Monday Morning Surprise

I always joke that I work with people that are all old enough to be my parents.

And I say that with no complaints...especially when they bring me homemade surprises like this!!

Tabby,

A while ago you and I were visiting about bread. And I was telling you a little about the bread my wife makes...and that spoils me and all of our family. She grinds her wheat (stone ground) and includes honey in the recipe. I mentioned its texture is more like cake. Brenda made some bread yesterday (the ox was in the mire) so I thought I would bring you a fresh loaf to try.

Dave.

So there's a LOT of small talk that goes on in the lunchroom at work.

It normally goes something like this:

...

Tabbi: Whatcha eating today?

Dave/Jon/Sally/Bob: Oh you know, the usual. Turkey, potatoes, homemade rolls, stew....homemade everything that sounds AMAZING...etc etc. What about you?

Tabbi: Spaghetti. Lean Cuisine. Again.

And then I eat at my desk alone cuz I just can't keep up with the Jones'!

.....

But how sweet is Dave to bring me a loaf of homemade bread?

It made for a great morning--and a perfect start to my week!

Next St. Patty's Day...

...I'm making this recipe:

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
Prize-Winning Recipe 2010! Whip up a batch of cookies with chunks of chocolate and a touch of minty freshness.
188 Ratings
PREP TIME25 Min
TOTAL TIME40 Min
SERVINGS:36
INGREDIENTS
1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® sugar cookie mix
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon mint extract
6 to 8 drops green food color
1 egg
1 cup creme de menthe baking chips
1 cup semisweet chocolate chunks

Step 1- Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, stir cookie mix, butter, extract, food color and egg until soft dough forms. Stir in creme de menthe baking chips and chocolate chunks.
Step 2- Using small cookie scoop or teaspoon, drop dough 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.
Step 3- Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. Cool 3 minutes; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Serve warm or cool completely. Store tightly covered at room temperature.

Wood Baby Shower

My good friend Jessica Warren Wood is having a baby boy...
...so we threw her a shower at the Millet's GORGEOUS new home!

After raising twins, Jan's skilled at entertaining 2 kids at a time.

Ashley's made the cutest diaper tiered cake!

Jess stoked on all the new outfits for her little beau!

Jess and her baby bump at ~8 months pregnant.

At the end of the shower, Jessica's niece drew a picture of her&Andrew.
Notice the baby in her belly. Adorable!

I haven't seen these girls forever. Gotta love any reason that gets us together.
We really watching the Bachelor Finale at Jenny's? I hope so :)

Thanks for coming everyone and for all the help with food, etc!

randomness update...

Valentine's Day was weeks ago, but I received the cutest cards from friends/family.

These envelopes were very complimentary together!

Thanks for thinking of me Bryant, Kami, Grandpa, Mom, & Jane!

Last week I ran another event for my boss.

He even let me do the floral arrangements, which was great fun!

The Joseph Smith Memorial Building is such a beautiful venue & they're so accommodating!

(and it doesn't hurt that my boss' dad is the Prez of the Deseret Management Corp)

The rest of my refugee family was baptized on Friday.

There were 2 entire families baptized that night, I've only seen kids get dunked before.

The entire program was cool, with Nepali translators & elders & sister missionaries, etc.

And then we went back to their apartment and ate pizza.

They love my Friday night pizza tradition!! :)

Random thought: For the longest time, I thought my car was a 12 gallons tank.

It scared me when it reached 13.2 the other day. I need to be better about filling my car with gas!

This weekend, a group of our girlfriends got together for an unorthodox celebration. We shopped, went to dinner and chatted until the wee hours of the night.

One of the highlights: when Jessica Noorda pulled out her new Debit card....

...with a pic on it from our Mexico Spring Break Trip 2006. Here we are sitting on the bumper of a mobile home in Mexico while some family fixed our broken car.

We had some pretty good stories to reminisce about...I sure miss these girls!

Nepalese Friends!

Saturday and Sunday I spent time with my Nepalese Refugee family.

Saturday I hung out with Suk (14) and her friends.

They're all about 15 yrs old, but they're fluent in English so from here on out...

....I'm taking them with us everywhere!

Did I mention that they're a lot of fun, cuz they are.

They make me so happy--I LOVE my new little friends!

Sunday I took some of the Monger sisters & their friends to an interfaith roundtable production at temple square.

On our drive there, I showed them the temple and explained that it was like a Krishna temple, but for my faith. This family has only been in the states since November, I was thinking there was no way they'd even heard of my church...until..

The oldest daughter asked if I was a mormon. I said I was. And then she said 'I mormon'. I was thinking there was definitely a miscommunication with our language barrier.

Nope, she's really a mormon. Her aunt and uncle have lived here a few years and she was baptized shortly after moving to SLC. Her parents and other sisters will be baptized next month.

WHAT! You've got to be kidding me! A few numbers into the cultural production, my little Nepalese friends were getting restless....

And me-- being the reverent activist that I am, showed them how to play tic-tac-toe and other 'quiet' games.
From one mormon to another--these girls are gonna need to know how to stay awake thru sacrament!

And then they invited me in for potstickers. I have no idea what they put in that spicy sauce, but it was like a slap in the face....in a good way. Kinda like that Carl's Jr. commercial!

If you have any hand-me-downs or old tv's or dishes or anything of the sort, please let me know.

This family doesn't need much, but there are countless families like theirs in the area that do.

I'm torn because I want to give them everything but they don't need anything. They are happy for their simple life and yet are always so gracious. They're great examples to me...

