Commit-"mint"

Recently I made some teacher appreciation goodie bags. I went with an idea I had seen on Pinterest. Here is the information on Beneath My Heart.

The idea was to give each teacher a little treat to thank them for their commitment to teaching the Primary children at church. Each teacher was given a goodie bag and some reminders/pointers to help them with their teaching. I volunteered to make the goodie bags and here is the result:

Thank you for your commit-"mint" tag

yummy mint candies

Each bag contained Andes mints, York peppermint patties, some Lifesaver wintergreen hard candies, and regular peppermint hard candies.

Oh, and I totally made that tag all by myself. I was very pleased with how it turned out. I think the scrapbook paper gives the tag a nice touch.

All in all I am happy with this little project. I thoroughly enjoyed making them!

On a side note, the Lifesaver wintergreen mints are quite potent. They smell so strong. When I opened the bag  I unleashed an intense force of mint smell. Which, as far as smells go, was no big deal, but the strength of the wintergreen smell was surprising. I wonder if the Lifesavers wreaked havoc with the other mints in the goodie bags.

Other side note:
My church has an organization for children ages 3 through 11 called Primary. The children are divided into classes based on their ages. Primary consists of a portion when they are divided into their age group class and taught by a teacher and a second portion when they are combined with other classes and have singing time. It is the teachers of these individual classes that we gave these goodie bags to.

Also, there is a Primary Presidency that helps run the Primary program at a very local level. I am the secretary. That is how I fit into the picture. Just in case anyone was wondering.

I realized I threw some terms out there that might be unfamiliar to people. I do that from time to time. If I ever do that again, and you need to know what on earth I am talking about, feel free to ask.

Other other side note:
Word plays make me chuckle. Commit-mint. Good one.

Alone in Dislike

We all have different tastes and opinions about the world around us. Sometimes you can find several people that like or dislike the same things you do. Other times, you stand alone in your opinions.

Now, you might think I am going to expound some deep thoughts over here about standing for your beliefs, but I am not. I am going to talk about a few things that I do not like, maybe even hate, that everyone else seems to love.

I was thinking about it the other day and thought, I should blog about this because I need to update my blog. I also like to inflict the world with my opinions. Feel free to insert an evil laugh right here.

Okay, here is a list of things I do not like that everyone else I come into contact with seems to like or love.

1. egg rolls
-I have never really enjoyed egg rolls. I do not know why. 

2. pears
-pears are a sad and disgusting excuse for a fruit.

3. cookies with dried fruit in them
-oatmeal raisin cookies were invented by evil people.

4. the band Green Day
-I do not really get into their music. I never have.

5. Frisbee related sports
-I know, they seem cool, but Ultimate Frisbee and Frisbee golf have never held any appeal for me. There are other sports I love and would much rather play (volleyball, basketball, and soccer)

6. Romeo and Juliet
-I love Shakespeare. He wrote some splendid things, but I can not get behind Romeo and Juliet.

7. The French language
-No offense! I love French literature and art, especially from the 19th century. When it comes to hearing a foreign language though, French is not my favorite. I only include it on this list because it seems like a requirement that every girl should love French.

8. Coca-Cola/Diet Coke
-Way back in the day I used to like Coke, but I really do not anymore. It tastes gross to me.


All of the things on this list are things I feel "out of place" for not liking. Do not worry, I do not think any less of you for liking them. If anything you could think less of me for not liking these things. Ha!

Apparently this list is subject to change. Up until a few months ago, pepperoni would have been on this list. I tried it again though and it was good! I enjoy pepperoni on pizza now.

What things are on your dislike list? I think it is interesting. The little things people dislike, and like, are what make them unique. Everyone dislikes famine (I hope), but not everyone dislikes Coca-Cola! Feel free to comment about it.

Speaking of comments, the comments on this blog are sent to me for approval before they are posted. I did this because I made the blog public and I was not sure what will happen with that. I will publish any comment so long as it is not disrespectful or inappropriate. If you do not see your comment publish immediately, do not worry. I need to approve it first is all. I might change that setting down the line. For now it works. Please do not let that intimidate you from commenting. I love comments!

