Day 365 :D

For our first anniversary we decided to go back to SLC, where we spent a night on our honeymoon. When you're married the week before Christmas, not too many options for a decent vacation on your anniversary. BUT Temple Square is always worth seeing! We met Levi's brother Colton and his wife Brandie and took a tour around the Square.

  

Our Colton and Brandie:) We have missed them so much  since they moved to  WY!!

The little Assembly church

The Tabernacle

And the beautiful conference center!

They had the whole thing decorated for the David Archuletta Christmas concert.

One of my most favorite LDS pictures. The 10 Virgins.

In the Joseph Smith Memorial Building

View from the top of the JS Memorial Building

Levi, reading the Book of James with Joseph Smith

First Vision sculpture

Captain Moroni. What a stud.

 And then we jetted over to the Church History Museum! 

A sunstone from Nauvoo

The Joseph and Hyrum Smith death masks

Levi with Angel Moroni

Levi practicing his speech for Conference. Someday?

Out of all the kids' pictures on display, Levi like this one best.

Our camera died shortly after visiting the kids' section, so sadly that's all the pictures we have. It was so much fun though! 

Caramel Apple Cookies

The first time Cami made these, I fell in love and knew I had to get the recipe. They are THE BEST on a cold autumn day, with a mug of tea or cider while it rains outside. Or for breakfast. Or anytime really.

Ingredients

• Parchment paper
• 1 cup softened butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 box (7.4 oz) Alpine Spiced Apple Cider Instant Original Drink mix -not sugar free- all 10 packets (in my grocery store near the hot chocolate mixes.)
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 bag Kraft Caramels (14 oz) 

Directions

• In a small bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon.
• With your mixer, cream together butter, sugar, salt and all 10 packages of apple cider drink mix powder, until light and fluffy. (And try not to breathe in too much dust from the cider mix!)
• Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla and mix well.
• Gradually add flour mixture to butter/egg mixture. Mix until just combined.
• Refrigerate for about an hour. (If you're really impatient you don't have to do this, but it makes it soooo much easier to work with.)
• When you are ready to bake, preheat oven to 350° F. Line cookie sheets with parchment. (You really need the parchment!) Unwrap your caramels.
• Scoop out cookie dough ball about the size of a walnut. (I used a rounded cookie scoop-full. My scoop holds about a Tablespoon.)
• Flatten the ball of dough slightly in the palm of your hand. Press the unwrapped caramel into the center of your dough and seal the dough around it, covering it completely. Place on parchment covered cookie sheets 2 inches apart.
• Bake 10-12 minutes, or until VERY lightly browned around the edges. Please don't over-bake! Once the cookies are done, immediately slide the parchment off of the baking sheet right out onto the counter. Allow cookies to partially cool on the parchment. When cookies are cool enough to be firm but still slightly warm, carefully twist off of parchment and allow to finish cooling upside down (either on the parchment or on a rack.) If you forget about them and they cool too much and stick to your parchment, put them into the freezer for a few minutes and they'll pop right off.
• Yield: about 4 dozen, depending on how large you make your cookies (or how many caramels have been snitched out of your bag before you begin.) Store in an airtight container.

If they get hard, pop them in the microwave for 5 seconds and they'll be good as new. Ü

We live in a Christmas House!!

Levi strongly believes that Christmas belongs only in the month of December, no sooner, and no later. This year though, I broke down his defenses and we started decorating the day after Thanksgiving. :D As we hung silver garland strands around our living room and dining room, I heard him singing “We live in a Christmas house, we live in a Christmas house!”

We even bought stockings this year, hung over the TV with care.

Last year I just did silver and red decorations since most of the wedding presents under our tree were wrapped in similar colors. Levi really wanted blue ornaments though, so this year our Arbon tree ended up looking pretty Patriotic.

To go along with the Christmassy sights, we had to add taste and smells. My absolute FAVORITE cookie recipe this year is for Caramel Apple Sugar Cookies. I drool just looking at these pictures…

That recipe will soon be posted too. It’s too good not to share!

We are SO ready for Santa to come!

Cookies and Cream Fudge

Just kidding! Kinda. Do I make fudge? No. But I am slightly addicted to this fanTAStic version of "cheaters' fudge". Who knew sweet and condensed milk could be so great? I got the recipe from here and it is now a family favorite!

(FYI: My cell phone takes atrocious pictures. Someday I'll change this to a pic that will
make your mouth water properly. But for now, you get the general idea.)

Ingredients:

A bag and a half of white chocolate chips
1 can of sweet & condensed milk
10-15 oreos, broken up

Directions:

Line a 9×9 inch square pan with parchment paper.

Put the white chocolate and condensed milk in a large pan and heat very gently over a low heat, stirring frequently, until the chocolate has melted. The mixture should be smooth and stick to itself. Stir in the broken oreos.

Scrape the mixture into the pan and level it, pushing it into all the corners (you’ll probably need another set of hands here to keep the parchment paper in place until your mixture gets in there). Put the pan in the fridge for a couple of hours or overnight, for the fudge to set. Cut into squares (I did 8 by 8).

Ohhh October!

October proved to be a month of random firsts. For example, it was the first time that I attended a live session of conference...

The choir was amazing and made me cry.

 

In other news, it was also the first time that I came home and found a snake sitting by my front door…

That sucker was BIG, ok! I debated on whether or not this was a large enough emergency for the police to be called. But when I went back outside, he’d disappeared!! Please oh please let him be gone for good…

 

Another first: I helped Levi butcher a deer. Right in my tiny kitchen. But I also learned that God answers unspoken prayers, because that happened to be the day I got a massive cold so that I at least couldn’t smell anything. My gag reflex only kicked in a few times thankfully.

