Cooler Weather Here

Okay, so I'm not the best at updating my blog! I actually do better at updating my recipe blog!

Lately, I've been baking. As you may know, it gets pretty hot here in AZ, so we have to take advantage of the cooler weather to heat up our ovens!!!

I found this awesome cook book called "Your Cup of Cake" by Lizzy Early. Amazing! I've tried three recipes already and they have all been great! 

Hiked Flat Iron (Syphon Draw) in the Superstition Mountains on New Year's Day. That was nice--start the year off with "woman versus mountain." Woman won! :) Woman went slow, but still made it up!

Here's the view from the ground.  We were on the top of that thing that looks like a giant iron.

I also went to California with some friends. :)

We attended three temples in two days! Newport Beach, San Diego and Los Angeles! It was pretty awesome. Couple stops at the beach, of course. :)

Oak Creek Canyon-West Fork

Some Summer Fun

We had an Iron Chef-like competition. I made the hats!

 

We had an Iron Chef-like competition for FHE in the mid-singles group. Pretty fun!

 The usual summer swim parties...

There came a snake into our camp at Bear Flat. It had to die because we had many children wandering around camp. It was a beauful snake. 

We killed and ate the snake! It was a little chewy...

Our camp flooded QUITE at bit. See the river?



Adventures!

In April I went to visit my sister in Texas. This is the River Walk in San Antonio. Pretty sweet!

The Alamo. I think my niece or nephew took this one!

Flagstaff Extreme is awesome! We went there a couple of Saturdays ago. I got a little sore in strange places!

 The victory T-shirt! If you complete all the courses (including the one with the nightmare death rings) you get to buy this "special" T-shirt.

This one was the practice course. Low to the ground--not 60 feet in the air.

One part of a course. Not too hard.

Me and several family members went camping at Bear Canyon Lake last weekend. We made s'mores with a gas grill. Fires were a no-no due to forest fire risk!

My brother and sister-in-law...they are so adorable! Walking down to the lake.

Floating in a mini-raft in the lake. :)

Had some gas-grilled delicious corn on the cob...after the shucking-buttering-salting-wrapping in foil party.

Updates in the Last Few Months

Some of the over 100 cupcakes we made, decorated, cupped, bagged and tied spoons and tags on...whew. That was a lot of work! It was for a fund raiser at work for Valentine's Day.

Made some Oreo truffles! Pretty darn good!

I love Chik-Fil-A! This chicken sandwich was mocking me by sticking out its tongue at me! What did I do???

 Went on a lovely sunset hike in the Superstition Mountains. Parker Pass, I think it was. Beautiful!

Updates

So in April, I headed an hour and a half north to visit my folks and got snowed on. The snow looked like bits of styrofoam or something.  The very next weekend, at my house, it got to over 100 degrees. Weird weather!

I've been trying new recipes and making some up, too!  These are asparagus quiches. Recipe is on my recipe blog Mer-bearsrecipes.blogspot.com

My friend Larissa and I made a new recipe! It was fabulous! Sesame chicken with orange ginger sauce. :)

This is me pretending to sneak candy from my work candy jar.  Okay, so I REALLY DO sneak candy from my candy jar at work!  Hahaha!  I have to keep working out to keep the pounds off.  I should put gross candy like Almond Joys in there so I won't snitch!

Sorry, no trips in the workings.  Maybe I'll plan one soon.  Two more inhabited continents to go!

Europe 2011-2012

So my sister and I went to London and Paris for the week between Christmas and New Year's. It was a blast! We shopped, we toured, we shopped and we snacked! Here are some pictures of our adventures!













Big Ben!

Marble Arch

Red phone booths were everywhere. I think they are very old.

We saw Wicked with Rachel Tucker as Elphaba--BEST VOICE EVER!! The CD was icky to listen to after hearing HER defy gravity!!

On the train to the London Temple

Notre Dame

The guy at the pizza place where we went for New Year's Eve handed us a giant pepper grinder for our photos. Is that some kind of tradition? The grinder really worked!

About 80% of the cereals in Paris had chocolate in them!

A walk along the Seine

Eiffel Tower with a red baret!