Easter!

HAPPY EASTER!!

This morning, Corey and I went with Martha to Brian's house to eat breakfast with her whole family. It was really nice because everyone was able to come and visit. Breakfast was yummy too :) We had whole wheat pancakes, scrambled eggs with mushrooms, and fruit :)

Corey and I then had dinner with Dad, Cami, Lexi, and the kids. It was nice to see them too and dinner was great :)

Overall, Easter was very nice and it was a lot of fun to spend it with our family :)

Ariana's Baptism

Today was Ariana's Baptism. Corey and I drove to Logan together to see her get baptized and to have dinner with Dad's and Cami's family and Grandpa and Grandma Baker's house. Ariana's baptism was nice and special for her. It was a private baptism just for her so Dad baptized and confirmed Ariana, my cousin Nichole played the piano, Cami's mom Stacey led the music, Grandpa Baker conducted and spoke and Cami's dad Tom also spoke. It was nice to see the whole family.

Another New Dinner Idea: Clams

Because the Bacon wrapped pork chops worked out so well, Corey and I decided to be creative again and make something yummy. We went to Albertson's again and found some clams at a good price :) So I sauteed them with water, oil and seasoning. It was Very good :) We both liked it. It has been a lot of fun being creative and breaking the norm by making new types of dinners. I like getting inspiration from online recipes and combining different ideas to make something that I think will taste good. It's always nice when it turns out well too :)

Bacon wrapped Pork Chops = Best Dinner Ever!

Corey and I went to Albertson's today to find something fun to eat for dinner and we found some thin pork chops and applewood smoked bacon. We were going to make bacon wrapped pork chops.. mmm... :) Paul called Corey just a little after we bought all of the ingredients and so we moved dinner over to his house :) I wrapped the pork chops in bacon and Corey grilled them. It was pretty much the most Wonderful dinner I have ever had! :) We had a great time making it together, it was a lot of fun :) We just wished we had made more :) It was pretty much the most Awesome dinner ever :) :) :)

Cookie :)

On my birthday, Martha got a new addition to the family: Cookie, a little Shih-Tzu :) She is an off white color and has a few little brown spots all over :) She is super sweet. She was a rescue dog. She belonged to an old lady, who died, and then lived with a family who were really mean to her so she is here with us because we will take good care of her. :) It was a little struggle to get her to pee outside and to not make Taffy feel left out, but she's a great addition. Everything works out great now. She is the laziest little dog EVER! haha. She sits on the bed until like 10 a.m. and then she moseys around and does things at her own time. When Martha walks into the house from after work she does this really cute triple "woof" to say hello. Overall, she's fun and we like her :)

Stephanie's 21st Birthday

Happy 21st Birthday to Me :) One of my favorite hobbies is to make layered cakes, So... I made my own  birthday cake! :) I experimented with fondant for the first time. I made it from scratch and so I had to buy stuff like glycerin and I had to boil it with the color and then add it to a large bowl of powdered sugar and mix it and knead it like dough. It was some pretty interesting stuff. I made a larger cake and a small cake. I had to level the cakes, frost them and layer them. It was a lot of fun rolling out the fondant, except for when it stuck to the counter, and putting it onto the cake. I made my own roses out of buttercream too. I think it turned out very pretty. The small cake was fun also, it was pink with white frosting saying "Happy 21st Steph."I definitely enjoy making my own cakes, but I think I won't be making my own fondant again because it was so difficult to work with.

The Fondant is pretty stretchy and sticky like playdough

Kneading the Fondant

Leveling the cake

Frosting the layered cake

The Final Product

The mini cake :)

Corey's Dad and Bonnie took us out to dinner the night before my birthday to Texas Roadhouse :) That was the restaurant that I told Corey I wanted to go eat at for my birthday and he listened. It was great, we had their wonderful rolls and food and had a lot of fun together. 

On the day of my birthday, Sunday, Corey took me to Petco and bought a new beta fish for me :) The last one he got me, Epsilon, died after 5 months and so he knew I needed a new one to keep me company in my dorm :) The fish we chose was red and purple, he is beautiful, and we named him Alpha, the Beta fish. Corey also bought this really pretty rock to go in the bowl with him. Alpha is a GREAT fish. He LOVES to eat his blood worms. He is JAWS and snaps at the worms. He has learned to know when he is getting fed and gets really excited. He practically jumps out of his bowl sometimes to eat the worms. He hides and sleeps by his rock too. He's great fun and very entertaining to watch :)

For the rest of my birthday, after Corey went to work, I spent time with my family. For my birthday present, Cami took a bunch of photos of me, kinda like taking senior pictures, because I hadn't had nice pictures taken in a while. I think they turned out great :) The purple button up shirt and purple jacket were a gift to me from Martha. They are made of a very soft fabric and are very cute. Cami did a great job of photographing me today, she and I had fun. All of these are from the train tracks in Lehi :) Here's a few of my favorites:

After that, I had dinner with Dad, Cami, Lexi, Jeremy, Ariana, and Ayden. We celebrated, sang happy birthday to me, and ate my green fondant cake. The fondant was so thick we had to cut into it with a knife to fit the candles into it haha :) It was great though because it kept the cake moist inside :)

A few days later, Mom took me out to dinner with Rickelle and Lexi. We went to my favorite restaurant, Red Robin. It was a lot of fun to see all of them and mom bought me a cute outfit of tan shorts and a white shirt. We had fun together, it was nice seeing them because I don't always get down to the Provo area much during school.

