Loving the holidays

I promise we haven't fallen off the face of the earth.. I never was good at this blogging thing. However, rest assured that posts are coming.. family parties, trips to Florida, Christmas.. all sorts of happiness. Until then, I am busy enjoying the last week of my break and treasuring every moment I get with the best husband ever! We have an unhealthy obsession with each other and have been spending every single spare minute together.. putting Christmas up, taking Christmas down, playing games, cuddling, playing with friends, writing messages in the snow, and not getting enough sleep. I love being married! (And I'll make actual blog posts soon!) Happy Holidays :)

Not cool

Bleh.. I was looking on our online bank statement today (thank goodness for that!) and found someone had spent nearly $500 from Nick's card. All of it was in California, for all sorts of random things. I freaked out and ran to the bank, where they assured me that we would get all the money back, and they'd cancel his card, order a new one.. blah blah blah.

I just have to wait until tomorrow, because the big chunks of what they spent haven't gone through yet.. they're pending. So now I'm patiently waiting for someone to spend my money so that I can report it. Yuck!!

(Poor Nick just can't get a break.. fraud, fraud and more fraud...)

PS! Not to worry.. we're still happy and loving life :D Just inconvenienced by the stupidity of others.

Life in Lists

I believe I think and live in lists.

I'm excited for two Thanksgivings, two days of work, two big families to see and love, and a whole weekend of fun.

(I'm most excited for homemade mashed potatoes... mmm...)

Disney World is calling to me. 13 days.

I love the smell of the heater.

Nick told his friend at work he wouldn't "let" me decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving.. so I put up our nativity set. Heh heh...

I get to wear jeans to work tomorrow.

I'm in a wait-and-see stage of my job.

I'm jealous of my husband when he sits down to do homework. I need to go back and finish school.

Today I turned off my radio on the drive home to work and listened to silence. It was refreshing.

Time to go get stuff done!

Things I Love...

...About Work...

That my brothers go to the school I work at.

For instance: Mom calls me while I'm grading papers:

Mom: Can you go over to the Elementary School? Nicholas needs you.

Me: Sure. What's up?

Mom: He tied his shoes together.

Me: Ummmm...

Mom: No one over there can get them untied. Can you go try?

So I go over there. These aren't shoes with laces. They have little buttons you push down and slide them up the two strings. Hopefully that makes sense. Regardless. I laughed for the rest of my life. Nicholas says he just got bored in class.

And yes, I did manage to get his shoe"laces" untangled. Victory.

My 8th grade students.
-Laughing with them.
-Seeing them get really into something.
-Me getting really into what they're doing.
-The sucking up.
-The trying to be sneaky around Mrs. Thurman and fail.
-Being called "Mrs. Thurman".. and "teacher" for the more generically-inclined students.
-Reading the things they write.

Every day I give my kids a writing prompt and they have ten minutes to write about it in their journals. Then they come up and check it off with me. Today they were instructed to write a love letter to something they love (I stole this idea from Julie.. thank you Julie!).

Some of them were pretty fun.. oxygen, chocolate.. one kid actually wrote it to a girl at school.. haha.. cute! He was very embarrassed. It was adorable.

One student in particular.. I should have guessed.. wrote it to himself. Praised his glowing eyes and his magical voice and his silky smooth brown skin. I think I laughed, again, forever.

Co-workers.
The other day we were cleaning out the "nurse's office" that belongs to our non-existant nursing staff and is really only used to house tampons and such. It other houses other miscellanious items. We decided to investiage.

While cleaning, I happened upon a creepy plastic hand. Apparently used for massaging. Or scaring people. Naturally, I took it back to my desk, pulled out my aqua sharpie (also found in the back office), and painted it's nails. Let the fun begin.

The hand can now be found sporatically throughout the office, in people's purses, or waiting on your desk for you, holding mysterious items.

Today we also found and stole such treasures as a bobbly-head pen with a suction cup on the bottom.. who doesn't need one of those?! And a pen/highlighter/post-it note carrier. Some people are geniuses.

I love my job.

Cross Country

See? I'm already getting better at this.. one small blog entry at a time...