 

Hooray for my mighty hunter!

Eventually those antlers will be up on a wall somewhere in our apartment. But I’ll worry about that when the time comes.

 

I also made Halloween treats for the first time ever. My V.T. ladies were the guinea pigs for my witch hat cookies.

  

Keebler Elf Striped cookies, orange frosting, and a Hershey’s kiss to top it off. Levi tried to eat all of them before I could deliver them, and he doesn’t even like chocolate!

And lastly, I dressed up for Halloween for the first time since I was 11. Levi and I brainstormed for weeks before he came up with:

 

 

Bandit and Frog, from “Smokey and the Bandit”. (Sorry for the extreme blurriness, I think Cody’s blowup fat man suit made his hands a little unsteady.) Levi made a very convincing Burt Reynolds with his felt mustache and faded bell bottom jeans (old Vanity jeans of mine that he somehow squeezed into. I will never wear them again.)

We had a ton of fun at a Halloween party with lots of friends at Cody & Chelsea’s, eating, carving pumpkins, and watching the classic “Hocus Pocus”.

---

A week later, we celebrated my 20^th birthday! I’m officially no longer a teenager. :D

Levi surprised me with a great present.

New scriptures! With my married name on them. :) They’ll get a lot of use over the next many many years. Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes, cards, and gifts!

And lastly, did I mention I got a job? Wahoo!! I did! Having a jacked up back has paid off. I was going to the chiropractor through October and at the end of the month, the doctor said he needed a receptionist. (He's only been open for a few months, so he's just now getting busy enough that he really needs a receptionist.) And so, I started work last week. :D

Upgraded Rig

Levi decided it was time for us to upgrade from the Jeep to a truck. He bought the Jeep the same week that we started dating, so I was pretty attached to it. How would we load everyone into one car now and go to Idaho Falls for 4^th of July? And what would we use for shade while sitting at Stone Reservoir?

We let the Jeep go out in style though!

Jazz will be missed!

Levi searched and searched for a truck that met his incredibly specific requirements (silver, under 150,000 miles, double cab, bed size, engine type, spotless interior, etc.) and ended up finding one at a dealership here in town, where a very good family friend works. Completely different situation from the Mazda. ;) Thank heavens. 

He did get an awesome deal and it’s in great shape. Welcome to the family, Jack!

Familía

First week of August my family came to town! HOORAY! Mom, Dad, and the kids stayed one night with us before going on to Oregon for a week. Longest week ever. When they came back, Dad got to stay one more night before he had to go back to Nebraska to work. But Mom and my kiddos got to stay a few more days. :D It was so great to see my family again!

I didn’t realize until now exactly how much I suck at picture taking haha. I didn’t get one picture of my entire family, but managed to snap a couple random ones here and there. This one of Zane trying on hats in TJ Maxx made me crack up. Ü

After we had to say good bye, I decided that my hair needed something different. So…

I straightened it for the first time in… months? Years? I’m pretty sure it’d probably been about 2 years since I was curl-less. AND, this is the first time I’d ever done it with an actual straightener instead of a curling iron. Thaaaaanks Cami!! :D

Fun in the Sun

Holy craziness! This summer has been jam packed with fun. Levi and I have both been working full time, but somehow we still found time to enjoy the summer.

MAY: 

I made it to Idaho just in time for the AFHS 2011 Graduation ceremony.

With my girl, Ash Adkins! Congrats to all my friends who graduated!

JUNE: 

This winter we got TONS of snow, and now everything is flooding.

Yes. That used to be a road. And now a RIVER flows across it. So what do we do?

Walk across it, of course! I thought my husband was going to get swept down the icy river and die on the mountain. Luckily he made it over and back to the Jeep safely.

JULY:

Thank heavens this picture is blurry. And small. I tried to straighten my hair. This is how far I got before I decided it wasn't worth the next 3 hours of work and frustration. People, I may be part white but sadly this hair does not work like white girl hair. Believe me, I tried.

And so, I decided to go this route instead:

That’s right. When all else fails, chop it off!

Also, I learned something important about having darker skin:

When this girl sunburns and then peels, she looks like a spotted tree frog. Not pretty.

At the end of July we had a bridal shower for friend and old roomie, Kaylie, the second one of us 6 girls to get married.

Blake was super excited at the prospect of rings for all, even if they were just Ring Pops:

I wonder if this next picture is a premonition of anything…

TP wedding dresses! On the right is our actual bride, Kaylie. On the left is our girl, Chandi. My bet is that she’ll be the next roomie taken off the singles list ;) Time will tell.

Love for the Cornhuskers Ü

I know I mentioned going to Nebraska in our Mazda post, but I never shared any pictures from that trip! (There was a lot of other stuff going on that weekend. Like buying gallons of oil.)

My Morgan and Zane are growing up too fast! It was so much fun just to spend some time with them.

Of course we made the required trip to THE Cabellas of all Cabellas. 

(The white things in the middle above the man’s head? Yeah, those are mountain goats. Ü Pretty fun to see the large variety of animals around the store.)

The whole way there and back we tried to count all the windmills. After 50, I gave up.

 With Mom and Dad in Sidney, and Levi’s family even further east in Nebraska, it’s a good thing that both of us enjoy driving so much!