Do You Like Piña Coladas?

Today was the last time I would see my FHE family the way it currently is because some people will be gone by the time I come back from visiting home. I wanted to make really amazing cupcakes that everyone would love and would give me one last chance to show a certain someone my skillz. I really wanted to make the pineapple pomegranate ones, but I don't have everything to make the frosting. I decided to make piña colada cupcakes.

They turned out perfectly! I'm always a little scared to try a new recipe, but this one is a keeper. I found it online here and tweaked it a little bit to make it better. The toasted coconut was such a nice touch. Not only did it make them look good, but it definitely amped up the taste too. Oh, and the crunch it added was really nice. It was my first time toasting coconut too! I'm glad I didn't burn it. I have some left and I'm planning on just eating it because it's seriously like candy. Isn't it healthier than candy since it's fruit?


I think they may have been the best cupcakes I've made! I'm not sure. I love my red velvet and the Reese's ones, but these are pretty phenomenal. Everyone ate more than one and I was told it was the best cupcake someone has ever eaten. How's that for a compliment? 


Our activity tonight was watching a Shakespeare play in the park. It was originally supposed to be at the duck pond near campus. we walked there only to find a sign that said it had been moved to Kiwanis Park, which is just a five minute walk from our apartment complex. We were so happy to have walked all the way there for no reason. I didn't mind because the weather was so nice. The play was As You Like It, done by The Grassroots Shakespeare Company. It was pretty funny. 

This guy made it both hilarious and disturbing. He's not wearing his wig in this picture (which I stole from Facebook). At the end of the play, the whole cast dances. While he was shakin' what his mama gave him, one of his fake boobs popped out. I just about died. I was one of the only people to notice it out of my group because when I mentioned it afterwards, only one other person knew what I was talking about. Every time he appeared, the guy next to me made sounds that obviously showed how disturbed he was. I enjoyed listening to him and watching him wriggle with disgust. His name is Cody. He's in my ward, but not in my family. He just happened to be there so he sat with us.

Tomorrow we are having a ward bonfire. Christina and I went to the store so she get groceries (which I don't need since I'm going home in 6 days) and I could get Starbursts for roasting. I also bought mosquito repellent since it's that time of year. Oh joy! I finally caved and bought sushi. I've been craving it for the past three weeks and I finally bought some. Yeah, the store bought stuff isn't as good, but it was good enough to satisfy my craving. Plus, I figured since I wouldn't be grocery shopping for the next two weeks I could afford it. It was so worth it. Yeah, I had sushi for dinner at 10:40pm. that's what I get for eating a late lunch and cupcakes (had to taste test them).

Anyway, today was great day and I'm getting so excited to go home. One thing I want to do while I'm home is to go to the coast. I really want to go to the beach. Let's see if I actually go.

*It's bugging me that there are some double spaces in between some of the paragraphs. I tried to fix them, but it's not working. It looks weird and I don't like. Just thought I'd let you know in case you feel the same way, which you probably don't because I'm just weird like that.*

Slightly Annoyed

So, you would think that after a roommate has moved out, they wouldn't call you up at 11:45pm to ask to borrow something of yours. Well, that's what I thought and apparently I thought wrong. Manju called to ask if she could borrow my iPod dock because some of her friends were having a party. I probably should have said no, but I didn't. I mean, Manju's a nice girl and all, but because of how things are in her culture she sometimes does things that we would consider rude or unsanitary. Curious? I think I've mentioned before about how she's used my pots and pans without asking. That doesn't bother me as much as when she uses metal on them (they're non-stick so this ruins them) and how my biggest pan has this crud stained on it. My pots & pans were bought last summer so in less than a year of use, some already look a few years old. Yeah, I'm still kind of peeved about it even though there is nothing I can do to change it. Here't the unsanitary part. She used to rake my washcloth that I use to clean my dishes and use it to clean her desk and shelf in our room. I once even saw her use it to wipe the kitchen floor. Then she put it back in the sink! Luckily I saw so I knew not to use it, but how many other times had that happened before I saw it? Gross. She did this during the final cleaning check too. She took a new rag I had just put out and wiped down her side of the room and washed the kitchen floor, with chemicals. She still put it back. Call me dramatic, but I could have died! Okay, maybe just gotten poisoned, but still. Like I said, she's a nice girl and I enjoyed rooming with her, but I'm not going to miss her too terribly. Let's hope my iPod dock returns home safely and in proper working condition.

