Happy Easter

I surprised Jordan today with an Easter egg hunt. I hid 22 eggs (half with candy and the other half empty) for him to find. He found all but 4, then asked for some clues. 

 Looking in the couch

 Looking behind the games

Looking under the couch

I had so much fun watching him try to find all the eggs and he had fun looking for them. It made it feel more like Easter for us. 

a little bit of everything

Christmas was a busy this year for Jordan and I. We hosted our first set of guests - ALL of Jordan's family!

Jordan's parents were the first to get here on the 16th. That Saturday they helped us get things situated before his younger sister and her husband flew in later that night. Our day was filled with getting groceries and bed shopping. We went to almost every mattress store in Orlando looking for a good deal. We finally decided on a futon from IKEA. I fell in love with the idea of having a couch in the spare bedroom (my office/craft room) that could also turn into a bed for company. Our spare bedroom isn't very big so it saves a lot of space.

Monday was spent Christmas shopping and trying to find gators. Apparently there are alligators everywhere here, but I have yet to see one in the area (which I'm grateful for). I took them to a trail by a river near by and we walked trying to look for gators.

 We didn't have any luck, but we did see a lot of ducks, diving birds, cranes, and vulchers. At one point during our walk, we went under some trees trying to get a better look at the vulchers across the river and I ended up getting pooped on by a bird. Good thing it was just on my arm, but it was definitely a first for me. 

Late Monday night Jordan's older sister, husband, and little girl, drove in. It was fun waking up Wednesday to  the energy of a 1 1/2 year old. We played all morning till Jordan came home for lunch from the academy. 

She was excited to see him and the same went for Jordan.

I was sad that Jordan had to work his normal hours and couldn't spend very much time with everyone during the week, but he was a good sport about it.

Tuesday we headed over to Downtown Disney and walked around all of the cool shops and got ice cream at Ghirardelli - SOOOO INCREDIBLY YUMMY.

Wednesday we spent all day at Disney World. It was fun for me because it was only my second time ever going and since we had a baby with us, I got to experience different rides than I had before. My all time absolute favorite part of the day was watching Cinderella's castle light up at night. WOW a million times over!!!! My jaw dropped when it happened and in that moment I so wished I was Cinderella living in that castle ;) It was beautiful. It looked like snow sparkling all over.

The beautifully lit castle

Eating the oh so wonderful Mickey Ears! 

Also notice the shorts and T-shirt. It was 80 degrees the whole week!

"It's a small world after all. It's a small world after all"

I was Brae's chosen one for this ride.

Thankfully Thursday we just chilled at home because walking around Disney for 9+ hours wore me out.

Friday we spent the day at Sea World. I was most excited about this day. I had never been to Sea World and I was going to get to ride some big roller coasters. We all got wristbands that allowed us to go to the front of every roller coaster without waiting which was awesome! I love roller coasters. 

First Timer

We also saw the dolphins, shamu, and sea lions shows. One thing I am proud of was actually touching and feeding a sting ray. I was so scared. Over all it was quite fun and thanks to Jordan's parents for Christmas we got season passes to Sea World. So now we can go back any day any time. Date nights here we come!

The dolphin show

Saturday and Sunday were spent at cocoa beach. We were able to stay at a friend's beach house for the weekend and had fun Kayaking and playing at the beach. One morning Jordan went Kayaking with his brother-in-law and saw a mother and baby dolphin hunting...I was so jealous. Every time Jordan and I went out on the Banana River it was quiet as could be. Maybe when we go again I'll get an opportunity to see wild dolphins up close.

At the beach we did a lot of boogie boarding, skim boarding, sand castle building, and just soaking up some warm Florida sun. One day we rented surf boards to try surfing and Jordan actually got up twice. I tried a couple of times, but just ended up nose diving. Whenever we go to the beach now, we are for sure going to be renting surf boards. Maybe we'll be pros in a year or two. You never know?

Jordan building a sand castle for Brae

Trying to catch some waves...really just trying to get out there.

I got picked to be buried. Some how my hands ended up being out.

Brae's trying to dig me out...nice try baby.

The whole week was busy with lots of activities, but it was so much fun to be around everyone and enjoying the holidays.

Much to Blog

I have many things I wanted to share that Jordan and I have done the past 2 days.

Friday for our date night we went to a store called Many Lands. We heard that they sold the noodle like things to make potstickers and went to get some. 

It was so much fun to look around the store. It's basically a little shop that imports foods from different countries. I went down the baking isle and fell in love. I wanted to try all the different things in cupcakes :) We ended up buying a package of German cookies. Jordan got soooo excited when he saw them. He said his grandma (who's from Germany) used to bring them for him to eat. They were delicious.

So once we came home we went to work making our own potstickers. We used ground turkey, fresh chives, cabbage seasoned with ginger for the filling. You definitely need two people to make these just because there's so much to do all at once. They turned out great and Jordan made the dipping sauce out of rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and chili sauce. YUM!!

Saturday was a special day for us. We celebrated our 2 year anniversary. Technically it's Monday May 2, but because I work till late on Monday we decided to celebrate early. I had no idea where we were going which makes it more fun....I love surprises. We got in the car Saturday late afternoon and headed up to Sandy to eat at this place...

Neither on of us had eaten here which made it more fun and I absolutely LOVE CHINESE FOOD!!! I tried Italian Soda for the first time and loved it. I got Mango. For Dinner Jordan got the General T'sao and I tried Mango Chicken. Wow were we impressed! This place was definitely better tasting that any other Chinese restaurant I have been to. The food was more authentic. To end our special dinner we split a Virgin Strawberry Daquiri...which I have never had as well. The night was full of many new things.

