Baked Four-Cheese Pasta

Dang I wish I had taken a picture of this. I have got to remember.

This is a yummy, not so healthy dish that everyone loved tonight. It comes from Cook's Country (a sister magazine to Cook's Illustrated).

4 slices of bacon, chopped fine
1 small onion, chopped fine
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream (I used half cream and half 2%)
3/4 pound penne - I love Barilla Plus - it is a multigrain pasta packed with the good stuff (about 4 cups)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup frozen peas
pepper
1 cup shredded Italian 4-cheese blend (or whatever commericially available preshredded Italian cheese blend is available at your store)

1. Pre-heat oven to 450.
2. Cook bacon, onion and garlic in large skillet over med. high heat until onion is softened - about 5 minutes. Add broth, cream, pasta, and 1/2 tsp salt. Cover and bring to boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to med. low and simmer, stirring frequently until pasta is tender - about 15 minutes.
3. Off heat, stir in Parmesan and peas and season with salt and pepper. Transfer to 2qt casserole dish and sprinkle with shredded cheese. Bake until cheese is melted and spotty brown- about 5 minutes.

We ate this with strawberry banana smoothies (minus the bananas for me) and a salad with cranberry vinegarette.

Anyone wanna do lunch?

I just read about this place in American Fork called Flour Girls and Dough Boys on a great website called Your Heart Out.

The description includes speciality breads, pasteries and cafe sandwiches like tomato, mozerella and pesto on french baguette. Yumm!

I am ready to make the trek to AF. Anyone wanna go with me?

Snowshoeing to Stewart Falls

On President's Day, Kenyon and I thought it would be a fun adventure to take the kids snowshoeing to Stewart Falls. They have hiked this trail so we were pretty confident they could do it on snowshoes. It was a gorgeous day.

I think we kind of forgot that snowshoeing is actually quite hard work. It took a lot of encouragement to get child #1 to make it. The other two really were pretty good little hikers but still a few complaints about the length.

The great part about it - even though it wasn't tons of fun due to the excessive whining and complaining - was that it was a great lesson in doing hard things and reaching your goal. Child #1 would have turned back at any time and quit. He was sure that he would not be disappointed if he never got to the waterfall. But I felt very strongly that he should make it all the way to the waterfall. We made it. And then going back wasn't so bad and everyone was quite happy by the time we made it to the Sundance Lodge and had hot chocolate, cookies and yummy suckers.

The sad thing is that my battery died and I have no pictures to document the event. I want the kids to be able to do hard things and feel good about their accomplishments. We'll have to keep coming up with activities like that (that is if Kenyon and I have the patience to endure the whining).

A view from our balcony

A view of the hotel and pool

Amazing!

We have just returned from the dreamiest trip. We were not ready to go and I would fly back tomorrow. Wait - I do have three kids. I better stay. I love warm weather, sitting by the pool, drinking pina coladas, eating chips and salsa, listening to the waves, no agenda, no phone calls, no laptop, and really fun company. Our friends invited us to Cancun with them and it was amazing. We stayed at the Aqua Cancun resort. The pools sit right at the ocean. It was unbelievable. Our room faced the ocean and every morning we woke up to the sun rise, the crash of the waves, and the call to tai-chi. Beautiful and peaceful. It just re-opened and everything was amazing. It was our first vacation that was pure relaxation. We did schedule a couple of excursions. One was to Tulum - an Mayan ruin on the ocean. It has a temple that overlooks the ocean. We wished that we had an LDS tour guide at this location. We talked to one LDS tour guide for a minute and we were wanting more. After Tulum we visited Xel-Ha - a natural water park. I learned how to snorkel. I was pretty nervous about it but it was fun until I ran into what I thought was a shark. Turns out it was a good 4 foot tuna that was swimming at my feet. The next day we went to Chichen-Itza - more Mayan ruins that were so impressive. The pyramid there is so huge and incredible, but that part that was so interesting to me was the temple of the warriors. There were 2000 pillars (only 1000 are still standing) that have a different warrior carved on each one. The belief is that it was a tribute to the 2000 stripling warriors. It was an impressive sight. We had an LDS tour guide there. He was funny. He kept saying "take it easy" and "don't worry be happy." I am not sure he really understand the correct contexts for those phrases but oh well. We had amazing food and entertainment from mariachi bands at two Mexican restaurants. We both had a massage and I had a facial. One night we went over to our friends hot tub. It was probably meant for two but we squished in 8. The hilarious part was that the hotel staff thought it would be ok to pour a whole bottle of bubble bath into the hot tub. Needless to say it was a very bubbly hot tub. Kenyon went to an amazing golf course and golfed around the crocodiles that made themselves at home on the golf course.

