playtime Monday, April 30, 2007

lion

Anyone know what kind of dog this is?
I like it. Emily thinks it's a lion...

Dallin doing homework

Amanda & Emily Video (ABC's & viola practice)

anniversary dinner Sunday, April 29, 2007

Last night, to celebrate our anniversary, we went out to dinner at 'il Naso', a fancy Italian place in Sun Valley. Fortunately for us, it was their last night open for a month (everyone in the whole town closes for 'remodeling' in May), so they had all their prices reduced to clear out the inventory. But UNfortunately, my stomach started killing me right as we walked in to the restaurant. I didn't know if I'd make it, but I survived the meal, and even lasted through a final course of decadent moist chocolate cake.. not too sweet.

Then this morning, on our way out, we couldn't bring ourselves to spend $25 each on the breakfast buffet at the Lodge. So we found a local favorite, 'The Kneadery' which serves delicious pancakes (blueberry or buttermilk, the size of your plate), hash browns, omelettes, eggs, bacon, and anything else you can imagine. It was very family friendly, and with little kids all over we started to miss our own and rushed back to Boise to rescue Joelle and head home.

remember this place? Saturday, April 28, 2007

Here are some pictures from today's ride. We went right past Elkorn where we stayed last time we were here 7 years ago with Grandma. I remember golfing, biking, and taking dallin to the ER at 5am after he drank some liquid tylenol...

"wake up and live"

Here's a picture that didn't turn out very well. It is the front of the Sun Valley lodge with a pond and a swan family. I forgot my digital camera so we're stuck with my zero megapixel camera phone to try and capture the nice scenery here. We took some cool pictures of our ride on Lisa's phone but then we realized she doesn't have internet on there so we don't have a way to get them off.
We've been using this New York Times article for ideas on where to go, and we must be hitting all the local spots because we keep seeing the bike shop owner we rented from everywhere we go. He's easy to recognize because he is 60-something, but has bleached blond hair, and is always wearing the same starched pink dress shirt, black wool pants, tie, and flip flops. And his dog is nearby too. Dogs roam freely through the restaurants, no leashes of course.
After setting a world record by sleeping in till 9am, we went to a java place called 'wake up and live' for breakfast (mexican hot chocolate, sour cream raspberry muffin). Then we walked through a big contemporary art gallery next door where nothing is priced less than $20,000...

20 miles of sawtooth Friday, April 27, 2007

We rented a couple road bikes and went at least 20 miles this afternoon. We worked up an appetite and then went to Trail Creek Pub fo some live music and good food. Lisa loved her organic burger and I need to try and copy their jalepeno soup recipe.

To help with our sore muscles, we took advantage of the hot pool and sauna back at the lodge. Then we watched a movie on the big TV in the hotel room.

Sun valley

We're in Sun Valley for a few days. We ditched the kids in Boise and checked into the Sun Valley lodge. It's very nice here.. A lot of history.. Pictures of harry truman, ernest hemingway, etc are one the wall from when they were here. Then there's the ice rink outside our window, and the plasma screen on the wall is nice too....

8 x 10 of sylie in her birthday skirt

Silly Sylie

Sylies Tricks

BS Thursday, April 26, 2007

Congrats to Jer for graduating from BYU today.

Rachel the happy mouse Wednesday, April 25, 2007

lesson one Monday, April 23, 2007

here's amanda

real men don't eat quiche...

..unless the crust is made with canola oil.
Fresh Basil and Thyme Tart with Chicken

cooking spray
6 ounces sliced mushrooms
8 ounces frozen spinach
1/2 Cup finely chopped onion
1 Cup chopped cooked chicken
1/2 Cup Moterey Jack cheese
1/4 Cup fresh basil
2 Tablespoons fresh thyme (I used 1 teaspoon dry)
1 Recipe healthy pie crust
3 eggs
1 Cup low-fat buttermilk
1/3 cup non-fat plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon salt 1/8 Teaspoon black pepper
6 basil leaves, julienned

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a large skillet with cooking spray. Add mushrooms and onions and saute over medium-high heat, stirring often, for 8 minutes or until mushrooms are nearly dry. Thaw and squeeze dry the spinach; Chop into smaller pieces. Combine mushrooms; onions, chicken, cheese, 1/4 Cup basil, and thyme. Place piecrust in a 9-inch pie dish and spoon chicken mixture onto crust.
2. Using the same bowl, whisk together eggs, buttermilk, yogurt, salt, and pepper until smooth; pour evenly over filling. Bake for 40 minutes or until firmly set in the center. Remove from ovena d sprinkle evenly with julienned fresh basil leaves. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

"look, two emmies" Sunday, April 22, 2007

The kids love the program 'photobooth' on my mac. It distorts your face and can keep emily entertained for hours. As you can see by the file names of these photos, the kids have taken over 100 wacky pictures of themselves.

Cartoon kids

And yet another art posting-
Today the kids and I painted some wall art for their rooms.

