First Snow!

December 23 (two days before Christmas) we awoke to this:

SNOW IN ARIZONA!!

The night before, we had severe winds and some rain, but I didn't expect snow. It was a welcome surprise. But, like always when we have snow in Arizona, it is gone by that afternoon.

At least we had snow. But it came two days too early! We were SO CLOSE to having our first WHITE CHRISTMAS in years. Oh well. Here's hoping for next year.

Deja Vu - Holiday Celebration and Baking Contests

Last Thursday was the Greely Hall Holiday Celebration. That's the HUGE party in my building, complete with caroler's roaming the hall, potlucks, food, baking contests, food, door decorating contests, food, and more food.

Remember last year when I entered a bunch of the baking contests and won the Cookie category with a GREAT Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe?

This year I entered only one category in the Baking Contest...Candy. I just didn't have a lot of time to bake, and this recipe was no bake, so it was perfect. I made Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars. Mmmmmm!!! So good. My favorite combination....you can't go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate.

Once again, there were A LOT of entries. Remember, this building is the workplace of thousands of people. Of course, a lot of those people don't enter the contests, but still, there is usually a really good showing.

Before the contest winners were announced, the little caroling group I sing with roamed the hallways for an hour, then sang in the auditorium for the Commanding General, Commanding Sergent Major, and everyone else who was in there. We've done this every year for the last four years. (I've been singing with the group for the past seven years, but only the last four have we been invited to sing for the Holiday Celebration!). It's always a lot of fun. We are a pretty good group, if I do say so myself. :o) It's all A Capella and we have a pretty wide selection of songs, from Jingle Bells to What Child is This to White Christmas to The First Noel to Hanukkah songs. Every year we add more songs. I really enjoy singing with this group!!

After our performance, I stayed in the auditorium to wait for the contest winners to be announced. It took a while this time, since they had Santa come for the kids and the CG speak to everyone BEFORE the announcements were made, but I am glad I waited, because I WON FIRST PLACE again! Yay!! It's Deja Vu!

Here is the recipe for this AWESOME treat, courtesy of my wonderful friend, Anne Ivie. Enjoy!!

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Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars

Mix and press into bottom of 9 x 13 inch pan:

1 cup melted butter
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup peanut butter, crunchy or smooth

Melt together until smooth:

1 ½ cups semisweet chocolate chips
4 Tablespoons Peanut butter

Spread on top of the mixture in the pan. Refrigerate 1 hour before cutting.

Disneyland / Knott's Scary Farm 2009

For Fall Break, Kelli, my mom, and I escaped to California. First we went to Disneyland. We met a lot of characters, like Minnie Mouse:


We enjoyed the Fall and Halloween decorations:


Even the Haunted Mansion is transformed into the Nightmare Before Christmas:


We had a fabulous time blasting Zurg while helping out Buzz Lightyear:

This is one of my favorite rides. And I take it VERY SERIOUSLY! You can see concentration on my face. :o)

Being almost eaten by the Abominable Snowman:


Being transported into Cartoonland and being saved by Roger Rabbit:


Experiencing terror at the Hollywood Tower Hotel:

This is my ABSOLUTE favorite ride...we went on it six times in a row (the lines were a little long, so we couldn't do more...too bad).

I didn't take too many pictures, but we went on almost every ride in both parks. We had a really fun time, but we wore ourselves out. But we still had one more park to experience:

On Friday night, Kelli and I went to Knott's Scary Farm. This Fright Night is the first of it's kind. And it is really elaborate with many special effects, very scary characters popping out from around corners or in the thick fog and making loud noises to make us scream, and thirteen different haunted mazes (and three in 3D...very trippy).

Here are some pictures of some of the decorations and the scary characters in the park:

This guy would not leave me alone. At one point he was right next to me walking along with me for a really long time. I was in a one track mind trying to find the entrance to one of the mazes, so I didn't notice him. And he was walking extremely close to me! In the back of my mind, I thought Kelli was there, not a scary monster. Finally he made a noise and I looked over and it wasn't Kelli. so I screamed. It was rather embarrassing. Kelli was laughing at me, and when I got up to the entrance of the maze, the person standing there ushering people through the line was laughing at me. Once we got out of the maze, this same guy followed Kelli and I for a long time around the park. But this time I was ready and I kept my eye on where he was. But he did get us again after a while. It was pretty fun.

