fall festivities & new gf's

Welp....it's November already. Time makes no sense because I don't know how that happened. Fall is one of the best seasons of the year, but it's also the craziest because it's football season! (Will do an entire post dedicated to Easton and the T-birds next.) I just had my final show at Tuacahn on Halloween night. I had so much fun extending my Tuacahn season by playing the "giggle girl" in THRILLER. It has been a great six months, but it will be nice to spend more time with my dude now (who is currently in North Dakota at a game). Even though it's been a bit hectic, we've still managed to squeeze some fun into our Fall. 

  @ Thriller w/ friends and fam @ "meet 'n greet" after the show

Brad & Nikki Sorensen, Trevor Everett, Kevin & McCall Clements

 Henna & Teisa Brown, Fatu and Brittany Moala

Tannon and his gf Jessica

More Thriller pics:

We also had a fun Halloween themed night on the Sunday before. We ate "dinner in a pumpkin", made gourmet caramel apples, and played some silly games while we watched the Broncos and a scary movie.

                         Trevor won the "Skittles Game!" The rest of us just got sick from it :)

During the past couple months we also got some visitors who came to watch shows/games. Here are some pics of a hike we took before a game and a day trip to the canyon with Tyler and Meaghan during the Pedersen family reunion. SUCH a great Fall aka Autumn. The weather has been a gem :) 

                         

 *SEGUE:  Moving on to the domestic side of things...I made some fun Halloween wreaths and have some new gf recipes! 

Dinner in a Pumpkin:

Ingredients:

1 Medium pumpkin*

1 lb lean ground beef (turkey)

2 cups brown rice

1 serving of gf cream of chicken soup (see recipe from previous post)

2 cups chopped veggies (celery, onions, green pepper, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, etc)

1 T soy sauce

Cut off the top of the pumpkin and thoroughly clean out pulp and seeds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees - Saute veggies in large skillet. Add meat then brown.

Add Soy Sauce, soup, and cooked brown rice - Mix Well

Spoon Mixture into cleaned pumpkin shell. Replace pumpkin top and place entire pumpkin on a baking sheet.

Bake 1 hour or until inside meat of the pumpkin is tender

After you scoop out the yummy stuff inside.. don't forget to scrape out the insides of the pumpkin! It tastes just like Spaghetti Squash!

*Check the size of your oven to make sure the pumpkin will fit! 

Monterey Chicken:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/4 c. bar-b-que sauce ( I use Bull's Eye)
1/4 c. real bacon bits
1 c. colby and jack cheese, shredded
1 14 oz. can Rotel tomatoes, drained (canned with green chilies added)
sliced green onions
pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pound out chicken breasts to flatten. Season with pepper. Grill chicken until no long pink (we used our George Foreman grill) and place on baking sheet covered with foil. Top each chicken breast with one tablespoon bar-b-que sauce, 1/4 c. cheese, 1/4 c. tomatoes, green onions and one tablespoon of bacon bits. Place in oven and bake until cheese is melted (about 5 minutes).

***Twe marinated the chicken breasts before cooking and they were great. You don't have to though. Marinade: 1/4 c. olive oil, 2 T. soy sauce, 2 tsp. McCormick Montreal Steak Seasoning. (We only marinade about a half hour or the meat gets too salty for us.)

Chicken and Rice Bake:

Ingredients

• 2 whole Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
• 4 cups Cooked Brown Rice
• ¾ cups Frozen Corn
• 15 ounces, fluid Can Black Beans, Drained And Rinsed
• 1 cup Plain Greek Yogurt (or Sour Cream)
• 4 ounces, fluid Can Green Chilis
• ½ cups Salsa
• 1 cup Low-fat Cheddar Cheese, Plus More For Topping

Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients  and mix thoroughly to combine. Make sure the yogurt and cheese are stirred in throughout the entire bowl. Season with salt and pepper if desired. Transfer to an oven-safe dish and top with extra cheese if you would like. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until heated through. Garnish with chopped cilantro.

To make this process easier, I used Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice. 

GF S'more Bars:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp gf vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cups all purpose GF flour (I used featherlight because it can be replaced cup for cup)
• 3/4 cup GF graham cracker crumbs (found these at the health food store, but would be fine without)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 king-sized milk chocolate bars (e.g. Hershey’s)
• 1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/fluff (not melted marshmallows)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in egg and vanilla. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture and mix at a low speed until combined.
3. Divide dough in half and press half of dough into an even layer on the bottom of the prepared pan. Place chocolate bars over dough. 2 king-sized Hershey’s bars should fit perfectly side by side, but break the chocolate (if necessary) to get it to fit in a single layer no more than 1/4 inch thick. Spread chocolate with marshmallow creme or fluff. Place remaining dough in a single layer on top of the fluff (most easily achieved by flattening the dough into small shingles and laying them together).
4. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

Thanks for being a part of our journey, enjoy the rest of this beautiful fall season!

