Happy Valentine's Day

Exersaucer

Hunter loves his exersaucer. He likes being able to stand. There are so many different things to play with that sometimes he has a hard time choosing.

The Nursery

American Idol

We went to the American Idol Concert last night. It was awesome!

South of the Border

Last night we tried a new Mexican Restaurant with Dad, Mom and Whitney. It was pretty good. I am in search of the perfect Mexican restaurant - good chips and salsa plus good food. This ranked pretty high. Ironically I went to Mexicali Border Cafe for lunch - which also scores pretty high. Mexicali has better salsa (it's chunky). South of the Border is on Memorial at 106th. I can't believe how much this area is booming. At one time it was just the Starworld Theatre and a couple of fast food places. Now there are all sorts of little restaurants and stores. They are also putting in a sports complex. It was pretty dead last night, but I am sure it will be packed before long!

Whitney, Mom and I saw Made of Honor tonight. I had prepared myself for the worst and was only going because of McDreamy. But it was actually pretty cute and very funny. I want to see Get Smart next. Maybe this weekend.

I got my hair cut today. I told her I wanted it poofier. She tried her best but she said that my hair is too healthy. Crazy! I might let Whitney color it to add some texture because I don't think the magic "Hair Potion" I bought is going to provide the results I want.

What an AWESOME gift!

New Wheels

We traded in Darin's lemon (Nissan Sentra) for this beauty. A 2008 Mazda3 Hatchback. It is really fun to drive!

The Results Are In...

Out of 62 teams, Pigcasso took:

6th in Rig Construction
7th in the Parade
19th in Showmanship

and

6th in the Steak Cook-Off

Pigcasso

1. I am moving to a top ten format so that I can post random (but organized) thoughts!
2. We have been playing a lot of guitar hero this week.
3. We had our second to the last weekly American Idol watching party at the Waldrons. Every Tuesday that we are all in town we watch and critique Idol and eat pizza. This week we also had Young Women's at their house so we watched the Wednesday elimination show too.
4. Grandpa Hunt was in town and we celebrated his birthday on Thursday with dinner at Carrabas.
5. I have started working on my first Transmission Line in Tulsa. Now I can drive past and admire my handiwork! Actually it will be nice to be able to see all phases of construction.
6. This week was the 20th annual Magnolia Blossom Festival in Magnolia, Arkansas. The event runs all week ending with the cook-off. We arrived Friday night, had dinner, checked into the hotel and went to Walmart for last minute supplies.
7. Saturday morning started with a parade into the town square. We got lots of comments on our truck and rig. Everyone loved them. We spent the day setting up, prepping the steaks and eating lots of fair food (corn dogs, funnel cakes, etc) before we could fire up the grill at 3:30PM.
8. The steak for the judges was due between 5:00PM and 5:30PM. We could start serving the public at 6PM.
9. They estimated that 41,000 people attended the festival. But, they only sell 5,000 tickets for dinner. People pay $15 for a steak, potato, salad, roll and drink. Pigcasso cooked 90 steaks. One went to the judges, 25 for to-go orders and the rest went in less than 20 minutes.
10. We did not win any awards. :(

Six Years

Our 6th Anniversary was last Saturday. In an attempt to win the Best Wife Award, I bought Darin Guitar Hero. He loved it! Although I think I might like it even more and may already be addicted!

On Sunday, Whitney, Darin and I made Mother's Day dinner for Mom and afterwards we all took a turn at Guitar Hero. Mom and Dad weren't too bad. But we had to keep our jam session short so that we could watch the season finale of Survivor. This has been an awesome season and it was a little sad to see it end.

This weekend is the big Steak Competition in Magnolia, Arkansas. We are getting very excited!

Third Times the Charm, Right?

After several requests, we are going to try to revive our blogging for the third time. Maybe we can get it to stick this time!

Darin and I have are in the midst of a lot of traveling. Two weeks ago we spent a week in Cabo, Mexico with Darin's parents, his sister Tami and her husband Jodie. We had a great time relaxing, sun bathing, reading, taking an unintential walking tour of San Jose del Cabo while looking for the church, playing in Jenga tournaments, playing water volleyball and ping pong, snorkeling, kayaking, ATVing, seeing seals and whales.