On a happier note...
Marjorie and I got out new roommate, Christina (I'm not sure if this is how she spells it yet). She seems nice. definitely different than Arianna, Rylee and Marjorie. It will be interesting to see how things go. She was coughing a lot today, you know, that deep cough. I really hope I don't get sick from her. Sharing germs is not the kind of roommate bonding I have in mind.

All the new people moved in today. Apparently they all know each other from their last ward, or most of them do anyway. We did FHE as a ward tonight and we did the typical introductions and played "Do you love your neighbor?" which was a lot of fun. Everyone sits in a circle and there's one person in the middle. They ask someone if they love their neighbor. If they answer no, then the people on both sides of them have to switch places while the person in the middle tries to grab a seat. If they answer yes, they say, "but I I don't love people ..."(wearing jeans, can speak a different language, etc). Whatever they say, anyone that it applies to has to switch seats while the person who's it tries to get a seat. I pretty much fell on one of the new guys while trying to get a seat. Embarrassing first impression. Luckily, I wasn't the only one falling on guys. Ally basically landed in a new guy's lap. You can see why we're friends. From how FHE went, I can tell this is going to be a fun ward. Maybe even better than before. We'll see.

The purple one on the bottom left is the one with melanoma. I wish  I would've
taken pictures of us actually dyeing them so you could see everyone, but I forgot.
I only remembered to take a picture with my phone at the last minute. 

After FHE, Marjorie, Ally, and I dyed eggs. Ally's roommates Jane (new) and Katelyn joined us and we invited a a guys apartment (all new guys) to also join us. They came over under the impression we were doing an Easter egg hunt, but they had fun dyeing eggs . Some turned out very interesting. We were drawing on them with sharpies, crayons, and putting on rubber bands. One of the guys, Chris, he drew melanoma on one of the eggs. Melanoma. Really? The other guys are named Chris (yes there are two and no I'm not sure about spelling this one also looks better than the other), Brian, Patty (Pat, Patrick, whatever you want to call him;he reminds me of Joseph Wiest-looks and personality), Sky (he's super tall), and David. They're pretty cool. I mean, we wouldn't have invited them to join us if they weren't.

The eggs were to wet to hide them so we skipped the hunt. Patty, Sky and Chris (good looking) went to Walmart. Ally, Marjorie and Jane went over to their apartment to watch a movie with the three remaining guys. We watched The Italian Job. Great movie. I really should buy because I've watched it multiple times and it never fails to make me laugh. We actually realized while watching it that the "evil" guy's mustache is crooked. Or maybe it's just his mouth. while we were leaving, we noticed there was a hiking boot left outside their back door (the Sparks apartments are townhouse style and have two doors) filled with pretzels and cheese-type stuff. Random. Walking back to my apartment I have to go past their front door, where I saw the other boot! Also filled with a cheese like product. I couldn't see any pretzels. I had to laugh at that and text Ally.

Anyways, it's been a great day. I also I made lemon poppyseed muffins with a lemon glaze early in the afternoon after hard boiling the eggs (it was my first time and I'd call it a success even though there were a few mishaps that I'm not going to tell you ;) ) . Delicious! I think they played a key role as to how my day was good and just kept getting better. Food can do that you know. Never underestimate the power of food. Food is magic. I love food. Ok, I'm done. Hope eveyone had an enjoyable Monday like I did, which is rare (because it's a Monday and Mondays are just meant to suck).

War! What Is It Good For?

An epic FHE activity! We had a Nerf dart war tonight. We each had a blow dart, which was just plain PVC Pipe, and a bunch of Nerf darts. It was so much fun! There was six of us, so we split into teams of three. We each had one side of the apartment (the living room and the kitchen). We turned the couches and tables sideways to make fortresses for protection. Each person had three lives which could be shared with another team member. We played two rounds so we could switch sides. The living room was the advantageous side because there was more space and more furniture to hide behind. The kitchen just had our table and there wasn't a whole lot of room. Each team won a round. Our blinds were open so we gained a group of spectators while messing around with the darts after our battle. Then we took it outside for little bit and shot passersby (weird word, but it popped into my head). They were jealous their FHE family isn't as cool as ours.