These next few pictures shows how much fog and stuff was in the air. But the decorations were so cool, I wanted to try to take pictures through that thick stuff:


Here are the descriptions of all the haunted attractions. They were all very different. One trick is to act more scared than you really are. Then the characters pick on you more to get more screams out of you. It is really fun for all involved! My favorites were Terror of London, Big Top Bizarre (in 3D), Dia de Los Muertos (in 3D), and Quarantine.



This was a very fun trip! I lost my voice from all the screams, but I thought it was so worth it!

A Salute to America

Today, a couple of friends and I performed in a talent show at our church's Family Fun Fair. It was a blast, and I had a couple of youth in the audience (thanks a million!) record the performance for your viewing pleasure.

Enjoy!

(1st Side Note: Don't mind the beginning of the video...
we were testing the sound.
2nd Side Note: I sang alto in this performance. It was a fun challenge.)

It's My Sister's Birthday!

It's Kelli's birthday! Shout Horray! I love my sister dearly, and here are some of the reasons why:

She is fun to travel and explore with.

She is an animal lover.

And had a very cool heart comforter when she was younger.


She is good at defending wintry forts from older brothers.
See... proof that it really does snow in Arizona.


She is very dramatic and makes a good Shepherd in our family live nativity scene.


She is very fashionable.


She is fun at parties!


She has good hygiene.


But most of all, she is the best big sister anyone could ever want.

I love you, Kelli! Happy Birthday!

DJ by Night; Pioneer by Day ... Part 2

Continued from last entry. This is Part Two of my experience at the Sierra Vista Youth Conference. If you want to read about my first DJ experience, scroll down and see the post below.

On Saturday morning (19 Sept), I woke up at 4:30 in the AM to get ready, put on my Pioneer costume, gather my things, and meet my ride at 5:30. We traveled the 30 minutes to the trek starting point where we set up and got ready for the youth to start to arrive at 7am.

The theme for the Youth Conference was "Finding Joy in the Journey". One of the youth in the stake drew the design for the T-Shirt. I think it turned out really good. It focuses on our personal journey to the Temple and all that stands for.

As promised, here are a couple pictures of me in my Pioneer outfit:

Check out my bloomers! These babies saved me from the bugs, from all the low hanging branches of trees and bushes, and most of all, from chaffing. :o) What a good investment!!!! (I bought them online...along with the apron...from White Elegance).

I was put in charge of checking in the youth and telling them what "family" they belong to. We divided all the youth into 12 different families. The Ma's and Pa's in the different families were assigned a family name and story from a real pioneer family who trekked across the United States to Salt Lake City. During our little 8 mile hike, those Ma's and Pa's would share the experiences of their assigned family and help the youth to understand (in a small way) what the early Saints went through as they pulled handcarts, or guided ox or horse-drawn wagons across the plains.

Here is a picture of me checking in some of the youth. I think I was trying to find a Ma and Pa for one of the young women. It looks like I am concentrating hard. Plus the sun was bright and I was squinting. This is one of the only pictures of me without my bonnet on. I tried to keep the bonnet on most of the day because it saved my face from the sun. Thank you, Jessica, for letting me borrow your bonnet! No sunburns for me, thanks to you!

Notice my bun...yes... I tried to be authentic (but with cool and comfortable shoes).

After everyone was at the starting point and assigned to a family, the families had breakfast together, built their handcart, and played some Getting To Know You games. During the trek they were going to be really close, so they had to break the ice a bit. Pancakes and Bacon were on the menu that morning.

Then we were off...

It was my assignment to take pictures of the trek. I took TONS of pictures. But the trick was getting the shots of the front of the handcart train and everyone down the line until the end, and THEN getting to the front again. Honestly, I was a little afraid before I went that I would be stuck in the back of the train and only be able to pass everyone during water breaks or food breaks. But that was NOT the case. I was able to run (that's right...I said RUN and I mean literally) around the moving handcart train. And multiple times. Even at the end of the day I was still running. It was actually really fun and very exhilarating. I didn't realize how in shape I really am. Those stairs are really paying off (I'm up to over 500 stairs a day for 5 days a week). When we were planning for this trek, we had a doctor advise us about safety on the trail. One of the things he stressed was to pay attention to the heavier hikers. They are the ones who would get dehydrated fastest or have more problems during the trek. I was in on the planning, of course, so I was aware of that. On the trail, I made sure I always had water with me. When I was out of water in my bottle, I would fill up at the ox-drawn wagon, or at the other handcarts, and then I was off running again. I was never dehydrated, even though the day was REALLY hot and I was sweating like a pig! When the trek first started, the other leaders would ask me how I was doing and if I was getting enough water, but after a while when they saw me going this way and that, running to and fro, while performing my duties, plus being a messenger for the ox cart to the main body, the leaders stopped asking about me. Haha!

