Not so fun week

I got the flu. And it hit me hard. I have been pretty much out of commission all week long. Me and my couch (OK, well Rachael's couch) have become great friends over the past few days. I seriously have never been sick like this before. It is ridiculous. It needs to stop so I can get on with my regularly-scheduled life!

Thank you to everyone who has helped me out this week by bringing me juice, and grapefruit, and cheese, and get well cards, and Tylenol PM, and calling to make sure I was OK. I REALLY appreciate it.

On a happier note, today is Leap Day! Happy leaping everyone!

Fun weekend

This past weekend was a blast! On Friday, Matt took me to dinner at The Pie. I had never been there before, and I must say...it was excellent! Some of the best pizza I've had in a long time. (It was also the only pizza I've had in a long time.) :) We went with Garrett and Courtney and had a really fun night.

On Saturday, we decided we hadn't had a perilous adventure for a couple of weeks and so we went snowshoeing with Roy and Beth. It was a lot of fun.

We had intentions of hiking to Donut Falls, but we never actually found the falls, and ended up just traipsing through the woods.

It was beautiful! I think I could really get into this sport. I love hiking in the summer, and so this was the perfect winter alternative. Matt and I followed this really cool trail that led to some mines. We never actually got to the mines before Roy came running after us telling us we had gone the wrong way, but we really enjoyed the trail.

We even saw a moose! It was so cool...I had never seen one out in the wild before. Don't worry, it was plenty far away from us.

On Saturday night we went Disco Roller Skating. It was a lot of fun. It totally reminded me of middle school. Classic was the place to be at the age of 12. I was kind of disappointed that they didn't use their disco ball though. But we had a lot of fun dressing up and doing some old school skating. What a fun weekend!

Why does stuff like this keep happening to me?

Um, I got this letter in the mail yesterday. I have no idea who it is from or what to think. I have no clues at all except for the fact that it is strange. Why does stuff like this keep happening to me? What did I do?

Note: If you can't read the letter, click on the image for it to show up larger.

I am a lucky, lucky girl

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day! As Garrett would say, I heart Valentine's Day! I had a fantastic one. First of all, I woke up to a TON of snow...I even had about 6 inches on my BBQ grill that is on my covered deck. It was insane!

My roommate Rachael and I decided to brave the snow and head out at 5:30 a.m. to deliver some Valentine treats to some friends on our way to the gym. I think we are crazy because we totally got my car stuck right in front of one of our friend's houses. I was so worried that they were going to wake up and see us out there trying to dig my car out of the snow. Or even worse, I was worried we were going to have to go knock on their door and solicit help.

But luckily after about 15 minutes of digging and pushing, we managed to get the car unstuck by ourselves without having to resort to asking for help and getting caught. And I think that they didn't even see us out there. We successfully delivered the treats and even made it to the gym without any further incidents.

At work we had a cookie decorating contest. It just reminded me of how I work with some extremely creative people. Some of those cookies were seriously amazing works of art!

Then these gorgeous flowers got delivered to my work for me. Wow! I am such a lucky girl! There was a note attached that said, "I thought you might like some tropical flowers to accompany this 'tropical' weather..." How sweet is that?

Mmmmm....they smell so good and they are so pretty! After work, Matt cooked me a lovely dinner and we watched the movie, Stranger Than Fiction. Some of our friends have been talking about it recently and I had never seen it, so Matt decided that I needed to watch it. So we did. And I liked it.

I am such a lucky girl to have such a sweet Valentine! Thank you Matt! Happy Valentine's Day!

Something fun for V-Day

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free. In love, you feel the most alive when your partner is patient and never willing to give up on you. You'd like to your lover to think you are optimistic and happy. You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please. Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with. Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment. In this moment, you think of love as commitment. Love only works when both people are totally devoted.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

Gong Xi Fa Chi

We had a lovely Chinese New Year celebration this past weekend. It was much less high-strung than past years, but we had a lot of fun. This is the dragon that Caron made...isn't it great? It didn't get finished in time though, so we were unable to parade it around town. Next year though.

We made sure to bow to the Chinese God of Luck so that 2008 will be full of good luck for each of us. We also made some Chinese New Year's resolutions. Of course we had a delicious feast of Chinese food. I even made some healthified Chinese chicken that turned out really well.

We played Chinese checkers and made some Chinese fighting stars and various other pieces of origami. (OK, so origami is Japanese, but who's keeping tabs?)

We also did some Chinese brush art painting. Good thing my brother Kyle gave me a Chinese brush art calendar for Christmas so we had something to go off of.

Some people were just really good at painting. Look at this cool tiger Bill painted...

Others of us struggled a bit. Here I am with my painting. In case you can't tell, it's supposed to be some Chinese mountains and flowers. :)

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. We ended the evening by watching the movie, Ratatouille, since it is the Year of the Rat. Gong Xi Fa Chi!

Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cake

Yesterday I made Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cake. It was divine. Here is the recipe. (Note: this is not healthified in any way, shape or form.)

Cake:
1 1/4 C chocolate chips
1/2 C butter
3/4 C brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp water
3/4 C flour

Melt chocolate with margarine. Cool. Beat eggs and sugar. Add chocolate and water; mix. Stir in flour and baking powder. Bake in well-greased and floured square, round or heart-shaped pan at 350 for 30-35 minutes.

Truffle topping:
1 C chocolate chips (melted and cooled)
1 package cream cheese, softened
1/4 C powdered sugar
1/3 C raspberry jam

Beat cream cheese and powdered sugar; add jam and beat. Mix in melted chocolate chips. Spread over cooled cake.

Glaze:
1/4 C chocolate chips
1 tsp. shortening

Melt chocolate chips with shortening. Drizzle over cream cheese layer. Garnish with raspberries.

Reunion

The neighborhood that I grew up in was so great. There were about 10 girls my age. We had so much fun together at girls camp and carpooling to school and living through about 5 Sunday School teachers every year. Since we have all grown up and moved on with our lives, we make it a point to get together every once in awhile to catch up. So last night we had a little reunion at Chilis.

The little reunion started out with 6 of us. But then I took a bathroom break, and as I was washing my hands, there was this police officer there in the bathroom. I was wondering what on earth a police officer was doing at Chilis on a Tuesday night, and wondered if there was any trouble going on. Then the police officer started talking to me. She said, Hey Christy what are you doing here? I thought to myself, Why on earth is this police officer talking to me and how does she know me? Well, it took me a minute to recognize that it was Heather Brady! Heather was one of the girls I grew up with in my ward and we had lost contact with her over the years.

So then I brought her over to our table so she could see the other girls, and as I was walking up with a police officer, they were thinking, why is Christy bringing the police over to our table? Until they recognized her too. Anyway, it was a really fun reunion!

Someday...

I need to do this.... It looks like SO much fun!

2008: The Year of High Adventure, Episode 2

I have officially dubbed 2008 the year of high adventure. And this weekend I had another fabulous adventure. This time in the snowy wonderland of Star Valley, Wyoming.

Caron, Jamie, Matt and I headed up to Star Valley to do some cross-country skiing with some of Jamie's friends. We stayed in the lovely town of Thayne, Wyoming in the Cowboy Bunkhouse on Friday night. Friday just happened to be National Hula in the Coola Day, so we had to celebrate by doing some hula moves on our front porch in the freezing "coola" weather.

The Cowboy Bunkhouse was so cool! It was a log cabin with really cool horse pillows, a horse shower curtain, a log towel rack, buffalo, LOTS of snow, bunk beds, and best of all....a cowboy light fixture!

I want one for my room! On Saturday we got up early, and since it was Groundhog Day, Caron wore her lovely groundhog shirt and we looked for our shadows. (We did not see them all day long, so I guess that means spring is on the way!) We were going to choose the person in the group who looked most like a groundhog to perform the shadow sighting ceremony, but then we decided that might be mean.

I had never been cross-country skiing before and we were going with a bunch of experts, so I was a little intimated at first. But I did just fine, and it was so much fun! I totally loved it. We even saw several dog sled teams along the path. I have never seen a real, live dogsled before. It was really cool!

It was amazingly beautiful out there. I got the hang of it pretty quick and was just trekking along through the winter wonderland. I had heard about how hard cross-country skiing was, but it definately wasn't nearly as hard as I was expecting.

We skied 10 miles to this really cool place called Granite Hot Springs. It's this gorgeous hot springs pool out in the middle of nowhere. It was so cool being in that hot springs surrounded by feet and feet of sparkly snow. And boy did that hot water ever feel fantastic after 4 hours of skiing in the snow.

After the hot springs, we put our skis back on and headed back out for another 10 miles. I was doing great until about Mile 17. Those last few miles really kicked my butt! Matt got really sick at about Mile 13 and had to hitch a ride back from a snowmobiler. Caron and Jamie did the same at about Mile 15. I felt kinda bad that they had to wait for me to finish, but I wasn't about to give up when I knew I could make it the whole distance.

The trail was absolutely gorgeous. We skiied alongside the Snake River and through some mountains. My favorite parts were where the trail curved through the snow-covered pine trees. I am pretty sore today though, but it was so worth it!

It was lightly snowing the whole day long, and it was just so serene. I absolutely loved it. The drive home on Saturday night was a bit interesting. Poor Matt got really sick and we had to stop every half hour the whole way home for him. We would have just stayed the night in Wyoming, but we were trying to hurry and get home because there was a big snow storm coming and we didn't want to get stuck in Wyoming til Tuesday. But we made it home safely and soundly. Bring on the next adventure!