Trip to the big city...

...of BOISE!

A few plans got canceled yesterday morning and so we decided to get out of town and head to Boise. It was SO nice to get out of town for a few hours. We enjoyed it.

First stop was the Nike outlet store
to see if they had some shoes for Kevin...

& we found some...YAY!
(Hard to find good fitting 14's that Kevin actually likes the look of them)

Then we went to the mall and looked around, then went at got some
dinner at one of my FAVORITE places....

Then walked around the store Cost Plus World Market.
Forgot about some of the cool stuff they have there.

Then I wanted to hit the Kitchen Store in the Boise outlets.
I LOVE kitchen gadgets!
And we found two little gems we walked out with...

Hand held cheese grater
(Kevin been really big into the 'real' Parmesan cheese)

And an apple core-er, slicer, peeler thing!


I'm very excited for this!!
Kevin's mom has one & it's wicked awesome!

puzzle

For three weeks a puzzle has been on our dining room table. We've had the puzzle for a few years and have never done it, so Kevin decided to finally break it out. It was pretty dang hard, but we are glad to say we finally finished it tonight. YAY!!!

Surprise in the mail...

HOW COOL ARE THESE?!

THANKS Eric, Ro & Boys!!!

cruising back to 2007...

So Philip did a slide show of the HISTORY OF PDP (Progressive Dairy Publishing) at work the other day and he had some pictures from a dinner cruise the company went on back in 2007. So i had him find me the pictures cause i liked one he had used of Kevin & I.

So a little back history...

Kevin & I were living in Rexburg very happily and we had just bought (had built for us) a townhouse that was darling! We were so excited about it. Well we moved into that lovely home end of May beginning of June. Then a few weeks later the crushing news that Kevin was being let go from the company he was working at. We weren't too surprised the business wasn't doing great, but we wanted to leave on our terms. Thankfully they gave Kevin 2 weeks notice to find a new job. We were EXTREMLY blessed that he was technically only out of a job for 2 weeks! Unfortunately the new job made us move about 3 hrs to the west. But then again blessed to sell our townhouse very quickly (and even made some money on it). Tho Kevin had to start his job in August of 2007...and i didn't make it out here until the 2nd-3rd Nov 2007. It was thru the generosity of Kevin's brother Jeff to let Kevin live with them that whole time! It was hard on all of us, but so thankful how it all worked out.

Well, Kevin worked for PDP for about 5 weeks when they had this cool Company dinner cruise. It was a cruise down the Snake River checking out all the natural springs/water falls that are throughout that section of the canyon. It was really cool and pretty good food from what i remember. This was also the first time of meeting ALL of Kevin's co-workers. I was quite nervous. Thankfully my now good friend Emily and I had been emailing since Kevin started working there. She wanted to make sure i knew someone when i made the move out, which was very cool of her.

Anywhos...here are some pics.

Loading onto the boat.

Us with Ray & Emily waiting to leave the dock.

Some houses down in the canyon.
How cool would that be to live there?!

One of the falls.

Lastly...Kevin & I.

Kevin's Kitchen Creation

So last weekend Kevin was hungry for some lunch and didn't know what to have. So he went scavenging in our fridge and cabinets. He found things and came up with this yummy creation.



They were SO yummy. We called the Black Bean Pot Stickers. The pile of beans next to them is what is actually inside the 'pot stickers' themselves. I had it write up what he used, he totally had to guess at the measurements cause he just threw in what he thought looked/tasted good.

Black Bean Filling for Pot Stickers

1 can black beans drained
Minced onion 1/2 to 1 cup depending on how much you like
2 cloves of garlic minced
fresh or powdered ginger to taste
1 tablespoon lemon juice
tablespoon of sesame seeds
tablespoon of soy sauce
Sesame or Olive oil
Won Ton wraps

Cook the onions, garlic and ginger in oil until the onions are translucent. Add the can of beans, lemon juice, sesame seeds and soy sauce. Cooked till heated thru.

Place a spoonful in your favorite won ton wraps, pinch closed, cook and serve.

* we fried them, but on the package of won ton wraps all the recipes it provided were supposed to be bake in the oven. we may try that next time to see the difference.

Halloween in January

So these are WAY LATE. But we wanted to take pics of them and i don't know what happened to all the pics that were taken at our Ward Christmas Party. We wanted to clean some boxes out of the garage yesterday and these were two that needed to go.

These were our costumes for Halloween 2009.

We're LEGOS!

what a waste...

... of my 'home' time.

Yesterday was an especially long day and i was really tired when i got home from working-out, then to work for 8hrs with no lunch, then running over to Twin for my eye exam and then home. I was gone for 12 hrs yesterday. And what did i want to do when i got home?? NOTHING. And that's exactly what i did! i made a quick easy dinner for myself since Kevin wasn't hungry and then i seriously sat in the bean bag from 5:30pm till dragging myself to bed at 11pm.

What a WASTE of time!

And the only time i am "home" during the day. Sleeping doesn't count. I could have done alot during that time. Granted...this does not happen often...but still. i could have at least done the dishes. But nope...now i need to do them this morning. ugh.

Somethings gotta change. I have many a projects i could be working on.

Maiden Voyage

For Christmas this year Kevin's parents bought Kevin a ladder! It's a very nice ladder. We were able to borrow the work ladder when needed but it wasn't always convenient or available. Kevin was super excited. For a few days following Christmas every time we'd pull into the garage Kevin would say "hey look babe we've got a ladder". So thank you Doug & Linda!

Kevin busted out the ladder this morning to take down our outside Christmas lights. The last thing of decorations that needed to be taken down. Thankfully this morning was tons warmer then the past two mornings where it's been 7 degrees with a windchill of Neg 13. This morning it was at least 27, with little to no breeze. Very nice.

Alas...its the Maiden Voyage of the Brown Family Ladder.

ROAD TRIP!

(Not quite a So Cal Beach)

I am SO excited to say...

WE ARE GOING TO CALIFORNIA THIS SUMMER!!!

We just got the OK from our bosses.

Nothing like having a goal to get you motivated to the gym!
(Brown Family pics and So Cal beach time)