Vegas Vacation

This past weekend Adam and I spent the weekend in Las Vegas. Adam won the trip through a contest at work so we got treated in STYLE! The pictures below are from the amazing suite at the Palazzo (part of the Venetian). It was absolutely gorgeous and it was amazing the attention to detail was in the rooms. This is a view from up near the bed. The room had a recessed "living" room with a flat screen TV, a work table, dining table and big plush couch. The curtains were even controlled with a remote!

This is looking from the "living room" up to the rest of the room. The Bedroom area also had a flat screen TV. There were lights everywhere so you could adjust the amount of lighting.

This was the nice big bed. I loved the headboard and the clean white bedding.

I decided I wanted this bathroom in my house. It was loaded with mirrors and all sorts of lights everywhere. It even had another flat screen so you could watch TV while you got ready. Oh and it had big double doors opening into it. This was probably my favorite part of the bathroom. A little vanity area with a plush little seat. It was perfect for putting on makeup!These next pictures are from the Bellagio. On Friday night we went to the O Show and had dinner with Adam's best Friend Dave and his wife Flor. The Bellagio has this sweet Atrium with fresh flowers that they change out regularly. That night it was covered in Tulips - my favorites! There were also plenty of lilacs for a lovely fragrance.

Dave and Flor Adam and I

Lots of flowers!

Saturday afternoon we drove over to the Vegas Temple. It was beautiful. This was our attempt at taking our picture.. yeah, it never does work to well does it?

While we were there we of course saw lots of Brides, but we also ran across this craziness:

We couldn't believe this dress. It was HUGE. We are pretty sure it was a prom or quinceanera dress because they looked REALLY young. It was pretty entertaining watching the mom yell at the Photographer. It was pretty amazing all the details that go into the hotels in Vegas. There is no way I could take enough pictures to show them all, but here was one of my favorite things from the Palazzo - UMBRELLAS! These were hanging in a few different places and were just colorful and fun.

Kena Noel

For those of you who don't know her, let me introduce you to my crazy (and I say that in the most loving way) little sis. You'd never really know we are sisters, but we are both pretty much awesome in our own unique ways - I mean obviously you must think I am awesome if you are reading my blog and as soon as you read about my sister you will know she is too.... OK, so maybe I need some lessons in humility.

Anyway, whenever I begin to describe my sister to people, I usually just finish off the conversation by stating that she lives in Eugene, OR and then they pretty much get it. You see Kena was born just a few decades too late... she love Reggae music, is a Vegan - almost a raw foodist, makes most of her clothes from other clothes and is EXTREMELY creative- shes basically a modern day hippie.

So its really no surprise that Kena has some big dreams and is working very hard to achieve them. Recently she's graduated from Massage Therapy School and has acquired all her licenses. She wants to take this skill, along with her knowledge of agriculture and love of children to Africa, to serve the people with all she has.

I wanted to share this post about my sister and also a link to her website where you can learn more about her and her journey to Africa:

We may have different goals and dreams, but I definitely admire her for her drive and determination to fulfill them. So although I sometimes refer to her as my "Crazy Sister", I really do love her and wish her all the best along her journey!

MARCH MADNESS!!

I LOVE March Madness... too bad Adam doesn't quite get into like I do. I was so lucky today to be working from home. I have three computer screens in front of me, two for work (yes I really do need two, seriously, it would be awful without two) and one to watch the games online. Ahhh, the life. Sadly I have to actually go into work tomorrow so I can't enjoy the Utah State Game; the worst part is that we have a team meeting right in the middle of the game! BOOOOOOOOO!!!! I will report that I am 12 for 12 on my bracket so far. That makes me the sole leader of my office pool of 69 people. YESSSSS! Can you tell yet that I am obsessed? I'm sure my perfect streak won't last long, but at least I can say I was in first place all by myself for a little while!

One absoultely wonderful year!

Adam and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary a couple weeks ago. We had a wonderful weekend! We hit the driving range on Saturday morning, then went to lunch at Texas Road House (where we had our very first date), went to a movie, and spent the night at the Biltmore. The Biltmore was awesome. We had actually stayed there on our wedding night but we got there so late and had to leave early in the morning, we didn't really get to enjoy the resort. So this time around we got to walk through all the gardens and even play on the putting course. So fun! Here are a few pictures from the Biltmore.


It's taken me awhile to post because I was sick all last week. I also wanted to share some of our wedding day photos since we haven't done that yet and since they take a long time to load (because Rachel did such a fabulous job on them and they are superior quality!) Its taken awhile to get it all done. So here are some of my favorites!

My dress - I LOVED my dress. I knew it was the one from the minute I saw it online. I was so fortunate to walk into the bridal shop and find it in my size! I didn't even need major altering, just a little hemming since I am short and I was NOT going to wear heels.

My wonderful husband - isn't he so handsome? And yes I made him wear a bright pink tie that I don't think he will EVER wear again. Probably not even if I begged.

My flowers. Of course I wanted hot pink, and of course I had to have Tulips. Adam's mom was great about going to florist after florist til she found one that agreed to do tulips. Most of them refused saying they wouldn't last through the day. We agreed to add a few Gerber daisies for support (another of my favorite flowers). And they survived the whole day! They were absolutely gorgeous!

I had fun taking all of our pictures, I know Adam didn't quite enjoy it as much as me, but I love all the different angles, and the fun pictures we have.