Because I was running back and forth from the top of the handcart train to the back and then to the front again, and also running between the ox-cart and the main body (the ox cart was a lot slower than the rest of the train), I think I went about 10 to 11 miles instead of the 8 that was mapped out. And I think I ran about 4 to 5 of those miles (but not consecutively). I've never run so much in my life! And I was not dead tired at the end of the day, my feet didn't hurt (that bad), I was still hydrated. In fact, I was ready to go again. Though, I have to say that Sunday I CRASHED and I had to take Monday off work because I had a bit of a stomach ache (though I would normally go to work with that), but I was still so DOG TIRED that I felt I needed to continue to sleep. I accomplished NOTHING that day, but I did get some good naps in.

On Sunday, I noticed I did have three blisters on my feet, though none of them hurt at all. One on the side under some calluses, and the other two under my toe nails of my longest toe on both feet. I think my socks did that to me. I forgot to clip my nails before the trek, so the sock kept pushing on my nail until a blood blister formed underneath it. It doesn't hurt...it just looks nasty. I may even lose my nails...I hope not. But I learned a valuable lesson! Always clip your toenails before going on long hikes or runs.

I am actually surprised I was not more injured. I had no sore muscles, I was not sunburned, and my feet did not hurt at all. I felt really good, but just really tired.

But I digress...Back to the Trek...

The terrain was so vast and different through those eight miles.

We had hills...

And valleys...

Sand...

And rocks...

Brush and flowers...

Mesquite trees...

Open Terrain...


Complete Tree Coverage...

We had lunch in a thicket of trees...

Lunch consisted of apples, hard tack, biscuits, trail mix, jerky, and Gatorade. Things we could bring with us that didn't need cooking. I usually can't stand jerky, but at that time, that jerky was SO GOOD! And the warm apples were TO DIE FOR. The hard tack was AMAZING. The biscuits were TOO YUMMY! And the trail mix PUSHED ME OVER THE EDGE, even with raisins (which I usually cannot stand). EVERYTHING was so good. It almost seemed like the best meal of the day to that point. Kind of funny how pushing yourself really hard and traveling some distance can change your taste buds. When you are really hungry, everything tastes good.

We played games in a Ghost town...

The boys were called to be in the Mormon Battalion...

The girls had to pull their handcart by themselves...

The we joined forces again to finish the trek...

Finally we arrived at our destination: another Ghost town (Fairbank).

The youth took apart their handcarts and we as the Stake Young Women leaders (minus one who couldn't hike because of bad knees) celebrated the fact we made it.

At Fairbank, we had dinner (BBQ pork, potato salad, beans, and rolls. For dessert: berry cobbler cooked in dutch ovens. Mmmmm!!!). That was the best meal of the day...SO GOOD! We also had a slide show. Once we arrived at the destination, and while the youth were taking apart the handcarts, I had to run, set up my computer, hook it up to the projector, download all my pictures from my camera to my external hard drive, get the pictures from the other two cameras onto my hard drive, and start putting the pictures into the slide show template of nearly 100 slides (a counselor in the Young Men's presidency put the template together before the trek). It took a lot longer than we expected. By the time I finished, all the youth had eaten dinner, finished their dessert, and still waited about 10 minutes for the closing session to start. Whoops! I am a little slow sometimes; downside of being a perfectionist. I think the slide show was a good way to wrap up the day. After the slide show and a talk from our Stake President, we cleaned up and headed home.

Random Pictures of Me...

Here are some pictures I took of my shadow. One of me walking, and one of me riding a horse.


At one point my ankle started hurting, and one of the horseback riders took pity on my. I rode for about 10 minutes. Then at that next stop, someone gave me a pain pill. Once it took affect, my ankle was fine and I started running around again. It never hurt again. I think it was a muscle that was spasming and when I took that pill with a little anti-inflammatory, it settled down and was fine for the rest of the trip.

And here are some other random pictures of me along the trail taken by the other cameras:

Play "Where's Waldo" with this picture. I'm in there somewhere.

What a fun day! It was my first Pioneer Trek, and I absolutely loved it. I hope I have an occasion to go again.

If you ever have the opportunity...I highly recommend it!