The Reason For My Ever Expanding Waistline

My mom-in-law, sis-in-laws and I have been taking cooking classes together for over a year now. We do it for our monthly or biweekly girls night. Gotta love the GNO. We are very lucky to take them from Margaruite Henderson and we absolutely love it!


The classes are set up in an intimate atmosphere at Marguerite's home, she plans the menu in advance and gives us all a copy of the recipes to refer to as she cooks. We arrive to beautifully arranged appettizers displayed with gorgeous dishes and serving utensils. Rivaling such dexterity and finnesse of my precious Bree Van de Kamp.


Someone usally brings wine, which is a big plus, and then we sit back and relax while she cooks up a storm.


She is, without exception, the best chef ever. And the cutest.





We have learned so much from her, not only does she teach us how to cook the recipes given, but she also shares her insider chef secrets like how to know when a certain fruit is ripe, the most sufficient way to extract the juice from a lemon, the finest cutting techniques and the best cookware to use.


And my favorite part of the class?


Eating the food.


Of course everything she makes is to die for. The classes are 3 hours long and she makes anywhere from 5 to 7 dishes so you want to arrive hungry. Pacing yourself is the key, which is hard to do when every single dish implores you to have seconds and thrids. (And fourths)


By the time the class is over we've all split our pants and Marguerite has to roll us out the door. Seriously, you leave VERY satisfied, plus you get to take the leftovers home to the hubster.





The last class that we attended was called,

Fabulous February Fromage:

Cheese Fantastico! Big flavors in Puff Pastry Pizzas, Panini with Comte and Ham, Creamy Pasta with Four Cheeses, Beehive Cheddar Biscotti with Walnuts and a lemon blueberry torte!

Oh man. A class all about cheese? It was meant for me, I just know it.


Here we all are pre-pant splitting condition. From left to right: McKell, Rachael, Sharon, Cris & Me.

Marguerite persisted to take 5 pictures of us because she said Cris kept turning out too dark in each one. So we'd try to scoot Cris forward into the light and I would try to scoot back.





Um, no Margaurite, she just looks extremely dark because she IS extremely dark. And of course it doesn't help that she's sitting next to the pearly albino.

Nope, still dark.


I'm pathetic.

Christmas Is No Longer In The Air

We are suffocating in Utah. The air quality in Northern Utah was the WORST in the Nation yesterday. We are breathing in shit soup people.



DISGUSTING.

Never thought I'd say this, but we need a really good storm. Breathing keeps you alive so I guess I'd like to keep doing it.



Even angel Moroni can't breath, let alone blow his horn.

Hold on while I put on my oxygen mask, I'd like to finish this post before I keel over.

Thanks.



So it's January 11th and I haven't even finished posting about Christmas. So you'll just have to shut up and deal with it.

Christmas morning back at my mom's house...



I just love baby's faces right after they wake up!



30-year-old faces however, not so much. This is typical of my brother on EVERY Christmas morning.



We just throw his presents on top of him.



I guess my whole family doesn't do well with mornings. Case in point.






Surprisingly Lindee was quite awake even though she had to wake up extra early to have Christmas a 6 AM with her mom-in-law. Yeah, 6 AM! Here she is showing off her new apron.



(Sorry kids, she hasn't yet figured out how to wear a black bra with a black shirt)


Other highlights:


Baby dimples.




Alyse and her new Nikon.



Logan and his new camera.



Calendars, homemade by Lindee.



My dad's cute face.



Now, the BEST part of the morning...Justine, I KNOW your family can appreciate this.

Picking my dad's never ending blackhead.



Even Logan got in on the action. Seriously, we love when it's blackhead popping time. My dad has had this blackhead in the middle of his back for years now and it is the deepest thing I have ever seen. We can stick a needle all the way down in it and he can't feel a thing.

It's a family event when we get to whip out the blackhead, it's so exciting & disgusting to see how much crap we can get out of it. We are sick, twisted people my family.

But we're okay with that.

I can't believe I'm doing this, but yes, I really am posting a picture of my dad's blackhead on the internet for the whole world to enjoy. At least this is in its early stage where barely anything has surfaced.



You're welcome dad!



So after we spent Christmas morning with my fam, we visited the much more normal side of our family, Al's side.

We arrived to find our stockings filled with all sorts of goodies.



(I was taking a picture of the stockings, not Al's butt, that was just an extra bonus.)

Oh my sweet little Albert was so excited to see that Santa left him a bottle of Highland Park. This is what Christmas is all about, to see the childrens' bright happy faces!



Now, if anyone has forgotten, our Christmas present from Al's parents was the best present ever, Hawaii! Hard to top that one.

The best part of our Christmas at the in-law's was watching the kids open their presents. Ava was adorable. Each time she opened a gift she made sure that someone took a picture of it. Each and every gift.




She was more into the unwrapping part, then the presents themselves. She'd open one and quickly dive into the next one.



See? I wasn't kidding. She opened all of my presents for me.



Colin and Jaxon made a haul!





Here's Clay sipping the yummy Sangria Cris made. I wish I had a picture of all the food too. The plan was to just have a few appetizers, but I've learned by now that Cris's "few" is most peoples "ton". So we had tons of food!