We came home and then made Alfajores which is a South American cookie. To relate the taste it's basically like a shortbread cookie with caramel filling.

For the filling I took a can of sweetened condensed milk and took the wrapper off. Then I put the can in the crock pot completely submerged in water for 8 hours on low (can also do high for 4 hours).

Then once the can has come to room temperature you open it up and it looks like this...

It's a simple way of making caramel. So good. I'm excited to eat it not only with more Alfajores, but granny smith apples...MMMM

It has been a great weekend for us.

Valentines Day

Monday started off just like any other day....Took Jordan to work, picked him up, went running together (gorgeous weather), then sadly I had to go to work :( Normally working Monday evening doesn't bother me, but just because it was Valentines Day it put a damper on things. 

Jordan was nice enough to offer to drive me which always makes me happy (I love it when I don't have to drive home in the dark by myself). At 6:58pm Jordan comes into the clinic to pick me up except he brought me GORGEOUS,BEAUTIFUL and MY FAVORITE flowers along with a box of chocolates. (On a side note they were Mrs. Fields chocolates....never tasted a box of chocolates so good!!). Jordan is just so sweet...he knows I LOVE surprises and especially unexpected ones (I normally figure them out before he does them).

We drove home talking and discussing what to fix for dinner. We figured it wasn't a good idea to go out to eat because every place would be packed. We decided on a meal, but to my surprise I walked into our home and heard Norah Jones playing, saw that the lights were dim, and......

Dinner. 

This surprise was definitely unexpected. I was so giddy the rest of the night. I love my husband!

Chritmas

The holidays have come and gone and I didn't blog a thing. Jordan and I went to Colorado Springs for 2 weeks to celebrate the holidays with his family. It was nice to relax and enjoying doing NOTHING! I did do a few things like shop, shop, shop, and shop. I think I literally went shopping everyday. I was in this mood where I wanted to go to every store and see what they had. I blame my mother-in-law Heidi. I did not use to be this way, but shopping with her over the years I too have become addicted. What can I say, it's fun!

I didn't take any pictures over the break and the ones that I got from his parents were mostly of me. In the next couple of weeks though, Jordan and I are going to have a mini photo shoot with his mom because we don't have any pictures of us since our wedding. But here are some of the pictures that show a sample of our Christmas vacation.

Christmas Eve....opening our PJs. Oh yeah, if you didn't notice, I died my hair.

Me, Baby Braelyn, Jodi and Riley looking happy in our pajamas.

Christmas morning....you have to crawl through the fort to get to the presents :)

Jordan opening is awesome new running jacket with reflectors and all.

We went to the zoo to see if Braelyn would like the animals. As long as she didn't get too close she was fine. The zoo had all the giraffes inside where we could feed and pet them.

I fed one giraffes 2 crackers then the one next to him was trying desperately to get his tongue through the bars so he could get some. I laughed and gave him my last cracker.

The tongues on these things are freakin' long. 

I was telling him that the crackers were all gone. I then tried to pet him, but he turned his head and walked away.  The love you get in return for feeding animals. While another kid was feeding him, I quickly put my hand up, sneaky, I know.

A few of us rode the carasel. I tried to get Jordan to come with me, but as you can see, I'm by myself :(

I wish there were more pictures of Jordan and I, but at least we have some documentation of what we did for Christmas.

Projects

This last week has been full of fun stuff. For Thanksgiving I made Turkey cupcakes.

They turned out so cute. The leaves around the turkey are cornflakes covered in green frosting, the turkey is made out of caramel with a mound of frosting underneath to plump it up, the drumsticks are wheat sticks with caramel, and the stuffing is just grape nuts. Very fun!

On Black Friday Jordan went out and bought me my Christmas present which I'm already using....a new camera. I'm in love :) I got the Canon PowerShot SD1400IS

The week was also full of fun sewing projects and putting up Christmas decorations.

I made this to go over the couch arm to store our remotes.

I sewed my very first table runner...very easy and it looks great!

I made a pillow to add some red to our green house.

Our tree LOL! Thanks mom. I made little presents to go around.

This is our picture frame in which I fill with different things depending on the season.

Some more holiday decorations. This advent calendar has legos in each drawer...Jordan's going to love this.

I was also able to finish Jordan's mission board. I took things from his mission and put them together to display. Here's the other side.

It was a busy week, but I enjoyed being with family and being creative.

One Rockin' Day

Thursday afternoon Jordan bought me my first harness, ATC, and carabiner. The rock climbing store we went to had the harness on sale for a screaming deal. I only own rock climbing shoes and have been borrowing Jordan's sister's harness everytime we went out rock climbing. I was pretty excited to get my own equipment.



Today Jordan and I took an all day adventure up through Rock Canyon. We packed each of our camel backs with water and a lunch and hiked with all the rock climbing gear a few miles in. We rock climbed for hours.





Jordan is slowly teaching me more and more every time we go. Today he taught me how to clean a route. What this basically means is to take down the carabiners from the anchors that are attached to the rock at the top. Sounds easy to just take something off, but there is a lot more to it that makes it more complicated.

We were also able to hike down the stream which was a lot of fun. It was off the normal hiking trail that goes through the canyon so we were able to be away from everyone. The canyon was a little busy because of Pioneer Day. We found a huge rock that sat by a tiny tiny waterfall that had a big puddle of water (up to my knees) and we played around for a few minutes.







We had so much fun spending our entire day hiking and climbing.