Farewell Bockman

Its crazy but Nicholaus James Weaver Left for Ghana Africa on his mission yesterday morning! It was a bit of a rough day! I am so proud of him though he is going to be an awesome missionary! Its weird thinking that im not going to see him for 2 years my brother and i have always been really close so not seeing him for a while is a weird concept for me, but it will be good! See ya in 2 years bockman!

i'm not there yet, but this is where im at!!

Ok so I'm having a lot of fun cooking/baking lately!!! I have been figuring out more how to improvise, im getting more familiar with foods and which flavors go together so when im cooking sometimes i will get an idea to put something else in that wasn't part of the recipe but thought it would be good and for the most part it works out so that's been a lot of fun! also i have been inventing recipes too i have only done it a few times but its a blast!( im hoping to one day be more confident with stuff like this because its fun) But there is just a few things i can't figure out. How is it that people on all the cooking shows i watch and trust me i watch my fare share of them..i record them on our DVR and watch them at like 11:00 at night while at the same time trying to get my homework done. Anyways so what i can't figure out is how they can keep their kitchen so clean when they cook and still cook really fast. i know they kinda fast forward through a lot of the stuff but really it still doesn't take them that long to make their stuff and their kitchen is still way clean by the time they are done. I just can't figure that out. For me either my kitchen looks like a tornado went through it or if i try and clean as i go whatever i make takes ten times longer to make it . So this is my next goal in life....to figure out how to cook fast and still have a normal looking kitchen when i'm done. So if anyone has any insights on how to make this happen feel free to share.

Pasta Ponza

So i'm going to start posting some recipes that i try every once in a while that have worked out pretty well for me. So for all of those who read up on my blog, which i'm not sure how many there are, but for those of you who do and want some easy recipes to try. Or are just looking for something new you can enjoy it too! anyways this was one i saw on "Giada at home" cooking show and its called "Pasta Ponza" it was super easy and way good! everyone i made it for seemed to really like it! anyways give it a try and see what you think!

Ingredients

• Butter for greasing
• 2 cups (12 ounces) red cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
• 2 cups (12 ounces) yellow cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
• 1/4 cup capers, rinsed and drained
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus extra for seasoning
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus extra for seasoning
• 1/2 cup Italian-style seasoned breadcrumbs
• 1 pound ziti or other short tube-shaped pasta
• 1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 ounces) Pecorino Romano cheese, grated
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Directions

Place an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter an 8 by 8-inch glass baking dish. Set aside.

Place the tomatoes, capers, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in the prepared baking dish . (i cut up some onion and put it in the baking dish too and it gave it a little extra flavor) Toss to coat. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs over the tomato mixture. Drizzle the top with olive oil and bake for 30 to 35 minutes until the top is golden. Cool for 5 minutes.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain and reserve about 1 cup of the pasta water. (or you can just a little olive oil instead of the pasta water if you want to try that instead or forget to save the pasta water)

Place the pasta in a large serving bowl. Spoon the tomato mixture onto the pasta. Add the cheese and toss well. Thin out the sauce with a little pasta water, if needed. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Sprinkle with the chopped parsley and serve immediately.

a chef's lament

So ever since i decided to go into cullinary school. I have been on this cooking/baking binge. I'm constantly on the food network website looking for new recipes to try. I figured i need to get working on my skill so i can actually accomplish something in school plus seeing as though it will probably be a little while before i actually get to go into cullinary school since they don't have one here in st. george i didn't want to waste time. I also wanted to see if i'm any good at it so if i need to change my mind and decide its not something i want to do i can figure it out now before school starts. So ever since my little(ok huge) binge started I have come to the conclusion that i'm just confused. I have days where things work out great and i think i'm really getting the hang of things and then i have other days where the recipes i'm trying for some reason doesn't work out and can't for the life of me figure out why and i get frustrated and think maybe cullinary isn't my thing. Its funny though everytime that happens where i have those moments of weakness where i say i'm going to give up and pick a new career the next recipe i try works out perfectly and it leaves me kinda annoyed. I'm excited that it worked out for sure but at the same time its like really?! now my cooking works out after all the other recipes didn't! I just would really like to know if i'm good at this or not so i can decide whether or not i need to pick a new game plan. I still feel like its what i should do because if it wasn't none of the things i made would work out so maybe it's just like what they say "anything worth having (or in my case doing) is worth working for" and i just need to continue to work at it and things will gradually get better especially once school starts. Anyways thats it for now!

