And Baby Makes Four

So I got this text at work today:

"Do you want a puppy or not? I can't remember"

 Long story short this is how it ended:

He's soooooo cute!

 

He is a Chocolate Lab. His name is *Renton* and we love, love, love him! Rukia loves him even more than we do! Yes we changed his name from Finn to Renton. We liked Finn too much and decided to save it for a possible human baby boy ;)

{Sleepy} Meatless Monday: Brocolli Cheese Soup Fail

It was a whirlwind of a weekend here. It started out in the dead of night with a photography date and ended with us picking up Will at the airport last night/this morning :)

On the way to the airport

Chad and I headed out to a ghost town about a half hour away from us to take pictures. Who needs dinner and a movie when you can take pictures at 3am? Luckily we didn't alarm anyone, no police showed up wondering what we were doing, and we weren't abducted. Around 3am we started hearing weird noises in the distance. Chad wanted to go check it out, I wanted to get out. I won. I've seen these movies and they end in tears my friends.
 

 Sunday was spent cleaning, even though Will has seen our apartment at it's absolute worst, and cooking. It's a good thing the freezer is full and there's a giant container of soup in our fridge because there's no way that I'm cooking after work after 4 hours of sleep last night. It's frozen meals for us! That or we'll use this as an excuse for Cafe Rio, whatev.

We headed out to the airport last night, missing Breaking Bad - that's how much we love you Will. We ended up getting there around 9, his plane got in around 8:30. At least that's what we thought. We parked in short term parking and attempted to find him. After checking the arrival board and his itinerary again we realized he plane really didn't get there until 10:15. Boo. So we got gas, drove around aimlessly, parked in short term parking again and waited patiently. We wandered around the strip for a little while and headed back home. We were all falling asleep so we stocked up on sugar at our favorite gas station and made it home around 3:30am. phew.

In addition to lasagna rolls and twice baked potatoes I made a big pot of Broccoli Cheese Soup. I love a good broccoli cheese soup! I decided to try a new recipe, mostly because I saw someone make it on food network and it looked delicious and awesome. So I thought I would give it a go. Last Sunday I burnt it so this was round 2. Round 2 wasn't really a fail, but it wasn't a giant success.

The consistency is a little wierd and even though I dumped in a LOT of cheese, it's not as cheesy as I would like somehow. It's not bad enough to toss out but it's not delicious enough to share. My favorite Broccoli Cheese soup? The kind in the Kroger soup bar. I'm fancy like that. So if you want a bowl of really good soup just pick up a cup next time your out grocery shopping. It will surprise you how tasty it is. Until I'm near a Kroger again though I will have to keep searching for a better recipe.

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

 
Awkward:

• While walking down the hall to get to our theater last Friday, a little kid asked us if we needed help. Uh, nope. I'm an adult. I'm also perfectly capable of finding theater 5. Especially when there's only 8 to choose from. Thanks for the offer little 8 year old.
• A teenage girl in the dressing room announcing to her mom that she's fatter than she should be. That wasn't so awkward but then her mom responds with, "Well, yeah". What?! Then follows it up with, "Zumba honey, zumba!!!". Way to make your daughter feel great in a dressing room full of people.
• A teenager came out of the dressing room with 2 items she wanted. The dressing room attendant asked where the rest of her 10 items were. "Back in the changing room". She then asked the girl to go back and get them. The teenage girl responded with "Isn't that your job?". Wow, really? The employee simply said No, it's not, please go get them.
• Spending all day on Wednesday making new catagories and organizing my pinterest account. Logging on this morning only to find that none of the new boards I created show up. Guess what I'll be doing again today? Oooh, poor Danielle has to play on Pinterest all day at work.
• Waking up to an OUTRAGEOUS thunderstorm in the middle of the night. It seriously sounded like bombs were going off. At first I thought it was because they woke me up, maybe they were louder in my sleepy mind, but nope, everyone thought we were uder attack.
• Trying to discreetly cut something in Home Depot and getting caught. All of us pretended like nothing was happening but we all knew. We bought the metal cutting scissor things and then cut our metal sheet in parking lot. Chad then went in and returned them. Done and Done.