This one is great because you can see my sweet flip flops! No way was I spending the whole day in high heels!

This is probably my favorite picture of us together.

All of our Family and Friends that came to celebrate with us:

In case you didn't know or hadn't figured it out, we got married in the Mesa, AZ temple.

We took most of our pictures before the ceremony, but I love this one taken right after, because I can just see the pure excitement on my face!

This next set is from our Reception at Adam's families house. We got to have it outside in their front yard and it was beautiful!

More tulips! These were still gorgeous when we got back from our honeymoon. All the florist told us they would open up too much so we were scared to put them out too early. They didn't hardly open up at all!

My throwaway bouquet:

The cake was one of my FAVORITE thing. I saw this in a magazine and Adam's mom gave it to a family friend to recreate. It was perfect! Not only that but it tasted great. We served Tres Leches Cake and it was soooooo goooood.

Cutting the cake; Adam tried to claim I shoved it in his face first, but we have video proof to the contrary.

And our first dance as Husband and wife.

We had such an amazing day surrounded by Family and Friends. I don't know how it could have gotten any better!

Sweet Potatoes!

We've become slightly obsessed with Sweet Potatoes lately. And while I love them, I can't just eat a baked sweet potato every night so I've had to come up with some other ways to use the big guys (mostly because Adam buys whole boxes at a time at Costco). I wanted to share some of our favorites:


My absolute favorite is this Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Pecans and Spiced Maple Syrup from Ask Aida on the Food Network. I was so excited when I happened to watch her make these I just had to give it a try. We LOVE them... I remember the first time after we made them Adam said I had to make them again so here it is:

ROASTED SWEET POTATOES WITH PECANS AND SPICED MAPLE SYRUP
Ingredients
2/3 cup roughly chopped pecans
3 pounds sweet potatoes, cut into large dice (I like to peel them, but Aida left the peels on)
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons vegatable oil
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Directions
1. Heat oven to 450 degrees F and arrange rack in the middle.
2. While oven heats, place pecans on a baking sheet to toast until they smell nutty and are slightly darker, about 5 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside.
3. Place sweet potatoes on a baking sheet, drizzle with oil. Season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper, and toss to coat. Roast until golden brown and tender when pierced with a knife, about 40 to 45 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. When it foams, stir in maple syrup and cayenne and let cook briefly, about 1 minute. Serve sweet potatoes with a drizzle of maple butter and a scattering of pecans.

Before I continue on Adam wants me to make sure I tell you all of the health benefits from Sweet Potatoes... he likes to inform me pretty much every time we eat them (except he can't tell me them now except that "all I know is they are healthy"). OK so moving on.

When I am feeling like we need to eat up the sweet potatoes before they go bad or I just want to try something different; I take a couple of sweet potatoes, boil them, mash them, and throw em in the fridge till I am ready to create magic with them (if you make your own baby food you could just make some extra to use in these recipes). So here are two other recipes we like to use mashed sweet potatoes with... one very healthy, one well, maybe not so much.

I got this next recipe of off Allrecipes.com and here's the link to the original as I can't take the credit for it. They have no sugar in them, well until you put syrup on top, but they are very yummy. I'm also posting this for Alisa because she thought this would be good to feed Brycen - I'm sure any little one would love to snack on these!

SWEET POTATO PANCAKES

INGREDIENTS
3/4 pound sweet potatoes
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup butter, melted

DIRECTIONS
1. Place sweet potatoes in a medium saucepan of boiling water, and cook until tender but firm, about 15 minutes. Drain, and immediately immerse in cold water to loosen skins. Drain, remove skins, chop, and mash. (or use the ones you pre-prepared in the fridge)
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Mix mashed sweet potatoes, eggs, milk and butter in a separate medium bowl. Blend sweet potato mixture into the flour mixture to form a batter.
3. Preheat a lightly greased griddle over medium-high heat. Drop batter mixture onto the prepared griddle by heaping tablespoonfuls, and cook until golden brown, turning once with a spatula when the surface begins to bubble.

Make sure you don't over beat these, just like any other pancake batter. I also don't use nutmeg, I use cinnamon instead (more or less to taste), and I like my pancakes a little flatter so I add a little more milk if the batter is too thick. Oh and 1 normal sweet potato is about 3/4 to 1 lb, I just usually scoop out a cup or so of my already mashed sweet potatoes from the fridge when we make these. It makes enough batter for the two of us to eat on twice.

And here is the last one to use up those mashed sweet potatoes; Sweet Potato Bread. This bread is along the lines of Zucchini Bread and its just moist and yummy. I got this one of Allrecipes.com as well and here is the link to the original.

SWEET POTATO BREAD

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/3 cup water
1 cup cooked and mashed sweet potatoes
1/2 cup chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS
1. Combine sugar and oil; beat well. Add eggs and beat. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir flour mixture into egg mixture alternately with water. Stir in sweet potatoes and chopped nuts.
2. Pour batter into greased 9x5 inch loaf pan (or 2 small loaf pans). Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about one hour.

My tip and this may be obvious to all of you, but I just recently learned this. If the top is getting too brown but the inside isn't done, cover the top with foil to keep it from burning. I made this bread earlier this week and after cooking for 45 minutes I covered with foil, and then at just over 1 hour, I shut the oven off but left the bread in for an additional 10-15 minutes to let the inside keep cooking and it turned out awesome.

I hope you enjoy some new ways to use sweet potatoes, or maybe to try them for the first time!