Of Pirates, Potatoes, and Pizza

Sorry, all!!! We missed our Sunday blogging this week.... so, happy belated blog day everyone! This week has actually been an exciting one! Or, at least, the weekend was.... which is our excuse for not blogging on Sunday.

On Saturday both Christian and I had to work: me from 2-4, and him from 6-11. For work that day, I wasn't doing actual work but was hired to help with a birthday party for the little boy I work with, who was turning 7. Christian was going to drop me off at work and head over to Leslie's (our cousin's) house and spend time with them before he had to go to work. But when we got to my work, we discovered that TONS more kids than they had expected were showing up. About 15 or 16 very rowdy six-to-seven-year-old boys showed up. And there were only 3 reliable adults there, including me. So Christian decided to stay and help with the party, brave soul that he is. The kids loved him. They all had a great time throwing around pirate-speak, decorating treasure chests, dressing up like pirates, going on a treasure hunt, etc (can you tell it was a pirate-themed party?). After the chaos had subsided, I resolved to make my kids follow my mom's rule of thumb about birthday party guests: you can only invite however many guests as years you are old. 15 six-or-seven-year-olds running around your house, screaming and throwing beach balls at each other, in pirate gear, all on sugar highs, at once.... is way too much chaos for anyone.

After the party, Christian and I went home so that he could go to work. He is enjoying his work since it's very laid back and he has a lot of down time sometimes, where he can do whatever he wants: homework, Facebook, etc. Some days are pretty relaxed but some are insane, with him running around every 5 seconds to a different person who needs help. But he likes it. Apparently everyone else at his job has been in the position for at least from the beginning of the semester (the job that Christian got was because someone had quit). But even as the newbie, Christian is doing a great job.

After he got done with work at 11 pm on Saturday, we ran home, packed our sleepover stuff, and headed over to Leslie's. We had tons of fun playing Rage and Mad Gab with Chris and I, Leslie, Mike, and 3 of Leslie's kids who were still awake. We finally tucked in around 2:30 am. We slept on a double sized air mattress, and I discovered why Christian hates them so much. When ONE person sleeps on an air mattress, it's not so bad. You just wake up in a pit. But when TWO people sleep on one, then whoever is heaviest pushes the mattress down on one side, and the lighter person rolls down the hill and falls on top of the heavier person during the night. Christian woke up during the night as he was falling off the bed, and I was squished right next to him, almost pushing him off. It was really funny. We woke up the next morning and watched Conference and ate delicious homemade monkey bread and quiche and ALL SORTS of things for lunch. There was a ton of food and it was all so yummy!

P.S. Leslie, if you're reading this, please don't feel bad about the mattress. We really do appreciate the room you let us use, and we look forward to seeing you again this weekend! The mattress was no big deal really, it was just funny. :)

We left Leslie's after the Sunday afternoon conference ended, and went over to my aunt Nicole and uncle Tennessee's house to have dinner and hang out with my extended family. My grandma and grandpa were there, and so was my aunt Laura and her daughter Kira, my dad was there (because he had to give a presentation at UVU for his Excel course that he wrote), and of course me and Christian. We helped Nathan (Nicole and Tennessee's son) make his pirate costume for Halloween, and Christian roughhoused with all the kids. We ate a delicious dinner and helped do their dishes, then tried to get out of the way as fast as possible because they were packing to leave in the early morning for a trip to Disneyworld.

Monday was the last night my dad was here, because his plane left early this morning (Tuesday). So he came to pick me up after he did his presentation at UVU, and brought his friend Bro. Abarca (who did a "testimonial" at my dad's presentation about the course) and my grandma and grandpa. We wanted to take Christian with us, but he had school and work almost from dawn till midnight on Monday. So we all went to Brick Oven. It was delicious pizza, and we got lucky because the night we went just so happened to be "Get free root beer with pizza after 5:00 pm on Mondays" night. The pizza was super filling but super good, and I could only eat one slice. We had 3 slices left over when we were done, and we decided to take them to Christian at work. He had been starving pretty much all day and we felt bad that he didn't get to come with us. So since he was working in the library computer lab, and food really... technically... definitely isn't allowed in there, we had to figure out a way to sneak a take-home-sized box of pizza into the library. I ended up sliding it under my hoodie and blocking the squared-off edges of the box with my arms, pretending I was just really cold or something. We got through unnoticed by the security guards, and Christian didn't spill any pizza on the computers. Woot.

Recipe for this week:

Microwave Baked Potatoes

(Brittany's Super Easy, Super Quick, No-Poke, No-Bake, Easy-Peel version)

Directions:

1) Wash the dirt off the potatoes.

2) Put 2 or 3 potatoes on a plate. That's all. No poking, no buttering, no wrapping up.

3) Put that plate of potatoes in the microwave on High for about 8 minutes depending on size of potatoes. Small potatoes will be done in about 7 minutes, large ones may need up to 9 or 10 minutes. Warning: Hissing and worrisome noises may come from the potatoes in the microwave, but I take that to mean that air is escaping instead of being built up inside the potato... I have never had a potato even come close to exploding before, and I've done this a lot... :D cheers!

Potatoes will be soft, easily mashed, and baked all the way through. Skins will be loose, making it very easy to peel the skins off for overly picky children.

Anyway, have fun everyone! We love you all!

Brittany and Christian