Cool Weather and Cool Stuff!

This week, Daniel has been really busy working on his project , so we haven't gotten out much to do things. I'm really proud of him working hard to get everything done on time the way it is supposed to be. Earlier this week he found out that he could use his laptop at home and do some of his work at home in the evening. That when well for a couple of nights, and then one evening he opened his computer and it wouldn't boot up at all! He says that he thinks it is something like the CPU dying or something. Either way that meant that he had to go back to working at the office in the evening instead of being home.

Saturday, however, Daniel couldn't work on his project because the computers were undergoing maintenance at work. We went to choir practice (for the first act of The Savior of the World), and then we decided to finally get downtown to a store we've been wanting to visit. We went to the Paper Source, and browsed. I saw that they had these really cool "Wrapping Papers ." I'm not sure I'll ever buy one of these for wrapping a present, but I think they would make pretty cool wall decorations or something. The store was pretty cute. It had papers, planners, and books. It was fun to go see a little boutique in down town. (Because we don't go downtown very often.)

Then, we went home and had a pizza party to celebrate having a free Saturday. We bought a frozen pizza and baked it in the oven and ate some cookie dough afterward as a treat. While we ate, we finally watched Iron Man 2 on Netflix . (The last time we wanted to watch it there wasn't any video to go with the sound!) It was a fun afternoon of being together after Daniel being at work so long!

The weather here is also kind of crazy. Earlier this week the highs were in the mid 80's and then tomorrow we aren't supposed to get into the 70's. (I'm excited about having fall weather this weekend!) Its kind of fun because the weather here shows the little blue and red "weather front" lines on the map. We watch them slowly come from different parts of America to get to Texas! This new cold front crossed Denver leaving 5" of snow (right after an 80 degree day!) I'm excited for the cool weather, and hopefully Daniel and I can come up with some fun stuff to do outside this weekend to celebrate the cooler weather.

Apple Pies and Other Little Adventures.

This week I decided I wanted to try out a new recipe, and I wanted something sweet. Apples were on sale at the store. Then, I found a recipe for mini apple pies. This is the link to the recipe that we used:
http://www.noveleats.com/dessert/mini-apple-pies/

We used half granny smith half gala apples for our filling, and I think that if you want enough dough for a top like they show you'll need to make more dough than the directions say, or roll it out really thin. We doubled the batch though.

Daniel did all the lattice work on our pies. He did such a good job with the little strips of dough. I just cut them all out to help though. I was really excited that they turned out tasting so good! It was really exciting to make something new and different. They were also the perfect size for Daniel's lunch box (so Daniel got to have a tasty treat in his lunch box several days this week instead of something boring. They taste good cold or warm.

Other than that Daniel has been busy with his work class this week. Saturday we went into his office so he could do some homework. Homework is kind of lame, but it was cool to finally see Daniel's cubicle. We also went over to a couple from our ward's apartment for games and had a lot of fun. Neither of us won, but it was a good time anyway.

Singing and Scooping

This week was full of cool things that Daniel and I did. Friday we had a couple over for dinner and games. We had some great hamburgers which we got on sale from the store and popcorn. We played lots of games and had a pretty good time!

Saturday we went to stake choir practice for our stake's performance of the first act of the Savior of the World. It is going to be pretty cool. Hopefully we can get down all the music and a few more people show up to be in the choir! It should be fun. We probably should have tried out, but that would have been a lot more of a time commitment.

Later that day we went down to Bastrop, Tx (which is just outside Southern Austin) to volunteer with the church cleaning up properties. We basically moved trees, bricks, and metal into piles near the road so that the trash companies could come pick it all up. We even got to wear the yellow "helping hands" vests along with face masks so we wouldn't breathe too much ash. Apparently almost 600 members volunteered from 4 area stakes. They helped clean up 75 homes. They split us up into groups of 30 to go to houses. Our group ended up helping with two homes. It was a good experience; we ended up coming home covered in ashes and with a real appreciation for what we have.

So, apparently the group who sponsored the event asked our area 70's executive secretary (who happens to be in our ward) if he could even find 100 people that could help. He replied, "I can do better than that I'll send 200!" Afterwards he thought to himself "I hope I didn't just embarrass myself!" He asked wards in 4 stakes for volunteers and they ended up with 580 or so people to help! Here is the story that the local news showed! (We aren't in the movie, but you can pretend that it is us :P) Video Link- Click here!

Late Blog Post

So this week we are late posting on our blog because we chose to eat out on a Wednesday. I ended up getting handed the wrong plate, but they were really good about getting me my real order. Fortunately for all you readers out there, I am not going to talk about food for the entirety of the blog this week!

Though, after eating out, I wonder why restaurants can't serve smaller portions. (Or at least offer smaller portions.) I can never really eat more than half of a "dinner time" portion. Maybe other people don't have this problem, but if we are going to say that there is an "obesity epidemic," we should give people the option to order less food.