Celine and some other things...

It's been about three weeks since I saw my hub, and by "saw" I mean actually interacted with him... We knew that once football camp started that our lives would be somewhat separated for a couple months due to school and football and the works. So we decided to take a little "vaca" the weekend before it all began (more on that in a sec). During camp the team has to sleep in the dorms so we only got to see each other on his lunch break, where he would eat then sleep. Lucky for me he can't eat anything in the cafeteria so he got to come home for lunch :) Starting last week he's been able to sleep at home again, so I now see him when I get home from my shows at 1 am and he is snoozing as usual. Here is what I see of my dude these days :)

He is so cute, I miss him sooooo stinking much! So like I mentioned before, we wanted to do something fun before all of the insanity began. We have had a very busy summer due to both of our jobs and we wanted to reward ourselves a little bit. Easton's all time favorite singer, talent, musician, celebrity, whatever is Celine Dion. Anyone who knows Easton knows that he has a huge, giant crush on her! Since she happens to perform down the road we decided that we would drive to her city and maybe if we hit the jackpot we would catch her show! So on my day off we went to Vegas, did a little window shopping, ate at my favorite restaurant-Cheesecake Factory (it is so not GF friendly, but because E loves me so much he ate there with me), and stood in line at Caesar's Palace just to check out the ticket prices. The tickets were way more than we could afford, even the nose bleed seats, but we decided to splurge in case we'd never have the chance to see her perform again! It felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity. Her show is supposedly closing soon so we decided to go for it! My very frugal husband couldn't have been more stressed about the money we forked out (as you can see in the pic, his nail is bitten down to the bone) but I assured him that it would be worth it!!!

If you have been to Tuacahn, you know that the theatre is huge. It seats over 2,000 people. Well, the Celine theatre is more than double the size of Tuacahn. It seats about 4,600 people per show, and it's always sold out! She's a legend, no duh! Our seats were at the very top, you couldn't get any higher than where we were, but we were so stoked to actually see and hear THE Celine Dion in person! Here is a view from our seats. As you can see, the seats by the stage look like specs, so we were about to see a miniature Celine, but it was all good!

Then out of the blue, an usher asked us if we would like to move to the orchestra??? Easton had no idea what that meant, so he said, "no we're okay", but I knew so I said "YES!!!" before he could change his mind. We were escorted down three elevators and were given such special treatment by all of the house workers that we were sure that we were picked for something special! Easton was certain he was going to be pulled up on stage :)

We could literally touch the stage!

Our new view looking up at our old seats!

Couldn't be more excited!

YAY CELINE!!!

The show phenomenal, it surpassed our extremely high expectations. That voice is so good it makes no sense. She sounds the exact same live and even in her older age. I want her legs more than anything! We snuck in a couple pics of her too :) SHHH!

The camera made her look a lot smaller than she actually did, the nose bleed seats were way worth the price of our orchestra seats that were easily more than double the value of what we paid. It was so fun watching Easton mouth all the words to all the songs and get emotional every time she would look our way, he is such a stud! It was a great trip!

School started this week for E and he has his first game of the season tomorrow at Utah State! I am so excited, I got my show off so that I could be there and we have family from both sides who are gonna be there too, it's gonna be a great game! Last season I started a tradition where every game I would write E a good luck rap. Here's the first one of this year. Don't judge, it takes me a long time! haha. 

2012 Football Rap #1- Let’s Get it Started

Thursday August 30^th- game day number one

Goin’ to Utah State and we gonna have some fun

Provin’ to the world that we’re the ones to beat

Bringin’ our “A” game and bringing on the heat

Startin’ off the season with fire in our veins

 Gonna make it pour cause we are gonna rain

Everyone is hearin’ bout Sorensen and Larsen

They will be so stunned when they see Pedersen run

Number 88 yeah he is the true weapon

The red shirt sophomore is already a veteran

He can catch anything thrown up in the air

The Aggie defense should be shakin’ scared

Friends and family will all be up in Logan

Can’t wait to see when our Easton gets his game on

Startin’ with a “W” and getting’ on a roll

This is where T-Birds throw it all on the floor

2012 is where it’s at Thunder in the Big Sky

Let’s show the conference that we about to take flight

So good luck to the T-Birds, we'll let you know how the game went! It's gonna be a fantastic season!