Also, I realize that this post seems rather pessimistic because it is all about disliking things. I will do a post of things I like. It might be long though. I like a lot more things than what I dislike. 

I'm a Deep Sleeper

What follows is an actual story from the life of Cali & Danny.

Around noon the phone rings and I answer. I am surprised to hear Danny's voice. He does not usually call me during the day while he is at work. Here is the conversation:

Danny: Hello.
Cali: Hi! What's up? You don't usually call during the day.
Danny: I just wanted to tell you that I love you.
Cali: Thanks, I love you too.
(I paused because it seemed like he was going to say more.)
Danny: How is your face feeling?
Cali: (thinking, what the heck weirdo question?) It's fine. Why?
Danny: I might have accidentally hit your face with my elbow this morning.
Cali: What? When?
Danny: Early this morning. I was moving around and I somehow hit your face.
Cali: You elbowed me in the face? I don't remember anything about that. Did I react at all?
Danny: No. You didn't even make a noise or shift around or anything.
Cali: Great. Did you elbow my face hard?
Danny: It was pretty hard. I am surprised it didn't wake you up.
Cali: Well, no worries I guess. I don't have any marks on my face or anything.
Our conversation then veers towards lunch because it was lunch time.

I have known for a while that I can sleep ridiculously deep. Sometimes it concerns me and this is one of those times. My husband accidentally hits me in the face hard enough for him to be concerned and to call me during the day (he usually texts, but an actual phone call is rare) and I did not even react about the hit. Crazy!

I am also known to sleep through severe thunder storms and tornado sirens. Seriously, there have been several storms that I only knew about because people were talking about them the next day and there were broken tree branches all over the place.

Most of the time being able to sleep so soundly is fantastic. However, I do wonder how it is possible to sleep so deeply that I do not realize I get hit on the face.
The only explanation I can come up with is that I actually die every night and come back to life every morning. That is possible, right?

And now, I think I am off to see how deep I can sleep tonight. I'm sure it will be unfathomable.

Present Day

Hello! If you are just tuning in, I had an 11 month gap in my blog that I decided to be crazy and make up for. The posts will make the most sense if you start with the post called, Hello Again! and work your way back through August 2011, September 2011 and so on until this post.

After this post you should be able to continue reading this blog as normally as possible.

I know I have said this before, but I mean it this time! I really want to do better about updating this thing! So please, if it has been a while (a month) please someone remind me and fuss at me to update the blog.

I think writing in a blog will be fun. I am also trying to do more crafts and organize things. As I do, I can blog about it! That is exciting, right?

I read through all of my old entries. I enjoyed it. I find it ironic that I blogged more frequently while I was a busy student then I do now when I am not a student and not as busy.

You may notice that I changed the picture in the upper right hand corner. I realized that Danny and I have been married nearly 5 years. It is time for something a bit more recent. This picture was taking before we moved from Utah to Texas in December of 2010. I think it is when we had our own little Christmas 12 days early before we packed all of our things up to move. Danny and I do not have too many good pictures of us together. We should fix that.

I am also going to make this blog public. If having a public blog freaks me out, I will go back to private. We shall see.

I am back in the blogging world! But now, it is time for me to go to sleep. I was so determined to finish these posts that I stayed up too late. Oops!

Welcome to 2012!

We have now traveled to 2012!

I am going to summarize what has happened so far this year. I do not have as many pictures for this stuff. (you're thinking, "thank goodness!" ha ha)

January 2012:

I really can not think of much that happened in January. I feel like I was sick most of that month with a cold or allergies or both. My head was not my friend!

I began working with the primary presidency at church. The primary is for children ages 3-11. It includes Sunday school lessons, and singing time. I am the secretary so I am the keeper of all things roster related. I absolutely love it! The kids are all so much fun! I enjoy the ladies that I serve with too! 

