Turning the big 3-0!!

Do you remember last years birthday... when I turned 29? See here.

I was wondering how my fantastic husband would make this birthday just as great...

well... he managed to do just that!

Cruz said that he was thinking "COME ON" when I counted wrong. LOL.

On Friday (01.28.2011) we had some friends over for a little gathering of birthday-ness. It was a lot of fun. We did a chocolate fountain, and everyone brought a treat to dip in the chocolate goodness. Thanks to Ashley who saved the chocolate, and made it all work. :) Good times with good laughs. It was a great birthday.

On Saturday we met up with my family at Malawi's Pizza, and it was oh, so good. Seriously I liked it a lot. Their slogan is "Pizza with a purpose" and donates the cost of a meal for an orphan in the southeast African nation of Malawi every time it rings up your order. We even ordered a few of the dessert pizzas, and they were also yummy. I think I will visit again soon. 

I did have a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY indeed. I consider a birthday a holiday, it's your own personal holiday. (If only we could have PTO for it.) But this year I did turn 30. 

Questions that people asked...

• Q: Did you do everything that you wanted to do in your 20's? 
• A: Yes, I guess so. (Is there some stuff that you CAN do in your 20's that you CAN'T do in your 30's that I would want to do? Is what I was wondering.)
• Q: Do you feel like you are now OLD?
• A: Not really, I think you feel as OLD as you want to feel. When I am sick, I feel 90ish. On a normal day I feel young. Not like 7 or something but I feel pretty good. It's not like I plan on dying in my 30s.

But, on my very BIRTHDAY I did make this LIST...

30 things to do while I am 30:

1. Go to a foreign country 08.2011 England, France, Italy, Switzerland....
2. Read an entire book in ONE week
3. Have a garden of some kind  Summer 2011, potted plant... it is a start.
4. Go on a road trip 07.24.2011 Weekend Vegas, and on to California.
5. Give something away on my blog
6. Run a 5k (already signed up for one) 03.2011, my husband made this my best run ever. (not in time, but in LOVE.)
7. Go camping  07.24.2011 Went to payson lakes.
8. Ride a roller-coaster 07.2011 Roosevelt fair grounds
9. Donate to a charity 07.2011 Took 2 big bags of clothing to drop off center.
10. Watch the sunrise 08.2011 in Monaco France... AWESOME
11. Try a NEW food 08.2011 in France we ate frog legs and snails
12. Swim in the ocean 07.24.2011 Long Beach Cali. (08.2011, plus in Monaco France.)
13. Decorate my home office 
14. Do something out of my comfort zone 
15. Give blood or plasma 02.12.2011, plasma
16. Surprise my Husband 06.2011, b-day camping trip
17. Double my Spanish skills
18. Ride my bike to work 04.2011 Not exactly to my full time job, but to my photoshop class I taught. I would have rode my bike to Covenant, but geneva road is taken over by construction.
19. Write a letter and send it via snail mail 
20. Make a photo album (not just a digital version) 
21. Buy a fancy dress 
22. Make art and sell it (or a craft) 07.2011 Friend asked me to make a family rules subway art for her. It was fun, and she was great to work with. 
23. Learn a new photography skill 
24. Give someone a gift just because 10.2011 fun! I'll keep it private. 
25. Celebrate a random holiday 02.02.2011 chinese NY
26. Have a BBQ in our backyard 
27. Make something I've never made before 10.07.2011, made Thai curry for the 1st time. 
28. Send out Christmas cards (we made them last year, and never printed or sent them) 12.2011, done and in the mail. :) Merry Christmas.
29. Have someone over from our ward for dinner Mckenzie and Greg
30. Get a message 10.01.2011 fantastic.

I am not stressing over this list. It is just for fun. It has somethings that will be a challenge like #3, #6, and #14... but mostly these are good things, fun things... so let's see how many I do, I think I can do most of them sooner rather than later, I guess we will see. :) Cheers to being 30. So far so good.

Friends and Taco Salad

These are the girls that I grew up with, and happy to say that we are still friends. We are all kinda doing our own thing... but still try to get together at least once or twice a year. We made a yummy taco salad. Which works great to have everyone bring a little something. Hope that we can do it again soon.
HUGS!

MLK Day=Black & White Party!

At the table.

The Soup turned out YUMMY!