This has been another thing that occupies some of my time.. I get to help coach Cross Country this year, and I love my team :) They are so fun and energetic! They're also really young.. most of them are freshmen. Which is nice, because by the time they're juniors and seniors they'll be kicking butt. They're doing really well for their ages, though, and we have a lot of fun!

This is the team after a 3 hour bus ride to Roosevelt, a tough 5K, and popsicles.. needless to say, it was a fun ride back ;)

Catching Up

Blogging has that same downfall that writing in your journal does.. the less you do it, the more catching up you have to do, and the less motivated you are to cram that all in. I'm going to do it in bits and pieces instead.. when I get around to it :) So some of the stuff will be immensely outdated, but still fun!

This last weekend was nice.. three-day weekends are heaven-sent. It's so nice to have a nice relaxing Sunday and know you don't have to get up early the next morning. We definitely took advantage of having the day off. Lisa and I talked Nick into seeing a chick flick with us (The Time Traveller's Wife), so I promised him we'd be manly for the rest of the day, after we ran errands. We proceeded to play zombie computer games, eat Cafe Rio pork nachos for dinner (nachos are manly, right?) and then watch 007 Goldeneye.. I think we definitely made up for the two hours of feminism!

Sunday was nice, though. Garn and Heidi's baby, Maya Joy, received her blessing, and Garn gave the most beautiful baby blessing I have ever heard. It was a very emotional day for us all.. Garn and Heidi are some of our very closest friends, and we are so lucky to have them. They are the epitome of happy, and we love any time we can spend with them!

[isn't she perfect looking??]

[Garn and Heidi opening presents]

We were also able to stick around long enough to see Garn's brother, and another friend, Shaun, get sworn into the Navy by his father. It was a really cool experience.. we love the Penrod family!

[Mama Penrod, Caitlyn, Shaun, Papa Penrod]

Moab, I want my husband back

My husband had to go to Moab for work this week.

I miss him.

Lots. [come back soon]

Jack Of All Trades

You've got your people who are absolutely PRO at something. Even Nick, who says he's not, is a complete whiz at all things electric. However, we both agree that though we're not "pro" at anything, we're "good" at a lot of things.

I love doing lots of different things. I love all things athletic. I love being crafty. I love cooking. I love being around people. I love taking pictures. I'm not REALLY into any of these, but I enjoy them a great deal.

I think my place of employment (a K-12 charter school called American Leadership Academy) has caught on. I started last year, hired for Public Relations and also as a secretary. This year I have four jobs:

1. Still PR. I put together a monthly newsletter, send out parent e-mails, get articles to the papers, etc. That is my dream job. I'm at every event I can get to, taking pictures. I love working with people, and figuring out how I can make them happier. Hopefully I graduate soon so that can be my "always" job :)

2. I'm still a secretary. Much less. At the end of each day, when I'm done with everything else, I spend a few hours at the front desk of the Administration Building, relieving Angie of her duties. It's a fun job, just because I get to know what's going on, but I don't think I could stay behind a desk all day.

3. Cross Country coach. I coach with another teacher, Shannon. I LOVE Cross Country :) I ran it all through high school and was really good. I'd like to stay I'm still in good shape, but.. no. Getting there, though (thanks Nick!). But they're super fun kids.. we're even doing a fundraising 5K this Saturday.. wish us luck!

4. 8th Grade English Teacher... whaaat?! I know, right? Definitely not certified as a teacher, but I guess I can teach my one period a day class under someone else's certification. Two classes (it's an A/B Day schedule), first period every day. They asked me last week, because I guess the department head, Mr. Jensen, has been looking for someone all summer and they haven't been able to find someone to fill it. So our director suggested he ask me. I'm SO excited, but as school draws closer (Aug. 17), I'm getting SO nervous too. Thankfully I have wonderful co-workers who are more than happy to help me out and give me ideas. I will definitely be posting more on my kids later.

Anyway.. that is my job(S) :) I love it, it always keeps me on my toes. It's a little overwhelming sometimes.. keeping track of everything, but it's really good experience and, let's not forget, will look pretty good on a resume!

