Thanks for Thanksgiving Sake

I'm sorry for not posting any real cool adventure type stuff for the last little while, I feel like I need to get back into the habit of writing before I do and big posts. So thanksgiving come and gone and it was incredible to be back home among family and friends!! It was great to eat familiar delicious dishes and try some new ones too. It was great to be with my wife's family as we'll as see my own for most of the day. I appreciated every small moment yesterday more than I ever thought possible. It's amazing what a year away from home will do to make you really appreciate the little things you usually take for granted. I'm pissed I didn't take pics of the amazing spreads I saw all day yesterday. Some of my favorites were my mother in-laws "pearadise pie" my soon to be sister in-laws berry pie and my dads girlfriend Kelly's berry cobbler and I can't forget great grandma Stratton's homemade fresh peach ice cream..... (Realizing that my favorites were all dessert concerns me a bit:/)
Of course the turkey and all the usual stuff was great too but it's nothing I really couldn't eat any other day :) All in all it was a great day and it put me in the holiday spirit and helped me feel like I'm finally back home. Happy holidays, good eating, and everyone be safe out there!

The Bored Blogger

I've come to a crazy realization the last few months of no blogging...I am a "bored blogger" meaning when I'm low on things to keep me occupied I like to write. When I'm busy and have a life to keep track of, I forget about writing down whats going on and don't really care. NOW we are back in Utah and I have a lot of time on my hands until I start my two new jobs out here hopefully this week(i'll report more on these later). Hopefully i'll remember to keep up on all the changes going on now and keep sharing the a riverrats adventures.Canon T3i 18.0MP Digital SLR Camera with 18-55mm IS Lens - Digital (Google Affiliate Ad)

Wikiva Springs Hike

Nothing like a day off! Last week me and Brooke took Anna to Wikiwa State Park and took a small hike to a small pond called sand lake. It was super fun and it was a great little adventure. Anna loved it and it was nice to do something "Outdoorsy" for once. We were able to see our first wild alligator here in good ol' Florida. Here's a bunch of pic's from that awesome day!

Anna cruising down the trail

Nothing like a cheesy grin

We liked the tree

Me and Anna

The hike wore Anna out : )

Freaking ALLIGATOR!!!! 

Pretty little lake

I love this girl!

Cactus flowers! 

Made me kinda homesick

Sexy wife walking with the little girl

Check out who we found munching grass next to the trail  : )

Little bridge Anna was scared to cross hahaha!

The springs where you swim 

Spring Break of a Lifetime

It's been awhile since my last post because honestly, I haven't really had any adventures. It's depressing to say, but it's true. I went to school, occasionally worked, went home and sat for awhile, then went to bed. As some of you may know I recently acquired a new job at the fantastic restaurant Ocean Prime where I'm now a pantry cook. It's not glamorous but it's in the kitchen and they take good care of their employees. With this new job has come a breath of fresh air, knocking the dust out of my lungs and has made me work hard again for a change. Now most of you know my philosophy of work hard so you can play hard. I started working hard and this spring break me and my wonderful wife have begun playing hard once again! We started the break off with a full day taking in universal studios including the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The day started out great with a ride on "The Hulk" then followed by butter beer, an amazing new ride all about Harry potter, Jurassic Park, and everything in between. After, we went and spent the rest of our cash on an order of crappy Chinese food(panda express) and crappy Mexican(moe's.) After gorging on orange chicken and tortilla chips with queso we decided to go see "The Lorax" and relax a bit in a nice cool theater. The next day we made a crazy little decision and adopted another little puppy and named her zoie... She was adorable but we realized that we didn't have the time to give her the love and attention she needed so we very sadly had to return her to her original owner.....I'm getting sad just thinking about it. BUT since then we've been informed that she has been adopted by a loving new family. The next few days we worked and worked but spent the mornings sleeping in going to breakfast and sometimes lunch and just spending some real time together. Then thursday rolled around. We had wanted to go kayaking at wekiva springs but it didn't work so we decided to visit St. Augustine instead. Holy awesome day! We drove the hour and a half out to the sleepy beach cruising to some of Brooke's tunes. We got there and went to the beach and swam and layed out...my very white back, shoulders and belly still haven't quite recovered from the wonderful sunburn I aquired :) After the beach we drove to town cause we heard it was neat. When we got there it was all we could do to park the car and start exploring!! That place was awesome! I haven't seen anywhere like it in the U.S. There is an old Spanish fort, tons of shops and little restaurants, and a killer little pirate museum. There's also ghost tours of some of the most haunted sites in the country and all over there were art galleries and little bits of history or something cool to do. We walked down the main small road and stopped in a bunch of shops on our way to the pirate museum. On the way we saw a small crepe shop so we stopped and got a crepe filled with cinnamon apples and caramel with powdered sugar sprinkled on top. It was super tasty and we chowed down quickly then continued on. We got to the pirate museum and were greeted by a guy dressed up in full pirate garb. Sword, pistols and all! We walked through slowly taking time to see everything and to read and learn all about the old sea dogs. We left and got a pic with the old pirate and continued on. We tried to go see the old fort but tours were closed so we saw what we could, then headed back to look for some dinner. Our budget for the day was pretty small, so any big restaurants were out of the question that day. We tried some local suggestions but everything was too expensive so we wandered until we found a little philly cheese steak shop and decided that was our stop! We weren't disappointed. The cheese steak was amazing and the jalapeno poppers were excellent! It really hit the spot and was easy on the cash. After dinner we eagerly looked for dessert....we knew just the place. Earlier in our search for sustenance we checked out a restaurant that was out of our price range for dinner but they had a dessert we couldn't resist. We went back and indulged in fried white chocolate banana cheesecake that had been rolled in cinnamon and sugar then topped with chocolate and caramel........it was amazing....I'm not a huge dessert guy but I would go back there just for this one dessert. Bliss!! We finished and slowly walked back to the car. We passed art galleries and old monuments on the way and tired and now very full we jumped in the car and drove home to end the amazing day. What a spring break folks! I'm sure I missed some stuff along the way but this post is already super long so I'll leave it at that. See ya!

