Iron Chef - Battle Smoothie

We watch a lot of foodnetwork shows around our house. The boys love Iron Chef so they wanted to do a Iron Chef competition. It was battle Smoothie. Scott was the chairman and went through the whole thing. Parker (aka A.J. Johnson) was the iron chef that Owen (aka Jonathan Rhino) chose to battle. The secret ingredients were frozen berries, kiwi and ground flax seed. I was Owen's assistant but Parker did everything himself. They could use anything they wanted and had 30 mins to finish.

Owen's smoothie had kiwi, frozen berries, banana, apple, apple sauce, oj, milk, 3 kinds of yogurt, flax, chocolate chips, crasins and mini marshmellows.

Parker's smoothie had kiwi, frozen berries, flax seed, apple sauce, 3 kinds of yogurt, oj, milk, gooey marshmellows (he put some marshmellows in the microwave ), and a spoonful of peanut butter swirled in at the end to finish it. I was skeptical about the peanut butter but it actually tasted pretty good.

Scott and Addie were the judges and were judged on taste, originality, and presentation. Shockingly they tied! They kids loved it and are already asking for a rematch!

Girls Trip to St. George

We had our second Grove Girls reunion trip in January. This is a reunion with friends that all met in Minnesota. Everyone was there this year me, Carey Baldwin, Jacey Davis, Chelsea Wood, Tricia Baird, Jane Anderson, Rebecca Vanden Akker and even Sarah Caine came over from Switzerland! It was the greatest!

I know as I look back on my life, some of my best memories will be of the time when we all lived in Minnesota together. We all came to Minnesota for our husbands jobs and didn't have any family. We quickly became each others family. We used to meet at the park for the kids to play and us to chat all the time. We did playgroups, Sunday walks on the trails, bike rides, dinner groups, babysitting swaps, General Conference breakfasts, celebrated many holidays, visits to the hospital when babies were born, girls nights, marathons, half-marathons, tri-athalons, many meetings at the gym, shopping trips, painting each others houses, taking each other dinners, serving each other and on and on.

This year we met and Rebecca's parents house in St. George. It was perfect we came in on Thursday and left on Sunday. We got facials, worked out, went on a hike, went to church, did a little shopping, ate some good food, and talked and talked and laughed and laughed and cried and laughed and talked some more. It is so rejuvinating because with these girls because I love and respect them all so much and it's such a great place to talk and get advice. I really hope we keep up this tradition! I love my Grove Girls!!

Snow Day

Parker wanted to make us pancakes all by himself. He did everything by himself. It was great. Here are some pics. The clean up was a little more than normal, but it was so fun to see him so proud of himself.

School was cancelled this day because of a winter storm warning. It's crazy to be living in a place where they cancel school when there is the chance of a winter storm. The day before we had a couple of inches of snow so they delayed school for 2 hrs. The day of the winter storm, we got about 4 inches, and our neighborhood was plowed about 5 times! We're definitely NOT in Minnesota anymore!

My Attempt at Journaling

I've never really kept a journal but I'm starting to realize that I'm forgetting all the details of the fun, crazy, cute, frustrating, exciting, exhausting times I'm having raising my kids. So I've decided to finally get on the blogging train and see how it goes. I'm not the best at finishing projects so since this one isn't one I ever hope to finish, maybe it'll work.

I'm not sure if I want to share this with people, maybe just immediate family, because I want it to be like my journal where I can write what's going on and not have to worry if I sound like I'm bragging or being crazy or whatever. My good friend Carey tries to post once a week on Sunday, I think that's a good goal so here it goes!