Utah and Weekend Recap

Jim and I drove to Utah this weekend.  Jim was kind enough to take off a few days of work so I didn’t have to drive myself and perhaps not arrive in one piece.  He enjoyed a few days with the kids, golfing with the boys, visiting some old friends and has returned home.  I’ll be driving back to Portland the end of the week.   The drive is worth it because I am bringing one of my kiddos back home with me!

We also got to enjoy this at the end of the drive here to Utah.

  Thanks to the app Road Ahead I was able to locate the nearest In and Out!

Another reason I was going to Utah was to attend the Snap Creative Conference.  The conference focused on blogging and creativity and it was great!  I learned a lot and got to meet lots of fun new bloggers.  I also got to meet a few blogger friends in person.  One of them was my blogging friend Kristen Duke who is a wonderful photographer.  She taught several classes on photography and used my girls as her models.

We learned how to take better pictures in morning light and full sun.  I practiced on my girls.

After they helped with the class I took the girls out to lunch at Blue Lemon in Highland.   Yummy!

The Queen Bee Market was part of the conference and it was so fun to see all the amazing creative items for sale. Of course I had to buy a couple of things.  Good thing I am driving home instead of flying home!!

The conference was held at Thanksgiving Point so I was able to see some of the beautiful tulips they have this time of year.

I was also able to watch the wonderful photographer Tara Butler at work as she took my son Clark’s engagement picture on Saturday!

Since both Clark and Jessica are law students we took some of them in the law school – can’t wait to see them!

Cali and Tessa kept Tara’s darling two year old company during the photo shoot.  Is he a cutie or what!!!  The 3 Blondies!!

The lollipops were part of the photo shoot too.

I’ve got a fun and full week planned here in Utah and will share more next weekend.  Of course there will be a trip to Cafe Rio and Tai Pan in there somewhere!  Utah readers – any suggestions of new places I should check out??

Hope you had a happy weekend too!

Read Full Post »

Giveaway Winner and a Weekend Recap

Thanks to all of you who helped bring some smiles to the families at the Ronald McDonald House by sending a photo through eSmiles!

I was fortunate to spend some time at one of the Ronald McDonald houses here in Portland this weekend.  I joined a group of people from church as we spent the day cleaning, landscaping and cooking in the kitchen (guess where I was?)  The families staying at the Ronald McDonald House are so appreciative of everything that is done for them.  Despite the stress they are going through they all took the time and opportunity to say thank you.  That is certainly not why we were there – we were there to try and make their burden lighter and their day a little easier but it is always nice to have someone show appreciation.

Here’s a few photos from our day.

I was joined in the kitchen by a few of my good friends – Marsha, Joni and I and a few other helpers fixed meatball sandwiches for lunch along with some fresh fruit.

All ages and sizes got involved.  My friend My-Linh’s daughter did a great job helping to clean up the playground area.

Jim headed up the landscape crew and they filled about 30 large recycling bags of yard debris.

When I got home I also found a little time to start on one of my new projects – look what I bought off of Craig’s list.  Guess what I’m doing with it!!??

We also played a bit this weekend.  Friday night we found a new hole in the wall Mexican restaurant out in Hillsboro.  This whole plate of food was $7.00 – there was separate plate with the rice and beans on it!!  Tacos, enchiladas and tamales. I found the restaurant when I Goggled “best tacos in Hillsboro.”  I asked Jim if he was up for an adventure and he was!

Saturday night we had dinner with some friends at another one of our favorite little hole in the wall spots in Portland – Escape from New York Pizza.  As close to New York City as you can get in Portland.  Do you have a favorite hole in the wall restaurant in your town?

After dinner we went to ComedySportz where we laughed and laughed.  Margie Boule who is one of the Comedy Sportz comedians emailed me and offered me some free passes to come check out their show.  It has been a long time since I’d been there – twelve years to be exact. For Logan’s 16th birthday we took a group of friends to ComedySportz for his party and the kids loved it!  One of the easiest parties I’ve ever done.

If you live in Portland you should definitely check it out.  It is a family friendly and clean improv comedy show.  It’s a lot like the TV show “Who’s Line is it Anyway?”  that our family loved.   There is lots of fun audience participation too.  They perform on Friday and Saturday nights and there is a special ComedySportz4Kids on Sunday evenings where the show is focused on children 12 and under.  Whether you need to plan a birthday party or you are just looking for a fun and laughter filled night out ComedySportz is great!

I almost forgot – we’ve got a giveaway winner to announce.  The winner of the HP Printer is:

#28 Lynn says:

It is so nice that the Ronald McDonald house has helped someone in her family.

Beautiful. I remember when my Aunt and cousin used the Ronald McDonald house often when they had to travel far and often for my cousin’s cancer treatments. It sure made things easier for my Aunt and took the stress a bit off my Uncle who worked tirelessly at home to take care of the house and the rest of the kids……plus go to work everyday.

