Live Christmas Nativity

This past Friday December 3, Casey, Sander and I went to the Live Nativity in Alpine!

It was a lot of fun too! You drive to a church and park your car and they have little buses or trailers that take you over to the nativity. Once you get off the bus a shepherd greets you and tells you the beginning of Christ's story. He tells you why Mary and Joseph needed to return to Bethlehem and encourages you to think about the three visitors Christ received the night of his birth. The visitors brought gifts with them; what gifts do we bring to the Savior this Christmas season?

As you follow the string of lights up the path (the very muddy path! It's a good thing we bought an outdoor stroller because Sander was totally off-roading!) you see centurions on horses and shepherd men and women.

Then you are led into a barn where there are various animals and people dressed in the style of the period, performing tasks such as working leather, baking bread, measuring rice, working wood etc.

There were camels!

And carpenters!

And swans!

and sheep!

And to top it all off, a live nativity with a brand new baby! Carolers stood in a balcony above singing Christmas songs. The whole atmosphere was very uplifting and really helped me feel the spirit of the season.

After you walk through there is yummy hot chocolate to warm your hands and tummy with. When Casey and I finished walking through we were talking about what a fun, family outing the experience had been when we came upon a HUGE line to ride the trailers back to the church!

We thought- no way are we going to stand out here in the cold for 20 minutes waiting for a bus! We're walking!

It only took about 7 minutes for us to get back to our car and it was a fun little adventure. The exercise kept us nice and warm but there was definitely some more off-roading!

Sander and Casey successfully returned to the car!

But it got my new boots all muddy! :(

Overall a really fun Christmas activity, but I'll have to reserve total judgment until I get my boots clean!

Happy Halloween!

I LOVE Halloween! So many fun parties, treats, costumes, lights, haunted houses and trick-or-treaters! Casey and I had three significant events this Halloween season, Casey's Work Party, Ward Chili Cook-Off, and Jasmine's Party.

Casey's Work Party Friday October 29, 3-5 PM

This was the first time I got to go to Casey's office and see where he works! His office really isn't that big so it was a pretty short tour. It also wasn't much of a party- people mostly just stayed in their offices and people took their kids around trick-or-treating to everyone's offices. There was pizza and soda in the break room. I didn't get to really talk with very many people, mostly just a "Hi, I'm so-and-so" introduction.

The adults didn't even dress up! I had our costumes all packed up in the car because I went to a Pumpkin Walk at Utah Central Gardens in Provo and I was going to go straight to Casey's office afterwards. Casey called me in the morning and said, "Nobody's dressed up! Don't come in costume!" Ugh! But I brought Sander in costume anyway.

Sander went as a broker. It was the highlight of the party.

Ward Chili Cook-Off Saturday October 30, 4-6 PM

I did make a chili but it wasn't epic so I'm not going to waste my time blogging about it or your time reading about it. We all dressed up this time and had a pretty good time chatting with the Ward members.

Casey and I went as... Can anyone guess? (Those are big "P"'s on our chest btw)

Sander was a Sumo Wrestler!

I took him in his diaper, white socks, black eye liner at each of his eyes, and I sewed some black yarn on the inside of a head band and put it into a sumo bun!

Everyone loved Sander's costume and no one could guess what Casey and I were. They eventually got it after a couple of hints though. :-)

Jasmine's Party Saturday October 30 7 PM

A friend of mine invited us to a party at her house so we went there around 7:00. We were supposed to bring a dish to share so I made a monster cheese ball.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped pimento
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped green pepper
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped onion
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

Directions

Combine the cream cheese and Cheddar cheese in a bowl. Add the pimento, green pepper, onion, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, and salt; mix with hands (wash them first!), and shape into a ball. Spread the pecans onto a cutting board and cover with a dish towel. Pound with a rolling pin until pecans are crushed. Roll the cheese ball in the pecans until evenly coated. Refrigerate overnight before serving. (You don't have to refrigerate overnight. I only refrigerated the cheese ball for a couple of hours and then coated the ball in the pecans and it was still great! Everyone loved it!

I used green peppers for the eyebrows and toenails, green olives for the eyes and toes, sliced baby carrots for the mouth and nose and tortilla chips dyed with red food coloring for the ears. It was such an easy, fun dish to take to a Halloween party!

Saturday Adventures! Mar. 7, 2009

This weekend Casey and I had a little adventure together- we discovered a new park by our house with really big sidewalks for people to run, ride bikes, rollerblade etc. and it follows a river for some of it. It also connects to a mountain biking trailhead that Casey thought I would like. I was a little nervous because I tweaked my knee this week and its been giving me some trouble on the bike but it turned out fine for the ride.

So Saturday we had it all planned out- we got up early, made yummy waffles and we were just sitting down to breakfast when I got a reminder text about a big stake enrichment activity from 10 a.m.-12 p.m. that day. I couldn't believe I had forgotten! The Relief Society has been reminding us for about 3 weeks! But I weighed my options and was thinking about things that had been going on in our lives and I decided to stick with our original plan and I'm so glad I did. We got all packed up and rode our mountain bikes 8 or 9 miles to the trailhead and then did the 7.5 mile trail. Casey was really awesome- very encouraging and helpful, he was super supportive and gave me tips and demonstrations so I could learn how to handle trail riding better. We had an absolute blast together and I think it was just what we needed.

We were planning on getting Greek for lunch at this place, Ali Baba's. Casey went there for lunch one day with his team and really liked it so we've been trying to go; it turns out that the only day they don't serve lunch is on Saturdays!!!! So we settled for some leftovers in the fridge and Casey ran errands with me which ALWAYS makes them go by faster and they are always more fun. Casey also got a cute haircut but I didn't get a picture of it so I'll have to take one when he gets home. We ended up going to Five Guys Burgers with some friends for dinner. It wasn't the greatest hamburger place- but really not too bad- the fries were disappointing though. For dessert we walked to a little gelato place in the same shopping area- a first for Casey and I. It was good- I'm not quite sure what makes it different from ice cream. As far as I can tell it is milk based and doesn't contain gelatin although the name might make you think otherwise. I guess the main difference is that it has less butterfat than ice cream which makes it melt faster. I think I liked it more than Casey did, although I do agree that the amount of cookie dough chunks in our chocolate chip cookie dough was highly disappointing. :-)