I'm BACK!

I know, I know, I know. It's been way too long and I'm probably a little rusty at this whole blogging thing...but here goes nothing!

Ok, so where to start... I'm loving life in AZ! I have a good job, a great ward, and even better friends who are always up for a fun adventure! Here are the highlights from the past month...

Ironically the first pics I've got for ya are from my trip to St. Louis, MO to visit one of my favorite people ever!! Shilo Duke and her cute family.

We went and saw the St. Louis Arch

Me and Shi in front of the Arch

Dylan and I are about to be blown away! What a cute, happy kid!

You have to ride in the "glowing toilet" pod to get to the top...

Me and the Duke's riding to the top

Me and Shi at the top

View of Busch Stadium from the top of the Arch.

View of the city from the Arch

Missouri was sooo green! I loved it!
On our way home we stopped by the St. Louis, MO Temple to snap some quick pics

I love the temple thiiiiiiiiis much!

Dylan and I were back seat buddies. He and I came up with this set up for hands free feeding.
Success!

So that was my fabulous weekend visit to St. Louis. I had a blast napping every time Dylan did, hanging out and chatting with Shilo, being in cahoots with Autrey and frozen custard ("I want the biddie size" haha), and just enjoying time off work and out of the desert! Thanks for having me out to visit Duke Family! Can't come wait to come see you in Texas too! :)

The next big, exciting adventure from the past month was hiking The Jug with Trace and Co. I think the pictures explain it all:

I have no idea where we were at because I slept all the way there...but that is Roosevelt Lake in the background there.

As we were hiking down we got a little sneak peak of what we were in for
And the adventure begins!
We had to wade and swim through pools in the river and climb over the rocks...

Our little group : )The first of many many spills I took. Thanks for catching me Trace!
There are a few of these natural water slides on the way that were so fun! Definitely better than the water park!

Here I go! Woo Hoo!There I went! Haha!
This was my favorite place that we stopped and played in for a little bit. We went down the water slide on the right and jumped off the rocks on the left. So fun!!

Apparently I was not moving fast enough for Trace!
Woo Hoo!
At the end we had to repel down into a pool and swim our way out of The Jug!
We repelled down the waterfall. This is what it was supposed to look like...
I didn't exactly look like that...I got stuck in the waterfall. Oops!
It was my first time repelling and after Trace gave me some top notch instruction I was ready to give it a go!
Again, SOOOOO MUCH FUN! Thanks again Trace for taking all of us!!

And Finally...The Lady Antebellum and Tim McGraw Concert!
(I forgot my camera in Utah after my little bro's graduation...gotta love camera phones!)

Me and Amanda sportin' our cowboy hats!

This girl is my favorite concert girl down here in AZ!
(Shi and Trace...Nothin' will EVER beat Rascal Flatts!)

Laura and I

Laura, Amanda, and I just before Tim McGraw came on...Soooo Excited!!
The rest of our group ready to go!
Tim McGraw.
The only reason you will ever need to like country music!

OK, so that's been the past month (minus my little bro's graduation...those pics are still on my camera that is stuck in Utah...) of fun adventures! I'll try and do better keeping up with the blogging and story telling. : )

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

That's right...I'm coming back. Stay tuned...

Diamondbacks Game

This was my weekend.
Friday:
9:00am: Avoid getting hit on by the marketing guy at work.
10:25am: Show up at work with my flip flops on.
10:35am: Realize I showed up to work with my flip flops on. Hurry home and change my shoes.
10:45am: 4 patients all there waiting for me... 1 was 15min late, 1 was 1 hour early, 1 on time new eval, and 1 new eval squeezed into my schedule. Slap a smile on and go.
12:30pm: Pt leaves me his phone number to go see a movie Saturday. Awkward.
6:00pm: Leave early and hurry home to watch 5 month old Aiden.
8:00pm: Aiden's bedtime. Aiden is awake.
9:00pm: Aiden is still awake. The crying begins...
9:15pm: Aiden...yep still awake...still crying.
9:30pm: yep...still crying
9:45pm: Finally work some magic and Aiden falls asleep.
10:15pm: Aiden goes home.
10:50pm: Late night blizzard run with Crystal.

Saturday:
9:30am: Wake up, eat breakfast
9:45am: practice flute pieces for Church
10:30am: work on lesson for Enrichment workshop
1:00pm: Enrichment. Lesson went surprisingly well.
2:30pm: Attempted to eat a banana through a nylon stocking.
3:30pm: In-n-out run with Crystal
5:00pm: Leave for Diamondbacks game with Crystal and Amanda
5:45pm: Get in minor car accident downtown Phoenix.
5:55pm: Still waiting for police to come...
6:05pm: Bicycle cop shows up
6:20pm: Crystal and I walk to the baseball game.
6:30pm: While buying my ticket...Crystal acquires 3 free tickets.
6:32pm: Make a mental note to bring Crystal to every game...
6:35pm: Diamondbacks down 0-9. Yikes
9:00pm: Head over to Whitney's to borrow a power drill
9:30pm: Head over to clinic to finish charting...until 1:10am! Ugh!!