With all that said.. come run our 5K this Saturday at ALA :) I'll hopefully post more about what's been going on with us later on.. if I ever get less busy! Until then.. wish me luck!

[sorry, that was a lot to read... but I don't think anyone really does, so I'm safe!]

Dear Disney World...

... we can't wait to see you in four months!

Sincerely,

Nick & Erica

My "to-don't" list

I love making lists. Too much, maybe.. I make one for everything. I have SO much to do, I thought I'd take a moment to reverse it. This is my "to-don't" list:

-don't forget to pack a lunch
-don't say mean things [in my head] to other drivers
-don't compare myself to others
-don't let my husband forget how much i love him
-don't waste time on the computer [heh...]
-don't demean myself
-don't forget it's okay to make mistakes
-don't use "lol", "thx" or "g2g".. ever
-don't shrug off the Spirit
-don't go a day without laughter
-don't take myself too seriously

Cake Wrecks

I've started to have a somewhat recent fetish with food blogs.. I really don't know what's come into me. Must be the fact that I actually have to cook things now.. huh!

Regardless, I stumbled upon this blog that cracks me up.. I only got a few pages back in it, but they've got some fun cakes. They focus on, like their name implies, cake wrecks, misspellings.. and cakes that just shouldn't exist. However there are also some pretty fun cakes, like Harry Potter and Transformers tributes. They're very clever (their captions are wonderful), and I'm a huge fan :)

Cake Wrecks: When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

Fourth of July Weekend

[Sorry folks, this is a little out of order, I know]

The fourth of July is definitely my favorite holiday! Even before last year, when Nick kissed me for the first time (not to mention his first kiss EVER) after we fell asleep watching a John Adams documentary.. I know, romantic, right? We spent all of last 4th together, from watching hot air balloons in Provo at 6 a.m. to watching Stadium of Fire fireworks up at the Y and then sitting and talking 'til 1 a.m. Anyway, we were able to do some fun things this time, too, and celebrate our first actual holiday as a married couple.. woo hoo!

Thursday, July 2

Nick happens to only work Monday through Thursday, ten hours a day, so our weekends start a little early. Jacob and Nicholas came on over and we all snacked on some pizza, visited with Nick's cousins and played video games.

Later in the evening, we headed to the SLC airport. My cousin Richard came home from his mission in England! Richard and I are two weeks apart, and all of us cousins on my dad's side have always been pretty close :) So it was fun to see him again!

Friday, July 3

Nick's parents bought us all tickets to go see the Utah Symphony up at Sundance. You get dropped off at the bottom of a huge hill and then take a nice.. or steep.. stroll up to the top. There's a gorgeous amphitheater up there and the performance was really fun. They played Star Wars, jazz, and various patriotic tunes.. it was a good time!

Friday, July 4

We actually spent the whole DAY part of the 4th running wires through conduit. If that's not a fun way to celebrate, I don't know what is! Nick always gets these really fun ideas of how he can make things better so that's what we generally spend our weekends doing :) Luckily he lets me tag along as his handy assistant!

Anyway, after that escapade, I took off to the kitchen to attempt some fun patriotic pastries. They LOOK fun, but much to my dismay, the crust was a little too thick, so they tasted kind of dry.. oh well! They made for good pictures.

After our long wiring project, we didn't have time to make it up to Kaysville to see my family, so we ended up eating dinner down here and then heading down to Springville to light off the "good stuff" with some friends much later in the evening. It was fun to just kick back and laugh with friends. Mostly just having time to spend together.. weekends are the best!

Surprise!

Yesterday was Nick's 23rd birthday, so naturally I threw him a surprise party! I started planning it a few weeks ago, by letting all the friends and family know. I really wanted to make it somethin special for him. Luckily, we all managed to keep it on the down-low and he was thoroughly surprised!

(and was apparently very pleased!)