Corey, Martha and I ate the cute mini pink cake a few days later because we weren't able to have cake and ice cream together. It was fun because it was the perfect size for us.

Overall, I had a GREAT 21st birthday. Thanks to everyone who was a part of it for making it wonderful :)

U of U vs. BYU Rugby Game at Rio Tinto

This Saturday, Corey, Lexi and I went to the U of U vs. BYU Rugby Game at Rio Tinto Stadium. The ticket line was Extremely long so it took us a while to buy our tickets and to get into the stadium. We enjoyed watching the game, though. Corey narrated the game so Lexi and I would understand exactly what was going on and how the gamed worked. Although the U ended up losing 40 to 22, we had fun together and I bought a matching rugby shirt like Corey's.

My New Computer! :)

I finally decided that my 17" laptop was too large to be practical with college anymore because I couldn't transport it to class with me to take notes... SO... for my 21st (early) birthday present to myself I bought a 13" MacBook Pro. It is wonderful! :) Corey and I debated which computer I should get for a while and my argument was always "Mac's are cuter,"which cannot be argued against. Mac's really are cuter. haha. So Corey went with me to buy my computer at the Mac store and we asked the salesman Tons of questions so that we would be sure that this computer is perfect for my needs. I ended up buying the 13" MacBook Pro with the core2duo processer and then 1 week later Mac decided to release a new product.. the 13" MacBook Pro with an intel i5 core processer... I was fairly upset to say the least. However, it all worked out great because I brought the one I bought in and they switched it out immediately for the new version and transfered all my data for me. It was great! :) Overall, I think it has been one of my best purchases because I use it ALL the time. I bought a new backpack (the outside is black and the inside has CRAZY neon pink, green, and blue colors in it) with a laptop compartment. I take my laptop everywhere I go and use it in most all of my classes to take notes with. I think my favorite part about this computer is the trackpad because it senses how many fingers I have touching it. One finger is click, two is right click, two slid up and down is scrolling, three swiped to the side is back and forward, and four swiped down shows all of my opened windows and four swiped up clears the screen. Its definitely handy. Although there were a few things that were different and took a little bit of time to get used to, this computer is Perfect for my needs and I am very happy with it :)

Valentines Dinner at the Tuscany

For Valentine's Day Corey surprised me with a dinner! We went to dinner with Paul and Bonnie at the Tuscany, which is a beautiful restaurant with amazing food. They had a special Valentine's Menue and four course meal. The food was Wonderful and they gave Bonnie and me each a red rose :) We started off with a shrimp cocktail and then had a roasted strawberry and tomato soup that was super rich, slightly tart, and very good. For the main dish I had lobster raviolis, which were Amazing :) Corey had a steak and they carved his heads of broccoli into designs to make the plate look nice. It was pretty neat. We ended off the night with yummy dessert. I had the raspberry and chocolate tart, and Corey had the cheese cake. Overall, dinner was Amazing. It was the best Valentine's Day I have ever had :)

Christmas 2010

Before Christmas, Martha, Corey and I decorated their entire front room with all of their Christmas decorations. It was a lot of fun because we set up the Christmas village, used all of the nutcrackers, put up the tree and the mini tree and decorated them super cute. It was a lot of fun. Corey and I tried to set up the electric train, but it was temperamental so we played with it for about an hour and then put it away.

The three days before Christmas I was in the kitchen all day baking cookies. I was really excited about making hand made Christmas cookies for everyone. I made Mexican wedding cake cookies, muddy buddies, snicker-doodles, and oatmeal raisin. I bought cute Christmas tins and decorative shiny paper and wrapped all of the cookies to give away. It was a lot of fun. I love to bake :)

Corey and I had a very busy Christmas this year. He worked from 6-10 am that morning and then I picked him up and we went to Paul and Bonnie's for a ham and egg breakfast. It was really yummy and we just hung out for a while talking. Corey bought me a Kindle and I bought him a new pair of Wolverine Boots. We bought Paul and Bonnie "Battle of the Sexes" and they made us funny Christmas cards. We then went to Brian and Sherry's house at one for lunch with Martha, Dee Dee and Pokey, Corey's grandpa and his cousins. We ate the Best ham and had lots of food :) It was a lot of fun. His grandpa gave us each a nice gift and it was fun getting together and seeing everyone. We went to my Dad and Cami's house at 4 to open gifts and say hi. Jeremy, Lexi, Ariana and Ayden all liked the gifts we gave them. Jeremy had a few puzzles that took forever to solve and Lexi liked her scented soft socks. It was fun watching the two little kids go crazy with their unwrapping of gifts. By that time Corey and I were pretty exhausted, and went back to Martha's house to open our last set of gifts and to eat dinner :) His mom was asleep when we got there, she had a busy day too. We then spent the rest of the night happily sitting and relaxing :) It was a fun and busy Christmas.

