San Diego: Days 5-8 - beach, Sea World, more beach, and traveling

On Wednesday of our trip, we took it easy. We went grocery shopping so we could make dinner for the Tum and Jamie that night, then put Mason down for a nap and watched a movie while I worked. After Mason woke up, we went to the beach again! Mason did better this time, but also discovered he liked trying to eat the sand. Yuck.

Sorry I couldn't pick just one of Mason. He's so cute!

Thursday, we went to Sea World! Sean and I had been once before together, a couple months after we got married, so it was fun to go back with Mason in tow! Today, he slept through us watching people feed the sea lions. Seriously? They bark so loud to get food... crazy. We bought a cute penguin shirt for Mason, a Sea World puzzle for us, and some sea animal magnets for Mason. Which got chewed on, so only a few got pulled out to actually be used haha.

You drive right past the San Diego temple on the way to Sea World. I love that temple!

So long and thanks for all the fish!

Mason trying to swim with penguins. Maybe next time buddy...

"Mom, can we leave the shark place?"

We seriously always have bird friends visiting us.

When Sean and I were here a couple years, ago, they didn't have the ray petting station open because they were building a new roller coaster. It was fun to be able to pet them this time, especially because they don't let you pet the dolphins anymore.

Me and this dolphin would have been besties. I love basketball!

Mason will smile for pictures some day...

Friday we did another beach day! Mason really had a great time today. Sean brought a boogie board and had a great time, and I attempted the skin board. I maybe got one good go on it out of 50 but hey! We had so much fun.

The V's have this cute little chair. Mason had a great time with it!

My hunky beach babe!

Waiting for dad to come back.

Friday night, Tum and Jamie took us out to dinner with Grandma and Joe, who was staying with the V's until he left for his mission. We went to this amazing BBQ place. Like, heavenly.

Then we met up with some friends of mine from college, Trent and Ashley!

On Saturday, we left around 10am to drive to Mesquite, NV, so a little more than halfway. We didn't want to do the whole drive again, since Mason had spent so much time in the car already in the past week. We checked into our hotel, got dinner, and went bowling! Bowling with a baby who walks but can't bowl makes for lack of conversation between the two actually bowling...

I wanted CA In-N-Out. It just tastes better. Mason liked it too!

I'm Snarky, we'll just leave it at that (not).

Anyway, we woke up the next morning, found a local LDS chapel, took the sacrament, and drove back to Provo, all the while missing CA. Probably more so me than Sean, but still. We love you San Diego and will be back soon!

Sean catching a few more zzz's while keeping Mason entertained.

Drive on little man!

Homemade Christmas 2014

I feel like it has been so long since I have blogged, oh wait, it has! I've been so busy since we got back from Christmas in California; Sean has been looking for a job and I have been working extra hours, so I hardly have time for anything else. But now I can cut back to my normal hours since Sean found a job! More on that later :)

For Christmas this year, I decided to hand-make a few of the gifts. It helped the work time go by faster, that's for sure. Cutting and pinning and sewing... oh my! I love it though!

 

 This was probably my favorite of all. I made these jammies for my niece, Oakley. She is one and so cute! Not sure what that has to do with the gift, other than she is adorable in the jammies too! Anyway, the fabric I used was from the last pair of pajama bottoms my Grandma Hanson bought me for Christmas. I bought the onesies at Walmart and cut out little shapes and stitched them on the onesies. I love how they turned out! And we totally cried after she opened them.

 

I made these little bean bags for Sean's nieces to play with. I cut the squares 3.5"x3.5" and then filled them with dry pinto beans.

 

This blanket was for my best friend from high school's daughter. Katie does not like pink, hence the purple and yellow. I just love green though, and love the pop it gave the blanket. This is before I sewed it together, but you get the idea. Those are little purple birds that are so fun!

 

I made this nativity for my mom! Well, I ordered the vinyl stickers off Etsy, bought the board from Home Depot (seriously, like 10 cents off the scrap bin thing) and borrowed paint from Sean's mom! I loved how it turned out so much that Sean bought me the stickers for Christmas! I can't wait to go get another board and make mine. I'm thinking navy blue? 

(P.S. that snow bunny has been in our family since I was a baby!)

