My big fat greek salad

Yummy greek treat. I love this salad and make it year round. In the winter time instead of serving it over salad greens try tossing this mixture into a couple of cups of orzo pasta then serve warm. Yum-mmmy!

INGREDIENTS

3 roma (plum) tomatoes, chopped

1 red bell pepper, sliced

1 small cucumber, chopped

¼ small red onion, chopped

¼ cup sliced kalamata olives (optional)

1 cup feta cheese, crumbled

1/3 cup olive oil

2 teaspoon red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon lemon juice

2 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon dried oregano

salt and pepper to taste

1 head romaine lettuce

DIRECTIONS

In a salad bowl, combine the tomatoes, bell pepper, cucumber, onion and olives.

Whisk together the oil, vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper. Let sit for 1 hour, occasionally stirring to blend flavors.

Pour dressing over salad, add feta cheese and toss before serving over lettuce.

A whale of a post

So it’s been a crazy week followed by a fun filled weekend. I had a huge review at work with some analysts from headquarters. They swoop in and go through all our stuff then fly away leaving a big ol mess. The bad news is that since we are short staffed I was stuck with the work 3 people, oy big headache! The good news is that the big boss saw the hard work the hard work and has petitioned our national budget office asking for an exception to the hiring freeze to hire me on as the new analyst. This would mean that I would receive a small pay increase and I would get me creds so I could do independent collateral interviews. Yay that would be fun!

So this is the card that I'm making for this months card swap. I saw some swirly stamps this week and I just had to try something with my own set. I have been digging the blue/brown combo so I thought that I would put it all together. So far I'm still liking the card; we'll see how much I like after making 19 more.

Friday night I got to go to a scrap crop with a friend of mine Amie. I had such a good time! I have so missed scrap booking and I am so far behind that I will have to be logging some serious scrappy time to cure my reignited addiction. I haven't journaled on these pages yet so I will re-post when they are all done. We went to a local store Keepsake Trends, and it only costs 10$ then the store owner Ginger gives you 10$ in product. The store website also has a forum and a gallery you can post on. Way cool ideas!

Then Saturday night we went out to dinner with some friends. It was such a great night! We went out to Thai food and ate our hearts out. We ordered like 8 different entrees and sampled everything. I absolutely adored the soup, fried rice, pad Thai and the catfish. Oh my word so yummy yummy yummy. The conversation was great too. We finished our dinner and sat talking for an other hour about everything from cooking to travel and families such good times! I've always wanted to have couple friends so yay yay yay for our new friends. Woo Hoo can't wait for the next dinner!

Finally this is Roxanne. She is a 6 year old boxer and she has found her way into our family. I'm not sure yet if we can keep her. Our friend Robyn just returned from her mission and she can't take the puppy back due to her living arrangements and Roxy's issues with other girl doggies. So we thought we would give it a try to see if she can fit in the house. The cats are completely freaked out. Asher spends most of his days in the closet and the girls seem to hide on chairs or tables. They will come around occasionally and while Roxy is a super sweet and very well behaved dog she wants to play so bad that she jumps up and they are so freaked out that they just scatter. Oh Roxanne what are we going to do with you?

So that's what's new with me. Whew......lots of stuff last week. This week I have Temple night, some gardening, scrapping and my good friend Christy gets to receive her endowments. And Cafe Rio Friday night. Woo Hoo!!!!!!!!!!!

Mr. & Mrs. Gamache

Here are some of my favorites from my last wedding shoot. I was down in Destin FL for Andrew and Christina's wedding. These two are high school sweethearts who went to school with DJ and I. As a matter of fact, Andrew is responsible for DJ and I meeting. Still thanking him to this day!

The J.O.B.........

.............unfortunately did not want me :-(

"Thank you for your interest in the position with the City of Surprise. It was our good fortune to have several standout applications from which to choose. It was apparent you have valuable experience and genuine strengths for the position, but ultimately the decision was made to interview the candidates whose qualifications most closely fit the needs of the City and the Department. Your time and effort invested in the recruitment process is recognized and appreciated."