Megapixels

Here's a low resolution photo of my latest painting. I did it while the kids were painting themselves this morning. It is much more 'relaxing' than the one we had up there before.
I took this picture on my 2 year old treo 650 cell phone. I need a better camera phone. I never used mine until google launched their mobile blogging feature.
Our spint contract is up in a few weeks, which is good timing because apple's iphone is coming out soon. If I get my hands on one of those, I'll be able to take 2.1 megapixel photos on my phone.

working hard

It may not look like it from these St Lucia photos, but Dad and I work hard on our mission!

St Lucia - Pitons

Self portrait

Dallin and Amanda posing beside their most recent paintings.

April 2007
Acrylic on 87 cent poster board

low(er) fat Texas sheet cake Friday, April 20, 2007

We make our first Texas sheet cake tonight. It's from the Wednesday Deseret News and claims to be low fat. The cake has 6 T butter and the icing has 4, so I wouldn't call that low fat. But compared to the 3 sticks of butter in some sheet cake recipes, it is a step in the right direction. Next time I'll try it with canola oil instead of butter in the cake, and less butter in the frosting

Reduced Fat Texas Sheet Cake
2 c flour
1.5 c sugar
1/2 t salt
1 t baking soda
3/4 c water
1/4 c cocoa
6 T butter
1/2 c buttermilk
2 eggs
1 t vanilla

Icing
1/4 c cocoa
4 T butter
1/3 c nonfat milk
2.5 c powdered sugar
1 t vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 (F), spray a 10x15 inch jelly roll pan with nonstick cooking spray.
Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking soda in a bowl.
In a small saucepan, combine water, cocoa, butter & bring to a boil, stirring.
Pour boiling cocoa mixture over flour mixture and stir.
Add buttermilk, eggs, vanilla.
Mix well.
Pour into pan and bake 20 minutes.
While baking, make the icing by combining all the ingredients in saucepan.
Heat on medium, stirring, until thickened.
Pour icing on cake and serve.

Makes 20 servings. Each serving has 230 calories, 7 g fat.

yo yo dallin Thursday, April 19, 2007

Dallin was so cute at his cello lesson tonight. His teacher not only plays in the symphony, but she plays in a cello rock & heavy metal band. Dallin was amazed at how loud the cello can get, and he listened to a cd she made (yo yo ma, apocalyptica, jazz, etc) him all night. His teacher's cello is over a hundred years old, and she just paid $2000 for new strings.

and the family's other new musician... Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Here is Dallin and his 1/4 size cello

Viola

Amanda is about to start viola lessons. She was going to do violin, but there are so many violin players, and the viola is a little different and might give her more opportunities. The viola is a little bigger than the violin, and one string is different, which makes its sound slightly lower. In Amanda's case, we just got her a 1/8 size violin and we'll change the C string for an E (or something like that).

The roof

Here's are a couple pictures of the roof going on. I think the charcoal gray metal looks good.
Yesterday I went up with a friend of mine to wire a whole house audio system. He has some extra bose speakers pulled out of a restaurant, and then we found a great deal on 1000 feet of ethernet cable and 500 ft of monster cable speaker wire at this industrial overstock warehouse. It should be a nice selling point.

"I need to go to time-out" Sunday, April 15, 2007

Emily is so loud in church. Today she started saying this over and over during the prayer: "Please bless that we can have a good day, Please bless that we can have a good day..." After saying it about a dozen times, she began to yell it, and got out one last "Please bless that we can have a good day!!!!!!!" before I could silence her with a hand over her mouth.

She had another idea a couple minutes later. She said "I'm going to hit dallin" and then did. She then said "I'm need to go to time-out when I get home."

Tobago Friday, April 13, 2007

St Lucia or Tobago?

I already posted pictures of St Lucia and I have to admit that it is one of the most beautiful islands I have seen. However, the one thing it lacks is turquoise water and white sand. So take a look at Tobago. It is quite close to Trinidad and the round trip flight is only $50 compared to the current price (as of April 2007) of $250 to St Lucia. We have visited three times and I took pictures and visited as many places as time would allow. The pictures are in a picassa web album linked below.

During our first visit we stayed at the Kariwak resort. It was a fun place - very holistic and healthy feeling - but the staff was kind of cold and it wasn't on the beach. I loved the little waterfall pool and the yoga hut. The beds were so hard that I needed yoga to recover!

http://www.kariwak.com/

On our second visit we stayed at the Mt Irvine Golf resort. It is a large resort with a golf course, big pool, and beach all built around a historic sugar mill. It is a bit of a hike, across a road to the beach. I found the place to be a bit rambling and run down.

http://www.mtirvine.com/index.asp

Our third visit, when we had Jamie with us, we got it right and stayed at one of my new favorites - the Blue Haven Hotel. It is a restored 1940s resort and I love the decor and setting! The beds are wonderfully comfortable and the beach feels like a private paradise. The only drawback was a so-so restaurant.

http://www.bluehavenhotel.com/

One other great place to stay is the Plantation Beach Villas. I think that is where I would stay if we had family visiting. The complex has five cute pink villas set in a hillside near the beach. You have to cross a quite little road to the pool area and beach. It is very family oriented yet relaxing. I like the friendliness of the staff and the convenience of having a kitchen.

