Hilary is Famous

They were really excited about the footage they got with Hilary.

MONEY

Look!  We're rich!!!

Sorry one of the dudes is facing the wrong way.
Okay so it's not really that much money.  Probably about what we spend on some costco trips.  But there is still the little kid part of me that feels super rich having so many bills that I can't close my wallet.  In today's world of debit and credit cards I never have cash on hand. 
That's why I got all crazy when I sold one of my textbooks back and they paid me mostly in fives.

Since then Hilary has turned down all my brilliant ideas of what we can do with our money.  My first idea was for her to make me a shirt out of them.  How cool would it be to have a shirt of five dollar bills?  Next a tie.  Not quite as ambitious but still shut down.
Then inspiration came and I told Hilary she should make me a wallet out of money!! Tell me that's not genious.  She said no.

Lastly I suggested we make a little model tree out of the money because money grows on trees right?
Didn't like that idea either but I made do.

Kinda sad but these two pictures represent the new true meaning of Christmas.

By the way here is a link to the house we're putting an offer on tomorrow.

Pretty House

Green Smoothies

Do you guys know Hilary sometimes makes me smoothies made out of vegetables?

 She is a bit of an acolyte of the greensmoothiegirl.com.

It's some Mormon lady whose family transformed by eating more raw fruits and vegetables.  Hilary and I aren't the best at eating veggies but her smoothies are pretty good and extremely healthy.  The smoothies are mostly spinach.  Anyway our blender doesn't do a very good job and the lady at greensmoothies says everyone needs to get a blendtec blender which as it would happen cost four to five hundred dollars.  I'd consistently told Hilary that our kitchen is too small to accommodate such a item(I make no mention of our checkbook).  Well, yesterday being the good husband that I am, I accompanied her to a Vegas seminar the greensmoothie girl was running.  Hilary excitedly told me that they are going to give away a blendtec blender by raffle tickets at the event.  I told her that if that is the only reason we are going then we might as well not go because you are not going to be the one person who wins it.  In classic Hilary fashion she won the blendtec despite the fact that there were well over two hundred people there.  I think she only won it because I told her she wouldn't.


Well I tried my very best to be skeptical of this crazy blondie because I knew she would tell me to stop eating meet.  For the third largest healthy eating website in the country I did expect a bit more.  My favorite line was when she told us that "sugar is more addictive than cocaine as proven by no less than 2 animal studies.  Admittedly one was with my parrot and gold fish."  Okay that's not exactly what she said but it's pretty close.  She did have some good points, though.  So we often eat puke green smoothies here and if you come down we'll give you some.  I think Karen already does similar smoothies.
Anyway now we have a blender that's more expensive then most flat-screen TVs.  As far as I can tell the reason they are more expensive is that they are like other blenders but with dull blades.

 Turns out Blendtecs are kinda cool.  There's a bunch of videos that the creator of the blendtec puts out.  A few choice ones are below.

Wicked!!

I was introduced to the Wicked soundtrack in 2007.  That summer, Wicked came to Salt Lake City.  My friends and I tried to get tickets, but they sold out before we had a chance.  So for the past 5 years, I have listened to the music, piecing together the story... I had a pretty good idea what happened in the play, but I definitely didn't know the details.  I am so glad we finally were able to go see it!!  The cast was amazing.  We loved it!  Here are some pictures of our trip to the Smith Center.

Girls Camp

You may have noticed that it's been several months since we have posted on our blog.  This is totally my fault.  When I got home from Girls Camp, Brian decided that I needed to blog about it.  I agreed, but then kept putting it off.  The time has come! 

Girls Camp was amazing!  I camped with the second year girls.  I shared a tent with another leader in my ward, and a leader from the San Miguel ward.  We slept on cots, which was good since it rained several nights. 

 One of the leaders read Max Lucado's book, "You are Special."  The girls then got to put dots and stars on each other. 

I was in charge of the facials.  The girls had fun spreading this oatmeal mixture on each other.  

We went hiking on Wednesday.  Here are some pictures from our hike.

Here are the second year girls from my ward.  They are so great!

This year we celebrated 100 years of Girls Camp.  In honor of this anniversary, each level was given a different decade on which to base their skit. We got the 80's.  Thanks to some amazing hair spray and blue eye shadow, our girls looked pretty awesome.  Here are some of my favorite pictures from the skit.

We had a ton of fun that week!  It was also a very spiritual experience.  The theme was "Stand Up, Lead Out."  I am very impressed with the youth in our stake.  They are such good examples.  The theme song was "Where You Stand," by Jenny Phillips.  It is inspiring listening to all the young women in our stake sing this song.

Utah trip

Luckily the first day was the warmest day because that's the day we spent the most time playing outside with the Allens.

I quickly decided that if I am ever stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean I want to be stranded with the Allens because they will be the best at shimmying up trees to get coconuts.  

 I'm no judge of Horseflesh but it looks like a pretty horse to me and very talented riders.

 Sam could ride as well.  Emily would walk in front and the horse would just follow her around.

 When we played red-rover-red-rover Sam was a bull.

 This time Hyrum just about ripped my arm out of socket.

This time he tried diving over my arm.  Perhaps he tried it because he had seen his uncle do it.  Hyrum unfortunately landed square on his nose instead of in a roll.
But he recovered quickly.

Live long and prosper

 Nothing beats Duck Duck Goose

 Everyone's picking on me.

After spending the afternoon with the Allens, we went over to the Elggren's house for a party.

"This is a GREAT party!" --Alex

 Hilary got to celebrate a late birthday

 Everyone else eating cake and ice cream, Dad eating a banana.  Totally normal.

 Finally gets to meet her newest nephew, Lincoln.

Hilary also got to meet up with several old friends