Chas, Arianna and Ally making their fortress.

Jason, Rylee and I are already done with ours. We just flipped the table.

Bring it on!

Note: The sweatshirts and jackets were for a little extra protection because it stings to get hit.

Before we started our epic battle, Chas read a story called Zen Shorts. It's about some kids who learn lessons from a Panda and become friends. We laughed the majority of the time he was reading. It was like story time for little kids. I think it's funny that he read to us because he's the FHE dad. I guess he takes his role pretty seriously. he also brought cookies. They were those chocolate and vanilla cream sandwich kind. Because one cookie is chocolate and the other is vanilla, Chas called them yin and yang/zen cookies. He put a lot of thought into tonight (he also supplied the darts and pipes).

Tonight was a lot of fun, despite a few painful hits.

Oh yeah, my headbands came today!! I'm so excited to wear them. I'll probably take badly model-esque pictures tomorrow so you can see what they look like. I love 'em!

Pi{e} Day

Today is a day that nerds everywhere LOVE. What's so great about 3.14159265358979323846...? I don't know and I don't care because it's math related. Lucky me, I'm roommates with a math nerd...whom I absolutely adore! Arianna is majoring in math ed. Good for her, but I think she's crazy. She even wore a Pi day shirt that they were selling on campus last week. 

For FHE tonight we played penny golf in the SWKT (Spencer W Kimball Towers) on campus. It's the tallest building. We climbed 11 flights of stairs (yay me!) and took turns dropping our pennies. We each had a different year. I chose 1990 for an obvious reason. The goal is to have the least amount of strokes (drops) to get to the bottom. It's hard because when you're at the top, there is just a tiny space to drop your penny down. It seriously looked like an inch wide when looking straight down. It was fun. I didn't lose! There was a three way tie with three (amazing), one with four, and a three way tie with five. I fell into the five category. I had one really good drop that went down a few flights and two that went only one. Those were pretty sad. We were told by someone to stop about halfway because we were pretty noisy, but we kept playing quietly. 

Afterwards, we came back to our apartment and ate pie. The was chocolate cream, custard (we decided it tasted like quiche) and peach. At first a couple guys thought it was apple that tasted like peach. Good thing there were smart girls around to correct them. It was a simple, yet fun family home evening celebrating a holiday I don't care about. Oh yeah, and my half birthday. Six months until I'm 21! Crazy to think about.

One more thing. Thank you Angie for becoming a follower. You are an AMAZING aunt and I LOVE YOU!! Thanks for everything you do for my family. You're kind of my hero, along with uncle Ron. Just so you know.

One more follower and I will have reached my original goal of 10. Janara should get on that. I don't even think she reads my blog. Anyone want to help her? 

LOVEly Day

Happy Valentine's Day, Single Awareness Day and Oregon's birthday!

Check out these gorgeous girls!

Yes, this post is a few days late. I wrote it on Valentine's Day, but I wanted the pictures from Rylee (like the one above). She didn't post them on Facebook right away so I had to wait. I didn't end up stealing all of them so you can just look them up. You may no be able to see everyone with their gifts because of her privacy settings, but you will be able to see all of the ones with me.

Isn't it cute?