goofy smile at the crepe place

nothing like spending the day with my beautiful wife

yeah....the pirate guy was pretty creepy

Spanish fort the trippy ranger lady took the pic

Philly cheesesteaks!!

The amazing dessert! we started tearing into it before I realized we needed a picture

Anna

here's the annoyed puppy look. sorry the bottom of the pic is messed up

About a year ago, my wife and I woke up one morning and drove an hour and a half to the middle of nowhere looking for a special puppy. We were broke then as we are now but we wanted a dog. We didn't know what the puppies looked like but they were the breed we wanted and they were the closest ones around. We drove from our house (then in draper) to Evanston, Wyoming. On the way, we discussed names and as I remember it, it was a blast. We new we wanted a female dog. I'm not really sure why. I've just always grown up around female dogs so that's what I loved. We thought about names and actually settled on Anna pretty quick. We couldn't name her Annie because of a good friend : ) So we drove to evanston...actually about 15 miles outside of Evanston to a little double wide. We knocked and immediately heard a million dogs barking! A really nice young woman opened the door and greeted us and let us in. Inside, there were about twenty chihuahua's in cages and gated into the front room of the house barking like mad. We saw the little Border- Aussie pups behind another gate in the hall. We talked a bit about what we wanted and we met the doggy parents. We wanted a quiet more mellow female so they took out two of the cutest puppies I've ever seen, one with black spots and a crooked tail that was dead asleep in our arms, and a little white with almost pink spots around her eyes and ears with one faint one on her back. We held them both and talked for a minute, then switched. The black and white puppy just hung there sleepily and the white and brown/pink puppy gave us the look that said "Why the hell did you pick me up? I was napping...." after seeing that look I was hooked and Brooke was too. We paid $45 dollars to the lady, took our new doggy and got in the car, and the rest is history. She's been a huge part of our small family and has brought some irritating moments and far more happy moments. She kept Brooke company while I was rafting all summer, and she keeps me on my toes and entertained while Brooke is at work until late. She's always home waiting to happily give you a big kiss on a bad day, and annoy the heck out of you on a good day. She's always there to share her slimy dog bone, or dog drool rope toy. I'm excited for our future children to grow up with a lovable dog to play with and to help take care of. I never thought I'd be such a trippy pet owner to actually write a post about her but I couldn't help it. Maybe it was out of boredom but I think it was how happy I am to have the little lady in our lives. If you don't like this post....Screw you! I don't care, I love my dog and that's all there is to it. Happy Birthday Anna!

My favorite Anna picture. She had one droopy ear for a month or so : )

Valentines Day

Well, Valentines day has come and gone once again. Last year was nothing memorable, cause I don't remember what we even did. I remember Brooke worked which meant I sat at home doing heaven knows what, probably cooking something. This year I feel like I redeemed myself a bit and it made me feel pretty good. I'm not gonna go into details about what I did because this is not a post to brag. What was really nice about last night for me was doing something unexpected and fun for my beautiful wife who takes such wonderful care of me. I had a blast making a simple idea become a reality and it all came together beautifully! I don't feel like anything really went wrong, or tasted bad, or didn't work. The look on her face was worth every minute of time spent making it all come together. That's what Valentines should be about. making someone you love happy. It doesn't have to be a boy or girlfriend, just someone you love. It also doesn't have to be big and expensive..last night the bill was $49.10 and there's enough ingredients in the fridge leftover for the rest of the week. The thought counts! show someone that you love them. A friend said to me yesterday that she didn't celebrate valentines day cause it's a big scam and that "you should act like everyday is valentines day." I agree with her that companies make a bunch of money off the day of love, and that yeah you should treat your significant other like every day is valentines day. My one thought that doesn't really go along with her is the fact that it's one day a year when you actually are given the time and the reminder to do something nice for someone else, so why not celebrate : ) I hope everyone's Valentines day was as good as mine turned out to be, and if it wasn't there's always next year ; ) 

