The Emerald City

Is no long green, it is white. I have not seen this much snow in Seattle since I lived here. It has been crazy downfall of snow since I got here, and we are supposed to get more. I took my Dad and Karen's new dog for a walk and got some pictures of the scenery, check them out....

This was from my dad's house on the front portch, he had shoveled but by the time he was done you couldn't really tell. It has been coming down faster than we could shovel it, it seems like.

The dark sky at about 4:00 in the afternoon, by this time it was dumping on Skippy and me.

The pup checkin out the snow, he was not sure about it at first, but then he started diggin his nose into it and flopping around in it.

You can see some of the Christmas lights but they are mostly covered by snow. And of course the snow is still falling.

One of the houses in their neighborhood decided to build a snow fort, and they did a pretty good job of it!


So let's get out of the snow for a little bit. These were taken last night at Karen's brother's house, Glen and his wife Julie. We decided to celebrate his birthday, since it is actually on Christmas day. Here are a few self pics and some of the girls throughout the night....

Glen's wife Julie, my stepmom Karen, Julie's daugther Britney, and her brother's girlfriend also Brittainy.

The great self-pic with Karen's mom Barb and me.

The o-so-photogenic step-broher Michael and me. He is gonna love me for this one.

And my dad and me, can't you tell?

So the forecast is snow, and more snow, in the next couple of days. I should be heading down to visit with my mom and friends tomorrow, but we will have to see what the weather has in store for us. If not, I may be staying up with my dad for an extra day or two until the roads clear up. The bad thing about snow in Washington is that it does not happen very often, so they don't plow roads a lot and it gets very icey because of the humidity. Not good for driving an hour and a half to get south to my mom's. But we are making some good times here at my dad's, I am baking a lot, no surprise there, and even got to have a nice sit in the hot tub this morning while it was still snowing a little. That's all the update I have for now, if things get any more interesting, as I am sure you thought this post was, I will be sure to let you know. Hope you all are staying safe wherever you are.

It's snowing.....

Not where you would expect it to though. I just talked to my best friend up in Seattle, and she said they have gotten a good four inches of snow today. I think that may be a record for them. Ok, not really, but that is surprising for up there because it hardly ever snows in Seattle.
The cool thing is that I will be up there in it tomorrow. The possibly not so cool thing is that with weather like that, flights are likely to be delayed, and the roads up there are not so ice friendly. So let's hope my rental car has good traction.
I haven't posted in a while, due to the lack of time with trying to get everything squared away before I am gone for 9 days.
I did finish my finals though for my first semester of the Master's program I am doing, and lets just say that I was very happy with my final grade for each class. Let's hope that I can continue the trend.
Chas and I have not been doing much performing the last month, mostly because of the holiday season, finals, and both of us being gone for Christmas. But, we did play a little show out at the Hogle Zoolights a couple of weeks ago. It was fun to do some Christmas songs for people, even though it was freezing cold outside and the heat lamps they had for us pretty much only kept our hair on the top of our heads warm. But, people did give us some tips, so that was a good sign that despite the chill in my voice and Chas' crippled hands, we still did alright. My cousin and her little boyfriend even came out and saw us, it was cute.
So I will be off tomorrow morning, granted the weather permits my plane to leave on time, and won't be back til after Christmas. You may not hear from me while I am gone, the parentals usually keep things pretty busy while I am there, so I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, safe travels, and wonderful times seeing family and friends.
Happy holidays everyone. :)

It's that time of year

It's time for the holidays! So you know what that means... Lots more eating, Christmas decorations and festivities. We'll start with the completion of the GF pumpkin pie, first time making it myself this year. No one else tried any over at Pastor Roy's house because of there being other pies that were not gluten free, but I would have to say (and Chas too) that for my first shot, it wasn't too bad. The crust was not as flaky as I would have liked it to be, but the inside was delicious.

Just a few Christmas decorations I put up in the living room this year. I don't have a ton of space so I just have to make do with what I have, but these little mini bulbs work nicely when you don't have a lot of space to work with.

And the lovely tree, I think I have done this one for the third time, so next year I might have to mix up the colors a bit. But here it is in B&W and then color.......love the blue though.

And the mantle with the candles, Mr. Snowman and some other fun decorations. Oh, and you can't forget the stockings on the fireplace, they just add the right touch of Christmas spirit.

