What a girl wants, what a girl needs.

Rob: "Hey this weekend the guys are gonna do a team hike and we thought it be fun to do tin foil dinners afterwards."

Me: "So are you telling me I'm making 40 tin foil dinners?"

Rob: "Yeah, pretty much."

And we did and it was a success. Although my kitchen and chopping hand will never be the same we had a good time with some bomb tin foil dinners which to my husbands credit he did help me a lot with. I did however decide I'm never making them again without one of these:

Which I actually have but I'm missing the blades!? Who knows how these things happen. Definite note to self that this is a necessity!

Anyway, so it was an awesome day for a hike and a great night for a bonfire.

What 35 tin foil dinners look like in our frig...

Thanks for the good time BYU MVB.

Happy Birthday to me!

Generation Y. Virgo. Year of the Rat. Boomerangs. Yes, that's me and I turned 25 on August 29th and it was a wonderful weekend. I am a firm believer in celebrating your birthday as long as possible. Go ahead and stretch it on out. Rob and I have our Anniversary on Sept 1st so it works out perfectly and we usually get a non stop celebration for at least three days sometimes even a week! So we went up and had a sushi dinner with my family topped by some delicious fried coconut ice cream and an adorable play put on by my nieces and nephew...Thanks Dad! Another day my dad came down to watch Etta and Rob and I went for a meat, cheese, fruit, and martinelli's (my fav!) picnic up the canyon. Then we had some friends over for a cake and ice cream celebration. And lastly Rob's mom usually has us over for a delicious "favorite meal" dinner but this year decided we would go out. So they took us to my favorite restaurant around, Foundry Grill. It was so fun to have a peaceful adult night somewhere beautiful and relaxing. I had to get steak of coarse with a delectable wine reduction and their yummy tortilla soup and caeser salad and Rob got a new menu item, an amazing brined and roasted pork loin that he's still talking about. Thanks Bob and Margaret!

The always unsuccessful "picture taken ourselves" up at Sundance.

One the hostess took...so fun to be on a date!

And here's the whole crew. It's funny, without fail we always see someone we know when we go up to Sundance and frequently someone famous. This trip was no different. Along with running into some old friends we ran into Donny Osmond and family. They're so sweet and offered to take a picture for us I had neglected just before we were leaving...and I think Dan was pretty excited because he couldn't quite take his eyes off Donny as evident by this shot his wife took. :)

Anyway, it was a fun night and an awesome weekend. Thanks everybody!

Camping Trip Numero Dos

So remember how I said we took another camping trip? We did, a few weeks later the night before my birthday. We went up with some of our neighbors for tin foil dinners and dessert and then just two of us stayed the night.

So we get to the camping sight and all is well. And things generally continued to be fine...we read books in the surrounding of nature...

We prepared meals to share with our friends...

We sat around the campfire...

And made closer bonds with existing friends...they look like they're having a blast don't they!?

There's a smile! We ran around and got all sorts of dirty...

Enjoyed some peach cobbler and an attempt at Taboo...everyone quit when Rob and I started ladominating. Not really, but it's true that we can never be on the same team, it's so sad. We love to play together but we know each other to well and think too much alike it becomes unfair.

And then...the night came...

All was well, we put Elizabeth to sleep around 830 and she went down pretty easily. We enjoyed the rest of the night around the campfire and retired probably around midnight. I don't remember anymore if it was right then or an hour into it but our little neighbor friend was not having as easy a time slumbering as the rest of us. He started crying and crying and crying and just when we thought he'd stop...it woke Elizabeth up and she started crying which eventually got him crying again. Let's just say this went on the majority of the night! My poor neighbor tried everything, even getting in the car for a little drive but he was just so sad. So we were up the WHOLE NIGHT! We were in exhausted hysterics by about 4 AM with nothing to do but laugh as Elizabeth jumped up and down on our mattress wide awake and lovin it.

Unfortunately Rob was supposed to leave straight from there to go golfing the next morning in Park City. I had promised to drive him to his car probably about a mile away maybe longer because I'm always up early when we camp. Well, in the brain fog I was experiencing of like one hours sleep I said, "bye I love you" about the time he was going to ask if I was still driving him. So he just walked to the once in a life time golf opportunity he just had to take on my birthday that he's had three or four times since! :)

So this is us first thing about 6 or 7 in the morning on officially the worst night sleep of my life. :)

I love this little girl.

We don't look to horrible right? How can you be in a bad mood on your birthday!? We seriously did have a great time anyway and laughed off what can only be expected from even the best of little ones every once in a while. So will this derail us from many a camping trip next year? Not one bit!

Pizza a la Sarah

So the more we eat out the more we decide we should eat home. We pay four times the price and usually leave unimpressed. It started with Indian food. We love, love Indian food. After quite a few trip to the Bombay house (which we were actually happy with but were spending too much on) I thought ummmm, aren't I a chef or something and couldn't I make most of this at home? And so the perfect Indian food, anything comfort food, the perfect steak, and the perfect burger were born. Most recently it's been the quest for fall of the bone BBQ Ribs for Mr. Neilson and

The Perfect Pizza.