Tip fast asleep in the snow :)

Building a Gingerbread Train

On Christmas Eve, Martha had bought a gingerbread train kit and she, Corey and I put it together. It was a lot of fun because there were a ton of little candies rolling all over the table and the frosting tasted horrible so when you accidentally got some on your finger and licked it off it was nasty. We had a lot of fun. We were all eating the candies as we were putting them on and we had structural problems while we were making it so we constantly had to grab the train before it fell over, but it all came together in the end :)

Pumpkin Carving

For Halloween, Corey and I decided to be festive and carve our own pumpkins :) I was the designated pumpkin cleaner and scooped out all of the guts and then he and I made our own pumpkin creations. I think they reflect our personalities well. I haven't carved pumpkins in a few years so it was a lot of fun :)

Cancun!

During fall break, Paul and Bonnie invited Corey and I to go with them to Cancun, Mexico for a wonderful 8 day vacation from October 9th to 16th :)

The weather was perfect, the fish were ferocious and bit Corey and Paul’s toes, the food was delicious, the resort was huge and beautiful, the rooms had outdoor jacuzzis, the snorkeling was exciting, Corey and I dived and touched the bottom of the ocean, the Mayan ruins at Tulum were fascinating, the beach was relaxing, the jungle-buggy was hilarious, the cenotes were neat, the roller coaster zip-line was entertaining and threw me around like a rag doll, the shopping was fun, and, best of all, the company was amazing. 

Day 1 (Oct 9.)

Arrived at the Grand Palladium a little exhausted from the flight and long shuttle ride but very excited.  After exploring our rooms at the Royal Suites, we went to dinner at El Jardin and enjoyed some fresh lobster. 

Day 2 (Oct 10.) 

We ate breakfast at the buffet and found our own special box of “Zucaritas.” We spent the rest of the day exploring the resort and relaxing at the beach. The Grand Palladium had its own private beach for tourists with beautiful blue water and only a five minute walk from our room. Corey and I snorkeled for the first time and had a blast splashing around. We all dressed up for dinner and enjoyed some mexican food at the resort. 

Day 3 (Oct 11.)

Today we went to the Mayan Ruins of Tulum with an amazing Mayan tour guide, experienced a mexican taxi, held an iguana, ate dinner at the beach, fed raccoons, and watched a evening show and shopped at the resort. 

Tulum was very neat. There were flying acrobats, large iguanas, and we had a wonderful mayan tour guide who took us throughout the ruins and explained their significance and answered our questions. 

For dinner we had a huge platter of sea food with lots of shrimp, scallops, and muscles. During dinner a raccoon came up and snatched Bonnie’s roll off of her plate. Paul joined in on the fun and fed many raccoons throughout dinner. We had about five raccoons coming up to him for pieces of food. 

Each night at the Grand Palladium, there were merchants that would come in to sell souvenirs and there were evening dance shows for the guests to watch. Corey and I practiced our Spanish bartering for items. 

Day 4 (Oct 12.) Snorkeling Day! 

Today we woke up and went snorkeling at Yal-ku and saw tons of cool fish. We had a french dinner and then I danced the merengue on stage before the evening show. I performed in the pre-show entertainment by dancing the merengue (“pee-pee” dance) while trying to hold down my skirt and not trip on my feet. It was hysterical and the audience loved it :)

Day 5 (Oct 13.) Relaxation Day at the resort. 

Corey and I played mini-golf, had a massage, and experienced the hydrotherapy spa. Paul and Bonnie spent most of the day at the beach and the spa. We had a flaming  Japanese dinner with an amazing chef. After dinner, Corey and Stephanie took a half hour confusing but fun walk through the resort back to the Royal Suites.

Day 6 (Oct 14.) Hidden Worlds Cenote Park. 

We zip-lined, dived to see stalagmites, and rappelled into a cenote. Corey and I got to drive the crazy Jungle-Buggy to the cenote and I was thrown around by the roller-coaster zip line. 

We ate at the buffet for lunch and indulged on dessert :) There were no spoons left out so Corey ate his pink ice cream and sprinkles with a knife. I used a fork and Corey gave me a taste of his ice cream with his knife. 

Then we went to visit Playa del Carmen to experience real Mexican shopping. There were human statues, open air markets, restaurants, and the beach near by. We bought the remainder of our souvenirs, bartered, and had fun :) 

After, we ate dinner at El Jardin. The waiter let me help him prepare the food and it was a lot of fun :)

Day 7  (Oct 15.) Akumal

The best snorkeling was at Akumal. We spent the whole day exploring the ocean floor. Corey and I saw two sea turtles, Corey chased and caught one. There were two sting rays and many bright multicolored fish. Paul and Corey explored the shore and found seashells. Bonnie bought us all ice cream after swimming and  we all enjoyed the sun.

Day 8 (Oct 16.)

The last day in Cancun we spent packing and driving back to the airport. We ate at Bubba Gum’s for lunch and tasted the many ways to cook shrimp. The vacation was amazing, but it was nice to be home .