Chicken wasn't my favorite... but still good.

These were HEALTHY stuffed mushrooms... only 9 cal. each. Not bad!

These were COSTCO... but we just added the chocolate.

Cruz was a huge help by making the salad. Thanks LOVE.

These were left-over from Christmas... but they matched the party. :)

Don't they look cute in their B&W clothes.

A fun night.

We had such a great evening! I was so glad that we had our little party, even though I was beginning to wonder if we'd pull it off. :) Things took a little longer to prepare than I thought they would. Next time I will for sure need to do some of the stuff the night before. But all in all it was a good time.

We all dressed in BLACK and WHITE clothing. (Thanks guys for participating.) We ate dinner and we also played the game SMART A**. You should totally get this game... it's fun, and you don't really have to be uber guber smart to play. I made some questions to go with our game that had civil rights/MLK trivia on them. It was a easy way to make the game fit into our B&W party.
These are the cards that I made for the game... we played them first, and then just used the normal game cards.

The food we ate was all new recipes! I couldn't find my recipes that I used last year... but these were pretty yummy.

Needed a little salt sprinkled on the top.

This was the yummiest thing.

Chicken really had a lot of KICK. I would do only 1/2 cup of the Apple Cider Vinegar next time.

Feel free to print the recipes... click to see high resolution file.

{As always if you want to see the pictures bigger than click on them. :)}

black & white dinner party

celebrate all things.
So far this year we started off with a good party. (NYE was celebrated at sparks, bringing the party well into the new year.) But as I mentioned in my "goals" for this year I want to party more.
Which means I need to get thinking ahead of time. Even though I do think that I through a great party at the last minute. Parties that are planned ahead are always just a bit more festive if you ask me. :)
Party plans for JANUARY include:

• 01.01.2011: New Years Day: game night (It was a successes.)
• 01.16.2011: Orem Girls Party: the girls that i grew up with & their families, we usually get together about twice a year. 
• 01.17.2011: Black & White Dinner Party: all things black & white
• 01.26.2011: My Birthday: knowing us we'll be celebrating on the weekend after or so... but we will for sure celebrate it. (I turn the big 3.0. !)

So... the most unique parties on this list is the Black & White Dinner Party that we have in the works, as of today. It's a really simple concept. We hold it on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It's fitting don't you think? We make a HEALTHY dinner; so we can keep up on the health goal of the new year, and enjoy some times with a few friends. Last year I decided to have this party on the very day we held it. Good thing we had 2 cars back then. It was a little rushed and tossed together. We didn't eat until 8 pm, which helped me have time to get everything ready. It was fun, and a perfect excuse to have a dinner party. We invited only one couple over since it was totally last minute, but I think they enjoyed it.

{Black and White party from last year...2010}

This year... 2011, we have a little more planning time. However, this was a festive party without a lot of crazyness, which is always nice. We may not change it up that much; but we will see.

Here are some ideas that I am thinking about:

Stuff:

• penguins
• zebra
• chalk board
• polk-a-dots
• damask print
• white flowers
• white vintage vases
• black table cloth

Food Ideas: (These are things I am thinking about... I wouldn't be making all this stuff. )

• black bean soup and rosemary chicken (same as last year.)
• oven roasted turkey
• garlic chicken
• spinach salad
• spinach stuffed mushrooms
• sparkling cider
• grape juice

Snacks: (Cruz & I would skip on this since were eating all HEALTHY)

• thankyou bags with homemade oreos
• chocolate and vinilla treats
• popcorn
• hugs candy

So... those are things running though my head today...! I hope that everyone finds something fun to celebrate this JANUARY whatever it may be. 

Any suggestions or good ideas, let me know?

HAPPY 2011

I am excited for a very fun, festive and fantastic 2011!
I hope you feel the same

BE CLEAN

HAPPY 2011.

I have many New Year's resolutions and I plan on blogging about ways to do them. 

Here is the fist post. Kinda long. I started with this idea from another website... and adapted it for me.

ONE of my resolutions is to BE CLEAN in my house and in other ways.

I’ve never been a big fan of Saturday’s being a clean-a-thon. Especially since I work full time, Saturday is the only day that is just for Me and Cruz. I like it to be a fabulous day of fun.