So sad, that would have been a great commute for me. I am choosing to believe the person they hired was currently unemployed with babies to feed and needed the income more then we did. That was of course after a couple of hours of feeling very sorry for myself. So I'm still in the market if anyone knows of a position for a young girl with a B.A. in English and several years experience in admin, customer relations, human resources, case development and law research. Or I could just stay put with the whole putting bad guys behind bars thing. I still like the work and love my guys. Or maybe I'll just get a flood of wedding photography requests.......ohhhhhh that would be fun.........................

Comments

It was brought to my attention that my blog didn't allow for anonymous comments, so I fixed that. Any and all who read please feel free to leave me your comments.

Meet my Girls

I am currently taking applications for these two amazing women. This is Liz. She is super sweet and has a completely addictive laugh. Liz iz a return missionary with a deep testimony of the Gospel she would love to share with any and all who would listen. She loves to travel and can make anyone laugh if given the chance. She loves to kick back and relax or roll up her sleeves and get dirty. After returning home she will go to Alaska and help her sister with her new business for the summer. Then she will come home to Idaho for a few weeks before shipping off to Utah State to get her 4 year degree in nursing with a minor in Spanish. Anyone would be blessed to have a bit of Liz in her life.





























Ok now we have Luke. She is the most amazing person to have around you if you need a good laugh. Luke stories always end in a great belly laugh. She was my baptismal gift and I am so thankful for her in my life. Luke has a laugh that will linger in the air long after she has finished the story. She loves babies and has an uncanny ability to clam a screaming baby with just her touch. She has overcome some amazing feats in her days and will make the most amazing wife to the luck guy who wins her heart. Her testimony is so sincere and since her return from her mission she has continued to serve daily within her own community.



Oh how I love my girls and just couldn't imagine life without their wonderful spirits in my world.

What a weekend

So as you can see in the photo Dj took the plunge this past weekend and was Baptized. This whole experience has been such a whirlwind experience. I'm almost having trouble putting everything into words here. The previous Sunday at church he just leaned over to me and told me that he was ready and wanted to join the Church, but it was our wedding anniversary the following weekend and he wanted to know if it would be ok if he was baptized on that day. I of course said yes! He has come so far and I am so proud of the man he has become in the past few years. DJ has struggled his whole adult life with knowing who he was and who he wanted to be in this world. He has struggled with his family to have strong meaningful relationships where he felt truly accepted for who he really was inside. When I went back to church and decided to be baptized and fully take on the life I wanted regardless of what others thought he was hesitant to join me in the journey. When we got into our house there were a number of trials that graced our path which really tried us as a couple and then again as individuals. I turned to my faith and openly prayed and asked for help then let it all go to the Lord and followed the promptings of the spirit as they came to me. I know all of those trials had been put in our path so DJ could have a better understanding of faith and my beliefs because up until that point he had not really understood what I had tried to explain to him. So long story short (mainly because I am still having rouble putting all the words together because the whole experience has been so emotional) he decided to take the discussions and has progressed, changed, grown and came to the decision to be baptized. He is so happy . I have not seen him this happy in years. We were talking this past weekend and he told me that he was sad to see some of our long time friends make the decision to walk away from us because we choose to have religion in our lives when we never walked away or judged any of them for their life choices, but he had made the decision to not apologise for his life and his beliefs no matter what. I was so proud of him to hear those words because DJ never would have said that in the past, he would have tried to be whatever the person he was talking to wanted him to be. So we found ourselves in Church on Saturday surrounded by the most amazing group of friends and had so much love we just felt so blessed . DJ and I have, our entire married life, longed for true friends who really loved us. We have found a small handful of really genuine people who we know loved us and we loved them, but we never had that community of supportive friends who just wanted to know us for us with out motivation. That long time desire and prayer has been answered with the amazing people is our lives now .Here are all the missionaries present who had taught DJ in his journey. The baptism was amazing and very full of missionaries. We were 4 missionaries short of the entire zone! So amazing to see all these young men and women so dedicated and full of love.
Sunday after all was said and done we came home and crashed out to just relax. Such an amazing time. So much love. So much fun. Just so much everything!