Cuteness

My niece and nephew and I went to the planetarium on Wednesday. We admired all of the drain pipes on the way there.

They are lucky I didn't return them to their parents with their faces covered in little pinch-marks because they are just so darn cute.

Toast

I woke up this morning and said to Matt "why does it smell like toast in here?". I forgot about my loaf of bread in the oven last night and went to bed. This is what 450 F for 7 hours looks like.

A few memories from Christmas '09

We visited Matt's family for Christmas and had a great time with his Dad and Mom Colleen on Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning, and with his Mom Paula and Mark after that at their cabin. I was still sore from the accident, but well enough to have a good time.

Matt looking charming in his snow gear. This is the only picture I got at Dad and Mom Colleen's house unfortunately.

Matt and I arriving at the cabin from the parking lot

Matt, Mike, Mom and Mark

A cute twin picture

A few of my favorite presents:

Matt got me a butterfly kit. It came with caterpillars and we got to watch them turn into butterflies. Our cats have never been so entranced. Usually in the morning they are crying at our door. The first morning after some butterflies emerged we awoke to a suspicious silence. All three of them were sitting motionless just staring at the cage. They wouldn't even budge for breakfast.

Mom Paula made Matt and me frog pajama bottoms. I love them! They fit perfectly and they are the first PJ bottoms I've ever owned that are long enough.

This is from my Mom. She actually carved this for me from a piece of wood! It is a Christmas tree ornament to commemorate our trip to North Carolina.

A different angle that shows the mouth she carved :) I love it.

From the department of ironic hobbies...

I love learning new do-it-yourself-for-cheap skills, so I thought it would be a fun project to learn how to do acrylic nails on myself.

I had never had them done professionally before and didn't even have a concept of how it was done when I started. My first tries were with a kit that you can buy at the grocery store, then I upgraded to beauty supply store stuff. I watched some videos on YouTube and read some guides on the internet.

Matt was skeptical. There were several evenings that I spent experimenting on my nails, and when Matt wanted to see the results I would insist that he inspect them from a distance of several feet. Sometimes it was so bad that I think Matt was amazed that I kept trying.

Even when I began to get some marginally acceptable results, I would always take the nails off within the next day or two to try again. I found that I like trying to put the nails on more than actually wearing them.

I haven't accomplished anything that has looked anywhere near professional, but I'm going to post a couple of pictures of my best effort. This set looked pretty good from a few feet away. Even so, it was only a couple of days before I took them off.

I had better luck sculpting the acrylic on with forms than I did using acrylic over tips.

Here is my masterpiece sitting on a red pillow. This is about as close as anyone should look.

After a run of several months, this hobby is almost dead. But I think I'll probably keep using the acrylic supplies to give myself pedicures. Nail polish stays on a long time with an acrylic base.

Produce

This is the first blog post I've done since our trip to Cambodia back in November. I've been intending to blog about that trip, including our accident and recovery, for months. But I haven't even finished writing about the details of it in my personal journal.

I'm going to stop waiting to get caught up on Cambodia before I record other things, so here is something little and manageable to get me started again.

Before we left for Cambodia, I decided to start getting produce at a food co-op called Bountiful Baskets every other week to help us get more fruits and vegetables in our diet. I only had a chance to do it couple of times before the trip, and then things were so hectic after we got back that I haven't tried it again since.

You pay $15 in advance and then on the designated day you show up to the location of your choosing with a basket or box to take your share of produce home in. I liked this particular co-op because you only have to pay for it week by week. No commitment. I went to a location in Bountiful, but I think now they have a location closer to downtown Salt Lake that I'll try next time.

It is really fun because it is a surprise every time as to what you'll be getting (I love surprises). It is also fun to figure out ways to use up all the produce before it goes bad. The first time we got tons of carrots, so I ended up finding a recipe and making a big pot of carrot curry. We've also gotten things that neither of us had even eaten before, like persimmons.

Another great item was guava. It was the second time in my life I'd tried it. The first time was in Hawaii while I was visiting my parents. I went hiking in the mountains and there were guava all over the ground. They were so fragrant, you could smell them before you saw them.

We got most of this batch eaten before anything went bad.