Lottery=Muffins

Winning the Lottery is like eating a nice batch of assorted muffins from Costco. Before you even rip off the shrink-wrap, your mind is already processing the thousands of variations which to eat the muffins. Blueberry, Poppy seed, then the Double Chocolate Chip. No…wait….Blueberry, Double Chocolate Chip, then the gross banana nut with pecans on them, followed by a great poppy seed to make up for the nasty one previous… no…Cut up 4 different muffins into quarters, then take a quarter from each, mash it together and eat it like an apple! Yeah, that's it! An apple shaped-mashed muffin of ecstasy!!! And that’s kind of what the lottery is like.

I Love the Masters!!

I had Blake yesterday, and he is still getting over his Shingles, so it was mostly an "inside day". His medicine makes him rather drowsy, so he spent a lot of the afternoon in and out of consciousness. The one good thing is that it was the first round of the Masters. I look forward to this weekend every year! The first round this year did not disappoint either! How about Freddie Couples?? amazing. I would love for He, Tom Watson, and Tiger to be in the final pairing on Sunday. Fred and Tiger played a couple practice rounds together and are friends, and Tom was fairly critical of Tiger over the past several months, so it would be interesting to see them go head to head down the last nine.... I'm working the rest of the weekend, so my DVR is going to have a lot of golf on it!

remember when: topic continued...

I think, had we been just a little more business minded back in high school, we could have made a killing on creating and distributing "daydreaming mix cds". maybe titled "NOW that's what I call Daydreaming: soft jams you can really get your nap on to!" Missed an opportunity there. There seem to be certain artists that just exude "trips down memory lane" type songs. Several have been mentioned. Lifehouse is a huge one- so many great songs on what was it, their 2nd album?! When I replay my own personal video yearbook in my mind, Lifehouse is on the soundtrack several times.
I can't possibly talk about music-related memories without mentioning the King of Pop! I don't know how many people we had in Brad's car (the Nissan was it?), but it was packed, we put on "Black and White" and turned it up as high as it would go-all the windows rolled down. I'm sure we were heading somewhere, but for some reason my memory just has us circling the high school parking lot for the duration of the song. Then there's the Soundtrack for O Brother Where Art Thou- doing the El Guapo dance, while "Man of Constant Sorrow" filled the Senior Hallway....(we were so cool)
and then there's sweet sweet Journey. I can not for the life of me name another song that was on the Senior Prom Theme ballot. Was there ever any doubt Faithfully would be the one? Does anyone remember after it was announced, how excited Knowland was? I walked into the Seminary building and he was telling a group of Sophomores how that was his Prom Theme Song! You could see the joy on his face as he thought back... Hows that for a two-fer? Journey brings back memories of other people's memories! crazy good
Finally, how great was Dave's Bed?? It was the perfect canvas for our daydreaming scenery. Many of my fondest high school memories took place on that bed. That statement must sound very strange to outsiders, but that's just because you haven't had the blessed occasion to rest your proverbial laurels on that mattress and just veg out on some spectacular tunes! It was Euphoric.
Now if you excuse me, I'm going to pull out my yearbooks and put on some James Taylor~

Remember When...

So does anyone else have those moments when, you're driving in the car, or alone by yourself somewhere and something reminds you of a moment in your past? It happens to me all the time. Music especially brings flashbacks. For instance, tonight I was driving up to Scottsdale for a basketball game, and turned the AM sports radio show I was listening to, to FM to get a little energy for the game. Halo by Beyonce was on (one of my favorites, but that's another story). After Halo, I switched the station and Creed's "Higher" came on. I just started laughing out loud because I think of two things when I hear Creed. First is Scott Hall, he loved Creed (and may still, I haven't spoken to him in awhile). Second is a state soccer game against Mountain View. We had some student assistant coach from BYU, and on the bus ride up, he was trying to get us pumped up, so he gathered the Varsity in the back of the bus, pulled out a portable boom box, and said "Guys, for today's game, I want you all to go Higher" and he pressed play. But he had the wrong track on and "with arms wide open" came on instead. As I drove up to Scottsdale, I was laughing out loud at the pure spectacle of this guy trying to pump up a bunch of high school kids, and failing miserably as he turned on a slower song about nostalgia and fatherly responsibilities....HaHa! Priceless. We lost to Mtn. View, I wonder if it's because we didn't "go higher"? I think the only person pumped up by his speech was Scott! :) Such good times.

I mean, of all the songs people use for pregame music, I don't think Creed is ever on the play list. Period. Ahh, so funny....

Blake is incredible

Blake will be 21 months next week!?!? It's crazy that 2 years is fast approaching. I took him to the zoo last week. I wasn't sure how he'd like it. Dalisa had taken him a few months ago, and he wasn't too into it. But this time, he was all about it! He was mostly into the squirrels and birds eating zoo snacks that had fallen by the wayside, even more so than the exotic animals behind the various fences. But the pure joy in his face melted my heart!