February 2012:

Danny had a birthday! I made him meatloaf, fried okra, mashed potatoes, and lemon cake. I decorated the table with purple and star wars things that he already had. We did not have a party. He did enjoy the meal and decorations though!

March 2012:

My great-great aunt Mildred passed away. She lived in Tennessee. My dad decided he would attend the funeral and he invited me along.
Thursday: Dad calls and tells me Mildred passed away.
Friday: Dad calls and tells me he decided to go to the funeral that is on Sunday. He invites me to go with him. I say yes and then remember I should talk to Danny about it first. Danny is on board with it so I say yes for real.
Saturday: Dad and I drive to Memphis and stay the night there. We had Memphis BBQ. They used a lot of paprika!
Sunday: We had breakfast at Waffle House and drove the rest of the way to Lawrenceburg, TN. We made good time getting to Lawrenceburg so Dad and I drove around Davy Crockett State Park. I saw the creek where a great injustice in my childhood occurred. We attend the funeral. It was as nice as a funeral can be. I met a bunch of Tennessee family that I had never met before. The ladies from Mildred's church cooked a luncheon for the family (delicious!). Next, Dad and I drove to Mildred's home and get a super old (over 150 years) bed frame to take to my Grammie in Arizona. Then we go back to Davy Crockett State Park to right the injustice.

When I was 7 and we still lived in Arizona, my mom, dad, grammie (dad's mom), brother, and I went to Tennessee. During that trip we went to Davy Crockett State Park. Dad remembered this creek from when he was a kid and for old time sake, took off his shoes and went wading in the water. I have had a life long love for water and I wanted to join in the fun. My mom would not let me. She said (and was probably right) that I would end up falling in. We did not have extra clothes or towels with us at the time. So there was my dad wading in a creek and I did not get to. Remember, I was 7. I don't think I got too upset. I'm sure something distracted me soon enough. But I always remember that event and think how funny it was that there was my dad acting like a little kid, and me, the actual little kid at the time, did not get to play in the water. Well, we had some time after everything and so before we drove back to Memphis, Dad and I stopped at the creek and I took off my shoes and waded in the water a little bit. A wrong was made right. 

What makes this even better, I was in a dress. Luckily, I did not slip and fall so I was okay and my dress was okay. Also, when Dad and I were moving the 150 year old bed frame, I was rocking my purple converse with an olive green dress. I knew we were going to have to move some furniture so I brought something besides my heels along with me. It is okay to be a little jealous of my fashion sense. Wow, I can hear the eyes rolling from here!

After the fun at Davy Crockett State Park, Dad and I drove back to Memphis.

Monday: Woke up super early and drove back to Dallas. I felt like I had not even left even though so much happened in those couple of days!

My aunt Mildred led a good, long, and full life. The funeral was sad but not in a depressing way. It was lovely to meet family and I had fun road tripping with my dad. I am glad I went.

April 2012:

I do not have the pictures sorted for this trip yet, but I will post a few later.

My mom, brother, his wife, and I drove to Arizona to surprise my Grandpa (mom's dad) for his 80th birthday. The surprise was a success and we had a great time. I was in charge of decorations for the party. Of course I loved doing that!

My brother, Jenn (his wife), and I drove down to Mesa area to visit my dad's side of the family. It was so good to see that family too! One of my cousins had been in a very severe long boarding accident the week before we were in Arizona. We were able to visit him in the hospital. Thankfully, he made a very speedy recovery and is okay. The family had quite a scare though!!

All in all the trip to Arizona was great! It was hard seeing my cousin so injured, but we saw him improving while we were there and that was amazing! I loved visiting with all my family that was there. I just adore all of my grandparents! As a bonus, we ate some very delicious food too.

May 2012:

Danny began serving as a Family History consultant with church. He is pretty excited about this! His job is to help educate and help guide people with working on their family history. He is also working on his own family history.

And, welcome back to the present!