Steve Forbes/Ribbon Cutting/Luncheon

The last few weeks have been madness at work planning THIS EVENT. We contracted Steve Forbes to speak at the opening of our Premier Wealth Management Center adjacent to the lobby of the Zions Headquarters downtown. With all the construction of City Creek downtown, Zions wanted to raise the bar of how we do business and so we developed a fancy wall street-esque banking center. If you don't believe me, come check out the center. You're bound to be ooed and awed by the newly renovated space. This is a project my boss and I have been working on since I began working for Zions last May.

It was so much fun to be involved in such a high class event.

I decided to order our guests a hard cover copy of Forbes' recent book. (this event was awesome because we had no budget limitations and I don't pay the bills) I delivered them to his hotel so he could personally sign all 250 of them! I hope it was a big gesture cuz it was a hassle for these two wimpy arms of mine. Not the best looking book, but it seemed like a perfect and memorable gift for all of our valued customers who came to our ribbon cutting & luncheon.

Below is Scott Anderson, President and CEO of Zions Bank. He is such a kind, good man. I have great respect for him. Just to show you the kind of man Scott is: He was at the airport to greet Steve Forbes.... ...at 11pm the night before our event! That shows character! Zions Bank is really lucky to have such a fantastic and personable leader.

Steve Forbes was a really gracious guest. I've planned huge events before, fundraisers, and coordinated meetings with international leaders/secret service in D.C. but by far this was the trickiest and most expensive event I've ever been involved in. There were so many aspects to getting everything perfect. Caterers, Florists, Hotel logistics, Bellhop, Publishers, Agents, corresponding with 300+ High Net Worth Clients & Bankers galore, Breakfast with the Governor, Building setup, Elevator logistics, etc etc etc. I learned a lot this week about banking politics!

But the best part was working with Steve Forbes' bodyguard.

His name is Rocco, he's from Brooklyn and is every wonderful thing I've ever imagined. he's a charmer & he made my looong day pretty fantastic!

Airborn

Last weekend, a group of friends went to the Trampoline Warehouse in Draper.
It was heaps of fun.
For $8/hr you can play dodgeball, leap into a foam pit
or jump your heart out on countless trampolines.

Group Photo where we're touching the ground/
trying to break the tramp!

Andrea being our fearless alpha-female playing dodge ball.

Crappy phone pics

'I see dead people'

Foam Pit. Awesome to jump into, impossible to swim out of!

Gooooooo Team Yellow!

Thanks for coming everyone!!

Refugees

I'm getting involved with the International Rescue Committee here in SLC.

I learned about this organization through a friend I met in Thailand that worked for the Bangkok IRC office.

I finally went to the volunteer trainings & last night I met the family that I'm going to be helping/mentoring.

They're a Bhutanese family that escaped here from Nepal in November 2010.

The parents don't speak any English, but the 4 daughters (ages: 24, 18, 14, 9) have learned a LOT in the last few months.

I think they understand everything, but they were timid to say much.

...

I hope to spend 10+ hours with them a month, so you'll hear more about them soon.

They're going to teach me to speak Nepali, while I help them with their English.

Next week I'm taking them to the SLC Library.

Let me know if you have ideas for free, fun activities in SLC.

All I could think of was: library & making food together.

Gotta put on my thinking cap.

...

The IRC is sooo rad.

If you're looking to volunteer in the SLC area, check out the link above.

oh..and here's another nonprofit that is equally as rad:

http://www.fightthenewdrug.org/

Friday Night Pizza

For the last few months I've been casually going out with this guy.

Some days I felt happy around him, but then he'd say things that gave me the heebies.

My friends said to give him another chance. So I did.

But in the end, I learned my instincts always know what I can't explain.

To sum it up, this guy writes a 'dating blog' where he writes mean things about all the girls he takes out.

I wasn't even that interested but it still stung.

He seemed interested...yet had terrible things to say about me behind my back.

Not cool.

...

For the record Mr. 'tripphazard':

That iguana necklace you wear is circa 1999!

And whenever you complain, all I can think is:

" My wallets too small for my $50's and my gold shoes are too tight!"

...

Last week made me realize:

I want my life to be guiltfree & transparent.

Never say/do anything that needs covering up.

...

ONTO HAPPIER STUFF.

My friend Ryan rocks. A whole lot.

(now that he reads my blog, I like giving him shoutouts)

...

He doesn't even like our Friday Night Pizza Tradition...

...but he turned my week around when he showed up at my door with these!

Whole Foods makes a mean cheese pizza for $8.99 on Fridays!

Squash Divinity

This is turning into a cooking blog...sorta hate it but I need to keep track of recipes that I love. My blog might be the only consistent thing in my life...sad and true.

Another Sad thing --people that are crappy, especially when you feel like you belong on their team. Words cannot express the frustration I've felt this week so I'm not going to attempt it.

However I will tell you about the Squash (+Tilapia) meal I made tonight.

This recipe is simple, delicious, amazing. Spaghetti Squash+Feta=divinity!!

Spaghetti Squash

"In this recipe, the 'noodles' are tossed with vegetables and feta cheese. You can substitute different vegetables, but be sure to use ones that have contrasting colors."

Original Recipe Yield 6 serving

• 1 spaghetti squash
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
• 3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 3 tablespoons sliced black olives
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a baking sheet.

1. Place spaghetti squash cut sides down on the prepared baking sheet, and bake 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a sharp knife can be inserted with only a little resistance. Remove squash from oven, and set aside to cool enough to be easily handled.
2. Meanwhile, heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Saute onion in oil until tender. Add garlic, and saute for 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, and cook only until tomatoes are warm.
3. Use a large spoon to scoop the stringy pulp from the squash, and place in a medium bowl. Toss with the sauteed vegetables, feta cheese, olives, and basil. Serve warm.

Oh... side note. What is it about reminiscing with friends you haven't seen in years!? I don't even know but the conversation at dinner tonight did remarkable things for me.