Friday, January 9, 2009

Butter Bells

Have you ever heard of Butter Bells? We hadn't heard of them until just this past December - there's a story - I'll save it. But, now we have one and here's what it looks like.
It's a small crock.

Take the "top" off and tip the top over (it's important you know just to tip the top over)

And voila - the butter is in the "bell" kept fresh by being stored in the crock which has just a tad bit of water in it - when you put the bell in, it makes a seal. The butter can sit out on the counter for days and kept fresh yet soft to spread.

We are intrigued.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Cake Decorating

Greg delivered Claire to her Young Women activity on Wednesday night. Claire was very excited. They were doing cake decorating, taught by the gal who made her birthday cake. The plan was for me to take Evan and his friend Brian to indoor soccer over at the church - at 7:00. But I'd be the one to pick up Claire at 8:30 and Greg would bring the boys home as he was going to end up at the church eventually. At 8:00 I received a phone call from Greg. He was decorating his own cake - would I please pick up Evan and Brian. So I did. And that meant, two cakes came home from the activity - Claire's and Greg's. And since Greg doesn't eat desserts - guess who took ownership of the cake - me! And I promptly cut a slice for myself.

So - here is the cake Greg decorated, minus some pieces.

Evan enjoying a piece.

Claire's Cake

Claire was disappointed we didn't take a picture of her cake - so here it is.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Greg's Birthday

Greg had a birthday! Jan 3rd - we were just home from Utah. It being a "free" Saturday he got to sleep in. He had pancakes for breakfast served on the "you are special today" plate. His plans for the day - visit the Acura dealership, find himself a treadmill and take a hike/walk with the family. Come the end of the day we all went to dinner at Mandarin Gourmet. Yeah - Chinese food - not his favorite but one of Kathy's favorites and seemed OK to Claire and Evan - it was Greg's idea. I think he had a good day.
The hike was on the Quicksilver Trail - around Almaden http://www.geocities.com/almadenqs/englishtown.html#Castillero
Was a beautiful but very "crisp" day. It isn't a long hike. Greg promised the kids we'd be done in an hour. We would have but we paused at one point to sit and enjoy the view.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Ryan to BYU

At the end of our New Year week, we delivered Ryan to his new accommodations in Provo. Was a crazy day starting with letting Ryan sleep a "little" late before asking if he was well enough to make the trip. He said he was. Then Greg needed to get a tire fixed/patched on our rental car - it had been losing air. Our trip to get Ryan set up in his apartment turned into a whirlwind drive to check him in, shop at Walmart, dump (literally) all his things in his apartment and turn around to head right back up to Tremonton. We had to move quickly because as soon as we were to get to Tremonton we needed to head back to Salt Lake to make our flight home. Unfortunately, we were a tad behind schedule when we left Provo and as soon as we came into Salt Lake a storm hit. It was pretty slow going and we had to call Harris cousins to bail us out. Blair met us in Ogden to pick up Ryan - we hugged good bye in a snowstorm (it didn’t really seem too stormish since snow is so "soft" but it was falling fast and heavy). We did make it to the airport in time for check in etc. The flight was on schedule all evening until we made it to the gate where they started to announce delays but we weren't stuck so can't complain about that. We were just an hour behind schedule getting off the ground. We pulled into home around 1am.

Ryan's new place - WyView Apartments - He's in Building 16 #214. I think it is an ideal location. He is just seconds away from the launderette and the mini market.


Ryan has two roommates - Nathan whom he shares a room with and Ran, from China - this is Ran's room. Ryan's room is similar, just imagine a bunk bed set up where the bottom bunk is perpendicular to the top bunk and the *extra* space under the bed is a built in desk.


The beautiful mountains. Had to get a picture of them. This is the view from the parking lot in front of his apartment.