 

And last but not least, the Jones family tradition of making cookies for friends and neighbors. I made my mom's famously delicious sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and our family snow-top cookies.  I found the instructions for the paper plate carriers here and here. So easy and fast! 

I also made two little taggie blankets for Sean's niece, who will be one in April. I made one of them with a piece of Barnes and Noble bag inside so it crinkles! But not obnoxiously haha. I didn't get a picture of them.

I love Christmas time and the opportunity to make gifts for those we love. What a wonderful way to remember the love the Savior has for us, making gifts out of love for others!

Gratitude Days 18-19

Day 18: I'm soooooo grateful Sean proposed to me a year ago today (well yesterday technically). Although I had a love-hate relationship with planning the wedding, the day we got engaged was very special and I loved the feeling of knowing that it was official and I could tell people haha.

Day 19: Today I am grateful for a short work week, and the anticipation of getting to spend lots of qualify time with both families this week. Not to mention all the yummy food I know I will be consuming and am already drooling over... bring on the turkey coma!

Gratitude Days 3-5

I was such a slacker this weekend! Actually, I made a deal with myself not to get on any social media, and I succeeded. Except for the picture I posted on Instagram of my friend Morgan at her wedding reception. Aside from that, no email, no facebook, not twitter, nothing. I was pretty impressed that I actually did it...

Anyway here we go:

Day 3: I am grateful for the temple! Sean and I got to do an endowment session with his parents on Saturday, and we had family names from his dad's side of the family. It's been really fun doing family names; we started with the baptisms and have been working our way through everything else! It's fun making relationship connections just by looking at the names and dates on each card.

Day 4: I'm grateful for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the opportunity to take the Sacrament every week. I love that I can feel close to my Savior and that feeling gets renewed every week at church. I love the weekly dose of the Spirit that comes, even in Primary! (And that is a whole other blog post.)

Day 5: I'm grateful for pinterest and new recipes :) Come on, there had to be a cheesy one in my catch-up. A few months ago I found a sweet and sour chicken recipe on Pinterest and made it. Now it is a regular in our dinner lineup, it is so good! I blogged the recipe a couple months ago. Or look at Pinterest...

Come on an' get in da boat, fish!

June 2, 2012

Sean started working at a prosthetics office this summer as an aid-ish type employee. A couple weeks after he started, they had an office party at Salem Pond. We ate some really good food and then went out in a little troll boat around the pond to catch-and-release.

Lucky dog, I let him finish out an empty jar of peanut butter before we left.

Sean and I on the lake. Well in a boat on the lake.

One of the tiny fish we caught and threw back.

Salsa!

On Monday for FHE, Sean and I went to our old Bishop's house to learn how to make Sister Mackay's amaaaazing salsa! One box of tomatoes, a few peppers and a few hours later, we had 25 beautiful pints of salsa to last us a whole year.

 They gave us 7 jars for our wedding in February, and they only lasted us 5-6 months. Hopefully this lasts us the whole year, now that I know we have so much of it...

Now where to store them...

Grocery Shopping

I just read this article on MSN about a woman that is going to go 30 days without going to a grocery store. Basically, she is going to plan a menu for 30 days, she has a $30 budget to spend on the things she can only find at a grocery store, and then will buy everything else local.

Honestly, I don't know if I could do that. I have no idea where a local butcher shop is. And while there are plenty of fruit and veggie stands, most of them are the same or more expensive than Wal-mart. And my last peach that I just got from Wal-mart tasted pretty dang good. And me, plan a 30-day menu? I don't even have 30 meals on my "Successful Meals List" I started after Sean and I got married.

But she does make some really good points. Last Saturday, before we went grocery shopping, I actually thought about what I already had in my fridge and cupboards, what I could potentially make from those things, and what I needed to buy to complete those meals, and made my list. Success! Today when we get our groceries, the only things we need are fruits and veggies, and a few other things that are necessities. Like deodorant. Toilet paper. Shampoo. That kind of thing. Hopefully, over the long run, this shaves $$ off our monthly food spendings.

So goal #1 for me? Make a 2-week menu every two weeks. I can handle this, right? And Pinterest keeps spitting out new, easy recipes that should be easily added to the aforementioned "list".