While we were gone, Darin's Grandma passed away. We returned home for two days before flying to Utah for her funeral which was held on April 29th. She was an amazing woman; she lived to 97!

Yesterday we traveled to OKC for the Youth Baptism trip. And this week Darin will be driving to Fort Worth for a Trade Show while I fly to Virginia Beach for a seminar on insulators (doesn't that sound fun).

We are both tired of packing and unpacking but are glad we got to spend a week together in Mexico.

Book Club

Last night was our second Book Club meeting. It was at our house this time. We only had 5 people show up, but it is a really good group. Unfortunately we are losing 2 of them for the summer, so I don't know if we will actually be meeting until September. We did select books to read for the next 4 months though.

Our discussion was over The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. It was a very interesting book. Definitely not one that I would have picked out myself. It follows the story of a preacher that takes his family to the Congo to convert the people. He never tries to get to know the people or learn their language and although he lives with his family, he does nothing to take care of them. The book takes you through the lives of his daughters and it is interesting how different they all turned out given that they suffered through the same events.

Our upcoming books:
MAY: The Giver by Lois Lowry & The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
JUNE: One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus
JULY: East of Eden by John Steinbeck
AUGUST: Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata

Mama Bird

We've been keeping an eye on the bird nest in our Japanese Maple. The tree isn't very tall and is right in front of our house so we have a pretty good view of the nest. Mama Bird has been spending a lot of time in it lately.

Big Weekend

Darin and I both had Good Friday off so we had a nice three day weekend and got a lot accomplished. We took D's car into the shop, dropped stuff off at Goodwill, picked up some special inserts for Darin's shoes from Ideal Feet, bought some bookcases at LNT and had lunch at On the Border. (Try the Borderitto!)



Saturday we planted our first flowers since we moved in 2 1/2 years ago. We planted Zinnias, Snap Dragons and a Hibiscus. We hope they survive; it is already really hot here!



Saturday night was the Ward Adult Party. It had an Italian theme and was held downtown on the 21st floor of Dad's building. The view was pretty good. I tried to take some pictures from the fire escape but it was so windy!



We sang two numbers with the choir on Sunday. After church we had dinner at the Tanner's and I brought dessert. I made cupcake chicks for the boys and Angel Lush for the adults.

It doesn't matter how late we go to bed Friday night, Darin is up bright and early to go biking with H and P. Despite all the cuts and bruises and ripped thumb nails, he never misses an opportunity to ride.

Last night we had our first dinner group with four other couples in the ward. The W's hosted and we had hamburgers, chips with guacamole and salsa, deviled eggs, cantelope and this delicious layered dessert brought by DT. We had such a great time! After two of the couples left, the girls played Nerts which is very close to Pounce, a game I love, but I just can't seem to get the hang of Nerts. I think I lost every round. The guys went upstairs to watch the big screen tv and listen to music videos.

Next month it is our turn to host the dinner group.

I saw a bird in the tree this morning so I went out to take some pictures of it. The bird would sit there a while and then fly away but come back a few minutes later. I thought it was so nice of the bird to stay so long for me to get a good shot. Turns out I was blocking the path to the nest it was building!

Relief Society Birthday Party

Last Thursday we celebrated the Relief Society's 164th Birthday at our Enrichment Night. We had dinner and birthday cake!

Each sister was supposed to bring a baby picture and two items that represented her. These were randomly placed on tables and we had to guess to whom they belonged. It was so hard! I gave up after about 10 minutes and just took pictures.

Can you see my items?

New Toys

We got some new toys last month: an Ipod Nano for Darin and a Canon Digital Rebel XT camera for me.

We have both been getting a lot of use out of our treasures! Darin figured out that he can put books on CD onto his Ipod. Pretty cool! He just finished his first "book." The young men in the ward congratulated him on joining the technology age.

Trying Again

We're going to give this blog thing another try. Hopefully I can keep it updated!

A picture of Sammy. I took a bunch of pictures of him while playing with my new camera. He was worried I was going to steal his toy!