Awesome:

• New Jeans. I've been putting off getting new jeans for, oh, I don't know... over a year. No biggie. My favorite 2 pairs finally died this spring. I'm mean d-i-e-d. They are going to split down the crotch with any sudden movement. During our Pioneer Day extravaganza I found a pair that were.... Long enough!!!!.... and on Sale!!!! TaDa! I actually wore some wedges with them they were that long. It was glorious.
• Getting paid to watch Master Chef at work.
• Werther's Original Candy. I love hard candy. Only the butterscotch ones though.
• Batman. The movie rocked. I want to go see it again. Plus going to the movie theater means we get red bull and candy :)

A Crafty Weekend

Isn't it the worst when the weekend ends? Luckily for me I get a new holiday in Utah, Pioneer Day. I'm not still quite sure what they do to celebrate, all I'm sure of is that I got today off. I'm also sure that we used it as an excuse to abandon all reason and go on a mild shopping spree. It's Will's fault really though, we needed to get sheets for him to sleep on when he visits. Of course we went to Target to get them, and of course you can't leave Target with only the thing you went in there for. Here is my sad attempt at trying to get into Instagram. It took me way longer than I will admit to figure out how to upload this very important picture.

There were a LOT of craft projects this weekend. Lots of spray painting, painful trips to hardware stores, and one very long trip to Costco. There was not however, a lot of "meatless monday" cooking. The one attempt for Sunday night dinner ended with a pot full of burnt milk. Mmmmm, delish. Since I figured a recipe idea for grilled cheese was a little ridiculous I skipped it yesterday. Although it was fancy grilled cheese with tomatoes and avocados, well... fancy to us anyways.

Our first craft project all started when we found this awesome frame at our favorite (and usually overpriced) consignment store downtown. It was (surprisingly) inexpensive and we love, love, love it. We love it even more now that it's pink :)
 

  Chad spray painted it and then we went and took pictures up at the temple. Chad did his editing magic with it and we headed up to Costco to print it out. After 2 printing attempts, 2 slices of huge cheese pizza and 2 churros we finally had an acceptable picture. Since it was so cheap to print it out at Costco we figure we can switch it out whenever we take a picture we really love. We like how it turned out and finally have a picture of a temple in our home!

Project #2! Right above our stairs we used to have a big frame that held a bunch of pictures. It was a cheapy frame though and after falling multiple times it finally died and had to go. I didn't want to have to buy another one, as much as I like them I think they are overpriced. We started with spray paint of course! Chad painted another big frame that we had picked up at the Salvation Army. We picked up a piece of smooth wainscoting (had them cut it for us) and modge podge and headed home to craft it up.

I laid out the pictures, modge podged them all down, threw it all in the frame and voila! You could paint the background any color your heart desires to get a different look, but we kept ours white. We are really pleased with how well it turned out! We are also really pleased with how easy it was to put together! Love modge podge!

We also made a ridiculously cute jewelry holder but it's not quite done yet. This was far more painful and time consuming to make. The cuteness thankfully makes up for it. More to come :)

My Phone Has Eyes

We have Camels at our Farmer Market/Craft Fair

Nutella Oatmeal with Shredded Coconut, mmm

The animals all watching a bug drown

Along my running route

The "cool" truck we rented to move the mattress

Is there anything better than homemade popcorn.... and some redbull... whatev.

Playing old school Aladdin for Sega Saturday morning.

Our sweet juicer

Both of us laying on the floor trying to recover after running 3 miles in 105 degrees. Not the best idea ever.

New Running Shoes

Sweaty Mess. Chad played tennis for 2 hours in the same 105 degree weather I went running in.

New sandals

People REFUSE to run/walk/bike on the sidewalk here. Biking I understand. Why this lady must run on the side of the road next to a sidewalk, and going with traffic is beyond me.

Totally worth taking up a parking space for.

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

It's somehow been a looooong and sleepy week. I can't seem to get myself to wake up during the day. I'm sure my employer loves this. Other than that (how is being sleepy news?) we've had a pretty "sleepy" week in general...

Awkward:

• Trying to get our dog to go out and play in the rain/hail with us. She was not into it.
• Penny deciding she's too good to use the litter box. The bed is much better for things like that. The bed or Chad's drawer full of athletic pants. Oh yes, those are much nicer.
• Trying to make homemade brownies. The batter tasted SO good. The brownies were anything but. We threw them out. Now I'm on a quest to find brownies that taste at least as good as our favorite box mix.  
• Being too tired and too lazy (neither one of us can wake up this week!) to make an actual dinner. Getting 3 Cheeser Bread from Hungry Howies and Cinnamon Bread Sticks from Pizza Hut instead of preparing real food. Also awkward? Eating shaved ice while we waited and then making brownie sundaes after "dinner".

