Winter

Today I woke up to find snow on the ground. Oh Mother Nature...please just let us keep the warm sunshine! As many people in Utah, I am growing tired of the cold. Winter was great while it lasted (most of the time) but it's time for warm weather! It's time for picnics and kite flying, for boating and sunbathing, for washing your car outside without freezing, for not wearing a jacket when you are outdoors! Here are some fun winter photos. Hopefully winter can leave in peace once I've posted my tribute.



Snowboarding with my awesome friends! Me, Todd, Liz and Amanda.


About to go sledding with Scottie and Liz!

Liz and I, just before sledding.

April Fool's Day

Happy April Fool's Day! In all actuality, April Fool's is one of my least favorite holidays. Some traditions just aren't worth it. I don't like that it is a day dedicated to embarrassing the gullible. I recently learned the origins of this unofficial holiday and thought I would share. Here is a paragraph from www.wikipedia.org:

"The origin of April Fools' Day is obscure. One likely theory is that the modern holiday was first celebrated soon after the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar; the term referred to someone still adhering to the Julian Calendar, which it replaced. In many pre-Christian cultures May Day (May 1) was celebrated as the first day of summer, and signaled the start of the spring planting season. An April Fool was someone who did this prematurely. Another origin is that April 1 was counted the first day of the year in France. When King Charles IX changed that to January 1, some people stayed with April 1. Those who did were called "April Fools" and were taunted by their neighbors."

Another holiday tradition I dislike? Having to wear green on St. Patrick's Day for fear of being pinched. What kind of society do we live in? I did wear green (on my socks where no body could see), and warned all those who mentioned pinching me.

Homemade Lasagna!

Yesterday I spent the evening with my fabulous sister-in-law Julie and we made lasagna! I'm not saying we bought a frozen one and let it sit in the oven - we bought all the ingredients and assembled the dish ourselves! We are slowly but surely becoming the best cooks around. Click here for the recipe.

Julie let me wear this fun apron. I wish I had an apron of my own
 I'll have to look into that.

The one and only: Julie Lisonbee!

Our Apartment!

I know I'm a bit late in posting these as we've been living here since the last week of December, but here are some photos of the new place! We intend to live here until we send ourselves to med school, and I couldn't be happier (as you can see in the first photo)!

Me!

The kitchen - we have a dishwasher!

The living room (plus Scott)!

Our room! You can't see into the closet, but it's amazing!

The laundry room (conveniently located in our bedroom)!

The bathroom! New everything, including plumbing.

Our second bedroom. If you need a place to crash, we've got it.

Photos of Previous Apartment Disasters

I felt the need to blog, so I thought I would post some long forgotten pictures of our previous apartment! My next post will be some photos of our current apartment.

The boys posing for the camera.

What was before a closet.

Scottie peeking through the once-was wall.

This is the second pipe we found with nails/screws in it.
This was in the bathroom, you can see the biggest hole right in the middle (there were three holes in this pipe).

This was the main water problem.
My dad cut a hole in the ceiling to check it out and everything came crashing down.

This is where the vanity once stood.
The pipe draining the sink had holes in it, so here's a nice mold shot.

The corner of the counter where a cupboard used to be.
You can see the mold marking the cupboard lines.

Family Photos

We've been trying to get all of the Eastland Family together for months, and we finally did it!

Dad & Erin

Scottie & Rachel

Sisters!

All the kids!

Everyone!

Everyone again!

Everyone making faces!

Beauty Tips - Audrey Hepburn

Beauty Tips
By Audrey Hepburn

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge you’ll never walk alone.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anybody.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.

The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love is.

The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul.

It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows, and the beauty of a woman with passing years only grows!

Girl's Night

Tonight my friend Emily came over since we haven't seen each other in a while. We've been friends since we were baptized - we actually met the day we were getting our baptismal interviews and found that we had the same birthday and that our parents had the same anniversary. We thought that was pretty cool and ended up being good friends, and we often told people we were twins. When asked why we had different last names we would explain some crazy story involving two sets of parents, a dad who was famous, and how we were separated at birth and recently found each other. Those were the days...

Tonight we made a pizza, had brownies and ice cream, watched Grey's Anatomy, and talked until we were out of decent topics of conversation. We spent a good five hours together and had a great time. The pizza was amazing - we made the dough ourselves and we were definitely worried it wouldn't turn out, but here is the recipe and below are some photos of the pizza!

We decided that Emily could never work in a pizza place because she would take too long to make the pizzas look good.

The finished product!

Being Innovative

I'm just so proud of myself that I had to blog about it! Maybe everyone is way past me and has already done this, but it was a first for me and I'm so excited!

I had a HUGE pile of clothes that had been washed and dried at least a week ago, and they were wrinkled from being piled in baskets. I decided to take a few hours to iron them all and get back on top of the laundry. I was all ready to go when I realized that my starch spray can was empty. What was I to do? Well there had to be a way to make my own, right? Of course! I jumped on the internet as usual and keyed a search through Google. I found lots of sites with ironing tips and 'recipes' for clothing starch. I wanted something really simple, and found this. So great! I had cornstarch in the cupboard and water from the tap. So simple! Now our clothes are not only clean, but they are ironed and presentable.

Have you had an experience like mine? Leave a comment! I love getting pointers. :)

Cooking Catastrophes

Lately I've been trying to become a better cook, and I am constantly looking for a new recipe that is simple and fairly quick. I've had a few triumphs with my new recipes including pot roast, scalloped potatoes and chicken pot pie. The recipes that didn't turn out?

• Garlic bread. I've made this a hundred times before, but this time I forgot to take it out of the oven while I was broiling it. When my dad saw the pan of blackened bread from across the kitchen he thought I was holding a plate of brownies. Needless to say, I am now always careful to keep myself focused while cooking. Sometimes multi-tasking just isn't worth it.
• Macaroni & Cheese. I tried to make it homemade in the crockpot, and it was pretty heinous. Everything was clumpy and gooey. Thank heaven for garbage disposals! A few weeks ago I went to Julie's for a little recipe swap, and she gave me a new recipe for mac and cheese. Maybe I can try it this week!
• Banana Bread. Well, it was actually really good, and I threw in some chocolate chips instead of nuts. I think the pan I used was the problem, maybe next time I'll try a glass pan. Thoughts? I used a dark bread pan and the outside of the bread cooked much faster than the inside. By the time the inside was finally cooked the outside was blackened and I had to trim it off before serving it.
  
• Beef something. I don't remember what it was called, but the recipe called for cubed stew meat, carrots, peas and cream of chicken soup in the crockpot. Once it had been cooked you pour it over cooked egg noodles and voila! You have an easy meal! Only if you cook it correctly, that is. We came home to the smell of burned food, and I realized I cooked it on high for eight hours instead of low. Here's a photo of the destruction of the crockpot: