Easter Cupcakes and a Fun Friend

I really wanted to make a fun Easter treat, but I didn't want to make a whole cake since it is just the two of us. I saw a fun idea to decorate Easter cupcakes in my 500 Cupcakes cookbook. I decided I wanted I wanted to try them, especially since it "required" Cadbury Mini Eggs, which are pretty much my weakness at Easter time. I made them last night. The cupcake didn't turn out so good, I don't think I will be using the recipe again, but I mostly wanted to decorate them. I think they look pretty cute what do you think? It is supposed to look like a little birds nest. You used shaved chocolate for the nest, I also saw that you could use baked pie crust, but, I am a chocolate addict!



Also, on Tuesday we took some family photos for our friends the Marshalls. We spent the warm afternoon at the park and on campus taking some good shots. When we got in the car to go to campus their little girl Belle was sad that we weren't in the car with them, they told her we were lost and they had to find us. She started saying Marc where are you, Melissa come back, I miss you too much! Of course she said it like a 3 year old would, but we are glad she likes us. When we were walking back to our car she wanted to walk with Marc, so I took a few pictures of them. She was holding onto his back pocket the whole way, it was really cute! He will make such a great daddy one day!


It's not just Marc that Belle likes so much. I was over there today for a little while, it was really rainy last night and everything is wet, so I took my shoes off, I stood up to leave and was talking to Christine, I turned around to put my shoes on and Belle had taken them into her room to hide them so I couldn't leave! I asked her where my shoes were and she took me to her toy box in her room. I took one out and but it on and she threw the other onto her dresser. We are glad that our friends kids like us as much as their parents do.

Russian Food and General Conference Weekend

We heard about a Russian restaurant called Ida-Russkie in Idaho Falls. Since Marc served in Ukraine he really wanted to try it. The food is all the same. We never got around to going until this weekend. We went with our friends Steve and Christine and their cute little girls. When we found the restaurant, we were pretty disappointed to find out that they closed at 4pm, it was a little after 5. Marc went in and began talking with the owner, the restaurant is in a little office area and there is no door. He said that we wanted to try some food, she asked if we could come the next day, which we couldn't. Marc told her that he had served in Ukraine. She immediately "chastised" him for not speaking to her in Russian. She then told him that she would make us dinner and showed him on the menu the things she would make for us. We went in and sat down and she began bringing us food. We started with borsch, which is a beet and cabbage soup. It was delicious! Here is Marc eating his borsch, it was a very nostalgic moment for him, he said the smell and taste reminded him of his mission.

We then had gollopse (not sure about the spelling) which is basically a meatball made with ground meat and rice wrapped in cabbage, with a sweet red sauce. Yum, it was so tasty! Here again is Marc eating and enjoying his mission memories, and excited that he can still speak Russian fluently!

The last and final course was blini, or a crepe with tvorog, which is a type of cheese. Marc says the cheese isn't very good, but we had strawberry and chocolate mixed in ours and it was so good! I could eat it all the time! Here is Marc showing off on of his favorite treats!

The tvorog help fill our friend Steve's April part of his New Year's resolution to eat a new food, we were glad we could help him, and spend time with their family. As we were leaving Marc saw this dog in a car and couldn't help but take a picture, I'm posting it just for him!

Saturday between sessions of conference we made a huge traditional conference breakfast of homemade cinnamon rolls, breakfast casserole, and fruit. We invited Steve and Christine to come over and help us eat it. We watched Ratatouille while we ate. I took this cute picture of Belle cuddling Marc on the couch watching her movie.

We had a great weekend! Thanks Steve and Christine for hanging out with us and letting us watch your cute girls!

Snowy Dinner, Lychees, and Being Stuck in the Dark!

Sunday when we left for church it was really windy and cold. Luckily we have church at 9am because around 2 or 3 we could hardly see out our windows, the wind was blowing hard and it was snowing. We were planning on having steak for dinner, but when we looked at our grill we saw this,

We decided to broil the steak so Marc didn't have to sit outside, and we really didn't feel like brushing off the grill. Unfortunately, we won't see weather higher than the 40's for awhile still!

My brother is serving a mission in Madagascar. There is not a lot of native food there that we have here in the U.S. One of his current favorite foods is lychees. Not the blood sucking creatures, I promise! It is a fruit, you can get it in the U.S, but it is canned. I found it at the store and really wanted to get them, just to try. They taste like pears, but the texture is really tough. Marc had them on his mission in Ukraine, he did not like them, so I was kind of scared. Here are the pictures we took, it's okay to laugh, and the faces I made were mostly because Marc would tell me to then sneak a picture!