My Epiphany

K so i just had the biggest epiphany over the weekend. It was one of the bigger AH HAH! moments of my life. So before i share what my epiphany was I'm going to have to bring in some background. So I'm sitting at home writing up a business plan for my co-op class as my final while I'm watching amazing cakes. That show is amazing just the cakes they were able to make and I found myself thinking that i really wish I knew how to do that and how awesome it would be to create cakes like that. Then comes the epiphany! It hit me...possible business plan, doing cakes, CULINARY SCHOOL! What?! that had never crossed my mind before. Not sure why, but it just never has. I'm always looking for new recipes to try and I have tried decorating my own cakes before. Never anything to fancy mind you but it's something I like to do. So Culinary school with an emphasize on doing cakes! I have already started looking into schools, and the cost of tuition which will be on the pricey side but ya...I'm thinking this is it! This is what i want to do! I want to go to culinary school and have my own catering/cake decorating/ possible party planning business when I'm done! I would love to go over to like Venice and live there for a year and do school over there but I don't think that my husband is going to go for that actually I know he isn't because he told me he wouldn't which I guess the idea of living over there is kinda far fetched but I think it would be awesome to do! Oh well....Shan did say he was ok and excited about me going to school somewhere closer and thinks that it would be something i should do. I'm excited! hopefully everything for it will work out to where i can actually follow through with this. I know shandon isn't sure whether or not to take me seriously he thinks it has potential to be one of my crazy spontaneous whims that will eventually go away or i will change my mind about it or whatever. I really don't think I will this time at least I hope I don' t because I'm really stoked about it. I think the only thing would be the cost of tuition that would make it not an option! Anyways that's it for this post just wanted to share my excitement with whoever reads this blog.

Recap

Finally a post! So im having to do this post in parts because it's too big of a post so it can't do it all at once. Like i said its a big post so good luck getting through it!
Nicholaus James Weaver Graduation

So my little brother Nicholaus James Weaver graduated from Pine View High School I can't believe my little brother is done with highschool. But congratulations bockman!
Happy 26 Birthday Shan

Shandon Turned 26 on September 28 it was a pretty low key birthay just celebrated with our families individually and these are pictures from my parents house. He wanted cheesecake. (How I got so lucky to get a guy that loves cheesecake almost as much as I do and prefers to have that over regular cake giving me another opportunity to have cheesecake i'm not sure but i'll take it!) Happy Birthday Shan I love you!
Thanksgiving

So it was shandon's families year for thanksgiving so we had thanksgiving with them a week earlier so Lacie,Casey,and the kids could be with us! I made my second attempt on the turkey so far im 2/2 although i still get really nervous whenever i try to cook it. I don't know what it is about cooking a turkey...maybe its the pressure because its the main thing I get really nervous about it. Anyways so on the real day of thanksgiving we went up to my parents cabin and had thanksgiving dinner up there. I cooked a sweet potato casserole which I also made for thanksgiving with the Lee's which was pretty good. Shandon and I also went on a Rhino ride (which for those who don't know what a rhino is its a cross between a fourwheeler and a go cart) we drove around looking at the leaves and it was really pretty up there.
JAZZ GAME: JAZZ VS DALLAS

So my dad works for sunroc/ clyde companies and the company has season seats and when the clients they were going to take to the game cancelled my dad offered the tickets to shan and I which got us these amazing tickets to the jazz game! We were in the 3rd row right behind the announcers which means we got to have dinner in the Lexus room at the Energy Solutions Arena before the game. And guess who was like 3 tables away from our table.....Elder Bednar! It was awesome! He sat in the row right behind the announcers and i was trying really hard not to bug him because I'm sure its frustrating not being able to go anywhere without being bombarded. At half time we went back to the lexus room for dessert. Finally I couldn't take it anymore when he was getting up to leave i ran to the door and started looking at a brochure they had up there and as he was getting ready to walk through to go back to the game I said hi and talked to him for a second. It was so much fun! That was the highlight of the game because the jazz ended up losing to the dallas mavericks which was a bummer but being able to go and watch that close was awesome! Thanks sunroc/clyde companies and mom and dad for taking us! It was a blast!