Sunday:
9:45am: Wake up. Eat Breakfast
10:00am: Prepare lesson for Relief Society
1:00pm: Church. Lesson went really well
4:00pm: Second Sunday Social. Ate 10 cookies.
5:00pm: CES Fireside. Good Stuff.
7:50pm: Watch the US Open Women's Final.

And here are some pics from the game...

Traditional "Alison eating a hotdog at a baseball game" pictureAll and all, what can I say? Good weekend :)

Just to Redeem Myself

I made Eggplant Parmesan for dinner tonight... Looks a little better than my cookies did don't ya think? :)

I sauteed up some zucchini and yellow squash too...and kinda forgot about it. That's why its a little crispy around the edges, but it was still quite tasty.

And this is from a couple of weeks ago...Not the best pic of my face..but check out those fruit kabobs!
(My shirt, purse, and jewelery from Mexico are pretty fabulous too I think. ;) )

So there is proof that I don't always botch up my kitchen adventures!

Sometimes you got it. And sometimes you don't.

Tonight, I didn't.
I like to consider myself a pretty good cook and can make a mean brownie. But my baking adventure tonight was just that, an adventure. I decided to make cookies for one of the girls I visit teach for her birthday tomorrow. So after I got home from playing volleyball around 11:30pm I started to whip up a batch of cookies.
Then the troubles began.

First. I realized as I was mixing everything together that I didn't have any salt. Nor did my roommates. And we aren't good enough friends with the neighbors yet to wake them up at 11:45pm for a tsp of salt. So off to the store I went. 11:40, Fry's is closed so its off to Safeway. Get my salt. Get home and realize I'm just over 1 cup short of oatmeal to add to the cookie dough. Oh well, Safeway is closed by now. Let's hope it isn't a big deal...

Second. The baking stone. I bought a baking stone a couple of weeks ago and have been really excited to bake cookies on it. My friend Sarah l0ves her baking stone so I wanted to give one a try. Well, the baking stone and I got into a little bit of an argument over the first round of cookies and this was all that was left of the cookies by the end:
Sarah...what on earth did I do wrong??

Third. After the unfortunate event with the baking stone, I go back to my good ol' trusty baking sheet and pop the second round of cookies in the oven. Set the timer for the lower time. Go read my book while the cookies are baking. Timer goes off. Come back into the kitchen to take the cookies out of the oven and THIS is what I come back to:
Burnt cookies. I can't believe it! It's about 12:45am by this time and I'm just ready to go to bed. I quickly take these bad boys off the baking sheet and throw in one more round of cookies and set the timer for one minute less than I did the time before. What more could go wrong, right?

WRONG! THIS is what I come back to:
THIS time, we have burnt edges, uncooked middles, and not one cookie that stayed together. Third time's a charm? I think not. So, I realized I had lost the battle tonight, surrendered, and put the rest of the cookie dough in the fridge for a better day.
The best part about messing up cookies all night though, was eating a lot of my mess-ups, because no matter how ugly they looked on the outside, they still tasted great to my insides. :)

But like I said before...Sometimes you got it. And sometimes you don't.

Building Project!

For those of you who know me...(ahem, Shilo, Traci, Lu, Sarah, Becky...) you know I like to build things. Entertainment centers, beds, desks, bookshelves...you name it, I like to build it/put it together. Well guess what? I bought a 5-piece dining set today and got to put it together! Woo Hoo!

Before:

And After:

Now this was no ordinary, run of the mill Walmart Wonder that had dummy proof step-by-step directions. It was on sale at Fry's (Fred Meyer, Smith's Marketplace equivalent) and had only 1 picture to put the legs on the table, and only 4 pictures to assemble the chairs. Not words, just pictures. I would consider it a level or two above the average Walmart Wonder. I even had to screw in some of my own holes! Rock on!
So, with my hex key and screwdriver in hand, Taylor Swift and Zac Brown Band playin' in my CD player, I went to work. Saturday nights don't get much better than that. Haha : ) My roommate Nicole offered to help too, so I had her put the legs on the table and assemble a chair. I'm still learning to share when it comes to the good stuff :)
So now we have a table and chairs for the dining room, a chair and footstool (sorry Grandma, ottoman) in the living room, and my little yellow and blue tv stacked on top of my KitchenAid box with my DVD player on the floor to the side. We're gettin' there...slowly but surely we're gettin' there. :)