Awesome:

• We finally checked out the Farmer's Market held downtown every Saturday. Guess what? Produce actually tastes like something, yummy somethings. Walmart had me believing that all fruits and vegetables are tasteless, watery and gross. We'll be going back this Satuday as well!
• Storms! We have had some crazy storms here. Lots of rain, wind, and even hail! It was great to have the weather cool off a little and enjoy the rainy weather, of course our house didn't flood so we could enjoy it a little more.
• Chad's summer semester is over! His classes were early and annoying for the most part. We are both happy they are done and he can take a break before he starts the full time madness in the fall.
• Artsy Fartsy Craft Projects. They are fun and they were easy, pictures coming.
• DownEast Outfitters. They have all kinds of cute clothes. But the real deal is the small Men's section they have. They must not have a lot of men shopping there because their clearance section for guys is unreal. Like, a pair of jeans for $5 unreal. Chad got 2 shirts, a pair of jeans, and a light blazer for under $15. Seriosly?! That's better than the Salvation Army!

A Spooky Meatless Monday

Remember that whole, "we should celebrate Friday the 13th with all it's spooky fun" nonsense I was going on about? Yeah, I take it back. Friday was ridiculous. Instead of a scary movie we dealt with things going wrong. Boo. Nothing serious, more just annoying.

It all started when I was grabbing something for breakfast in the kitchen. I stepped in front of our fridge and into a giant puddle. My sock was soaked, even the bottom of my scrub pants were soaked. Thanks dishwasher. You're swell.  Then Chad's phone decided to crap out on him. It wouldn't turn on, it wouldn't charge, it was not kind. Then I found a cockroach in my workout pant... as I was putting them on. Gross, nasty, yuck. I jumped on the bed and hid from the dead bug until Chad flushed it. As we were wandering around downtown that afternoon we stopped and helped out another couple that was having car troubles. I made a lovely little list of all the craziness of that day but my phone decided it wasn't important and deleted it. Thanks Friday the 13th for all the NO fun.

Then next day everything was fine. We re-ran the dishwasher and it worked fine, and has continued to be fine. Phew! Chad's phone finally charged and started up properly too. Next time I'll just take a scary movie and some popcorn over things trying to break and creepy crawlies hiding and waiting to get me.

On a completely unrelated note did anyone watch Breaking Bad on Sunday? I'm overly excited for this season. I even watched the weird Local Security (or whatever it was called) afterwards to see next weeks preview. They of course threw in a nice long preview for the next Walking Dead. Best shows ever, seriously. Sunday nights are the BEST nights for TV.

Alright so this Meatless Monday is a bit sad. Last week we skipped the whole "buying groceries" thing. So it was a week full of repeats. Lots of freezer lasagna and freezer twice baked potatoes. There were more than a few tuna fish sandwiches as well. This week should be much more exciting food wise, unless of course we skip grocery shopping again tonight ;)

The lasagna roll ups were actually pretty fun to make, messy, but fun. And the fact that they were single servings were a much better option for us than making a whole lasagna. We've wasted many a lasagna in the Lewis house :(

The twice baked potatoes were also a big hit. Instead of using sour cream I mixed in plain Greek yogurt, that way I didn't feel as bad about the massive amount of cheese I put in :) We've been brushing the bottom with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt before cooking them and it's been the best idea, good one Chad. They get nice and crispy and salty, it's a good time.

Does anyone else have some great go to freezer meals that they love? I'll defintley be whipping up another batch of both this next Sunday! The veggie burger mix freezes great too! Now I just need to throw some other freezer meals into the mix!

Awkward and Awesome {stormy} Thursday

View of tonight's storm

This week has gone by sooooo slooooow. I swore that yesterday was Thursday, which really seemed to confuse people when I was making apointments for "tomorrow, Friday, July 13th". Does anyone else feel like you should do silly halloween-ish type things whenever it's Friday the 13th? I don't quite know what these things would be but I feel like we should "celebrate" in some manner...

Chad's summer classes are coming to an end soon so he's been slammed trying to finish up everything. He's got to make up one or two yoga classes before the end of next week so that means that we will both get to go to his teacher's yoga studio this coming week! I LOVED going to an actual yoga class (I've only been once, sad day) but it was infinitley better than doing yoga to a stupid DVD. We've also found a few other yoga spots around town that let you try the first class for free! Definitley need to jump on that! Hopefully the week went by a little faster for everyone else!