And Ogden would not be complete for the holidays without the parade, fireworks and lighting ceremony of Christmas village. Chas and I stayed as long as we could, but Roosters was calling our name just before the fireworks. Plus, we wanted to try and beat the crowd since we knew it was going to be rockin' on 25th street. But here we are checking out the parade, and below he got a shot of a horse doing the moonwalk. Impressive.

Good times at the holiday festivities, and lucky for us it wasn't quite as cold this year as it was last year.

Gluten free holidays, music, and everything else

So this will be a little random, only because it has been a while since I have blogged.

First thing, does anyone who reads this know who Kurt Bestor is? As in Kurt Bestor Christmas? Well, for the last couple of years, Mr. Bestor has been going around Utah to find the "Best of Christmas"....one person to sing a song specifically for his annual Christmas Special that is composed by him, for them. Well, LeeAnn, a very close co-worker of mine, nudged me to try out for this "Best of Bestor" because he was holding auditions in Ogden a few weeks ago. Well, I didn't get picked as the best singer in Utah, but it was fun to say that I tried out nonetheless. And, I got to sing my heart out in front of the olny judge, Kurt Bestor himself. KSL will be announcing who the winner is on TV today, and that one person will get to sing the special composed song at Kurt's Christmas concerts this year, as well as a trip out to LA to professionally record the song. Lucky.

Speaking of music, here is an update on the recording of our CD (Chas and me). Due to the fact that I have been working away on papers, reading, and tests for my Master's during this first semester back, we have not had much time for recording for our CD that we really hope to have completed by the first part of the year (we are thinking January\February). Since the semester is just about finished, we are going to be taking a lot of time in December to really pump out what we can, so that Chas can get it mastered, and then all we have left is to figure out exactly how we are going to come up with the money to be able to make the CD's. So, that is definitely something to pray for, though we know if it is something we are meant to do, God will provide the funds to be able to complete this project.

Ok, moving on to other things.

This Thanksgiving, I have decided that I am going to try making my own gluten free dessert.

A gluten free pumpkin pie. Chas and I got invited to go to Pastor Roy's house for dinner, so I will be taking that, along with some deviled eggs, as two of the hopefully many other things that I WILL be able to eat this Thanksgiving. No stuffing or gravy, but most other things, like mashed potatoes, plain turkey, and cranberry sauce are definitely edible. Thank goodness.
Thanks to the blog that I visit regularly, I have an abundance of recipes and pointers for gluten free cooking. Shauna is her name, and ironically she is from Seattle. She blogs about twice a week, and sometimes she posts delicious looking gluten free foods that I have actually tried making a couple of time. Delicious. That's all I can say. You can't even tell that it is GF.

That's all I have for now, but I also wanted to wish all of you a great and happy Thanksgiving. You should blog and tell us all what YOU are doing for the holidays this year.

Raindrops keep fallin on my head

But they definitely did not keep us from having fun in Seattle this last weekend. I went up to surprise my mom for her 50th birthday, and she had no idea that I was going to be there. I sent out invitations to invite about 30 of her friends to dinner and made reservations at her favorite Tacoma waterfront restaurant called CI Shenanigan's, with her only thinking that my brother and her husband were taking her out to dinner with just a few friends. When she arrived, I waited until the perfect moment to catch her off guard, and I sure did by asking her if she wanting a drink while I pretended to be a waitress. It took her about 5 seconds to realize it was me, and she proceeded to to attack me with a big bear hug and streaming tears of joy. It was a great night, an awesome weekend, and even though it poured as usual, we even had a little fun outside. Here are some highlights of the weekend....

First of all, I have to show you the view I had outside my airplane window flying into Sea\Tac airport. It was phenomenal. You could see 3 of the mountains along the fault line, and then Mount Rainier up close and personal. I think it is the best shot of it I have ever gotten.

Here is Mt. Hood, Adams, and St. Helens. Spectacular view if I might say so.

And a fantastic view of the glaciers on Mount Rainier.

I laid low at my best friend Amy's house the day and morning before my mom's birthday surprise. I was praying I wouldn't run into my mom on accident, they only live about 10 blocks away from each other. But all went well. Here we are in the car heading out to Tacoma to get ready for the big surprise.

My mom and me just after I surprised her. She was still a little teary, so happy that I was able to make it. She deemed it "the best birthday ever".

We spent the next couple of days hanging out with my mom, Amy and John, my brother, and friends. There is a delicious sushi place near my mom's house called Sushi Town, so we decided to grab a bite to eat before heading out to the show my brother got set up for Chas and me while we were there. It was at a small little Irish Pub in Tacoma called Doyle's.

