Fall Decorations

Here is my attempt at fall festivity decorations.  This is a big giant bowl sitting on my coffee table.

This is why I'm not into decorating...Yes, those are teeth marks from my sweet naughty dog in my white pumpkin.  I came upstairs from giving him a bath and found him tearing up a cardboard box and tearing up my decorations.  I'm seriously pondering the worth of decorating on the coffee table...

Oh and in case you forgot, this was last year's debaucle with decorations...What's Wrong With This Nativity Scene?

How to Give a Great Dane a Bath

Kona has needed a bath for awhile...but I've been waiting until its warm enough for him to go outside in the sun to dry off.  Wishful thinking on my part I guess.  Anyways, this morning Tim and I were getting ready to go and do some errands, so while Tim finished up his morning computer time, I decided to give the dog a quick bath.

I've had several people ask how in the world I give Kona a bath.  It really has never been an issue, mostly because he's been having baths since we got him.  I will say that getting him to the bathtub is a little tricky and sometimes involves some bribery.  I have been known to give him an entire hot dog to get him in the tub.  However, this morning, Kona only made me chase him around the house for a few minutes before I got him to hop in the tub.

Once he's in the tub, he usually just stands there while I rinse him off.  He looks thrilled, doesn't he. One time he did jump out of the tub and ran around the tiny bathroom (the floor is covered with towels prior to the water turning on) which resulted in me being super wet and him unhappy to get back in the tub.  Today he was awesome and stood there the entire time.

After he's wet, I lather him up with some oatmeal sensitive skin shampoo.  That's shampoo squirted all over his back. Its supposed to smell like coconut...I'm not sure about that, but it does smell nice.

He loves the lathering part.  I'm always surprised at how much hair comes off when he gets bathed.  I think he just likes being warm and massaged.  He was shaking off in this picture.

Then he gets rinsed off.  No big deal there.  I just have to make sure to keep the soap out of his eyes and make sure that he gets completely rinsed off.  He has sensitive skin, so I always try extra hard to get all of the shampoo rinsed off.

Probably Kona's favorite part is getting dried off.  After I towel him off, or attempt to towel him off, he heads out into the house to do zoomies.  He runs around like a maniac, picks up all of his toys, runs up and down the stairs, jumps off and on the beds, and then he runs to the door, rings his bell and heads outside to pee.  Apparently, he also looks like demon dog in the midst of the zoomies.

When he's dry, he gets vacuumed off.  Yes, actually vacuumed off.  He loves it.  In fact, whenever I get the hose out for the vacuum, he comes running.  Today he got vacuumed off in the garage and again in the house while I was cleaning the house.

Finally, he lays in the sunshine relaxing.  What a life he leads...

Little Bear Bottoms Corn Maze

At the beginning of the month, Kyra and I got to go to Little Bear Bottoms Corn Maze with the young women and young men from our ward.  We had fun...mucking around in ankle deep mud...but Rylan was very sad because he wasn't old enough to go.  So, since we didn't have plans last night, we decided to take the kids and their friends to the corn maze.

Rylan loves going to Little Bear Bottoms Corn Maze, I think mostly because of the big giant hay bale maze. This is actually a picture from their website.  I didn't think to take one last night.  Tim tried to get me to go inside.  I think I made it in about 3 feet before I was on my way out.  Apparently, I do not do big giant straw forts.  I'm WAY too claustrophobic.  Tim also says this explains my aversion to long-term snuggle time.  Perhaps he's right?!

This is a great place to take kids because there's alot of stuff to do.  Besides the straw fort, there is a string maze.  Kyra said that the string maze is where you get to look like an idiot in front of everyone.  I guess my friend Andrea's daughter totally clotheslined herself when they did the string maze last week.  I haven't tried it but it does look fun.

Tim and I headed into the corn maze with Rylan and Tyce.  I should probably mention there are two mazes...a long one and a short one.  I should also mention that I had never exited a corn maze at the exit so I was just planning on wandering through the corn.  When we did this activity with the young men and young women, the girls said you just take every left and you'll come out in the end.  So, that was my plan.  The boys decided they always wanted to choose the right, so we quickly lost them.
We proceeded to walk and walk for quite awhile...like maybe 2 miles or so.  Oh and I thought, hey, let's take some pictures.  Here's what I learned about taking pictures in a pitch black corn maze with my husband.