Ok, so we did our pink elephant gift exchange for our Valentine's Day FHE. It turned out great! There were some great gifts, funny gifts, and gifts that we had no idea what they were. We followed the typical rules. Everyone draws a number, highest number goes first (I lucked out, I had 3 so I got to see almost everything and take my pick, but I chose to unwrap instead of steal cause it's more fun that way), and each gift can only be stolen twice before it's locked. Our group was a little lame in the stealing department because honestly, there wasn't that much worth stealing. There was the Korean version of Pocky sticks (Japanese candy) courtesy of Matt. Who would've guessed, right? He's still pretty fresh off the mish I'm guessing because he talks about Korea a lot. I don't know when he got back, but it's probably been a year or less. I don't mind though. Tara brought strawberries. They weren't wrapped and she promised to dip them in chocolate for whoever ended up with them. Those two were the most fought over. The pregnancy test was a hit too. It was so funny when Ally opened it. She turned bright red (fitting for the holiday) and everyone was laughing so hard. I'm glad everyone shares my sense of humor and that no one got offended because it could have turned out badly. A Mormon girl opening a pregnancy test on Valentine's day. Yeah. I told people that they wanted the pregnancy test (because I had those toy guns to go with it). Jason stole it from Ally, only to have it stolen and locked by Chas. He knew about the guns. There was also the movie Sleepless in Seattle (surprisingly, a guy contributed this). Other funny gifts were the one's from Chas. He was hoping a guy would get them because it would be funnier. A girl got the deodorant (which was passed around for everyone to smell) and Joe got the pink sleeping mask that read "Beauty Rest". Poor Joe. He originally had the Korean candy and then the strawberries, but both were stolen and he ended up with a lame gift. Arianna got one the evening's practical gifts, a little desk set with pens, paper clips, and push pins. We have no idea what my gift is. It's been sitting in the guys' apartment for a long time and they didn't know what it was either. It says Hasbro on the bottom so we know it goes to a game, but we couldn't figure out which one (I even turned to the all knowing Google, but had no luck). It's this read thing that lights up and makes noise when you put your fingers on the bottom (there's like this metal sensor thing) and push a button. It resembles a heart monitor in the way there are the zig zag lines and makes a noise similar to flat lining. It currently resides in my room collecting dust. Matt ended up with Rylee's roll of toilet paper that she covered with heart stickers. Everyone uses toilet paper, and if they don't they should. Another practical gift. I think that's all of them.

After the exchanging was finished, we ate cupcakes that I made. I made chocolate with butter cream frosting. I used the pink striped liners from Christmas and a big round tip that I was finally able to find online to do swirls like the professionals. They looked pretty good and tasted great. Everyone had fun taking turns shooting the guns while eating and hanging out. It was fun. the guys were so curious about the pregnancy test. I told them I got it at a dollar store and about the look the cashier gave me. Matt asked what I would've said if she had asked how long I'd been married. I would've just flashed my left hand.

Not to brag or anything, but I was pretty much the star of the night. I had the best and funniest gift and I made awesome cupcakes. It was indeed a great Valentine's Day, despite the fact that I am single. Men? Who need's 'em!

Check me out rockin' the red lips. I've decided I REALLY want red lipstick. This was a leftover Mary Kay sample I had.

Must. Get. More.

Monday Misadventure...Turned Around

For FHE tonight, our family planned on going to some natural hot springs. I was looking forward to it since I had never gone to a hot spring before. Rylee and Arianna were in Ben's car and I was in Matt's car with Joe. We drove for almost an hour before finding where to go and realized it was closed because of it being winter and surrounded by snow (it's in a canyon and you have to hike a couple miles). We plan on going in the spring. It's no surprise that we had a hard time finding it because our FHE family has a history of getting lost. We are just dysfunctional when it comes to following directions.

Since that didn't pan out, we planned on getting ice cream. While driving back, we were talking about how hungry we were since we didn't eat dinner because FHE was earlier than usual. Matt (he served his mission in Korea and he's cute) said, "I think we should just go eat Korean food." He wasn't completely serious but I said we should totally go and let the other three go eat ice cream. Matt asked if I was serious and I was. So, when we got back to our apartments to change out of swim suits and sweats, we told the others about our plan. Rylee and Arianna didn't really want to go and spend more money today (we had gone grocery shopping earlier). It was just me and the three guys.

The restaurant was called Asian Fusion. We were the only people there. Since I'm no expert on Korean food and haven't been exposed to a lot, Matt ordered for us (in Korean, which sounded so cool) and we got three different main dishes and just shared them. There was also rice and a bunch of traditional side dishes. It was a lot of fun! It took us like ten minutes to order because they have a t.v. playing a Korean drama while you eat. We were too busy watching the drama to look at the menu.

The food was so good. We had spicy Dukbokki (rice cake, which I've wanted to try so bad because I've seen it multiple times in the KDramas I've watched), spicy pork (don't know the proper Korean name), and Budae Jjigae (a traditional base soup with lots of random stuff in it). We got a little history lesson from Matt regarding the soup. During the Korean War there was little to eat so they went around collecting what little food was left and made soup out of it. Obviously it's evolved and become a little more Americanized. There's ramen noodles, sausages, rice cake, cabbage, a slice of American cheese (a little weird, but it melts and disappears-can't even taste it) and other stuff. It's not as gross as it sounds.