November - December 2011

Welcome to November 2011!

This month was a bit more quiet. Danny was still going to Oklahoma. On November 15h, Danny's brother Erick came to visit us! He flew into the Austin airport because it was a ton cheaper for some reason. My dad and I drove down to pick him up. We also ate some tasty BBQ while we were down that way.

It was fun to have Erick visit us! Danny and Erick spent a lot of time playing video games, as is their custom. We also showed him around a little bit. Erick and I trekked over to the Fort Worth Zoo. I had never been there. It is a nice zoo! I saw penguins cuddling.

The two penguins that are laying down are totally cuddling. Adorable.

Thanksgiving was also in November. I do not think we have any pictures from that. The food was really good! I made a sweet potato dish that is my great-great aunt's recipe. There was so much butter and sugar in that dish! I knew it was going to be yummy, and it was. It tasted like candy.

Welcome to December 2011!
Erick left at the beginning of December.

A couple of weeks later Danny and I flew out to California to be with his family for Christmas. My favorite part of the trip was Disneyland! Danny and I treated his siblings to a Disneyland trip for Christmas and we all had a lovely-stupendous time. Best part was riding the new Star Tours! Also, I am very fond of the Indiana Jones ride.

Chip & Dale

Huey, Dewey, & Louie (Danny and his brothers)

3 princesses (Danny's little sis, Aurora, and me)

Danny is not the future King of England

Neither am I.

Ian, Storm Trooper, and Danny. The Storm Trooper did not like Danny's shirt.

The Bakker Bro Battle Pack. Comes with everything you see here. Vehicles sold separately. Batteries not included. Ages 15 and up. (Danny came up with that)

Bakker Sister exclusive limited edition collector's pack. Best to keep these two mint in the box.

(by: Danny)

not a great picture, sorry. But here is Main Street all lit up for Christmas!

the Castle all lit up for Christmas! (again, sorry about the picture quality)

Also in California we saw two sets of friends that we had not seen since our April trip to Utah and it was grand and wonderful to see them! It is always fun to see Danny's family too!

In our time travels we have caught up to 2012. Let us continue on!

October 2011

Hi there! Welcome to October 2011. This month was BUSY! Danny and I had something going on pretty much every weekend. Good times.

This one will have quite a few pictures so I will do most of my explaining in photo caption form. Here is the run down of events:
1. Star Wars Fan Days in Irving, TX
2. My birthday
3. Pariveda Company retreat near Austin, TX
4. Halloween
One of the best months ever? Possibly.

Picture time!

This building looks like a Sandcrawler, right?

We met Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca). We got his autograph on his book, My Favorite Giant. We also met George Takei and Billy Dee Williams (he thought my name, Cali, is short for California) and a couple voice actors from the Clone Wars TV series on Cartoon Network. We have autographs from all of the previously mentioned people. It was AWESOME!

R2-D2! A fan had built this and was driving him around the convention. It was impressive!

 A side note: Yes, Danny and I met George Takei while we were wearing Star Wars t-shirts. You know what? He didn't even care. We told him that we love Star Trek too! And he is all for Star Wars and Star Trek getting along and both being awesome. He did some voice work in the Clone Wars cartoon show.

Okay, back to pictures.

I decided I wanted an Autumn themed birthday party. Check out the fantastic cupcakes my friend, Alex, made! Those are chocolate trees. (my favorite kind of tree! ha ha!)

Happy Birthday to me!

Donut-hole acorns with Nutella. I found them on Pinterest and I just had to try them out. Here are the instructions. I highly recommend.

Danny bought me some lovely and colorful daisies.

My cupcake. It was a small party, but it was fun!

On my birthday I decided that I wanted to visit the creek that is across the street from where I grew up. I spent some good times exploring that creek back in the day! Danny, Alex, and I had a little creek outing. It was lovely. Oh, I found this "please order here" sign.