Monday night at around 10:15 our lights flickered and went out. We knew most of the town was out of power because it was pitch black in our apartment! We looked out side and it was really dark, it was also cloudy, so there wasn't even light from the moon. We can see the highway from our bedroom window, and the other side of the highway as far as we could see was really dark too. We watched a movie on the computer while we waited for the power to com back on, but at midnight when it was still dark, we decided to go to sleep. It didn't help that it was in the low 20's and the heat wouldn't work, so we packed blankets on the bed and went to sleep. I woke up a few hours later when I heard the TV in the living room turn on, I knew the power must be back, but don't TV's stay off if the power comes back on? Marc got up to adjust the heater and turn off the TV, he looked at the time, it was 2am, four hours with out power and heat. Thank goodness for modern living! We used our phones to help us find the flashlight, but electricity and heat are much better!

I also forgot to mention that I got my hair done at the Paul Mitchell Hair Academy on Friday, I had highlights put in, Marc dropped me off on his way to class and was worried about me getting home, it isn't that far a walk. But I got done about the time he got home from class five hours later. It was long, but I love it. You can see the new do in the pictures above!

That is what has been going on with us. We are hoping the warm weather comes back, Marc has finals next week, then he starts his last semester of college! We can't wait!

I love to see the Temple!

My dad e-mailed me this picture today and I love it! The Mesa Temple is really special to me because my grandparents, my parents, Marc's parents, and Marc and I were all sealed here! My grandma currently has the real picture, but this one was taken by my Great Grand Father Grant William Magelby! My clever Aunt Becky sent it to a local news station and asked if they could date it based on the fact that the Temple was completed in 1927. This picture was taken in 1937! My cousin and grandma sent it to the church and it can now be found at www.ldschurchtemples.com/mesa/gallery/download.php?id=3686 You can find pictures from many different temples, and download them. Can I just say, I love the temple!

I forgot to mention, Yes, there is snow on the temple, that is how we determined the date, it hasn't snowed that much in Mesa in a LONG time!

Harry Potter!

I have been reading a lot lately and I love it, but it has become kind of an addiction. Marc told me, jokingly of course, that he wouldn't marry me unless I read Harry Potter. I didn't want to read them, but I had the time. I finished the first two before we were married, then I read the third one about 6 months later. Marc kept telling me I needed to read the 4th one, but I kept putting it off because it was so big, I read it in a week, I am working on the 5th one now and I have to force myself to stop, at this rate, I will be done with the series in the next 3 weeks, now I need something new. I might reread the Twilight series, it has been awhile since I read them as they came out, but I have a list of a few others. Any suggestions?

Salmon

I am not really sure why, but I have been craving fish a lot lately. O think it is because my mom is allergic and we never really ate fish growing up, and Marc loves it, so I eat it more. Salmon fillets were on sale and Marc really wanted some. I have no idea how to cook it, so I left it up to Marc. He grilled them and was so proud of himself, he kept saying we should take a picture! I think he just wanted to be written about in a blog! Anyway, they turned out so good! I couldn't eat anything else on my plate until it was gone! So tasty! I think instead of hitting up the golden arches for a fillet o' fish, Marc will be cooking it a lot more! Here is what it looked like before he took it off the grill. He was so proud of those grill marks!

20 Reasons I Love Arizona

It is 38 degrees outside right now, and not it is not looking like it is going to get much warmer anytime soon. Being from Arizona, spring to me is temperatures in the 60's and 70's. I miss it, so, here are the things I love about Arizona!

1. It is never REALLY cold.
2. All of our family is there, we miss them all!
3. The smell of orange blossoms in the springtime.
4. There are not large piles of dirty snow all over.
5. There are lots of fun places to go, malls, restaurants, etc, Idaho is lacking...
6. You can BBQ year round and not have to be dressed for a blizzard!
7. You can pretty much wear flip-flops year round.
8. You can swim from March to October, November if your crazy!
9. There are beautiful cactus all over!
10. Every night there is a beautiful sunset!
11. Monsoon storms every summer.
12. You can drive in the winter and not worry about sliding on the ice.
13. You don't have to worry about huge pot holes after the snow melts, because there isn't any!
14. There is A/C in the summer!
15. You can go hiking year round!
16. It hardly ever gets below 40 degrees.
17. People know how to drive.
18. People don't automatically assume you are LDS and want to talk about the RS lesson the week before, while waiting in line.
19. Allergies are not as bad because there are not farms all over.
20. It's just a great place!