Awkward:

• Ok, I know you are all sick of hearing about church awkwardness but here we go again :)  I have literally had 4 people over to my house from church. 2 ladies who welcomed me to the ward after I had been here for months, my visiting teacher, and the family (ok, 7 people counting the family of 3) of the girl who watched our dog when we were in Hawaii. The mom of this girl saw me on Sunday and asked me if I was visiting. Um, no... you've literally been in my house... twice. Next week I'm taking Carly and Chrystal's advice and dying my hair pink while wearing the most outrageous thing possible, then maybe people will remember me. Chad seems to be having more luck in this department. People know who he is, although people are still super rude for no reason. We are really missing our Clarkston Ward.
• Helping a little girl in the bathroom on Sunday only to watch her pee everywhere. Her dress, underwear, and all over the floor. Yes, she was sitting on the toilet. Yes, I had to clean all of it up. No, I'm never going to be the one taking her to the bathroom again.
• While helping a little old lady take her shoes off at the nursing home the guy sitting right next to her was taking off his. I was initially excited that one of our patients could still manage to take off their shoes on their own. Then as he was taking off his sock he just pulled it off inside out... flinging dead skin cells e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. Oh, and by everywhere, I mean all over me. Seriously, my neck my scrub top, all over my pants, arms, all of it. I got pretty good at avoiding the foot confetti at my last job but this came out of left field and very literally attacked my face.

Awesome:

• An old cranky lady in the nursing home caught my eye as she was waiting to be seen. As soon as she realized she had my attention she started pointing at other people waiting in the room, rolling her eyes and making faces. It was hysterical. She clearly was not impressed with these people. When she saw that she was making me laugh it only got worse. She's my new favorite.
• We got a "new to us" juicer at the DI last weekend. This one is the press kind, so it's better than our electric one for citrus. We have been on an orange juice kick at our house ever since, it's delicious! Last night we bought a pineapple and had pineapple orange juice. SO GOOD
• A/C in our car has been recharged! Again! 112 degree heat is not compatible with no A/C. We tried. We failed. We also have two new front tires since the tread was gone. The heat shield that was trying desperatley to fall off also got zip tied back on. Yup, our car's fancy like that. Now it doesn't sound like our car is trying to explode every time we start it or go over any kind of bump. Now we don't have to have random strangers and police officers point out that we are "dragging something".
• Church now starts at 9am! I was sad to see my extra day of sleeping end go away but excited to be able to have the whole afternoon to ourselves after a morning full of awkwardness!
• Frozen Dinners. I love my crockpot in the winter for soups and such but I needed something else for the summer. No one wants hot soup when it's over 110. It's just ridiculous. So I made twice baked potatoes and lasagna rolls on sunday and froze the little buggers! So much better than a pizza and easy peasy on the nights I don't want to cook, which is turning in to every night apparently. We've had them 3 times this week, and it's only Thursday. You do the math. 
• Thunderstorms. That's right, we finally got a thunderstorm tonight. It was crazy, windy, dusty, bright and loud. We drove around in our car so we could watch it as it moved through St. George :)

Don't Be Jealous

 

We have the most schizophrenic "Hardware" store ever. I know that hardware stores really do have everything. Our beloved ACO in Michigan had jewlery and pie and ties. It was always a good time to check out what craziness was in the store. But seriously, this one takes the cake.

Right as you enter the store you see the women's clothing. Not just baggy, cheap jeans and t-shirts but a huge section of "trying to be stylish" clothing. They even have dressing rooms! Not just a janky back storage closet to clumsily try things on, but full fledged changing rooms!
 

Now let's be real here, some of the clothes were surprisingly cute, but come on? Really? I couldn't help myself and picked out a bunch of cute things to try. I was not hopeful. Turns out I shouldn't have been. Hardware store clothing, no matter what it looks like, fits exactly how you would expect hardware store clothing to fit.

After the awesomely awful clothing section you come to the camping section. Not just some sleeping bags thrown in the corner with some lanterns, but a pretty decent section.

Even some rock climbing equipment!

Hello!!!

Next to the live bait is a giant cooler filled with sardines and.... blegh, I don't remember what else. It was a giant freezer full of dead little fishies. 

 Ok, so if you made it this far (lol) you may be thinking, "ok, the juniors section was funny but the rest isn't so surprising". How about a craft store thrown into the mix? No lie. You go up 4 stairs from the gun and dead animal wall and you enter the craft section. Come On!!!

And not just any general crafts but a huge fabric section!

Of course general crafty things too. They've got a whole back wall full of yarn. More than our JoAnne's or Michael's does!

What's a hardware store without a cake decorating section?

Last but not least, the toy section. Yup. You can literally get EVERYTHING you need here, at one store, the Hardware store! Of course there's the normal stuff, actual hardware store things, a garden center, groceries and then on your way out....

Yup, a Post Office. I forgot to snap a picture on the way out :(  Picture an old school janky post office that's located in an old barn. It's falling apart, and is SUPER ghetto. It's awesome. It's always fantastic to find new crazy places in a new and crazy town!