So at first I had to perfect the crust, that was the biggest thing. It took me about 4 tries till I was really happy with it. I feel like so much thin pizza I eat the crust ends up a bit soggy bottomed. So that was an issue to solve that took a little science and a pizza stone. I also like a crust that's slightly sweet. Then you have to get the sauce just right. My first attempt was way too watery, sometimes not enough, sometimes too much. I think I'm finally happy with it.

So these are pics of our two best pizzas so far. A Veggie Pizza topped with olives (a must), yellow and green peppers, tomatoes, sauteed mushroom and yellow onion, red onion, and zucchini with Parmesan and a garlic Alfredo sauce. It's pretty good but will probably still take some tweaking.

Then there's the all time favorite, can't go wrong, Margarita pizza which we love.

So we're having fun experimenting and invite you all to come try whatever we're making whenever you want. Next will probably be the perfect peach cobbler because my attempt the other night was pitiful! Anyway, I'll keep you posted.

Going back to Cali...

So in August Brandon, one of Rob's really good friends was getting married in Las Vegas. We figured if we're going all the way to Vegas we may as well go all the way to California. So we called to ask Rob's sister Sara if we could head out after the wedding and she told us Rob's sister from New York, Katie, was going to be out there the week before. Perfect! So we headed out the week before and had a blast.

We didn't get any pictures of Sara and Shawn's new place which is a bummer because it's absolutely beautiful. She has this old 1920's house overlooking all of LA. We hung there with Rob's whole family over the weekend then headed down to San Diego with a short stop in Corona to see the Grandparents. Keith and Sally are awesome. They are 90 something and thriving and we love them a lot. So we love to opportunity for Elizabeth to know them better.

Keith and Sally with Etta

After a few great days in San Diego we headed out to Las Vegas. On the way we got to stop and see Russell, Julie, and Sadie Holmes...some of our favorite people and unfortunately took no pictures. Next we were off to see Rob's cousin, Wes and Kristy, who were also going to the wedding. So the next day we were off to Vegas. We were happy to stay with our good friends Delana and Brian Rowley who we also love. We are so lucky to have so many people who will let us invade their homes.


The wedding was great and we are so happy for Brandon. His new wifey seems awesome and perfect for him. Again I'm lacking in the picture department but I got some.


A very exhausted dad and his daughter stickin it out at the reception that night.

All the old college buddies reunited.

All the wifeys and kids who came later.

Little family.

And Paige, another favorite person of ours.

On our way home Mike and Kara were so kind to have us at Mikes parents in St. George. We had so much fun and are so grateful for all our amazing friends and family. However, we did decide that vacations are no longer...until we can go alone there is nothing vacationing about it. As long as they include kids from here on out they will be great, fun trips...but not vacations. We were soooo tired. But we'll do it again anytime!

I'm Back!!

So I finally freed up some space on the old comp so I could download these pictures from ages ago. The first set is from our very first time camping with Elizabeth (this was back in July). We totally love camping. We love the fresh mountain air, tin foil dinners, and just being away from it all if only for a little while. We weren't really sure how much we'd love it with a baby though...? And let me tell you, she did awesome! We were pleasantly surprised. She just played around in the dirt, was a amazed and a little scared of the fire, and was loving being in her camping chair.

This was the view as we were driving back through squaw peak. That's Provo and the lake if you can't tell...I'd never been way far back in that canyon before.

Me and the hubs.

Baby in the mushroom chair.

No, she's not helping clean up. She has a slight obsession with brushing her hair...she makes camping look good.

Slight claustrophobia?

Robbie, Etta, and our neighbor friend Addison who's family came with us.

So she had her surly moments, but they were certainly few and far between! She slept better that night than she had been at home! It wasn't too too cold and we loved being in the mountains as usual. So baby or not we'll keep camping! (and we did...Will the Neilson's still enjoy camping on their second trip with the babies? Tune in soon for more camping where things might not have gone quite so smoothly! :)

Little Boy Neilson

So for all of you that don't already know...IT'S A BOY! We're so excited. everyone had been saying, "I think you're having another girl...definitely a girl..." So even though I didn't have any strong feeling either way, that kind of got in my head and I sort of expected to have a girl. So it was such a fun surprise when we saw...and she told us! I don't think we realized how much we wanted a boy until that moment. So I'm getting excited for a new adventure and new clothes! My mother in law is helping me sew some cute new crib bedding to save money and meet my extremely specific taste. Anyway, thanks for all your love...now we wait with baited breath for little William (Liam) Keith (for Rob's grandpa) Neilson to arrive!

Summertime Rodeo

So since my computers all sorts of messed up I can't upload any pictures! So I thought I'd steal this one from my sister that I never had the chance to post about. We went to the rodeo with my family and Elizabeth loved it...especially the bulls! We had to get all cowboyed up of coarse (you unfortunately can't see my boots:) Anyway, it was a fun time!