The plan the whole time had been to pick up Nick from work at 5:30 in Draper, meander around a little.. blindfolded.. and then have him back at the house a little after six. I took him out to Rumbi's that afternoon for lunch, when he informed me that he'd be getting off at 4 instead! I tried to be excited with him, but inside I was thinking.. "well what do I do with him for two hours?!" Luckily I convinced him we couldn't go home, and we kind of wandered, went to Wendy's, etc. At about 5:30 I stuck a blindfold on him, much to his dismay, and we drove ALL over the place, finally arriving home. Luckily, he was clueless as to where we were, insisting his manly instincts told him we were heading north (and I encouraged those "manly instincts"). Needless to say, he was very surprised.

It was really fun to have all the family and friends there! There was food (I made four "party-sized" subs, which worked pretty well: turkey, ham, meatball and philly cheesesteak). Nick had been wanting to do a "luau" for a while, so I went and got a ton of hawaiin-style decorations, and Lisa and "Brenanny" went to town on the deck, it looked wonderful! We played with a pinata, blew out candles, opened presents, sat around and talked, and played games with friends. It was a really fun night, and Nick had a great time :) Happy birthday, sparky!

Here are some photos of the event:

Nick & Zekie (Zekie and Squeaks were quite a smash.. everyone at the party was smitten by their wit and charm)

Nick opening presents: he got a fun lantern and several gift cards.. we love those!

Nick blew out all twenty-three candles in one foul swoop.. good work!

Garn going to town on the pinata! All the kids got a turn, from youngest to oldest. Garn made sure to spin them around the number of their age. Everyone softened it up, and then Garn gave it a few hits so the kids could dash after the candy!

Hitched!

Well folks, we did it! On Thursday, June 11 at 10 a.m.-ish, Nick & I got married in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple for time and all eternity :) Happiest day EVER? Oh yes!

We got to spend the day with our wonderful family and friends at the luncheon, the reception, and all the in-between! It was such a crazy (and somewhat rainy) day, but everything turned out perfect.. and we were in our own little bliss-world, so we probably wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't.

Anyway, thanks to EVERYONE who helped out so much! Seriously, we have the best family and friends, and we're so happy we got to spend so much time around you all! It wouldn't have turned out half as great without everyone slaving away for us :) Thanks so much!

-Nick & Erica Thurman (yay!)



PS- Thanks to Katie for the random shots! We had TONS of people taking pictures, these are just a few of the ones we've seen so far. Kelly & Cody also took wonderful pictures, we'll make sure to share :)

Patience

ONE MORE WEEK!

We can do that, right? Hopefully!!

Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Salad

Doesn't the name just make your tastebuds burst? Mmm. I love this stuff, I think I could live off of it, I'm not gonna lie. I learned how to make it back in Young Women's, but lost the card recently (It'll turn up once I move everything...), so I recite it to you now from memory. Good memory, don't worry.. it tastes good!

What goes into the salad:
Romaine lettuce
Sweet pork
Black beans
Mexican rice
Corn
Tomatoes
Cheese
Tortilla strips
Creamy tomatillo dressing

... Really you can throw in anything you want. Sauteed onions are also tasty. Making everything is rather self explanatory. The only parts you need recipes for are the pork and the dressing.



Sweet Pork:
Get a huge pork roast (preferrably boneless) and stick it in the crock pot on high for 6-7 hours. Also pour in a cup of water and sprinkle generously with sugar. It's great because you can stick it in in the morning and leave it all day.
When it's done, take it out and shred it with two forks. It's so tender it'll just fall into chunks, so it's not hard to shred.
Put it into a big bowl and mix in ketchup, honey bbq sauce, garlic salt and sugar. I'd start with a cup of each (ketchup and bbq sauce), but then put more in a little at a time until it's good and moist. Add garlic salt to taste. Add about 2/3 of a cup of sugar.. or until it tastes sweet enough.

Creamy Tomatillo Dressing:
1 packet TRADITIONAL Hidden Valley Ranch mix (not BUTTERMILK)
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup salsa verde
handful of fresh cilantro
lime juice
Stick all the ingredients in a blender and let it go until it's a creamy sauce. It takes a little while, so be patient. You can take away/add things to taste here, also. You can also throw in jalepenos if you want, we're just not that into the spicy stuff.



We also tried something new this time. We took all the tortillas, put them in pie pans (one at a time), sprinkled them with cheese, and broiled them in the oven 'til they were a crispy golden brown and the cheese was melted. Then we put them in large bowls/plates, piled everything on, poured on the dressing, and crumbled tortilla chips on top.