My mom flew in to take care of the kids and they seemed to have as much fun as us - just with snow. I hear the food was equally amazing and they have every new thing they ever wanted. She is a trooper and hopefully doesn't feel like she got taken advantage of. We were so grateful that she would spend that time with the kids - it definitely made it easy for us to get away.

Now we are ready to go back asap....

Must Read

I have been gone for a while - that is worthy of another post - but while I was away I read a great book called Three Cups of Tea. It is the true story of a man named Greg Mortenson who has an amazing, adventurous life but it is all about his efforts to build schools (specifically for girls) in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is so incredible what he has done. I am ready to pack up and move with my kids to some crazy place and just teach or do something. We are so spoiled and I want to go somewhere and do something.

A few favorite quotes:
"Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects. He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them."

He quoted Mother Teresa: "What we are trying to do may be just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."

Alex Lowe (A respected alpinist): "Greg has quietly been moving even greater mountains on his own. What he has accomplished, with pure tenacity and determination, is incredible. His kind of climb is one we should all attempt."

Jane's Game

So my sister introduced a game on her blog. She has a great blog - check it out - http://janecannonm.blogspot.com/

The game is the google game. This is her description: "It's simple just enter a word into Google search images and pick the picture that makes you laugh. The picture that makes you double-take."

So, I tried all these different words and it is amazing what is available on Google images. Today was I reading someone's blog and they were talking about neti pots so I googled that.

This is what I found...
Kind of freaky - but I hear it does wonders so I just might have to try this out.

Happy Birthday Julianne!!

Julianne and I met when we were 3 years old. Today she turned 34!! She has been my friend for so long now and every year we think back to how long we have known each other. We took ballet together in Seattle. She was always a class or two ahead of me. She has always been so talented at everything she does. I am just scrambling to catch up.

This was a super fun year at Girls Camp. Julianne and Juliann - my two dearest friends - and I lashed this stool together to pass off some requirement. We were pretty proud of our accomplishments.

I was flipping through some old journals today to see what I had recorded about Julianne. There is a lot! On February 16, 1987 I wrote, "I went shopping with Julianne for her birthday and we went out for pizza and I gave her a banana clip, white earrings and a heart full of candy." Wow! The good old days of banana clip gifts!!

On May 19, 1991 I wrote, "Julianne took 4th in WESCOAAA tennis (doubles) tournament. She is 2nd alternate for state. She is SO good!" We used to meet up at the top of our hill and play tennis. I miss those days.

I am so grateful for great friends who have been my friends for so long. Even though we don't live near each other anymore and get busy with our own lives, I know we are still friends. I love that!

So happy birthday to my oldest friend - not "old" friend, but you know what I mean...

Wishing you all the best this year!! (My wish would be that you move to Utah - but that is a long shot...)

My Gospel Conversation

So, my mom has a great blog for institute class. Check it out. http://www.bomclass.blogspot.com/

She asks the question "Have you had a gospel conversation today?" We claim that we "talk of Christ" but do we do it regularly? I don't. We do read the Book of Mormon each morning and we have had some good little discussions about the scriptures. I don't talk about it enough, though.

Today we read a verse that struck me and I thought I would share it with whoever read this blog. Alma 26:1-2 "And now, these are the words of Ammon to his brethren, which say thus: My brothers and my brethren, behold I say unto you, how great reason have we to rejoice; for could we have supposed when we astarted from the land of Zarahemla that God would have granted unto us such great blessings? And now, I ask, what great blessings has he bestowed upon us? Can ye tell?"

Can we tell all the blessings that have been bestowed upon us? I know I can't but I have tried to be more aware of them. It feels like the number of people that need our prayers continues to grow and the prayers continue to be answered.

Ammon retells of the hardships they faced on their mission but that it was worth it because of the great blessings of success and protection. He says: verse 27 "Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success."

When we were young women - we highlighted this verse when we were frustrated with the awful dating scene we felt Seattle had to offer young mormon girls. We had hope that one day we would have success if we could just bear with patience the young men.

But, I now like this verse because it is so applicable to us - although we don't face the same afflictions as Ammon and his bretheren. We do face afflictions and we can be worthy of blessings if we are patient and follow the commandments given.

Enough. That is my gospel thought for the day.