Apparently, it's very tricky to get your husband to be serious while taking pictures in the pitch black dark.

After we made it out of the corn maze...yes, my first time ever exiting the exit of a corn maze, Tim and I went over to sit on a hay bale and watch Ichabod Crane and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  I was entertained and actually laughed out loud a few times.  That movie is definitely a Halloween classic.

Once the movie was over, Tim and I headed over to the fire and stayed warm while the kids finished up their stuff.  I would definitely recommend this corn maze as a great place to take your family.  There's lots to do.  There are also several interesting conversations you will here.  Oh, and they have a haunted river trail and a haunted tractor ride.  I still haven't done those yet, but maybe next year.  I guess this has become a new family tradition.

"Treading"

This morning, as I was lying in bed, I was sort of feeling like I wanted to go for a run...but I was coming up with a long list of excuses. Excuses like, I'm tired...Its cold outside...I don't want to run by myself...I don't want to be out in the middle of the neighborhood and feel all poopy...Yes, excuses like that.

Suddenly, I was inspired. I thought about Time Out for Women and a talk by Laurel Christensen. For her "Choose to Become" journey, she decided that she wanted to become a runner. She also wanted to lose some weight, so she headed down to the Biggest Loser Ranch in southern Utah. She explained a workout called "treading". When I was listening to the talk, I thought, "I totally need to do that workout." So, since that popped into my head, I decided to head over to the Clubhouse and hit the treadmill. And I had the BEST RUN IVE HAD IN MONTHS!

Here's what my workout looked like.

5 min warmup @ 12:00 min/mile

5 min HARD @ 10:30 min/mile (I actually sped it up to 10:00 min/mile for the last 2:30)

5 min recovery 4 min HARD @ 10:00 min/mile

4 min recovery

3 min HARD @ 9:30 min/mile

3 min recovery 2 min HARD @ 8:57 min/mile (This was puke pace.)

2 min recovery

1 min HARD @ 8:01 min/mile (This was definitely puke pace)

1 min recovery (This involved standing on the edge of the treadmill trying super hard not to dry heave.)

5 min cooldown @ 12:00 min/mile

This was not a fast workout. I think I only ran 3.75 miles. I will say this, I felt super strong and tough and I loved the challenge and I especially loved puke pace. I'm sort of thinking I may need to turn this into a once a week workout!

The IRS and Two Cute Little Boys

On Monday afternoon, I found a letter from the IRS in the mail. I assumed correctly that it would contain not great news. Surprise surprise...we're being audited. Yep... That meant that Tuesday was spent collecting copies of checks...like 30+ copies of checks. Wednesday morning was spent writing and putting together a 50 page document. Wednesday afternoon was spent preparing the document to fax and then faxing it. Hopefully, my anal-retentiveness will work for the IRS and they won't have to bother us anymore. Here's what the document looked like before I sent it away.

Today was a much better day. I got to spend the morning with my two cute nephews, Cole and Jay. Cole is 2 1/2 and is working on getting potty trained. He has also discovered that he can do funky things with his tongue.

His brother Jay is 3 months old and I am his very most favorite auntie. He loves to hang out with me and will talk to me. It's totally adorable. Oh and I can even get him to fall asleep. That is actually a miracle!

He even let me dress him this morning. He loves being naked and was smiling big before I could get his cute striped baby pants on. I'm pretty sure only a baby could get away with wearing these pants, but maybe I'm wrong?

Definitely not a bad way to spend a Thursday morning...holding a super sweet baby boy for a couple of hours and reading to my super cute sometimes naughty 2 year old nephew.

My First Attempt at Making French Bread

We are almost out of bread at our house, so I decided, in an attempt to skip going to the grocery store, to try and make some bread. I should mention that I have really really bad luck getting bread/rolls to rise at my house. Like, I can't even get Rhodes rolls to work. I'm out of whole wheat flour(yes, I really need to make a trip to the store) so I decided to try making white bread. Of course, the only recipe I could find was for french bread, so I made french bread in a loaf pan. We'll see how that turns out. Anyways, here's the bread.

