Louisiana Sand Drags

Well this past week Jace and I were down in Gilbert, Louisiana for some sand drags. His dad has multiple bikes that Jace and his younger brother Jedd ride every year for him. I end up going to just watch and hang out, get some sun and caught up on my magazines :) This year Jace did really well and won first in the Bracket racing as well as a few 2^nd places in other classes (couldn’t even begin to tell you what the classes were called). His brother Jedd also won 3 1^st places and a few 2^nd places. No one got hurt which is always the best news and it was a fun but long week. I don’t think we got to bed before 230am once all week. It was also pretty hot all week. I have some pictures and videos from the week (at the end of this post). Since I’m sure 99% of people don’t know what sand drag racing is, you have to see the videos to understand what it is. They go the length of a football field and the bikes Jace and Jedd ride typically range from 70-90 mph (roughly) and go anywhere from 3.3 seconds-4.0 seconds down the track (again roughly-too many numbers for me to keep track of).  Their dad has been into it for years and I had honestly never heard of the sport until I meet Jace. It’s defiantly a different sport but something his family has done forever so I’ve grown to know it myself.

Jace and I

Working on one of the bikes. 

Not working 

Jace at the line, getting ready to race

My sexy hubby getting tired one night. 

Dennis (Jace's dad on left) and Jace on the bike.

Jace and I waiting for some more races

Note the videos are just from my phone so not great quality and also the noise of the bikes are loud/pretty annoying so might want to turn down your volume :) This one is of Jace.

This isn't Jace riding but its fastest bike down there (went 127mph one run I think) so just had to upload it. Skip to about 30 seconds in since the first half of the video nothing happens.

Truck is Fixed!

So this past week has been a little crazy. If you remember about a month ago we bought a “new” truck. Then about 2 weeks after that the truck started making funny noises and Jace thought it was the turbo’s  so he pulled apart the truck and replaced those hoping it would fix the problem.  Well after all that it still didn’t work so he had a friend who works on diesel’s come check it out and we were informed the whole motor was shot. So this past Tuesday we went and bought a new motor. I wasn’t very excited about having to spend so much money on a truck we just got but I was even more shocked when they told us what they wanted to charge to install the motor ($14K roughly). Luckily my husband is amazing (even though he would never admit it) and decided he could just figure it out on his own. I wasn’t sure how he was going to do this since it’s a huge motor and seems overwhelming and I was sure it was going to take him a month but sure enough he had it all done in about 4 days (just working on it at nights). He managed to use our Bobcat to lift the old motor out and then place the new motor in with the help of his brothers (thank you Jake and Jedd!) Jace works on a lot of machines and vehicles but he has never been this dirty/covered in grease as he was working on the truck. Every night for 4 nights straight I would have to scrub his clothes with Dish dawn soap (the best thing to get grease out!) and soaked in Oxy Clean then wash on a high steam setting but miraculously everything came clean and even more miraculous, as of Saturday morning, the truck has been running pretty well (knock on wood).  

 

Pulling apart the truck. 

Half of the truck ended up in our garage floor for the week.

Jace moving the new motor around. 

 The truck with the motor pulled out.

Little Noah wanted to get in on the truck action-look at his little hands covered in grease ha. 

If you can't tell it looks like Jace took a grease shower.

So because the truck took up so much of our time the weekend wasn’t very exciting but defiantly a busy one since we leave town tomorrow. So Friday night while Jace finished working on the truck I mowed the lawn, pulled some weeds and cleaned my kitchen cupboards. I was told by my sister-in-law that I’m a little OCD and I must admit I probably am but my kitchen cupboards are so clean and beautiful now it makes me happy. We went to bed pretty early since we were so tired but for some reason got up early Saturday morning. Saturday I cleaned the house and finished up laundry while Jace finished the truck! Then we started working on pulling all the weeds in the yard, spraying weed killer, pruning trees and laying mulch in all the flower beds. We also washed all the cars and then had the horrible job of cleaning the driveway from the truck mess. The driveway had pretty much turned black from grease and oil spots. It took a good solid hour and a half of Jace scrubbing and me power washing but it finally came pretty clean. That night we went to bed even earlier since we were both exhausted but defiantly got everything we needed to done.

Sunday morning we had church then came home to relax. I had seen these brownies on Pintrest I wanted to try so I decided to make them after church. They were ok. The cream cheese part was much stronger than I thought and when I had Jace try it his response was “They are defiantly different.” But I took them to a friend of mine who’s birthday is this weekend and she said she and her husband loved the cream cheese part (not sure if they were just being nice or really liked them). So if you like cream cheese these are the brownies for you...

Anyways long week and I’m ready to head off to Louisiana for the week. Jace does quad races every year down there and I always tag along for support and to catch up on my gossip magazines and relax. Will be sure to post pictures and video of the races.

Tuesday night Jace with his new motor.

The Zoo and Sour Cream Chicken

This weekend seems like it flew by but it’s been really fun/busy. The biggest adventure we had was going to the zoo with our little nephews which was a blast. My favorite animals were the elephants and the giraffes. The boys liked the Tigers and the birds (mostly the random Peacocks running around the zoo).

