Dinner and Rain

Dinner and Rain

I've always had a passion for cooking. In high school my cooking instructor, Mr. Henggeler, offered to write a letter of recommendation for culinary school. I seriously considered it, but fine art prevailed.

The other night I constructed a recipe that I thought deserved a profile on the blog.

Grilled Chicken and Avocado Salad

Step 1: I roasted some sliced red potatoes; very plain with salt, cracked black pepper, and ground cumin.

Step 2: I simply grilled chicken breast with lemon pepper seasoning. I use a George foreman press grill. It's known for it's..."Lean meat, fat reducing, grilling machine" It's great for healthy grilling when it's raining outside.

Step 3: This is what made the dish. My mother-in-law is visiting from California and brought out some avocados and lemons for everyone. That is one thing I truly miss, you can't beat California avocados and lemons!

I made a lemon and rosemary vinaigrette dressing with salt, cracked black pepper, FRESH lemon juice, olive oil, and sour cream.

I cut the avocado into cubes and mixed them with the dressing, crumbled Gorgonzola cheese (small amount, Gorgonzola is very salty), minced red onion (natural sweetness), and minced jalapeno.

We are trying a new thing, low in calories, but big in flavor.

...Rain, Rain, go away, come again another day...

Marci and Kenny gave me these great votive candle holders for my birthday. They have black metal stacks that make them stick in the ground. They are beautiful and make my flower bed look great.

Today is the second day it has been raining with thunder and lightening this week. It started pouring like cats and dogs and with in minutes these candle holders filled up and started leaning. I went to go save them and thought to take a couple pictures.

Last Class!

My absolute last class I had to take was Ceramics (Into)
It's no wonder why Ceramics is it's own major.

I had a hard start, but I'm impressed with my self how things turned out.

I now have a greater appreciation for ceramists.

White bowl set. Not per-planned, just lucky.

Tea Set

Decorative Bottles

Containers, only one made it with a lid. They were meant to be used as Flour and Sugar containers for the counter. With out lids I'm not sure if that's their purpose anymore.


More smaller containers with lids

Decorative Vase

Non-Objective sculptural pieces

2nd One

Mom, you can pick any you want!

Jordan black and blue ankle

My poor BABY!

On Tuesday nights we play basketball at church with other guys. while Marie is living with us she comes too, but normally I'm the only girl who goes. So you could probably understand how competitive it can get. Most everyone is nice and just want to have fun and exercise. We are all good friends and joke around as we play. now that summer has started some of the younger guys like to come and try to be the best.

Jordan is one of the best players every night because he can jump, rebound, run, and what he is famous for is tipping the missed baskets into the hoop.

This past Tuesday Jordan was going up for a tip shot and one of the younger show-offs got under him and "hip checked" Jordan as he was landing on his right foot. In a matter of moments Jordan fell like a ton of bricks.

I have never seen him in so much pain. Most who roll their ankle can just get up and walk it off, but Jordan couldn't even sit down and relax for minutes.

But Jordan is tough and talks about it like nothing has happened. He'll bounce back and be at basketball next week and life will go on like nothing happened.

Jordan has been wearing an ankle brace through the day and when he gets home he ices his ankle. Today he came home and his ankle looked like this so I decided that he needed a ice bath for his whole foot.

His entire foot is swollen from his ankle to his toes. it now has started up his calf from the ankle brace.

Jordan learned when playing football and volleyball at Ventura College that if you wrap your toes with a wet suit material the cold water is MUCH more bearable to handle. He is using my swimming webs that I'm doing arm strengthening drills while swimming. It looks funny!

We'll have to see how long this swollen ankle will last

Stadium of Fire

Stadium Of Fire

The American Freedom Festival at Provo 2010

Featuring:

The Osmond's 2nd generation (pop group)

The 5 browns (pianists siblings)

Jenny Oaks Baker (violinist)

Eric Dodge (country singer)

and

CARRIE UNDERWOOD!

I wasn't familiar with the others, but Carrie was all I was really there for.

Let me explain how we were able to score such great tickets...

Jordan works at a sales company called APX Alarms. He works in the corporate office in the city licensing department. Every week they play games such as billiards and air hockey and gets free gourmet lunches every day. They play basketball, volleyball and are always giving away t-shirts and apparel. He gets yummy treats all the time and gets to join in special activities like mini golf as moral boosters for the employees of APX Alarms. Crappy Job....right!