Sunday Morning

It's been awhile since my last post about movies and what not. It's been a great couple of weeks full of working, cooking, and school with the occasional time off to just relax. Sunday morning has to be the best morning ever. You wake up and have nothing to do so you lay around till you get hungry. :) Then you get up and make some food. Today I made crepes with whipped cream, fresh blackberries and a blackberry purée to top it off. Here's a couple pics I snapped.

Mmmm! Tasty!

Then I went back to bed! I'm currently horizontal and it's wonderful! To all the poor people out there working today I want you to know that I'll relax extra hard for you today and I'll make and eat potato leek soup tonight just for you! I'll post the recipe for crepes on damnthelemonade and the potato leek soup is already there, only tonight I'm gonna add a little bacon to the guest list and maybe some cheese like gruyere. Happy Sunday everyone!!

Movies, Ice Cream and a Blanket

One of my favorite things to do in the whole world is watch a movie, eat ice cream, and hang out with a blanket. It's something so simple but it really does make me a super happy guy. And I can't forget that it's not complete without my wonderful wife, Brooke, sitting right next to me. It doesn't matter what movie it is, it makes me super happy. Now, the ice cream does kinda matter. The most recent was a homemade peach ice cream, that really hit the spot. I found the recipe on Allrecipes.com. It's simple and pretty tasty. I did change it because the recipe makes a gallon of ice cream and I only wanted a quart. I also tweaked it a bit because I wanted it to be a touch sweeter. So if you try it, taste the mix before you freeze it and adjust to your liking. Other nights, if I'm not making ice cream, my personal favorite has been any of the Häagen-Dazs sorbet's because I've always been a sucker for fruit flavored ice-cream. While Brooke usually favors Häagen-Dazs new flavors like ammaretto-almond crunch, or bananas foster, or chai tea. I do, of course, have to have a bite of any of those flavors because they are incredible! The point is to get an ice cream you love and sit down with it and who cares if you eat the whole pint.... : ) (I usually only stop after the spoon is starting to taste like paper from scraping all the ice cream dregs out of the carton.)

On the subject of movies. Everyone has their favorites. No, I never really want to watch a chick flick but I gotta let my wife have a turn and honestly I usually end up kinda enjoying it. HOWEVER, some of the films are complete wastes of time and energy and I wish that whoever created that film had a heart attack and died instead of made that horror. I am positive that Brooke would say the same about some of my favorite movies too. Either way we usually end up enjoying what we watch and it's a great way to end the work day and relax before bed.

To end this post I would just add this last thought. I'm saying all this simply because you don't have to spend a lot of money or real energy to have a good evening. Enjoy the simple things in life like ice cream, a movie, and a blanket. I love going out as much as the next guy but at the same time I couldn't be happier to live life at it's simplest.

To the New Year

Well, it's 2012. I spent my first day of this year spending time with the woman I love and relaxing from the chaos we've had to deal with at work this holiday season. 2011 was a good year. It had it's ups and downs with the biggest down happening through the beginning of October, with many ups throughout the rest of the year. But that's all history. What's gonna happen this year? Well a few things are already going on. I'll finish culinary school this year and me and Brooke are deciding what to do and where to go next. On the list of possibilities there's been London, back home to Utah, Portland or Arizona for more schooling, and a few more. We'll just see what happens. I've been thinking recently about new years resolutions. Basically they are things that we hope to achieve to make our lives easier, happier, healthier, and...well...better. Some try to make life better for others. Others just wanna get by. As for me I want to make this year better than the last. I want to see myself and my family progress and move up and forward. I'm a little nervous to make some of the decisions that will need to be made this year but I know I won't have to make them alone. I'm excited for all the adventures I'm going to have this year and the new experiences that will hopefully help me and my family grow. When you really think about it, it's nice to not know what's going to happen ahead. We can hope and plan a few things along the way but life will happen as it's supposed to happen. All we can really do is be the absolute best we can, working hard and doing what we know is right, then leaving the rest to God. I don't know exactly the purpose for writing this particular post other than to get some thoughts and feelings out of my head and into the world. To close I just wanna say I love you, to all of you that should know I love you, particularly my wife and all of my family and friends both here and at home. You all have made me who I am today and I'm thankful to have you all in my life. I wish you all the best and hope that everything you would like to accomplish this year can happen for you. To a happy new year!