Goal #2. Shop less at Costco. Whaaaaat?? Costco is almost as cool as Disneyland, and I do believe that spending more on bulk items saves in the long run. I really do. But for a long time, Sean and I were going to Costco every week. That's a lot of Costco. And a lot of money. So we made the goal to only go once a month (unless we need dog food). Again, this will definitely help us spend less money on food every month. 

Also along with shopping at Costco, we try to stock up on something we use all the time. Like one trip we bought a case of black beans because we use them in taco soup, regularly. Things like that. This will hopefully help us build up food storage in addition to the savings. Which brings me to...

Goal #3. Food storage. For the past few years I have wanted to start my food storage and have a year's supply of food. But I have no idea where to start. None! Going out and just buying everything is a HUGE expense, and there is no way we can do that right now. But at the rate I'm going, its going to take me approximately 2000 years to build a years supply of food. How do you figure out how to calculate a years' supply of rice? Flour? Sugar? Granola bars? Such a daunting task. I know it is important though, it's part of becoming self-reliant, which is what the prophets and apostles stress all the time. Apparently I need to do more research on this. Maybe that should be my next goal. Any tips/suggestions would be welcome.

I'm really glad I stumbled upon that article. It really made me start thinking about the way I've grocery shopped in the past (ooh that sounds good imma buy THAT!) versus what I did last week (much smarter and much less stressful knowing what I'm going to cook) and some of the other ways I can save on our food bill. Guess now it is time to put it into practice. Someone follow up with me in a month?

Ready, go!

Sweet and Sour Chicken

You guys. I stumbled upon one of the greatest recipes ever! Seriously! 

Super easy, super yummy. I love pinterest!

You can find the original recipe here.

Soooo gooood! (Said like Teen Girl Squad of course.)

The recipe calls for cooking the chicken in oil. I just sprayed the frying pan with Pam.

We ate it with rice. And boy am I glad I made a lot of chicken. Because now I have leftovers.

Try it. You will not regret it!

My mouth is already watering knowing that come lunchtime this delicious chicken will be in my mouth. Mmm Mmm good!

gone in 60 seconds

We got invited to go hang out on Saturday night with some of our neighbors/ward members. We brought our own stuff to grill and we were asked to bring a side or dessert to share, and then there was a mini-fireworks show after it got dark enough.

Apparently, my desserts are becoming ward famous because my dessert was gone before Sean's and my burgers were done cooking...

 Luckily I snatched a couple pieces so Sean and I could sample the yumminess.

I used my mom's secret sugar cookie recipe for the dough, and just changed the baking temperature and time a little. I bought vanilla frosting (didn't have time to make any) and then topped it with the fruit after pre-slicing. Seriously. 24 pieces: gone in 60 seconds. Ok more like 5 minutes.

 

(Photo courtesy of our primary president)

We really like our ward. Even if we all make funny faces in pictures...

climbing

Sean loves climbing. When we met, I had never been climbing, indoor or outdoor. It took us until after we were married, but we finally went climbing at the Quarry together. Then, finally last Friday, the weather was warm enough that I didn't chicken out of climbing outside.

 Rock canyon is beautiful!

 Sean was so great. He let me climb and climb and climb so I could get used to climbing outside.

 Look at that handsome man up there on the wall!

Thanks for taking me climbing Sean!

Oooh and then we went to Maria Bonita's on 800 North and State Street in Orem.

Highly recommended.

"S'more what?"

"You're killing me, Smalls!"

I'm pretty sure that was Sean's response last night. Not because I don't know what s'mores are (because I do, oh I do...) but because I really wanted them. I don't know why, but I NEED dessert. It's awful and I hate it, but I need it. Good thing I run (sometimes) right?

Anyway last night I decided we needed s'mores to accompany our dinner (which was delicious, BBQ pulled pork sandwiches).

Before.

After. We realized, "why didn't we use our gas stove to roast these?!" Doh!

Oh well. Next time.

Blaze totally thought they looked amazing.

And on a completely separate note, my husband is so sweet. These are just because flowers :)

 (No, he was not in trouble, I had a bad day yesterday. And no, my bad day was not the result of something he did. He made the bad day better. And even more better with the flowers.)