Crisis Averted

Bethany has her baking certificate from the Art Institute of Phoenix. With these qualifications, it was only a matter of time before she was asked to teach the sisters in Relief Society how to make cream puffs. She's made them plenty of times before and always uses the tried and tested recipe she learned at baking school. But on the fateful day of the Relief Society class, my mom got a tragic phone call. Bethany had made several batches and her cream puffs just weren't puffing. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, so my mom and I took work off early and raced home to assess the situation. I half expected to find Bethany curled up in the fetal position on the floor, surrounded by flour and baking paraphernalia. She was holding on by a thread and had taken down the framed graduation picture in the living room that shows her accepting a diploma while wearing a chef's hat and jacket.

Indeed, her puffs were flatter than fritters.

With only a few hours to spare, we got down to business and googled another cream puff recipe. Mom raced to the store to buy more eggs & butter. Here I am with a fake smile on my face trying to look like Betty Crocker.

My cream puffs definitely did not look as professional as Bethy's.

Teamwork

Filling the puffs...

If you look in the lower left hand corner of this picture, you can see Bethany's graduation picture.

In the end, Bethy's Relief Society cream puff class went off without a hitch and her graduation picture is back on display in the living room.

Ta-Da!!

It's been too long...

Facebook is amazing!!! I just had the best night hanging out with two of my long lost friends from highschool. It was like we couldn't talk fast enough, there was so much to catch up on. I monopolized way too much of the conversation but I was so excited to see them again, I couldn't shut up. We've already got road trips to Phoenix and adventures in Vegas forming into plans and all because of Facebook. I just have to put in a plug for my friend ELIZABETH's amazing writing. Now I have another awesome blog to read.

All the single ladies!!!

Womanizer...

To see Noah drop it like it's hot, click here. The boy's got rhythm.

Who goes to Ohio on vacation in the dead of winter? We do.

And who drives 7 hours to to see Niagara Falls in a blizzard? That would be us.

Steve apparently did not get his fill of roach-infested hostels in Thailand & Taiwan so he booked us accommodations at the lovely YMCA in Buffalo, New York.

"Smells like something other than Oxygen."

We realized Steve was the only one who remembered to bring his passport, so the next day we went to the Niagara Falls library next door (how convenient) to print out our birth certificates (how extremely convenient I actually had my birth certificate saved on the thumb drive I just happened to have with me).

We crossed the border into Canada...

No trip would be complete without some of Joseph's bogus commentary...

We went underground behind the Falls....

and walked through a snow storm to check out the Hershey store.

Nobody would give in to my begging to switch to a hotel instead of the YMCA for the night so I filmed my own ransom video accusing Jessica, Joseph, & Steve of holding me captive.

It was still snowing a lot as we crossed back over the border and I made Steve run across the bridge yelling "Merry Christmas Bedford Falls!" With a little coaching, he still sounded nothing like Jimmy Stewart.

Anyone else would have been relentlessly ridiculed and chastised for exposing their feet to the elements...but not Jessica...she wore these shoes all day...in the freezing cold wind and snow...in Canada...in January...ouch

Denny's napkin ninja

I persuaded everyone to stop at Denny's for dinner with ulterior motives to get a room at the Days Inn next door. My persistence paid off and that night I slept in a soft warm bed that didn't require a ladder to get into.

The following day, we went to church in Kirtland and made the long drive back to Columbus. At this point, I had come down with one of the worst head colds I've ever had in my life and was so congested I could barely breathe.

On Monday, we waited for Joseph to get done with class and then we went out for Italian. They tell me the food was good...I couldn't taste anything.


Joseph took us on a tour of the beautiful Ohio State campus. Go Buckeyes!





If you don't want to hear anymore whining, you're gonna' want to stop reading here.

We were supposed to be getting on a plane in a few hours and the decongestant I took wasn't working. We got to the airport and found out our NW flight had been cancelled and the airline wouldn't put us up for the night. I was so sick, I decided to just get a room instead of waiting for hours at the airport with Steve & Jessica until a ride could be found to take us back to Joseph's. Way too early the next morning, I boarded a plane that sat for an hour at the terminal while they worked on electrical problems. We finally took off and my head felt like it was going to explode the entire flight. As we descended into Dallas, there was so much pressure, it felt like I had knives stabbing into both ears and I could hear high pitched squeaking noises coming out of them. The delay caused me to miss my connecting flight to Salt Lake and I had to wait at the Dallas airport for a few more hours until the next flight out. Hate to end this on a bad note so I'll just make up some stuff...I finally made it home to Salt Lake and was whisked away in my limo as dozens of paparazzi tried to snap photos of my famous face and red, congested nose. I can't believe you actually read this far and listened to my whining. You're a real trooper.