My cousin only lived until she was 8 years old. But the Ronald McDonald house made her short life comfortable, fun and the feelings of being “safe” while he mom was able to stay with her.

Lynn – email me with your shipping information and we’ll get your printer to you!

Read Full Post »

An Announcement and a Weekend

I hope you all enjoyed a lovely Easter weekend.  The weather was amazing here in Portland and we enjoyed every minute of it.

Before I share a little bit about our weekend I have an exciting announcement to make.

I have shared this on Facebook but wanted to do it here for those of you who don’t follow me on Facebook. (If you are on Facebook, you should follow me!)

Our family is expanding! We are thrilled to be adding another daughter to our family. I am going to be a mother in law.

Our son Clark is engaged to a beautiful girl, Jessica.  We are thrilled to welcome her to our family.  They will be married in August in Mesa, Arizona.

Here is the happy couple.

Needless to say we are pretty excited at our house and weddings plans are underway.  We will be hosting a fun party here in Oregon also to celebrate.  Jim and I spent time Saturday at Home Depot working on some of our plans for the party.

This weekend I also did a little Easter egg dying with some of my favorite kiddos.  We used some natural egg dyes I made from things such as red cabbage, yellow onion and black tea.  Very fun!

The colors we got were amazing.

This was our first Easter without children at home since we were first married.  I had shipped off Easter goodies to the kids a few weeks ago but it still felt strange not to be putting together our traditional Easter Egg string maze.

Jim had to be to church early Sunday morning and when I got up I found that the Easter Bunny had still made a stop at our house – for me!

We had a delicious Easter dinner with some of our empty nester friends.  The table was lovely, the company was good and the food was delicious.

A pretty table always makes everything taste better.  I brought Orange Rolls, Celestial Salad and Lemon Angel Pie which was truly heavenly!

We enjoyed our Scripture Easter Eggs with our friends too.  One friend mentioned that she loved doing it because as she would pull the yellowed, well used piece of paper out of the egg she thought of the many Easter dinners these eggs must have been at with our children as they grew up.

Me and my Easter Bunny!

I hope your Easter was as lovely as ours.  A special thank you to my niece Emily and sister in laws Teresa and Tricia who made sure my children were all fed in Utah!

Read Full Post »

Tropical Gelatin Mold

Last week I was cleaning out one of my top kitchen cupboards and I came across a box I had forgotten about.  It was a box full of old individual gelatin molds.

These  molds were an important part of my childhood.  They usually made an appearance at our dinner table on every holiday and many Sundays.

We ate a lot of Jello growing up – I think it was the 70’s.

The hardest part of making the gelatin was getting it out of the mold. You would hold the mold upside down in your hand and run some warm water over the top of it to loosen the gelatin.

The little, individual molds were pretty easy but I remember once my mother was unmolding a large gelatin mold and the whole thing slipped out of the mold and into the sink and down the drain!

There is something so charming about an individual serving of food.  I think they will look just perfect on the Easter dinner table too.  Your food almost becomes part of the decorations.

My favorite flavors of gelatin are lemon and orange (no surprise there!)  and I used lemon for this version but you could easily use orange or even lime if you’d like. For this Tropical Gelatin Mold I replaced part of the water with limeade and some vanilla ice cream to give the gelatin a little extra bit of flavor and creaminess.  Limeade can be found in the frozen juice section right next to the frozen lemonade.  I mixed it up according to the directions and then used a 1/2 cup.  After the gelatin sets up in the refrigerator I stirred some crushed pineapple and mandarin oranges into it.  I let mine set up a little too long so it was a bit lumpier than I like but it still tastes good!

If you’d like some gelatin molds of your own I see them at Goodwill all the time.  You might even find some in the back of your mother or grandmother’s kitchen cupboard!  You could always just pour it into a bowl too and forget the molds.

Tropical Jello Mold

Traditional Tropical Jello Mold just like your grandmother used to make.CourseDessert, SaladCuisineAmericanKeywordtropical jello moldPrep Time5 minutesCook Time10 minutesChill1 hourTotal Time1 hour 15 minutesServings6 servingsCalories149kcalAuthorLeigh Anne Wilkes

Ingredients

• 3 oz. lemon or orange gelatin 1 package
• 1 C water boiling
• 1/2 C limeade Found in the frozen juice section. Mix according to directions and then use 1/2 cup of limeade
• 1 C vanilla ice cream
• 11 oz. can mandarin oranges drained
• 1/2 C crushed pineapple drained

Instructions

• Boil 1 cup water and dissolve gelatin in it. Add limeade and ice cream and stir until ice cream is dissolved. Place in refrigerator to thicken. When gelatin has thickened fold in oranges and pineapple. Put into a mold or bowl to set.
• Run mold under some warm water to loosen it from the mold.

Read Full Post »