Chas and me performing at Doyl'es. It was a pretty small place, but my brother is awesome and had it packed full with friends, and even my mom and her husband Jeff got to come join us. It was a great little reunion of old friends from high school days.

Notice the change in guitars. About half way through our set, Chas broke a string, and just happened to not bring any extras with him. Lucky for us, Miong (the guy who played after us) let Chas borrow what he called his "hippie" guitar. Chas did a few instrumentals and jammed out, the crowed really liked this. They kept asking him to play more, but he only has made two instrumentals so far. Nice to know they enjoyed his playing though.

Sunday we spend the afternoon in Seattle, it was Chas' first time, so of course I had to take him to all the tourist spots. We played around with music, checked out a Sci-Fi museum, and got to see a lot of really cool old guitars at the Experience Music Project. Too bad for us though, we couldn't take pictures while inside.

Chas and his picture of proof that he has now seen the Seattle Space Needle. It was a little gloomy on Sunday so the lighting wasn't that great, but you get the idea.


Downtown Seattle just about to finish off the afternoon tour with a tasty bite at the traditional PF Chang's downtown. I go here with my dad at least once while I am in Seattle every time I go for a visit up there. Surprisingly enough, it was Chas' first time ever eating at the PF lovehouse, so of course it was the perfect ending to an already adventurous day.

So that was pretty much our trip, we got home at about 12:05am on Monday morning, thus the delay in posting with trying to catch up and get some decent sleep the last couple of nights. But, we had a fabulous time, and hopefully Chas will be taking more trips up to visit the fam with me in the future :)

I got tagged

And I am pretty sure that all of the people I could tag also have been tagged already, so we will see how this goes :)

Thanks to Melissa for making me feel special in the tagging of the blog world

The Rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 random and / or weird facts about yourself.

3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

The Random\Weird Facts:

1. My CD player in my car has officially retired. I am pretty sure this means I am going to get an Ipod adaptor instead of replacing the whole stereo.

2. I have had my Honda for almost 7 years now, and it has 207,789 miles on it. Gotta love the cars that run forever.

3. I don't wear bathing suits. Don't. I can't remember the last time I wore one. Four summers ago, maybe.

4. Some people smack their food when they eat it, some people don't. I don't. You shouldn't either. For some reason that sound makes me cringe. Especially when people lick their fingers.

5. I always always always get ready the same way every morning; make-up in my pajamas, iron clothes, hair, put on clothes for the day, finish hair, shoes.

6. I have officially lived in Utah longer than I lived in Washington; Washington 12 years, Utah 14.

7. Someday I will learn how to Salsa.

Tags: Jodi (Maybe this will inspire you to actually make a blog :), Meredith, Ryan, Jeremy, Josh....I think that's all I got who have not been tagged yet.

A clue...for my secret reader

It involves a show somewhere by The Emerald City, and a surprise 50th birthday party.

There, that's all I'm telling you.

Have a great weekend :)

Duck....Duck.....Goose!

Here are just a few more reasons why I love fall!! The leaves are now starting to turn even more awesome colors of yellow, orange and red, so Chas and I decided to take a little trip to a nearby pond to catch some of the fall hues and feed the ducks.

Here we are getting reading to feed the little guys, and some big ones, with our loaf of bread. We figured it was a good way to use something that we can't eat anyway, and white bread is cheap!

Chas taking his turn with the geese that kept following us around. These guys were especially stalk-like, one of them even got a little leg shot out of me! Good for me though that they don't have teeth.

And then we decided to try our luck with hand feeding the geese. At first Chas was a little scared, we really weren't sure how snappy they were going to be, but after a few bites, we realized they are pretty much harmless, and hungry!!

This was the guy that"goosed" me, right on my thigh, I just couldn't get the bread out of the bag fast enough for him!

And then, I decided to try to get up close and personal with the swan. He made these little hissing noises, so I wasn't sure if he was going to try and snap at me or was just being shy and scared. He got right up to my fingers and I dropped the bread just in time for him to catch it. He wasn't so bad afterall, his hiss was bigger than his bite apparently, heh.

More of the stalker goose that kept coming back for more. This was a good posing shot for him.

Chas started out far away from these guys but they kept taking their chances with getting closer and closer, they wanted that bread! You'd think they had never been fed before.

Just about to get another piece of bread. They still had leftovers in the corners of their mouth!

And the swan again, posing for us as he came up out of the water.

So that was our Sunday, next week we will be, well, I can't tell you quite yet, most of you know, but if you don't, stay tuned, I will be sure to have pictures up of the festivities.