Very tasty :) Sorry the directions are so sketchy.. I just play with the ingredients a little each time. Try it, though, it's pretty quick and REALLY good.

You're invited!

We're sending these out today & tomorrow (I never knew stuffing, sealing, stamping, labeling and sending envelops could be so much fun!), but I thought I'd give a sneak peak anyway.. sorry if this ruins it terribly for you :) I was just proud of my hard photoshop work!



(the big day is THREE weeks from today.. I wanna be married!)

Not Just Food

Okay, since we evidently don't post on here enough to justify it being JUST a food blog, I told Nick I'd make it about food AND us.. what could be better?! So from now on there will be our various recipes (such as the Cafe Rio Salad we made on Saturday.. to come later!) and our various adventures and happenings. Maybe that will make it more exciting? Probably not...

24 days 'til the big day!!

Strawberry Banana Cream Cake

This was originally a Banana Cream Cake.. we kept the bananas, but replaced the banana-flavored pudding and also added strawberries. Anyway, it ended up tasting (and looking) really good! Mission accomplished :)

Strawberry Banana Cream Cake

Ingredients:
- 4 bananas and a carton of strawberries
- 1 box vanilla cake mix
- 4 eggs
- 1 1/3 cups water
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts (optional.. I don't like nuts in desserts, so we didn't use them)
- chocolate chips (it called for 1/3 cup, but we just sprinkled on however many we felt like.. again, your call)
- 2 boxes instant banana cream pudding mix (like I said, we used vanilla.. sounded better)
- 3 3/4 cup cold milk (or however much the pudding box calls for, really)
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder



Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Coat two 9-inch round cake pans with nonstick cooking spray. (Note: We also sprinkled a thin layer of flour on also.. slides right out after you're done baking!)
2. In large bowl, mash one banana (sounds kind of sketchy, go with it). Add cake mix, eggs, water and oil (the egg, water and oil amount in recipe, not on box). Beat with electric mixer on low speed until blended, then beat on medium-high speed for 2 to 3 minutes, scraping sides of bowl, if necessary. Fold in nuts (optional). Scrape batter into prepared pans. Sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over top of each cake. (They end up sinking right to the bottom, but since you cut them in half anyway, it still works out).
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 32 to 35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick insterted in the centers of the cakes comes out clean (always go with the toothpicks). Cool cakes in pans on wire racks about ten minutes. Carefully invert the cakes onto wire racks to cool completely. Remove pans.
4. In medium-sized bowl, prepare pudding mix with the milk, following the package directions. Trim top of each cake layer evenly; slice each layer in half horizontally for a total of four layers. Thinly slice the remaining three bananas and strawberries. Place one of the bottom halves of the cake on a platter. Spread pudding on top.. enough to cover it, but not so much it's spilling off the sides. Then arrange the strawberries and bananas on top in whatever fashion you would like. Place another layer on top, and repeat, until you've reached the top layer of cake.
5. In medium-sized bowl, with electric mixer on medium speed, beat together cream, powdered sugar and cocoa powder until well blended and peaks form. Turns out it takes a little while, be patient. It also turned out a little too bitter, so we added some more sugar. Still not the best, we'll probably change that part next time. Spread evenly over the top of the cake, and then garnish how you wish. We opted for putting strawberries and chocolate chips on top, which was a nice choice. Go crazy!



Other notes:
- Keep an eye on it and make sure to scrape away excess pudding that is dripping off the sides. That wasn't too much of a problem, but we did have some fruit try to escape before we got the next layer of cake on.
- You'll probably want to refrigerate immediately. We didn't eat it until a few hours after we made it, but it stayed very nicely in the refrigerator. Doesn't get soggy or brown or anything. Some of it is being stored overnight in a tupperware container, so we'll see how that turns out.

Anyway, this is recipe number one on our blog. Nick made sure to make fun of me a few times for having a food blog, but I think it'll be fun. Secretly, he's into it.. he just has to act cool, I guess.



PS- The cake also tasted really good :)