Jace and I with Noah by the Elephants

Jake, Marci, Noah and Owen 

I cant help but laugh at Owen's pose

Jace and I by the Rhino's 

Love Noah's excitment in this picture

Owen's new best friend 

Our monkey pose.

Saturday was rainy and cold so we weren’t able to get much yard work done like I wanted but it was my little sisters first Prom so I went and helped her get ready. So weird to picture her going to dances. Saturday night after we got her sent off to Prom, Jace and I went to the Bountiful temple with my parents to go to a session. It was the first time I had been back to do a session so it was good to go and hear everything again since the first time was awhile ago. After the temple we went to dinner at Chili’s with my parents and little brother which was great.

Paige and her prom date

Getting ready to go to the temple (notice my cute new Target dress I found on sale for $20!) 

This picture cracks me up-Jace was cold Fridy night watching movies so he wrapped himself up in our orange fuzzy blanket and wouldn't share with me.

Sunday we had church and then for dinner over here. I made one of Jace’s favorite meals, Sour Cream Chicken.

Sour Cream Chicken

Karen Lewis

Ingredients:

1 large package of chicken

1 container of sour cream

1 cup mayo

2-3 cans of cream of chicken

1 bunch green onions

2 tsp. lemon juice

2-3 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

Trim the chicken and cut into half if large pieces. Season the chicken with garlic salt, onion salt, paprika, salt and pepper. Mix all other ingredients together for sauce and spread over chicken. Cook at 350 degrees for 1 ½ hours covered with foil. Take foil off and cook for another 15 minutes, serve over rice.

I forgot to take a picture of the Sour Cream Chicken but its defiantly delicious. My mom always made this for us growing up and was all of our favorites.

Anthropologie DIY Necklace

Oh Pintrest-I love you so much. So I was on there the other day and I found this link with this amazing necklace tutorial. I decided I could easily make this so I went to the store to get my supplies. I found everything I needed at Michaels, except for the glass bead pendants. I went to Michaels, Ben Franklin, online and couldn’t find them anywhere (well I did find them online for $8/bead which at that point I might as well pay the $200 for the necklace from Anthroplogie). Luckily I went to Hobby Lobby and found them there! The second I got home I pulled everything out and started painting my beads while Jace watched a movie. I did probably 2-3 coats of paint and then just used clear nail polish for my protective, clear coat. In the link’s tutorial it shows her pulling apart the jump rings, I found it was easiest to kinda twist them apart then slide the pendant on and twist it back together, keeps the circle shape the best. All in all it took me a couple hours with the painting and everything but I think it turned out way cute. I’m wanting to make more colors!

I was so proud of my completed necklace! 

Pool Side Dip

The other day on Pintrest I found a recipe for a “Pool Side Dip”. It looked and sounded delicious so last night I decided to try it out.

Pool Side Dip

Pintrest-not liked to a page so no credit, sorry!

Ingredients:

1 red pepper, diced

2 jalapenos, unseeded

1 can of corn

½ can of diced olives

16 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 packet of Hidden Valley Ranch seasoning mix

Directions: Mix all together and serve with crackers. (I served with Fritos chips and it was delicious!)

This turned out so good. We had this along with Chicken Quesadillas for a super easy/fast meal. I was worried Jace wouldn’t like it since he doesn’t like much of anything with corn in it and is pretty selective on most veggies but he wouldn’t stop eating it. Just a note of caution though. I rarely use fresh jalapenos, so about a ½ hour after I had mixed up the dip my nose itched and I itched it thinking I would be ok since I had washed my hands multiple times already. It was not ok! My nose started burning and my eyes started watering. I tried running cold water on it to make it stop burning. Jace suggested I use milk so I soaked a paper towel in milk and rubbed that on my nose. That was the only thing that helped but it was pretty miserable so I would recommend using gloves when dealing with the jalapenos. Other than that it was super yummy and easy!

Easter Weekend

Well for Easter weekend every year we usually go down to the Dunes. It’s always the first big weekend of the year and Jace always gets excited. Unfortunately this year it just wasn’t happening. Jace started working on everything months ago hoping to have all his crap together by Easter but it was just not his year. He put the Teryx together about 3 times and it broke every time on him, the RZR he has been working on for awhile now as well and he just hasn’t had the time to get it all the way back together and then to top it off the Ford truck decided to die on him so he has been spending hours working on that. So long story short we didn’t go to the Dunes this weekend. It sucked but was also kinda nice because we got a lot accomplished that we needed to this weekend.

Friday night we went and saw 21 Jump Street. I thought it was pretty hilarious. The rest of the night we just came home and hung out. Then Saturday morning we got up early and went to the gym then ran to Layton to pick up a few parts Jace needed. Then we came home and I worked on cleaning up the house and spraying the weeds that have decided to take over our yard this spring, while Jace worked on the truck and RZR (see above for why). He got really far on everything and hopefully will get the rest of the truck parts in today and can finish it this week. Saturday night we ran up to Smith and Edwards to find some random stuff for the toy hauler and the upcoming camping season. We found some awesome cowboy hats (love Jace in a black hat!) and some other random things. Then we went to dinner and ran a few other errands while we were out.