Last, but not least, here's a new GF recipe that won Easton's approval so I thought I'd share it! Enjoy! 

 Buffalo Chicken Taquitos:

INGREDIENTS--

• 4 cup(s) of chicken, cooked and shredded
• 12 soft taco, corn tortillas
• 2 cup(s) of mozzarella cheese, grated
• 4 ounce(s) of Philadelphia cream cheese
• 1/3 cup(s) of Frank’s hot sauce
• 1/3 cup(s) of milk
• 2 tbsp. of butter
• 1 tsp. of Mrs. Dash
• 1 tsp. of garlic powder
• 2 tbsp. of vegetable oil

*Note to make a lower calorie/fat version of this.  Use the Fat Free or 1/3 Less Fat Cream Cheese.

STEPS--

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. In a small sauce pot over medium low heat, melt butter.
3. Add Mrs. Dash, garlic powder. Stir to combine and cook for 1 minute.
4. Add cream cheese and stir until melted and completely combined with butter and spices.
5. Wisk in hot sauce and milk and simmer for 5 – 8 minutes. Add salt to taste.
6. Combine chicken and sauce.
7. Lay out a tortilla; fill with about ¼ – 1/3 cup chicken and 2 tablespoons of mozzarella cheese.
8. Tightly roll up taquito and place on a greased baking sheet; repeat until chicken is gone.
9. Brush taquitos with vegetable oil on all sides.
10. Bake for 15 – 18 minutes; rotate them every 5 minutes, until golden brown.

lots o' random

It's been a while and it's time to play catch up...AGAIN! I guess y'all probably realize that this is the story of my life :) So we're gonna be jumping around and making this as confusing and random as possible! 

Let's start with my latest craft attempts...

#1--Outdoor wreath

This was super easy, but it took a whole afternoon. I just got a cheap straw wreath wrapped in plastic from the craft store and wrapped yarn all around it, made one knot at the beginning and one at the end, with little ones in between where I had to cut the yarn because it got tangled. Then I made some easy felt flowers that I found the instructions for on pinterest. I really like the simpleness of it.

#2--Lace lamp shade

I'm not sure how I feel about this one still...I didn't like my white shade on my white wall so I wanted to liven it up a bit. I got some spray glue and stuck some lace fabric on it then let it dry. Afterward I took some black spray paint and dowsed the whole thing until the wind got the better of the lace. I bought the 97 cent spray paint from Wal-Mart and it probably wasn't the best idea for my black and white shade. I don't know how long it will last because I feel like it looks like a gray haunted house lamp. Any other color would've been fine, because I think the actual design and look is great, but I'll probably keep messing around with it 'til I'm satisfied. 

#3--His/Her coasters

We go through so many cups on a daily basis that I decided to find a way to save some water and time from doing dishes. I got some 16 cent tiles from Home Depot and mod podged some scrap book paper on them then finished it off with a clear acrylic spray. Mine is the girly polka dots and E's is the manly stripes :) Every time you get a drink of water you just put it back on your spot, so far it's been a good system! 

One of our very favorite things is when we get visitors and we have had a lot of fun with all of the company we've had so far this summer. Along with that I have had so much support from people coming to my shows. I am so blessed with such amazing people in my life. I know not everyone is so lucky and I am truly grateful for all my friends and family. I don't have pics of everyone who has visited or come seen a show, but thank you to everyone who has been so present in our lives. We love you all soooooo much!!!!

Here's some of the pics we did get...

Last but definitely NOT least, my biggest fan of all! Easton is a champ! He comes to each show of mine at least once a week, a big thank you to Tonya for helping us with that :) He is such an observant and intelligent theatre goer. I can't believe the things that he picks up on and notices, and that's one of the many things that I really love about him.

Here's some more pic highlights of some more randomness...we're very sad that summer is quickly coming to a close, but I cannot WAIT for football season to begin so that I can have the chance to be the cheerleader in the crowd! It's my turn to cheer on E! YAY!!!

Hiking Angel's Landing

Cedar Breaks

Kanarraville Falls (Notice Easton's pose)

Cast After Show Party

Rained Out Show!!

Genie's girls

Our 4th of July dinner for 2 :)

Easton w/ my cousin Jacob @ his homecoming

My first half marathon w/ my stage manager-Bernadette

Whew....well, da da da dat's all folks!