped as she came to the front to get her award. Grandma Great was receiving her award for playing well with the kids and her ability to wash dirty rags. They also said she was known for her bravery. Very cute.

Third award went to... Tracy's friend aka Dave! Since Dave had just arrived at the house and met everyone for the first time, his face lit up with surprise. They told us that he was known for his honesty and was receiving his award for being nice and caring to others. Dave got up to receive his award and on the spot gave a speech on how he had been waiting his whole life to be recognized for his honesty.

I was laughing so hard. So unexpected. It was so cute. I just love my nieces and nephews and their creativity and thoughtfulness. I would have never thought they would pick Dave having never met him before... but little do they know, I think that just made him feel more welcomed and comfortable there. On the way home, he asked me if I knew they were going to pick him. I told him I had no idea... none of us did. He told me he thought they were going to pick me. He told me he couldn't wait for next month to see who the awards would go to (since they mentioned they are going to do this every month, though I doubt they will remember). Dave took his award home to keep. :)

Milk Challenge

I drink skim milk. I usually buy a half gallon once a week and a lot of the time I can't get through it before it goes bad. I obviously don't drink a lot of milk. Occasional cereal. When I make breakfast at home I like to have it. Eating a rich dessert I like to have some. I decided a long time ago that I couldn't taste a big difference between low fat and skim... so I just started drinking skim to be a little healthier. As it turns out... my roommates also drink skim milk.

One night Dave was over and we were having dessert and he wanted some milk. When he looked in the fridge, he was appalled to see only skim milk and went off on how gross it was. Megan then made the comment that she couldn't taste the difference between milks so she started drinking skim. Dave thought there was no way you couldn't tell the difference. He loves to be right, so he wanted to prove it.

So to prove that he was right, Dave wanted to have a milk challenge... but not the kind where you throw up from seeing if you can drink a gallon of milk in an hour. This would be a blind taste test of milks. As he put it "a straight up test... cereal/ no cereal, skim, 1%, 2%, whole. An all around comprehensive test.... basically to prove Megan wrong" He is serious about being right.

Last night the Milk Challenge finally happened. Dave went to the store and bought all the different kinds of milk (except for skim because he knew I would have that) and cereal and came over and brought his roommate Mr. Karaoke, who also participated in the test.

They left the room while I poured the different milks in glasses and switched the order of the glasses. I had them come back in. First part of the test was seeing if they could tell the difference between the milk by just looking at it. (Dave almost got it right just by looking at it, he just switched 1% and 2%)

Then it was time for the taste test. Dave was able to guess each one correctly in like 15 seconds. Mr. Karaoke had to taste them all several times and talk it out... but he also passed the test and guessed them all correctly.

Dave also had to prove the point that he could taste the difference even in cereal. Cereal of choice? Fruity Pebbles, one of my childhood favorites.

Okay... point proven. Unfortunately Megan wasn't there... so I had to report the results to her. Lesson learned from this challenge? Just tell Dave you believe him when he says he is right about something. :)

Would you pass the test?

First Snow

So our first snow of the season came earlier than I would have wanted it... and it came in full force. We had more snow in the last day than we had all last Winter. But seriously... CRAZY.

So what did this California girl that doesn't like the Winter do?

Well, at work... when it was really coming down, I got some hot chocolate from the hot chocolate machine and sat in a chair next to the big windows on our floor (break room) and watched the snow fall.

Then Dave and I went out to dinner... I told him I wanted something warm, so we went to Texas Roadhouse and had meat... and warm rolls. Good stuff.


This morning I looked out the Window and saw this. How's that for the first snow?

So what did my roommates and I do? We went out into the cold (I was still in my PJ's just threw on some Uggs and a snow jacket) and we each grabbed our car scraper and went from car to car in our parking lot and scraped all the snow off the cars that were not covered. With the amount of snow that came down... it was quite the work out. When we finished all the cars in our parking lot... we went to the street by our house and got all of those cars and even some cars of people we knew on another street. We scraped cars for a half hour or 45 minutes. Now that is true service from a girl that doesn't like the cold and scraping snow off her own car is one of the top 5 things she hates most about Winter.

But you know what? Doing it all together was fun. And it felt good to do service AND I know for a fact that if someone did that for me, it would make my day. Also, I got on facebook later that day and the EQP/ my neighbor got on our ward facebook page and thanked whoever scraped the cars. :) So that was nice. :)

Anywho... first snow day of many to come. People were excited about it and building snowmen (this one was made and put in my BFF's rocking chair) and sledding at the park. By February... people will not be as happy. :) 70 degrees one day, this snow the next. Peace out Fall! It was nice knowing you.

Flashback Friday 90

Since we got dumped with snow today pretty hard... I thought I would do a snowy flashback. Also ran into Monica and her husband at dinner... so also appropriate that this includes her.

This is back in 2005 when we lived at the Riviera. It was a snowy day and we decided to go play and take pictures. My roommate Brittany and I wanted to take some pictures because I made knitted us matching hats and scarves. No Big Deal... sometimes I crafty. After playing the snow we went and got hot chocolate at the Riviera... because you could get free hot chocolate anytime at the office. We took advantage of that.

Confessions of a Brunette on the Internet 143

This week I have been adjusting back to my normal schedule after my trip to Boston. Between daylight savings time changing and having a two hour time difference for a little while... my body has been confused and tired. Besides coming back from my trip... I have been hanging out with Dave, I got a raise at work, which was great and also means that I get a bigger bonus and my boss told me I am awesome, but we all already knew that. ;) Oh... and Tuesday I was ticked because Obama got re-elected. I seriously was upset and raising my voice and taking it out on poor Dave. I still don't like thinking about it, but I have calmed down now. Romney would have been a good president. Steve and his roommates that I visited in Boston all got to drive in Romney & Ryan's motorcade on election day. I thought that was pretty awesome. Besides that not a whole lot... so I have decided to do another list. A list of things I don't understand.

I don't understand...

How half of America is pleased with Obama and what he has done with our country in the last 4 years
Why people suck at communicating
No matter how early I go to bed, it is still ALWAYS hard for me to get up in the morning
Why Halloween is an excuse for girls to dress slutty
Why I can sing a solo in front of a big crowd, but am terrified of public speaking
My love/ hate relationship with doing things that scare me
Why I'm pee shy
Why I have a closet full of clothes and always feel like I have nothing to wear
Why it is so hard for me to find people to travel with
Why I'm still single
Math
Why my body is so stubborn with losing weight
What goes on in the male brain
Why I love the smell of gasoline
Why commitment is so hard for people
Why I haven't murdered my neighbors dog yet
Why Sarah Jessica Parker is in everything when she stinks at acting
Why people like Anne Hathaway
Why people don't have Internet etiquette
How some songs get so popular
How to get something to go viral
Why people think Ragnar's and Marathons are fun
Why Thanksgiving gets so skipped over
Dating is so complicated
Why people think they are invincible while they are driving
Why people think I am good with computers,  I'm really not
Why they put up construction signs and cones when they are not doing anything
Why people buy water when you can get it for free
Why people are so lazy
Why texting has taken over as the main form of communication
How people can never leave the country or even their state and be satisfied
Why Bastian's (in the Never Ending Story) mom's name is moonchild
Why Grandpa Joe (Willie Wonka) is in bed for many years and then can get up and dance one day
Why I need to blog everyday... but I do.

There are a lot of things I don't understand... I'm sure this list will continue on another confessions post one day.