The plan was that each daughter in law was to bring an appetizer that we learned in the cooking classes we all have been taking from Marguerite; however one of us totally blew it. What a loser, what kind of inconsiderate idiot would show up to Christmas without her assigned appetizer?

Me.

Oops. I was planning on making this amazing Tiramisu that we learned in one of our cooking classes but for some reason I didn't realize that ALL grocery stores are closed on Christmas day. Who knew?

I felt so bad, I called Cris and told her what an idiot I was and of course she said she had plenty of food so not to worry about it. I then offered to bring champagne but of course she had that too so I showed up empty handed.

I totally suck. Sorry Cris. And everybody. I owe you all Tiramisu.



So Terry, Al's dad, was on call Christmas day so he wasn't able to show up until later (he's a vet) and as I was trying to get a picture of him helping Colin, Ava jumps up and yells "Take a picture of me!"



So of course I did. She's such a cheesball!



And I'd have to say the highlight of Christmas at the in-laws was watching Brandon try to get one of Ava's babies out of its package.



He thought he had it done until he turned the doll over to find a wire sticking out of its butt.




And I'm sure you can guess the jokes that were made at that poor doll's (and Brandon's) expense.



So there you go, that's the last you'll hear from me about Christmas I promise!

Well, until next year at least.



Peace out.

Aloha! (It Means Hello And Good Bye, You Guess Which One I Meant)

Back to the wonderful world of sun, warmth and crazy weed dudes, we find ourselves snorkeling in Molokini.

Molokini is a crater out in the middle of a channel away from the sand so it's a tropical underwater oasis and blah blah blah which means it's an amazing place for snorkeling! The water is clear and blue and the fish swim right up next to you.

Now I went snorkeling in Cancun but that was nothing like Hawaii, sure in Cancun we saw a couple sting rays and the water was clear but there was nothing else to see. The crater was just full of colorful plants and fish everywhere and yes, sharks!

I saw two sharks, mind you they stayed at the bottom of the crater and didn't come near us, at least didn't come near me, and they weren't the "jaws" type of sharks, they were smaller but definitely frightening.



Of course not frightening to me because I knew I could totally take that shark if by chance an attack was underway. I've got an unforgiving uppercut and the ultimate scuz face that would stop any shark dead in it's tracks.

So I wasn't worried and I followed the shark until I couldn't keep up with him anymore, or until I ran into a fellow snorkeler. Seriously, it's amazing to snorkel there but in that small of space with a million other snorkelers it's kind of hard to find a remote area.

We then were fortunate enough to snorkel with sea turtles. They are huge and they are beautiful. And those suckers are fast! We had underwater cameras and Clay took a bunch of pictures but I haven't seen them yet, so I'm sorry I have no turtle pictures for you.


Get over it.


I did however, get a few pictures of us on the boat before they threw us into the middle of the cold deep ocean. With no life jackets.






If you didn't notice, Albert is absent from these photos. He actually opted out of the snorkeling adventure due to the cuts he received on his feet from snorkeling the day before. He could hardly walk. He still has scabs.

Ouch.


Okay are you ready for the cutest picture of the year? Probably the cutest picture ever?

























We all couldn't help but laugh when we saw that Ava thought she was going snorkeling too, she was already to go!



Later in the week we found ourselves enjoying a sunset dinner cruise on the Spirit of Lahaina.



Before dinner they had a little magic show and my two cutie nephews got to be part of it. He had each of them hold a rope tight while he stood in front of it and then you'll never guess what he did, he pulled that rope right through his body and it appeared in front of him!



Seconds after I took this picture the top half of the magicians body fell to the floor and blood started spewing out from where his torso was once attached spraying blood on the whole audience. He was pronounced dead at the scene.


Guess he wasn't that great of a magician after all.


Ok, that part didn't really happen but you all are wishin it had, you sickos.



Ta-da!


Not only was this dude magical, but he could take pictures too.



Amazing.









Back at our Hawaiin abode, Al would work out every single day. Seriously, doesn't he know what the word vacation means?




Apparently not.

But the kids wanted to work out too. They were hilarious!





The following pictures are brought to you by Cris when the guys went boogie boarding, I'm so sad I missed out on this!








Okay, so my cute, innocent sister in law Sharon thought it would be a great idea to make a sand sculpture of a nice big pair of boobs. I know, I couldn't believe it either.




Okay, so she wasn't sculpting boobs, on purpose anyway. She was trying to make Mickey Mouse, but she told me while she was doing it she looked down and realized it looked like boobs, and everyone was giving her the WTF look. It's funny because that is SO unlike Sharon, I love her.

We also went to the aquarium and saw lots of cool sea creatures. Here I am taking a picture with the scariest sea creature on display.



Don't be frightened, I used my shark uppercut and survived the encounter.





I love this picture, can you see the reflection of a certain someone?













This seems to be a popular form of transportation for Ava.







And finally, the moment you've all been waiting for. Don't be frightened, I heard that Hawaii officials were able to taze this creature and had it contained before it could pray for undeserving people.


Ladies and gentlemen, the 5 foot 10 inch Praying Mantis!