Ginger Bread Houses

For family night at the Lee's before christmas not sure what monday it was but we decorated Gingerbread houses and this is what we finally came up with!

Bruno

So my dog bruno is pretty entertaining! It was really funny because i was talking to shan about how it didn't really feel like christmas because of the lack of snow and what not. Anyway bruno must have understood what I was saying because he decided to help out and give me a "white christmas" it was really funny because he had been working on this all night. I woke up and found him passed out in his mess which was a combination of stuffing from his toy and toilet paper! It was kind of frustrating at the time but i couldn't help but laugh at him!

CHRISTMAS

Christmas was awesome this year as always. We had the annual dinner and nativity reinactment with shandons family then we spent the night over at my parents and opened presents with them christmas morning. But my families tradition is we all have to take pictures on the stairs in our new pajama's that we get the night before christmas and then we migrate into the family room for presents! Shandon made out pretty well on his gifts He got a gun! and he got a really cool hat you can see him testing out in one of the pictures. After opening up gifts with my family we went to his families house and opened presents with them and had everyone open up their gifts from us! After that shan and I went back to our house to have our own christmas. He also got a new cell phone from me except the fact that he opened it when it came in the mail like 3 weeks before christmas! I was pretty frustrated about it so i wrapped up a bunch of rocks in the same size box that his phone came in he opened up three rocks before he finally got to his phone each rock had a little note on saying something like "looks like im not your phone i think the phone got sent back" anyways after all his presents were opened and he thought he didn't get it i gave him his last present. Had to get him back somehow right?! anyways it was a really awesome Christmas!

Here is my cute nephew drake "Mr. Big" playing with his christmas present from Grandpa and Grandma! Christopher and Whitney had their own christmas and then drove down from provo to celebrate with everyone else after. It was awesome to be able to get to spend time with them. Shan and I came back to my parents house for dinner and i made my sweet potato casserole again and we had prime rib for dinner and just hung out! It was fun!

Moving on To New Years

We had new years up at my parents cabin! Which was fun! Christopher, Whitney, and Drake were there too along with nick and kylie It was really fun! We watched Robin hood until we brought in the new year!

WHITE TRASH PARTY

So Chrissy and I were planning a chinese new year party that Lee's thought it would be fun to throw and while getting stuff for that we thought it would be fun to have a "White Trash" Party! It was awesome. We invited people by sending out toilet paper invitations! We got a lot of our inspiration from the party from a movie called "the Sasquatch gang" and the internet. Our outfits came from the DI Shandon wore a nasty leisure suit and i wore a nasty mesh jersey that was too short i wore ripped jean capris and flip flops crimped my hair and made it all big and my make up was nasty as well. Oh and Shandon grew out a nasty neckbeard and a mustache it was so gross! But it went awesome with the party. For food we had hot dogs without buns, corn dogs, dinosaur chicken nuggets, cheeseball cheetos, great value potato chips, oh and for condiments the boys went around to different resturaunts and bought stuff off the dollar menu so they could get a bunch of ketchup, mustard, and fry sauce packets. For drinks we made the sink the ice chest and had a few bottles of rootbeer but thought it would be funny to go cheaper then that and get sqeeze its and for dessert we had hostess cakes and twinkies! We also had games, we had a chugging contest where we chugged soda while wearing a neck brace and we had a horse shoes throwing contest only instead of a horseshoe we had a toilet seat and a golf club. It was a really fun Party!

So that's it on stuff since my last post. I started up with school again decided its about time i finish up. It wasn't long before i realized why it was so easy for me to stop doing school in the first place...but it will all be worth it in the end or at least that's what i keep hearing. So between work and school its keeping me pretty busy! Shan is also working and doing school! And that's pretty much our plans for right now! Well if you have made it to the end of this post good job! I will try not to wait so long to do another post. I have a few baby showers i'm going to be doing for friends coming up so i will be posting on those too when they're done so we can look forward to those if they turn out ok! Also an enrichment activity will be coming up that i'm doing so i will have pictures for those to post shortly. Anyways that's all for now for all of you that pesevered through this post it was a long one!