He loves to come grab my hand and show me things. The other day, he was playing with his basketball hoop, and he came and grabbed my hand while I was sitting on the couch (3 feet away from the basketball hoop), and led me over to where he was dunking the ball, just so I could get a better view of his accomplishment :)

But I digress, back to the zoo (I jump at any chance I get to speak of his athletic prowess :) ... Blake loves Ducks. He and Dalisa sometimes go to feed the ducks by her house...we didn't have bread, but I had several ritz crackers. I gave Blake one to eat, and when he saw some other kids feeding the ducks, he threw in the remainder of his cracker, which brought more ducks over.

I gave him another cracker, which he took a bite of, and then proceeded again to throw the remainder in the water. He was very happy to share his crackers with the ducks.

After the Zoo, we decided to go up to Desert Ridge (Another JW Marriott Resort in the Valley). They have a sweet lazy river, and also a Nickelodeon kids program. Spongebob and Dora make appearances in the lobby each afternoon. We had an in, since my friend's girlfriend works in the Nick Kids program. So we went and swam for a little while (Blake looks total "surfer chic" but isn't really into the swimming thing yet. We're working on it though).

We went around the lazy river once, stopping for a brief time to watch the Nick Crew put pie in some guests' faces. I took Blake out of the tube, and tried to get him to swim a little bit. He wasn't having any of it. So I set him on the step of the pool, water going up to his waist. He took a few steps forward, stepped off the step and dunked himself in the water. He did not like this experience at all. I took him back around to our chairs, and after a few minutes of recovery asked if he wanted to go in again.

He didn't answer, but the look on his face gave a sort of "do i look like I want to go in the water?? If I want to get wet again, I'll get in myself, but until then, I'm good right here..."

We went inside to see Spongebob and Dora...I had hyped it up all day by telling Blake he was going to see Spongebob, etc.... he was excited!...until he actually saw Spongebob that is...then he got really scared.

That was as close as he would get, and he wouldn't let me leave his side at all. Hopefully I didn't traumatize him for life...I may never get him to watch Nick Kids, or wash the dishes for that matter.

You could see his little mind at work though. He kept a safe distance away, but always had an eye on the characters... I'd love to know what he's thinking in this photo. It could be something like "Get those gigantic cartoon characters away from me!" or it could be "did I turn off the iron?" both are valid reasons to worry I guess :)

Survey Says: AWESOME!!!

So the "Kneaders French Toast Knockoff Project" went very well in my opinion. I wish I would have taken a picture of my rendition, so you all could compare to the picture I stole from the web. I have some left overs, and I'm tempted to "plate up" a little presentation, but then I'd have to eat it, and though there are several differences between my french toast and the Kneaders original, one thing that remains similar is how full I feel after eating way more than I should have. It reminded me of the morning Justin, Brad, and I had breakfast at the Orem store. I can't remember exactly, but if memory serves, we each ended up eating 6 or 7 portions...wait..what's that? You mean, we're not in high school anymore? we don't have raging Metabolisms that would allow us to devour a Buick, if enough barbecue sauce was provided? Oh...ok then. Perhaps it was only 2 portions consumed by each of us, with someone eating half of a third... Yeah, that sounds more accurate.
Bottom Line is, this is a really good french toast recipe. So here it is-please enjoy!

From my extensive Food Network watching, I've learned that when doing French Toast, choosing the right bread is critical. The experts like going with a Challa or Brioche bread. I picked up some Challa from Arizona Bread Company yesterday before work.

I sliced it on a bit of a slant to get slices that had a lot more bread, and a little less crust.

Slice the bread, set it aside.

Mix together:
8 eggs
3 cups milk
1T brown sugar
1T vanilla
3tsp salt
2T cinnamon

Take a glass 9x14 baking dish and butter down the bottom and sides.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Thoroughly soak the bread in the egg mixture (the recipe I went off said to lay the bread in the dish, pour the mixture over the bread, and then refrigerate for an hour to overnight, but I soaked each piece individually for about 3-5 minutes and then set it in the dish).

lay the bread in the glass baking dish
sprinkle each piece with a little cinnamon
cut 2T of butter into tiny cubes and dot over top.

bake for 45-50 minutes.

Syrup:
1c brown sugar
1c heavy cream
1c light karo syrup

heat on stove, stirring until sugar is dissolved and it's warmed through.

we put some cool whip, a fruit compote of fresh strawberries and bananas, and the syrup on top of the french toast and it was Divine.

Eat Your Heart Out Bobby Flay!

Kneaders All You Can Eat French Toast

On my recent return to Zion, I had the wonderful opportunity to partake in the blissfully sublime "Chunky Cinnamon French Toast." Since that moment of eye-opening euphoria, I have had many an occasion to ponder the delicate combination of cinnamon, spice, and everything nice. The memories/drooling culminated the other night as I was watching an ultimate french toast Throw Down with Bobby Flay. And so...being that it's Easter/General Conference Weekend, and I was fortunate to get it off, I'm going to make some. I got the recipe online...I have to make a few adjustments, being that I will be without "1 loaf Kneaders Cinnamon Bread" but all in all, I'm very excited about it!