As part of the moral boosting every year the owners buy the managers tickets to this Stadium of Fire, but for whatever reason Jordan's manager doesn't use his tickets and has given his tickets to Jordan the past two years. And APX doesn't go cheap on seating at the stadium of fire. We were on the field of the BYU LaVell Edwards Stadium, 18th row back a slightly to the left side. AMAZING! Thank you APX!

Big Choir

They had Lou Diamond Phillips as the MC This year marks the 1ooth anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America. That night they had the largest Centennial eagle Court of honor in BSA history. They had 261 young men on the stage with their mothers awarded the eagle scout rank, the highest in boy scouting. As the young men were awarded on stage, they had all the eagle scouts in attendance that night stand and be seen while holding a full coverage page image in the program of the eagle medal.

Jordan got to be a part of that, very cool. I truly think that he has gained a lot of his morals, ethics and values from becoming an eagle scout.

The oldest eagle scout in America, 92 years of age

I'm sorry for the out of sequence pictures, but one of my favorite parts of the night is the honoring of the United States Military. As far as I know all generations down to my father and Grandfathers served in the military in some form. My grand father on my Dad's side was a flight engineer in the Navy, and my Dad was a missile systems repairman on AH1 attack helicopters in the army. (mouthful) My grandfather on my mom's side was in the Navy as a sheet metal repairman on planes; and also was one of many generations on his side.

I can't say that I experienced the life of living and traveling from base to base as a military "brat" throughout the US, but I can sure feel and express my gratitude for my freedom. Not only did my father and mother make sure that I would have a life of choices and opportunity, but I'm extremely grateful for my heritage who fought for us to have a free land to live on!

Right before the Eagle scouts court of honor they had 4 Hill Air Force Base 388th Fighter Wings flyover the stadium. As the fighter flew over they have one of the pilots video casts to us a message saluting the armed forces in the audience. Inspiring!

Carrie Underwood sang the national anthem

I didn't bother posting pictures of the other groups and performers. Carrie is beautiful and I have loved all her hit singles and sound tracks. She is at the top of my list with Rascal Flats and Sugarland.

Here are a few videos I took on my camera. I'm sorry for my singing and the sound, but I think you'll get the gist of how awesome!

UCSD Graduation!!! hahahaha

My sister, Rebecca Claire Mitchell, graduated this year from San Diego State University!

yes...I do know that I put the wrong school in the title, it's an inside joke for my mom. Love you mom!

ANYWAYS....ever since I could remember Becca and I shared holidays, birthdays, and other special events together, and graduation isn't any exception. Being the older sister I have to admit that always having a little sister to have to share with was sooo... not cool and a bit annoying, but my feelings have maturely changed! I say that my parents were smart planning our birthdays four days apart, but my mom says otherwise.

Jordan and I traveled down to sunny San Diego and loved every minute celebrating, laughing, and hanging with friends and family!

I think this should be a Christmas card picture, mom!

Much better pictures than that of my winter, cold graduation!

This picture is so funny because Jordan thought that he was being funny, didn't realise that he ended up in the picture, and just looks like a goof in the background!

My gorgeous Aunt Mary made cute picketing signs for Becca! As you can tell it was a great way for her to spot us in the huge arena crowd. It was fun to wave them and yell like monkeys when she walked across the stage as her name was called so victoriously!

Again much more elaborate than mine, I got to see in the row RIGHT in front of my family!

The whole gang!

After the ceremony we enjoyed family, dinner, and games at Dave and Busters (chuck E cheese for adults). There my beautiful Aunt Sara gave a historical gift. When I say historical I mean it! She had saved art work from when we each were younger having slumber parties at her house; then framed them with our graduation announcements. There is so much that my old art work can say about who I am now and the work I produce now, Its funny!

That weekend we relaxed at my wonderful Aunt Joyce's house in Ramona, which is about 40 minutes away from Becca's apartment. I always feel like I'm staying at a resort there. Sadly I didn't get any pictures there, but the afternoon Jordan and I were set to leave we stopped at a place called hodads. I good burger joint that was featured in the food network show: diners, drive-ins, and dives.

My dad left me a surprise on my camera!

Becca, I am so proud of you and your accomplishments! I am honored to have been able to share it with you and can't wait to be able to scream your name again in your next graduation! You are a great, grand, and glorious women. I'm glad to see our sister rivalries turn into sisterly love. I love you with all my heart! XOXO -big sis