I had seen this idea on Pintrest to put you nail polish/make up in an apothecia jar and I liked the idea but without a lid so I could access everything easily. I’ve been wanting to change up my master bathroom for a little bit so Saturday night I found this vase and filled it with some of my crap that has taken over my drawers. I think it’s cute and a good way to store stuff.

Sunday was Easter obviously. I gave Jace his little Easter basket I had made for him. It was filled with Cadbury Cream Eggs (his favorite), gift cards for him to go out to eat and then a long weekend booked down in Vegas at the M Resort for our ½ anniversary celebration in July. Since our anniversary is 5 days after Christmas and we never have money/time to go celebrate our anniversary, we’ve decided that we would always celebrate by taking a mini vacation mid year. We went last year and loved it so much so were going back. It was fun to surprise him with it since he had no idea. Then we went to church and that night went to my parents for Easter/my little sister’s birthday dinner. It felt like a very busy weekend but I also feel like we got a lot accomplished. I’m getting excited with this warmer weather for summer but I’m also dreading the wasps and mosquitoes that are coming out of hiding. Our house already has tons of hives being built so Jace climbed up on the roof to knock them down over the weekend. If anyone knows of good products/ideas to help keep them away let us know!

Took this while my nephew Owen was yelling "Jace get down, thats too scary to be up there!"

And I like this cute picture of the nephews enjoying the ice cream their big brother (on the right) bought for all of them :)

Lemon Bars and Weekend Update

This weekend was pretty good except for Saturday afternoon. Friday Jace and I went to lunch then I ran some errands while he finished up at work and then we went to a matinee to see “The Wrath of the Titans”. I wasn’t dying to see it but Jace really wanted to and since I picked the last movie it was his turn, long story short-don’t see it. We both agreed it was bad. Maybe a Redbox movie. Later that night we went to Chopsticks for dinner and then stayed at home playing cards and watching movies. Saturday Jace and I went to the gym then he went to go work on his RZR and such while I cleaned the house, ran to the store and did some shopping. Later that afternoon we met up to get some weed killer for the lawn and a few other things. We were driving Jace’s new Ford truck over to Centerville when I noticed it was making a weird sound. We pulled over and were able to putt our way to Jace’s shop in Centerville to look at it. Jace pulled it apart slightly to try and figure out what is wrong with it. I ended up towing him back to the house (that was an exciting experience in itself) and he was able to pull it down some more at the house. He thinks it’s the turbo? Anyways that kinda put a damper on the weekend. That same night we decided to go to dinner with Jake, Marci, their boys and Jace’s cousin Cody and Christine and their kids. We went to this really yummy BBQ place in Bountiful called Smedley’s. Being from Texas I’m pretty picky on my BBQ places but this was very good! Then today we got up and made pancakes to watch conference. Then in between sessions I made some homemade Lemon Bars. I found the recipe in my Taste of Home Magazine.

Lemon Bars

Rose and Rita Laketa-Taste of Home Magazine

Crust

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup butter, softened

¼ cup confectioners’ sugar

Filling

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon grated lemon peel

Additional confectioners’ sugar

In bowl, combine the flour, butter and confectioners’ sugar. Pat into an ungreased 8-in. square baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

For filling, in a small bowl, beat eggs. Add sugar, flour, baking powder, lemon juice and peel. Beat until frothy. Pour over the crust. Bake for 25 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool on a wire rack and dust with confectioners sugar.

Just a few notes of things I did:

• I doubled the batch and used a 9 X 13 pan.
• I hate the taste Pam leaves when I use it to grease things so I just took some of the softened butter from the crust and spread that around to grease it up.
• I used 1 lemon for the zest and lemon juice. I got a little over 3 Tbsp of juice and plenty of zest.
• I used my Kitchen Aid mixer to mix both the crust and the filling and I think it worked well.
• I couldn’t figure out how to get the bars out onto a cooling rack without destroying it so I just let it cool in the pan-not sure how that will affect them.

I ended up taking them over to my mother-in-laws since we were having dinner up there. They turned out pretty delicious I thought, I will definatly be using this recipe again.

Date night Friday 

The lemon bars

Infiniti Scarf

So my little sister’s birthday is this coming Tuesday on April 3^rd. She will be 16 (good luck mom and dad!) I was trying to think of something to get her for her birthday when I came across this blog on Pintrest. When I lived at home, Paige was always stealing my scarves and so I thought this would be perfect to make for her especially since I had an old pair of plaid PJ’s. They were a little torn up but I couldn’t get rid of them since I loved them so much but this would be perfect to use them for. I had to improvise a little since as I said, the legs were a little beaten up and shredded so I couldn’t use both pant legs in their fullest. I ended up making it work out though and I think it turned out pretty cute! Then I also picked her up a pair of earrings a picture frame to put up in her room. Happy Birthday Paige! :)

Before

Working on the scarf

After-I'm sure it will look much cutier on Paige!