According to Matt it wasn't that great compared to the kind you get in Korea. Ben said it was because it wasn't made by Korean women and then apologized that Matt was stuck with us instead of being surrounded by Korean girls. Matt told Ben I was Korean. Ben looked confused. We were like, "Are you serious?" Ben was totally serious. After a whole semester already how did he not know I was half Korean? He said, "Sorry, I guess I didn't pay close attention during the adoption of my daughter." He's our FHE dad.

The Dukbokki was delicious! I'm so glad I finally got to taste it. Matt said his is way better and Ben agreed so I said now he needs to make it for me so I can compare. Next time he makes it I'm invited over. The spicy pork was also amazingly tasty. We were blocking each other's chopsticks, it was that good! We definitely became closer, eating traditional Korean style where you just use your chopsticks and dig in. Hopefully none of the guys are sick!

Aside from some typical guy conversation that was a tad awkward, gross and didn't belong at the dinner table, I had great time.Now, I'm looking forward to Matt's cooking.

After thought: So this just popped in my head. There were three guys and me (Nice odds right? Haha.), which reminded me of that movie Three Men and a Little Lady. It's basically the same because they are men and I am a lot shorter than them...and a lady, but it really was nothing like the movie :)

Well, that was random.

So tonight was just a night of randomness. For FHE we did a kind of get to know you game where each person wrote down two questions and we put them in a pile. One had to be future based and the other could be anything. Then we took turns drawing one and answering. Some of the questions were very random and interesting. One of my questions was: If you were reincarnated as a dinosaur, which would you be and why? A dinosaur? I said a t-rex because that's pretty much the only one I know the name of and I said it's big, so I could see what it would be like to be tall (for once haha).

Afterwards, we ate cupcakes that I made. I made them identical to the ones I made for Janara's birthday. Can I just say how hard it was to make cupcakes away from home? No mixer, no oven timer, no oven window, and no cookie scoop. This made things a little more complicated than I'm used to. I miss the comforts of home. There were still some small clumps in the batter that I couldn't get out no matter how hard I tried. There was no cookie scoop to measure the batter (2 scoops using the one at home is the perfect amount of batter). On top of that, I didn't have two muffin tins. I had one regular one and one with six. Using a measuring cup as a scoop and having to do two rounds of baking, it was hard to get the amount of batter right. Talk about frustrating when they were done and some looked like they could have used a little more batter. They baked funny. On top of that, I hadn't used this oven for baking before so it I didn't know how it compared to the oven at home. Good thing I thought of this and decided to check the cupcakes sooner than usual. They were done almost five minutes sooner! Not that it's not that hard to open the oven and check on the cupcakes, but I really missed having a little window and oven light to watch progress. I'm spoiled from the kitchen at home. I miss all these little luxuries.

Moving past my little rant for the day, the cupcakes were eaten with love and appreciation. I love that! I always love when my cupcakes are well received. When are they not? Continuing on the topic of random...the conversations that went on were interesting to listen to. One of the guys' apartments that is part of our family talked a lot about Kim Jong-Il. Apparently they watched a documentary on him for fun yesterday [great way to spend the Sabbath I must say]. Then I was asked it I had ever played Black Ops but told probably not unless I turned down the graphic violence (glad you were able to answer your own question buddy). I'm a girl. Why would I be playing that kind of game? Then I was told that if you beat this game there is a bonus one where you get to be Kennedy in the white house and kill zombies or something like that. I guess I'm really good at faking an interested look? Yeah, that conversation lasted longer than necessary.

After everyone left, some of us continued talking outside, despite the fact it was FREEZING. Some other guys from an apartment next door came out and presented me with the perfect opportunity to get rid of the rest of the cupcakes because we girls don't need that many lying around. When giving them away, I was asked to play poker and watch the football game. Football is ok, but poker? Why are all these guys asking me about typical guy stuff? Do I look like I play poker or violent zombie killing video games? Needless to say I turned them down. Oh, the best part of the invite was the way I was asked. We have like an iron gate that separates the guy and girl apartment upstairs, not that it does anything because you can just go down and then up the stairs to get to the other side (there's a landing in the middle so you can keep going down or go up to the guys side). Anyway, it's broken right now so there is no gate. The invitation went like this, "Since there's no chastity gate, do you want to play poker?" No thanks! I'll pass.

Basically, it was a fun and interesting Monday night (pretty typical with my FHE family-the guys anyway).