Being the intrepid explorers that we are, Alex and I "discovered" these "waterfalls" and named them Tulio & Miguel Falls and Miguel & Tulio Falls. It's a Road to El Dorado thing. I, um, can't remember which is which. We have had this problem before. We discovered them several years ago.

Company Retreat!

We brought Lego Imperial officers, since it was a company retreat. It seemed appropriate. Danny's company is awesome and they are in no ways like the Death Star or anything like that. The theme was "super hero" for the retreat. Their company mascot is a dolphin. I felt like the picture might need some explanation..moving on...

we each got a t-shirt. I think the Legos were threatened by the dolphin.

The retreat was at the Lost Pines resort. It was a nice and fun place. They also had a lazy river. I floated around that thing for a while. Danny and I went on a hike during some of our free-time.

Grand Moff Tarkin, and some of his buddies went on the hike too. We took a break.

Saturday night was a big dinner. People were encouraged to wear super hero costumes. Here are the guys getting ready.

They have their costumes on!

I went as Super Grover. I also made that costume.

Danny dressed as Gambit from X-Men. He put together his costume. We made an interesting couple.

Enjoying some Kolaches from the Czech stop in West, Texas. Oh man, those are good!

Happy Halloween!
Danny and I participated in our church's Trunk-or-Treat and Halloween carnival. It was super fun!

We did a cupcake-cake-walk for the kids. I signed up to bring some cupcakes and after agonizing over what type of fun Halloween cupcakes to bring, I settled for "dirt" cupcakes. Fun stuff!

Bork! Bork! I dressed as the Swedish Chef. I could not find good facial hair for my costume. Bummer!

Danny is dressed as a Star Wars character (shocking, right?). This is, Plo Koon. He is a pretty cool Jedi. He is only briefly shown in the movies. Plo Koon has been in the Clone Wars tv show though! That is what I know him from.

Plo Koon eating popcorn out of a Star Wars popcorn tin.

On that note, I think it is time for us to travel to November!

September 2011

Welcome to September 2011. Are you getting the hang of this time-travel thing? I know I am.

Danny is an IT Consultant. A lot of companies have their consultants travel all over the place. It was one of the things we knew about consulting when Danny decided it was the career he wanted. Wonderfully, the company he works for does a lot of local work. Of course there are exceptions. From about September-December Danny traveled to Oklahoma City nearly every week for work. He carpooled with some other guys from the same company. He would leave Monday morning and come home Thursday night. The team would work remotely out of their home office on Friday. It was an interesting experience. Danny and I talked on Google + Video chat. It was almost like he was still home! We missed each other but we both found other things to occupy our time. I spent time with friends and went about my normal life. Danny took Lego Clone War clone troopers with him. He took the coolest photos of these troopers at different places and around the hotel. He has an album on Facebook called "Oklahoma City Clones: Adventure of the 5OK1st". It is a word play on the 501st. Here are a few pictures. I will put Danny's captions from Facebook.

It's like a sign that they belong here.

This way men!

 

Eying the pool

This things built like a tank!

I don't think this is the type of shipyard we normally visit...

You can see that Danny had a good time! I thoroughly enjoyed the pictures he took. Of course several of them have cheesy puns involved!

During September we went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with my mom and step-dad. He meets up with some buddies to golf. They go almost every year and this year they decided they would drive and invited Danny and I to drive with them.

The trip was lovely. The ocean is one of my favorite things, especially the Atlantic Ocean. I can have a favorite ocean if I want to, and I want to.

I had never been to South Carolina before and Danny had never been on the East Coast before. (makes sense, the man grew up in California).

It rained on our drive out to Myrtle Beach and a few of the days that we were there. Danny and I love the rain. Let me tell you something, rain anywhere is awesome, but if you get a chance to be near the ocean while it is raining, jump on that chance! (unless it is a hurricane and your life is in danger). As I said earlier, I love the ocean. There was something about rain on the beach and watching it rain over the ocean that made me never want to move from my chair again. I wanted to sit there watching it rain on the ocean forever! Mom and Alan thought we were crazy for liking the rain so much! Maybe they were right.

