I am awesome

You may recall that I recently switched all of my cookware

from the cheapo non-stick stuff

to a combination of stainless steal and cast iron

For years, Frank has been trying to convince me to use cast iron.

He swears they are easy to use and cook so much nicer.

I always avoided it.

We had some cast iron cookware in the back of the cupboard but only Frank ever used it.

and then it would sit on the counter

FOREVER

waiting to get cleaned.

I would finally do it.

The way I usually do...

soap and water.

And he would tell me I was doing it wrong.

Cast iron is too much trouble!

But over time I've become more and more concerned about all the strange things we are putting in our bodies, including teflon coating and aluminum cookware...

this stuff that makes its way into the foods we cook.

And so I switched.

And I've been so happy

(mostly)

I'm still a little bit bad at the cleaning thing when it comes to the cast iron.

I do often tell Frank he is "in charge" of cleaning the cast iron.

and he will.

But I'm learning about doing it right.

Went to youtube and watched all about seasoning and caring for my pans.

Youtube is amazing.

People who put videos there just to teach others are amazing.

By now you are probably wondering why this post is titled 

I am awesome.

Well, I cooked myself some scrambled eggs in my gorgeous large cast iron pan.

Fairly new...Frank gave it to me as a gift.

Eggs are probably the one thing that would work better in a teflon pan

but its usually not too bad.

When it came time to clean the pan I decided to put some water in and heat it up to make it a little easier.

...and then I went shopping...

Yup

I am that awesome.

I came home to a house FILLED with smoke.

and the smell

oh the smell

very very burned eggs

and burned pan

I kept my head and removed with pan from the stove top without burning myself or breaking anything

I set it where it would cool gradually

I opened all the windows

and I took a picture

Frank is definitely in charge of cleaning this pan.

Oh My Gosh, MY HAIR!

There are times when having "natural curl" is really not so fabulous.

My hair is somewhere between curly and straight.

It can't decide.

But one thing my hair REALLY likes to be is frizzy.

I do frizzy really really well.

And once spring/summer arrive

well

lets just say that my good hair days are a thing of the past.

The amount of humidity in the air is just enough to make me look like a freak all of the time.

And to make matters worse

I recently decided to have bangs.

They worked out just fine during the colder months

but now that its getting warmer 

they are completely hopeless.

curling this way and that

frizzing up

freaking out

It's quite a look.

If you need me, I'll be hiding in my house until they grow out.

Mother's Day

I had a pretty awesome mother's day today

I might add pictures later

but for now I just think I'll list all the good things about today:

Texts, calls, and facetime with my 3 boys that live far away

Lunch made by Carter (the one boy left at home)

Carter also offered to make breakfast but I had gotten up early and already ate before he asked

flowers from a friend

a corsage for church from another friend

Dinner at the Diane Sears home made by her son, daughter and husband

Frank had to go out of town this morning so yesterday he made me a cherry pie so I'd have it today

I think Frank might have been worried that the kids wouldn't come through for today so he sent me texts every couple of hours with nice things about what a good mom I am

As part of my mother's day gift I told Carter that he had to watch a chick flick with me

 and he did

Of course he tried to convince me that a few movies like "Star Wars" and "Stealth" 

were actually chick flicks.

But in the end, he joined me to watch "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"

and he didn't complain

Baby Blessing

Isabelle was blessed this last weekend in Utah.

Frank got to go out there for a little visit to meet Isabelle and be a part of this special occasion.

Here is a picture from his first meeting

Looks like Isabelle has grown a ton!

The blessing dress looked very cute on her.

I sure am thankful to my awesome mother in law, Janice, for making it!

I sent her my wedding dress and she used the fabric and lace to make a lovely little dress.

She even used the original hem from my dress!  I painstakingly (if imperfectly) sewed little pearls along the hem of my wedding dress.

My in-laws drove from Oregon to be there

And my parents came too (but didn't stay for pictures...sad).

Plus my brother and two sisters and their families also came to be a part of this special day also.

They all live close

Amber's family also lives in the same town so they were there too.

I hope Frank took lots of pictures that I will see/share when he gets home.

For now, here are a few that he texted to me.

Daddy Branden with cute little Isabelle

My sister, Diane

 Grandma Janice (the seamstress) with Grandaddy in the background

 Grandpa Frank

(just gotta love the socks on her hands!  I did that all the time too)

 Another one of Daddy Branden.  Isabelle looks like she's talking in this one.

The family!

Vacation IV

The final installment of our big vacation.

We found an amazing beach with a sunken ship out in the water.

It was so unbelievably beautiful!

I relaxed on the beach while Carter and Frank snorkeled around and eventually went out to the ship to investigate (turned out to be only so-so by the boat...hadn't been there long enough I guess).

 Can you see how clear the water is?  Check out all those fish!

    

headed out to the ship...

A pelican came to keep me company on the beach.

Carter got to go parasailing on Saturday

 They dunked him in the water. :-)

 Frank took this super awesome picture of me:

 We were still on the lookout for pink flamingos so Frank got super excited when he saw this heron...white heron.  But he insisted that we call it a baby pink flamingo...so we could say we saw one.

He stalked it for awhile to try to get a picture.  You might have to squint in some of them.

And our final beach day.

GREAT snorkeling, a visit to the park--Carter and Frank trying out the long lost experience of a see-saw, a picnic by the beach.

On our last day before heading out to the airport, we went to church in the local congregation of our church

(Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints--or Mormons)

It was a congregation of about 45 people and it was pretty awesome.

Here's the building:

And that's the end of our adventure!

Vacation III

 I'm having trouble remembering which day we did what.  My memory is awesome!

So instead of trying to remember the order of things, I'll be listing some of the fun things we did...in a random order.

Get ready for lots of pictures...

We drove to the end of the island to a beach called The Pirates cove.  A very cool place!

We hiked around a while and found a ladder going down into the rocks.  So we went down the slightly rickety ladder into a beautiful little cove.

We snorkeled and walked on the beach.  

We saw tons of star fish (huge ones!), a manta ray that swam right by us near the beach, and really enjoyed the day there.

Here's the rickety ladder that we found going down into a cave type of thing by the water...

Coming out of the cave, we were in a beautiful cove, shallow enough to walk all the way around to the beach.

See the rock overhang?  We snorkeled under there later.  It was cool!

Our first starfish

The manta ray...you'll just have to trust me. :-)

_______________

We took a boat to Middle and North Caicos

The last time we were here we had a great day on these two islands

snorkeling

hiking

eating

and exploring.

And these islands are known for the pink flamingos that live there.

So we arrived early in the day and immediately starting looking for somewhere to have breakfast.

and we looked

and looked

and drove 

and drove

we stopped and saw a couple of nice beaches along the way though so it wasn't totally wasted.

But we did drive a lot.

We finally ended up eating at the first restaurant that had seen...way back at the other end of the island!

We explored a cool cave

We ended the day on a lovely beach where we snorkeled.

I laid under this little overhang to keep out of the sun...until the tide started coming in that is.

I thought these were the coolest little plants!

They look like caterpillars when you first look at them, but they are plants.

Very colorful!

The only bummer of the day?

After spending a lot of time looking...we saw ZERO pink flamingos!

Last time there were tons!

So dissappointing.  I wonder where they all went?