Photo of the Week 92

Cape Town, South Africa.

Cheers to the Freakin Weekend

I'll drink to that! Okay... that is from a song, but I thought it was appropriate for the pictures. Last Friday Vicki and I went on a little friend date to Spark. I had a gift certificate there that a friend gave me for Christmas last year and it was about to expire. So we used it. It was Vicki's first time to Spark. She liked it. We want to go back. They have a lot of fun drinks. I blogged about it here and also went back another time on a date.

We had a nice little dinner and a little dessert that we shared. Everything was super good.

We of course also ordered drinks. Vicki loved that there was cotton candy in hers. :)

It was also all cute and decorated for Christmas and had cute Christmas music playing. You know... before Thanksgiving, I am so ANTI- Christmas. I hate that it is shoved in my face right after Halloween. When I am shopping in the store I have to try to ignore all the Christmas stuff and tell myself NOT to sing along with the Christmas music playing over the speakers. ha ha... but the day after Thanksgiving is over, I am all about it. This was the day after, so I was like... bring it on. ha ha. So there you go, my first Christmasy post. LOTS more to come. :)

Thanks Vick for coming with me to Spark. Let's go again.

Harvest Dinner

The roommates and I (and our adopted roommate, Vicki) decided we wanted to do a nice Fall Harvest Dinner. November flew by and we were all pretty busy, we we decided to do the dinner tonight. The very end of November. There were just 4 of us, but we went all out... cause that's how we role. Go big or go home.

Everything was delicious and pretty healthy. Even though it was a lot of work, it was fun and we love it. It is kind of a luxury to eat together as roommates and spend quality time together (that is not in front of a tv) and to fix a fancy dinner. I loved it. We want to do a fancy Christmas dinner as well since this one turned out so nice.

First off, I used my Jewelry Tree and made it a Thankful tree for the center piece.

The rest of the decor is stuff Rachel and I had. We do make a great team. I made the sassy salsa pumpkin soup and made the Give Thanks sign. Rachel made the salad and the corn bread which were both SUPER delish. Tina bought the sparkling Mango Cider and toppings for the Carmel Apples and Vicki was in charge of the Carmel Apples (cause they are her favorite) and she made them to perfection. Seriously. It was a great dinner. Here is the spread...

Here are our carmel apples dipped and ready to eat.

Thanks for a wonderful dinner party girls. I'm thankful to have great roommates and friends. :)

Joseph City

My good friends from Lake Powell really wanted me to go to their hometown of Joseph City Arizona and visit for a weekend. So we planned a trip this month. I took Friday, Monday and Tuesday off of work. It was a really nice break.

Many of you may be wondering where Joseph City is? It is a SMALL town. If you blink, you may miss it. There are no stop lights, one gas station and one place to eat (Mr. G's). Many people that live there work at the Power Plant.  Joseph City is about 80 miles east of Flagstaff and was founded by Mormon settlers in 1876 as Allen's Camp, and its name was later changed to St Joseph. The town was located on the Santa Fe Railway, which also went through Saint Joseph Missouri. Due to both towns being on the railroad, in 1923, the name of the town was changed to Joseph City to avoid confusion. It is the site of the Jack Rabbit Trading Post, a famous Route 66 landmark. (which they show on cars... except as a tractor)

I told my friends that I would be happy to take a road trip to their home town is they promised to show me a small town good time. That they did. We did a lot of activities that they did growing up. Here are the things we did in our weekend in Joe City.

They took me to the WIGWAM Motel, which they show on the Pixar movie "Cars" except in the movie they have Cones instead of Teepee's. I loved all of the old cars that they have parked.

We went to Sonic for the BEST Sonic drinks (according to Vicki)

We squished pennies on the railroad tracks

We went shooting

We went to the Badlands and burned tires and rolled them down the hill. I even got to roll a burning tire down the hill. Good times.

Vicki and I got matching animal beenies for our trip. I stayed with Vicki's parents and her mom got us matching fuzzy blankets. We took a nap by the fireplace... which was so nice and cozy since it was a cold weekend... but I woke up to a surprise. Turns out I was allergic to the firewood and I woke up to swollen watering eyes and Vicki's mom had to take a quick trip to the store for some eye drops and allergy medicine. I didn't even think that would be something I would be allergic to.

Let's not forget about visiting the Hawman's llamas! Baby Barack O Llama was born in October. He is so cute and fluffy that I can hardly stand it!!

It was a great trip, great fun with great friends. Thanks girls for showing me a small town good time!

Chad & Clara Take 2

My brother Chad and Sister in law Clara asked me if I would take their Christmas Card photo's again this year. We again took them on Thanksgiving day... this time in my parents backyard in Mapleton. With the 10 minutes of light that we shot the pictures in... I thought we did pretty well.

Next year... there will be a baby to add to their family photo.

Here is how they turned out...