This last weekend of general conference. It was really fun to watch, and good to hear all of the talks and lessons. I don't think I had a favorite talk or anything, but watching is always a really good experience!

Our Stake is going to preform the first act of Savior of the World near Christmas this year. We volunteered to help out with the choir, and the first practice is this Saturday. We are pretty excited about participating. It should be lost of fun, and something to do!

A Less Warm Day in Austin.

Since this week we had a weekend day that wasn't 100 degrees, Daniel and I decided to go outside! After careful consideration, we decided to try out a frisbee golf course up in Wells Branch (about 5-8 minutes from our house). We pulled out our trusty frisbee and walked along the course. It wasn't as green as idyllic as it looks in the picture to the right. (Like most places in Austin the grass was dead because of the drought )  It was fun to get out and do something, but the course was really confusing. We never actually found holes 5 or 6; we just faked it.

Daniel would also like me to note that we didn't play 'traditional' frisbee golf. We used a regular size frisbee, and we just took turns throwing our one frisbee instead of each having a frisbee (or set of frisbees of our own). Basically, I think he made me explain that last part to see how many times I would type frisbee in one paragraph!

Monday I babysat a couple of kids from our ward while their parents supervised the moving of their belongings from their Austin apartment to their new Austin house. We watched the beginnings of a lot of Netflix shows and the entirety of an animated Stewart Little show. (He goes and learns to survive in the wilderness.) The baby was in a stage where she missed her mom so she cried unless you picked her up, or she fell asleep for most of the three and a half hours. She finally decided she liked being here just before her parents came to get her. The moral of the story is that baby don't like me, and that even human like mice need to learn to live in the wild.

Daniel has been working on his project at work. He says that progress seems slow, but that they aren't behind schedule or anything. He continues to have little classes he takes during the day to introduce him to the company and things. Soon he is starting a month long class that even assigns out of "class" work. We'll see how that goes!

We are excited for Conference and the good weather that is returning this weekend! The weather man always says "Maybe this will be our last 100+ day!" and I always hope that he is right.

Hello World

(Those of you who are familiar with computer programming will be familiar with this title. For the benefit of everyone else, "Hello World" is the first program you ever write in a particular language.)

Many of you may know that I've been working on a nativity set like the one my grandma had made with us when I was little. It's a plastic canvas & yarn project, along with a few other little bells & whistles (none of which are actually bells, OR whistles). Since I was able to finish up this last week, Elissa decided to finally invite me as an author for our blog and have me write an entry in honor of the achievement. That's why there's no food yet.

As I was working on the project, Elissa made sure that we named all of the animals. Some of them aren't very imaginative, but for whatever reason, all of the sheep got European-sounding G names, like Gretchen, Gretel, Gertrude, etc. Also, I'm not sure why they're all girls, but that's ok, because the rest of the animals are 'obviously' boys. The kings posed a big challenge, because I think the craft world has changed what they sell since the pattern was designed. I was supposed to use beads to make little bottle-type things for them to hold, but I could only find sets of like 20 large beads for way more than I wanted to pay for them. So, we got creative and invented boxes for them to hold. We used the one the pattern provided, then decided to make an octagonal box and a treasure chest with a curved lid. We think they turned out nice. The other major change was that we changed the colors so that the men weren't stuck in pastels and pinks. Here's a picture:

We also went to the orchestra this last week -- the Austin Civic Orchestra. We found out about it from my boss, who plays violin for them. The concert was the 'Looney Tunes Greatest Hits' as he put it. We liked it though -- it had classics like "Where's the Beef" (okay, that's an official title), Beethoven's 5th, the 2001: A Space Odyssey opening theme, and more modern stuff like Harry Potter main theme, etc. For a non-profit group, they were excellent. We had a great time.

Provo Visitors

This week was kind of exciting. The BYU football team came down to Austin. Daniel and I got to go to the football team fireside. It was pretty cool. There was a cool musical number where Brian Smith sang a solo, and the team sang "We'll Bring the World His Truth. A couple of team members gave their testimony of the gospel as well as their stories of coming to BYU and becoming missionaries. Bronco Mendenhall and his wife gave the closing remarks.

Sunday our ward literally doubled in size for sacrament meeting because of all the people who came down for the game. Our whole chapel and cultural hall were filled up! We are usually pretty crowded with the pews and the over flow, but this was crazy!

This weekend Daniel and I worked on our craft projects. Daniel is almost done with his nativity set that he has been making for almost a year now. It is pretty cool! He has a few sheep left to make, and then he will need to find a new project to keep him occupied.

Saturday I decided that our living room needed a rug.  I also decided that I needed something to do. So, I started making a rug. I stole some of Daniel's left over yarn and started working. I'm not sure how other people don't have lines from when they change colors, but I guess it gives my rug a little character or something. I was pretty excited, so I posted a picture of it!

This weekend we are hoping to go to the civic orchestra on Saturday. It should be really exciting!