I have some Myrtle Beach pictures! Let's take a look...

a storm rolling in

lovely bit of rainbow

watching the sunrise from the balcony of our condo

Hello Atlantic Ocean! I adore you.

The last morning we were there. The picture does not accurately show exactly how beautiful the sun through the clouds and hitting the water was. Boy, oh boy.

Look at the store Danny found! He loves purple. Everything in this store was purple! It was pretty fun. Also, check out my husband's vacation attire.

This duck is swimming in a fountain. I am extremely entertained by this. Silly duck.

I have more pictures of Myrtle Beach somewhere, but I am not sure where at the moment. If I find them I will make another post. There are some good ones, I think. Also, if you want to see any of the pictures on this blog larger, you can just click on them! Easy peasy!

You now know about September 2011. Shall we check out October? I think we shall. It was a busy month. See you in October!

August 2011

Whew, that was quite the journey. Here we are back in August of 2011. Danny and I celebrated being married for four years! For our anniversary we decided to head down to San Antonio and explore the San Antonio missions. That link should take you to the national parks website, in case you want to read about them. Basically there are a handful of missions that the Spanish built way back when Spain colonized parts of Texas.

We also walked along the river walk that runs through San Antonio, visited and did a session in the San Antonio LDS Temple, and went to Sea World. All in all it was a fantastic trip! I even have some pictures for you to enjoy.

Mission San Jose was my favorite. It was the most complete out of the four we visited. It still had perimeter walls,"Indian quarters", the main chapel, beautiful arches, and a mill. I took some pretty good pictures that are on my Facebook. The photos are not professional by any means, but I was pleased with how some of them turned out. I love Spanish Colonial type architecture and I have some nice pictures of that.

Mission San Jose

Mission San Jose (I was seriously in love with these arches)

Mission San Jose (the main entrance)

cacti growing on a wooden roof at Mission San Jose

Next we visited Mission Espada. This one was much smaller but it had some beautiful gardens. Here is a picture of the chapel.

Mission Espada

To be honest, by the time we got to Mission San Juan Capistrano, Danny and I were done. It was so humid that day and it was getting too warm for us to really appreciate. Mission San Juan did not interest me as much. It was still interesting to see though. We did not make it to Mission Concepcion. We will visit that one another time.

Mission San Juan Capistrano

The San Antonio Temple was absolutely beautiful! I was especially interested in the stained glass. I made sure to get a picture in front of it. It is a beautiful place inside and out.

Danny and I outside the San Antonio Temple

After our dinner we walked over to the Alamo. It was not open for visitors, but at least Danny was able to see the Alamo! I had already seen it, but it was nice to say "hello" again. You should appreciate that I am not giving a history lecture about the Alamo on here. If I had updated the blog on time, I might have. I do love history and Texas has an awesome history!

Remember the Alamo! Danny in front of the Alamo.

Sea World was fun! There were some crowds, but overall it never felt too crowded. We were able to catch some shows. I love the Sea Lion show! We also fed dolphins and said "ooo" and "aaaa" about the animals.

Danny and I at Sea World

Danny feeding a dolphin

Danny, Shamu, and me

We were just looking at the alligators when I noticed a turtle riding on one! Silly turtle, that is not a log! Of course we had to take a picture. Maybe it will give Erasmus (our pet turtle) some inspiration.

a red-ear slider turtle riding an alligator like a boss

In August I also began working with the Webelos Den (10 year olds) in Cub Scouts. I am still doing that and I love it! Cub Scouts is so much fun! At the beginning I had no idea what I was doing and the other, more experienced, Den Leader, left. Talk about jumping into the deep end to learn how to swim! Our Cub Committee chair was super wonderful and helped me out a ton! Now, I can say I have learned a lot and have a generally decent grasp of what is going on. 

That was August 2011! I was going to combine September in this post, but I think this post is bordering on "too long" anyway.

Time to time travel again!