And, here's the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 package of dry yeast (about 2 1/4 teaspoons)
1 c. warm water
3 c. bread flour
1 t. salt
Cooking spray
1 T. water
1 large egg white, lightly beaten

Directions:
1. Dissolve yeast in warm water; let stand for 5 minutes.
2. Place flour and salt in a food processor; pulse 2 times or until blended. With processor on, slowly add yeast mixture through the food chute; process until dough forms a ball. Process 1 additional minute. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface; knead lightly 4 or 5 times.
3. Place dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray, turning to coat top. Cover dough; let rise in a warm place, free from drafts, 45 minutes or until double in size.
4. Punch dough down, and shape into a 9x8 inch rectangle. Roll up dough, starting at long side, pressing firmly to eliminate air pockets. Pinch seam ends to seal. Cover dough, and let rise 30 minutes or until double in size.
5. Preheat oven to 450.
6. Uncover dough, and make 3 diagonal cuts across the loaf, using a sharp knife. Combine water and egg white, and brush mixture over top of loaf. ***I didn't do this step.***
7. Bake at 450 for 20 minutes or until loaf sounds hollow when tapped.

So, I haven't tried my bread yet. I'm pretty sure that it didn't rise like it's supposed to. Perhaps I'm destined to make bricks instead of bread. However, at least I'm making the effort???

P.S. This bread is delicious. Tim said its the best bread I've ever made. We both had PBJ sandwiches for lunch and I'm pretty sure there's only 1/3 of the loaf left. I sort of have a bread problem. :) This is definitely a repeat offender for our house.

Monday Morning Mountain Drive

This morning, Tim asked me if I wanted to take a drive into the mountains. I said of course, so off we went in the Cruiser. We started off at Nyla's Chevron getting gas for the Cruiser and breakfast for us. I was in charge of breakfast, so I picked breakfast burritos over convenience store food. I picked WRONG! The burritos were vile...like neither of us could choke them down. I guess you could say that we ended up having big drinks for breakfast.

After that nastiness, we headed up Blacksmith Fork Canyon. I wish that I would have taken pictures because it was GORGEOUS! There was so much color. I'm actually thinking that I may have to drive up there again tomorrow just to take some pictures. We passed Hardware Ranch and headed up a dirt road. It was muddy, but not too bad. However, as we climbed higher, it got muddier. We even got to pull off the road for a truck to slide down (literally, slide down) the road. I guess that's what happens to Ford trucks in the mountains...

I'm definitely not mocking because Tim and I did our fair share of sliding. In fact, at one point, after I spilled my big drink, he told me it was time for me to get out. I should probably mention that I did not plan on getting out of the Cruiser, so I was wearing my Chacos. He handed me my big yummy Diet Coke and proceeded to slide down the mountain. Instead of sliding, I got to walk/slide/muck/skid/skate down the muddy, mucky mess in my sandals. I even walked out of my sandals a couple of times. Oh, and I had to dump my big yummy Diet Coke out because I figured it would be better to make it down the hill without 64 oz of Diet Coke spilled over me. When Tim got down the mountain, he hopped out of the Cruiser and decided to take my pictures. I'm pretty sure that I had at least an inch of mud on the bottom of my shoes.

Once we got out of the mud, sort of, we were on a super rocky road, so Tim asked me to hop out and "air down" the tires. This is why I'm called his tech assistant.
On with the ride...we continued driving along and ended up in the pines and snow. Yes, I still had sandals on with a bunch of mud on the bottom of them. I no longer had my big yummy Diet Coke. But, I was having the time of my life. Tim kept driving through the huge mud puddles, which make the coolest sound, and I love watching the "car wash effect." I'm pretty sure he kept doing that because I couldn't stop giggling when he would do it.

We ended up our drive coming out at the Bear Lake Summit. Then, we headed down Logan Canyon, which was absolutely gorgeous, although not as colorful as Blacksmith Fork Canyon.



After we came out of the canyon, it was off to the car wash. The Cruiser must remain clean and sharp looking in the drive way, so Tim spent about 30 minutes spraying the mud off his baby. It was super duper muddy!

He also washed my Chacos for me because I was still walking around with an inch of mud on the bottom of them.

What a fantastic way to spend a Monday morning! I have the best husband in the world. Oh and I guess this will probably be our last off road mountain drive until the roads open up in the spring so that made it even better!