Cherry Crisp

This is a summer family favorite at my in-laws and I have shared the recipe with my family. I make this recipe for friends who have had babies or when we have people over for a barbecue. It is my go-to dessert because it is easy, yummy, and always a fan favorite!

Ingredients:

Pillsbury yellow cake mix

2 can of cherry pie filling

one stick of butter

Layer the ingedients in a glass dish - cherry pie filling, Pillsbury yellow cake mix, and one GRATED stick of butter on top.

Cook for 60 minutes at 350 degrees and let cool before serving. 

Homemade Oreos

I  double dog dare you to try and resist this homemade goodness. It's impossible. 

Homemade Oreo Cookies

2 Betty Crocker Devil food cake mixes

1 1/2 cup of shortening (yeah, these aren't healthy cookies)

4 eggs

The cookie balls are going to be fairly small. I like to use a mini ice cream scoop. 

Bake for 8 minutes at 350 degrees.

Filling

1 Betty Crocker Vanilla Frosting

Try not to devour in one sitting!

DIY Curtians

Like everyone, when we moved into our house I looked on Pinterest for decorating tips. One of the reoccurring tips was to hang your curtains higher to create the sense of bigger windows. Cool, that seemed easy enough. Wrong! I couldn't find curtains long enough and the long curtains I did find were way more than I wanted to spend. So, this was my solution. I made them...Kind of.

I am not fancy enough to make new curtains from scratch. So, I went and bought four grey Threshold curtains from Target and one white Threshold curtain. Same style and fabric, just a different color. 

I measured and cut near the top of the grey curtains. Measured how long I wanted my curtains to be and cut white strips from the white curtains accordingly (accounting for the length that would be used to sew the seam). Then, I sewed the three pieces (two grey, one white) together. Bam, my long curtains were done! It took me a couple of hours and saved me bunch of money. I love the way they turned out.

Tips on Refinishing Furniture

I put my blood, sweat, and tears into finishing this dresser turned tv stand and was sad to part ways with it during our move. I learned a lot while refinishing my first piece of furniture.

A few tips

1. When you are refinishing a large piece of furniture, buy an electric sander. They are far more time efficient and do a better job smoothing out the surfaces, 

2. Don't paint when it is hot outside. The paint dries far too fast and you don't have time to smooth out your brush strokes.

3. A quality paintbrush is key! A cute friend of mine from high school who refinishes furniture recommended this paintbrush,Woodster Shortcut. It is about $6 from Home Depot and it made all the difference in the world. After the learning the hard way with cheap paintbrush bristles getting caught in the paint I will never buy another paintbrush.

4. And this is very important...stock up on Diet Coke, good music, and enjoy the process. It'll take some time. :)

Relay Race

I don’t know what my deal is signing up for races that I don’t have time to train for, but I did it again this year.

My good ol’ friends that go way back signed up for a relay race that went from Gardner Village in West Jordan to Roy.  It was 51 miles between the 4 of us. Not too bad right?  Well, I underestimated my schedule leading up to that race.  I had cheer tryouts, convention, cheer clinics, and a family trip to Hawaii the month before the race.  Who knows when I thought I was going to train.  When we were in Hawaii and it was actually my dad who said “You know your race is next Saturday.”  Oops, I hadn’t run a mile in over a month and, at that point, I had never ran more than 5 miles in my life.  It’s not surprising that after my two 6 miles runs I was DEAD!  Rose’s cute cousin Jenae luckily helped us out and ended up running one of our longer legs which saved us!

It was totally worth it though to catch up with friends.  We had a dinner and a slumber party the night before and spent the whole race day together.  We had a great time and it was a big accomplishment for all of us to finish that race.  So glad we did it!!!

 

 

I am running the Wasatch Back with my work the middle of June and you will all be proud to know that I am actually training for it!!!

PS - Thanks for the pictures Chels, I stole them from your Facebook page.  :)

Hawaii

At the end of April Trevor and I had the opportunity to go to Kauai with my family and grandparents (Mom’s side).  We had a BLAST!  Trevor and I were thinking about how we could make it work to move there.  Everyone and everything is so laid back and relaxed.  Go to the beach, eat, hike, have a snow cone, read.  La-ti-da – if only life were that simple every day.  My grandpa had never been to in the ocean in his 71 years of life and my grandma hadn't been since she was a little girl so it was fun to see them enjoy the beautiful beaches of Kauai (even if it was a little rainy).

We stayed at a house by the beach (BY the beach, not ON the beach) in Hanalei Bay.  The first day we went to church at the local branch and then drove around the island.

Monday we went to a the Fern Gratto and to a Luau.

Tuesday we had surfing lessons which I have to admit really is just not my thing.

Wednesday we kayaked down a river and then hiked to a waterfall.  My grandma and grandpa were troopers and did it with us!

Thursday we went snorkeling in the morning and on a dinner cruise that evening.  It wasn’t exactly what everyone had in mind as a dinner cruise, but we loved it.  We cruised around in a sail boat around the island and got soaked.  A couple of the family members stayed inside the boat while we were cruising got sea sick.  But it was nice to be outside and enjoy the weather.  We even saw a whale and her baby even though it is super late in the season to spot them.

Friday everyone minus my mom and grandpa went on a horseback riding zip-lining adventure.       

Saturday Trev, Curt, my dad, and myself went on a 8 mile hike to a waterfall.  It had rained a lot that week so that trail was slippery and challenging, but super fun. 

Sorry for the lack of pictures - we opted out of taking the camera with us on some of the water related activities.  :)

 

Convention 2012

The beginning of this year has already flown by!  I can’t believe it.  I was promoted to an Events Manager in January, went on a trip for work to Vegas in February and then the next month or so were a whirlwind getting ready for our Convention in Philadelphia the middle of April.

For those who don’t know I work for a direct selling company called 4Life.  I started working there a week after I graduated high school and have worked my way up.  I work with great people and love my job.  Every 18 months 4Life holds a convention where distributors from around the world come to learn how to build their business.  Planning for convention is crazy.  We start planning more than a year in advance and the last couple months before the event happens we live, breathe, and sleep convention.    

This year convention was even bigger and better than the year before.

We had parties   -

A charity basketball game where our executives played against our top distributors –

For those who love Dancing with the Stars, JR Martinez spoke –

There were lots of people, lots of hard work and lots of fun.

On to Miami for 2013 Convention.  Let the planning begin!