http://www.plantationbeachvillas.com/

Things to do in Tobago:

We haven't had time to completely explore Tobago. We need to go find the waterfalls and walk in the rain forest. Our favorite thing so far was our boat ride to the Buccoo reef and the Nylon Pool. We joined a glass bottom boat tour near Pigeon Point and went out from 11-2 ($20 each). We snorkeled the reef and then played in the shallow Nylon pool - crystal white sand bottom with turquoise water about a mile off shore. I loved the changing shades of the water as we toured. Apparently the Tobago underwater landscape is a mountain range of peaks and valleys so the water goes from pale blue, to deep Aquamarine, to golden.

One of the prettiest beaches is Pigeon Point. We didn't spend much time there but we did take a quick look. It is a beach park that costs a small fee to enter. The sand is white and the water is a perfect turquoise. There are chairs and umbrellas to rent and lots of little food places and water toy rentals. We saw wave runners, windsurfers, and kite boarding. I think it would make a fun day's activity.

We enjoyed the restaurants. Service is slow but the settings are amazing. We like the Kariwak resort for its healthy menu but the service is a bit cold. We found a fun place for breakfast - House of Pancakes. It is definitely NOT part of the famous chain. Our table was on a tiny wooden porch and we watched little hummingbirds enjoy their feeders and Bananaquits pick up crumbs. The pancakes with nutmeg syrup were yummy!

Here is a great website for learning about things to do in Tobago:

http://www.mytobago.info/

Tobago with Jamie

St lucia

We spent three days and two nights in St Lucia and loved it! We flew in from Martinique on Monday morning (15 minute flight) and were met at the George F L Charles airport by the Farrers, a wonderful missionary couple serving on the island. There are two airports on the island and this one is the most frequently used because it is closest to the resorts. The Farrers drove us the short distance to our hotel, the Villa Beach Cottages, and we were able to check in early.


http://www.villabeachcottages.com/

What a nice place! It is a small hotel of about a dozen units set right on the sea. Our room (8) was on the ground floor and we walked out to the tiny pool and beyond that, to a sun deck. Second floor units would have a better view but harder in and out access to the beach. Our unit had one bedroom (could be converted to two), one bath, and a kitchen/living area - not fancy - but perfect for island relaxation. There is an expansion underway and by mid summer the number of units will be about doubled and there will be a new, larger pool. You can see pictures of the Villa Beach and our touring adventures in the linked Picassa web album below.

On Tuesday we drove clear around the island. Colin, manager of our hotel, gave us a wonderful itinerary. We first drove to Marigot Bay - one of the most beautiful bays in the Caribbean. Colin had suggested we take the free ferry across the water and have breakfast on the beach but we didn't take time to do that. We did take a few pictures and hope to go back for breakfast sometime soon. We drove from Marigot bay towards Soufriere - location of the famous Pitons. We stopped at the Botanical Gardens. It cost $5 EC to enter. We were dazzled by the beautiful flowers and trees (spices, cocoa). There are pools to soak in the natural sulphur springs (we didn't) and you can walk to the Diamond Waterfall (we did). After the gardens we drove to Jalousie resort.

http://www.thejalousieplantation.com/content/87.htm

It is in an amazing setting - between the two Pitons - and there are fun amenities. But, it is so big and spread out that you have to take a shuttle to get to the beach or pool or tennis. I guess hotel choice depends on what sort of vacation you want. There are a few hotel rooms in the old plantation building but most housing is in small villas with private pools.

We next drove to the Ladera resort - about 15 minutes away.

http://www.ladera.com/

We timed it so that we could have lunch there (serves until 2:30). Colin has said that the view from Ladera is a 'spiritual experience'. The resort is set up above the sea, looking out between the Pitons and the feeling was quiet, peaceful and almost reverent. Our lunch was delicious and afterwards we toured the resort and saw one of the rooms. The rooms have only three walls with the forth wall replaced by an open air view over the Pitons. Even the shower, in some of the units, is open to the view (good thing it is set high in the mountain!).

After all the touring and eating we had to pick up our pace so we drove steadily to Vieux Fort to do some church work and then back around the other side of the island to return to Castries. I took some fun shots along the way of people, homes, and laundry.

On Wednesday I spent the morning absolutely relaxing in a chair looking over the sea, while Reid did some church work. We then went to lunch at the Coal Pot restaurant on a little harbor in Castries - the food was amazing! It was hard to fly home that evening and we can't wait to return, hopefully, with our family.

St Lucia

picking up speed Thursday, April 12, 2007

The half-done house in park city sat dormant all winter, but now with a July 15 deadline approaching we've got to move fast to get it done on time. The metal for the roof was delivered yestesrday, and the 4-way inspection and insulation will happen soon. Then it's time and sheetrock and then a million other things. I think Ikea will open soon enough (May 23) for us to buy light fixtures and appliances there.

And here's a link to more photos...

Park City House