A friend asked me once, “now that you have a whole house, do you feel like there is tons of cleaning to do?” I said, “not really.” I think it’s because of 3 things:

1. Cruz and I both like things tidy, we make sure everything has a place.

2. We do a little every day.

3. We don’t have kids (less of a mess, and more free time... so I hear.) I don’t think kids equal an excuse to have a mess though. LOL.

To keep on top of “BE CLEAN” I do(ing) the following:

1) Clean up bed-time have everyone take the last 5 minutes before the bed-time routine and organize yourself, and put the clutter away. This way your house isn’t a mess when you wake up, it will help you feel less overwhelmed.

2) Dishes, Trash and Make the Bed. Do Your Dishes After Every Meal. My Mom is a pro at this, in fact if you came over and they were gone; with the dishes not done,  you know something is WRONG. (Like people in the hospital.) By waiting to have enough to fill up the dish-washer, makes this feel like a BIG job, rather than a quick thing. The same goes for take out trash as well. If you need to take the trash out, place it by the door to go out in the morning or dispose of it that night so it’s over and done with. Cruz is a gem at making our bed, makes a world of difference. Pretty much when the bed is made it feels like the room is tidy. 

3) Laundry I am super lucky since I have one of those washers with a timer on it, so I can load up the washer, set the timer for 8 hours later to start, then when I walk in the door from work, it’s just finishing the load, and I put it straight into the dryer. We also have a laundry basket that had different compartments, so there isn’t a need for a lot of time sorting out the clothes. (A huge time saver.) I try to keep the laundry down to only 2 loads each time. (For us with no kids, this isn’t too hard.) Often laundry day is also movie or TV night. So I can fold clothes during watching. If need be I will toss in a small load while I do other cleaning, otherwise I do it once a week.

4) Dance It Up and Sing Out loud: If cleaning isn’t really your cup of tea, make it as enjoyable as possible. This is a great chance to turn on pandora, your fancy ipod, or whatever you use to play your music. Have fun while working... and burn some calories too.

5) Be Flexible: Most items on the list below should take no more than 20-30 minutes total, except laundry. But if you don’t do them in order it’s ok. Sometimes I need to do one job sooner than the list says... so I just do it, and cross if off the list, and switch it up. (I do this as little as possible.) Another tricky thing is that I don’t like to CLEAN on Sunday. I try to use that day as a day of REST, so if Sunday lands on the 16th for example, I will swap it with the 15th. Easy switch. On Saturdays I do my best to do the cleaning first thing.

I clean in 20-30 minutes a day —every day— and things just seem to take care of themselves. Here’s a glimpse at the schedule I am using for 2011. (Numbers correspond to date on the calendar.)

{ Click to enlarge. }

our top 10 moments in 2010

Favorite parts of our MERRY CHRISTMAS

Venezuela trip 2010 highlights

I love my family... all of them (my own and cruz's)!! It was so nice to finally meet them, and get to spend time with all of them. They are super nice, and made our trip wonderful.

The beaches were amazing. It rained a lot... and yet we still got time to go to the beach rain or shine, we went. :) Any time it was sunny we literally went to the beach.

We went snorkeling, it was a first for me. This was a HUGE star fish.

We tried to enjoy everyday we could out in the sunshine. We went to a little island off of the island Cruz's family lives on... and spent the day there. It was stunning.

Not only did his family share so many yummy meals with us (Cruz's Mom is an amazing cook) but we got to share a few traditions together as well. Cruz and I brought this gingerbread house kit for them to try. We usually make these little houses in the USA but they'd never made them before. It was fun to share a little Christmas tradition with them. 

I loved meeting Cruz's nieces, as well as his little cousins. They would talk to me in Spanish all day long... even though I had no idea what they were saying! LOL. 

The food was completely amazing, and all the yummy fruit drinks were to die for. We ate a lot! Cruz was stuffing in all the Venezuelan food he could get in before we left. 

Cruz has so many friends and such a large family. It was so nice to meet them! We wish we could have spent more time with everyone. 

I loved going to Venezuela. I loved meeting my new family. It was such a good time. In 17 days we did a lot of stuff... and had such a blast. I can't wait until we go back. I loved having 17 full days to spend with Cruz, and it was good to see where he grew up. Cruz posted most of the pics on facebook... so i only put a few here... but we took a ton. A trip I will never forget.