Go Green

This is a post to support my cousin Eric who just started his chemotherapy treatments for Mixed Cell Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The color of the ribbon for lymphoma awareness is green, so, here's to you!

Yes, even green toenail polish....

And lets not forget, green eyeshadow!

You have a lot of support Eric and we are definitely praying for you!

From this......to that

Last Tuesday I decided that I was going to get some colors of fall, there is this tree in Riverdale that I have seen for the last two years that I have been wanting to get a picture of. Problem was, by the time I got to it, the leaves had already fallen off. This year I caught it early though, and a good thing too.

This is a little plant by the red tree, and he was quite lovely looking with his green, yellow, and hints of orange, so I decided I would get a little photo of him as well.

And this is the beautiful red tree, the sun shining through to the vivid colors of the leaves, just before the sun went down.

And then, the gloom......

The clouds coming over the mountains reminded me of when I was in the Smokies this summer, only this day it was about 30 degrees colder. Brrrrr.


And then it hit. There seems to always be a surprise snow storm in October here in Utah, maybe this is a sign of the winter to come.......
Many are hoping not, I'm sure.

On the inside

Chas and I went to this exhibit last weekend, http://theleonardo.org/bodyworlds/the-exhibit/ ,

and it was amazing.

Had I been able to take a camera in and get snapshots of the incredible work that has been done on these bodies, I totally would have. But, I am left with just memories of the millions of nerves, arteries and internal body parts that have been put on display as part of this amazing science exhibit of the human body.

I think a couple of the most intriguing things that I saw were

1. The amount of time that it must have taken to seperate all the different internal parts of the body, and yet thinking about how everything works together so intricately. God sure knows how to build things.

2. Part of the exhibit showed the different stages of a fetus, and at even just 12 weeks, you can see eyes, a head, and all 10 fingers. It is beyond me how after seeing this amazing creation, someone would think that a fetus is not "real", and they could just throw that life away.

There were so many different exhibits, but the full detailed bodies were the most amazing, being able to see through the skin and into the world of cells, nerves, and what the art of plastination brings out. I don't know where the Body Worlds Exhibit will be traveling to next, but if it is ever in your area, I highly recommend you go experience it.

When crusing the blog world

Sometimes you run into people you know, or used to know anyway.

Some of you might remember this girl..

http://jacquelynnphotography.blogspot.com/2008/09/amy-thomas.html

Steve Marrigan's old fling, Amy got married this last weekend. Kelli and I saw their announcement in the paper last weekend, but then I saw this on J. Lynn's photography blog today. Makes me fee like I know famous people sometimes when I see them on the Net. hee hee, kind of.

My cousin

This is my cousin Eric. http://ericjohnston85.blogspot.com/

It is Karly and Wiley's half brother

(my twin cousins that I used to live with when I first moved to Utah)

Technically my half cousin. Either way, he is family.Read his story, and please, pray for him.

Wedding season

I don't think I have ever posted a blog this fast before. It's a record for me, for sure.


But seriously, who wouldn't fall in love at a place like this.....

Josh Allan had his wedding last night at La Caille. Yeah. It is sooo beautiful. Kaytee posted some beautimus pictures of this place not long ago, and I am so glad that I got to finally see the place for myself. We got there right at sundown, and the mountains as a backdrop were absolutely gorgeous.

Such a quaint little place, it looks like a little cottage as you are pulling up.

The driveway down right at dusk. The little cobblestone road is so cool. This place is tucked away so its like you are in a totalle different world while you are there.

Chas and I spent most of the night hanging out with this lovely couple. The reception was inside this greenhouse looking room, very huge plants and very beautiful. Most of the food they had was finger-type foods, shrimp on skewers, petite cookies, most of which I could not have. But, I could have creme-broule (sp?). And it was sooooo delicious.

The front of La Caille at night, the lights gave it a great luminous feeling, especially right behind Chas' head, he he.

There were so many flowers and plants and beautiful things right in the front, it was so hard not to take a dozen pictures of it all.

The gardens just before sundown, I love the little bridge and the hanging flower baskets. And the grass looks so green, it was so peaceful up there.

They have a nice little fire pit just outside the room where the reception was, so we got warm for a while before we left to go get some dinner (since most of what they had we couldn't eat :) I wasn't able to get any pictures of the bride and groom, but just know that they looked stunning, especially Leah in her dress, it was amazing, SO much bunched up fabric on the skirt but super amazing looking on her. Congratulations to Josh and Leah!