Photo Shoot: Part 1

It's picture time! We've taken 2 family portraits in the last week. Each was its own distinct experience, and I love the results!

Family #1: Kimberly & Joey & Clark

I love that they wanted to do urban-ish pictures. This gave us lots of fun options. We went to our usual spots in downtown Salt Lake City, and here are a few of our favorite images.

Don't you just love the way a baby's eyes look all glassy in black and white?

Wagons East

We would have made the pioneers proud.

Our Pioneer Day was spent packing for our big move across the country. I felt kinda like a backwards pioneer—I get to take all my stuff, I don't have to walk, but it's still hard to leave everyone and everything familiar behind.

We started packing and organizing well before 9 am, and by the end of the day we had filled our entire front room with packed, taped, labeled boxes.

It was also a day of paint and un-paint. We stripped the paint off of our $10 dresser, which is a lot of work. Scott has been sanding and stripping that thing for weeks! I also got to work on a funky art project that's been rollin' around in my brain for a while. I got some primer and primed 3 vinyl banners leftover from my job, then I picked the perfect bluey-green (sort of a celadon) and painted 2.5 coats on each banner. They look so smooth and nice! They're ready for the next stage: painting a tree or something on them so we can hang them triptych style in our new apartment. I'll keep you posted on the dresser and art.

Needless to say, we were pooped by the end of it. So we watched a movie and ate ice cream. And we even watched some fireworks from our bedroom window! "You don't have to push a handcart, leave your family dear, or walk a thousand miles or more to be a pioneer!" Here's to great courage and faithful ancestors!

Mr. & Mrs. Manners

On Wednesday, we had our little cousins over for an Evening of Etiquette. Addison, Andrew, and Austin joined us. Amber asked us to teach them some table manners (though they are already incredibly polite children, to her credit). We served some tasty pesto tortellinis, a salad, some focaccia bread and milkshakes for dessert. It was really fun!

We had cloth napkins, two forks, and the food was served in courses. We discussed how to fold your napkin in your lap for ideal lap coverage, how to ask for something instead of reaching for it, and which fork to use first. For such energetic kids, they were kind of serious! It was so cute!

There were some obvious successes: Austin ate a LOT of tortellini and asked nicely for it each time, Addison tried purple onions for the first time and didn't mind them, and Andrew ate every bit of lettuce in his salad and politely left the tomatoes and onions saying he already had tried them and didn't like them. The milkshakes were a huge success. We got to use up our homemade ice cream, and boy that makes milkshakes good! I put some cookie dough chunks (from my aunt Christy's recipe) in the blender too for a real treat. Austin looked like he was on an IV cause he didn't stop sucking on that straw until his mom came to get them!

They are so fun. We'll definitely miss them.

A Visit

My mom and Randy came to visit us this weekend. We had a great time together eating, shopping, sight-seeing, creating art, eating, and shopping. Mom and I made a good dent in the local Ross and had a grand ol' time getting fun ideas at Thanksgiving Point. Scott and I really need to go see those gardens before we move! We also went to IKEA, which was fun as always. It was less crowded on a Thursday night, so we had a great time looking around and enjoying it more than we had before. It was especially nice to see it all with Mom. She has such great taste and is a fun shopper!

Friday night we went out to dinner with Mom and Randy, then we all cozied up on our couch to watch that Elizabeth Golden Age movie. It was cool! Certainly from an English perspective, but I'm English and so I don't mind. :)

Saturday, we drove up to Park City. On the way we stopped and looked at my uncle's house that's being built in Midway, UT. It is gorgeous! I love the pretty wood and the floorplan, and the windows and the kitchen! So nice. We had a lovely picnic in Park City and then walked down Main Street for a bit. On the way back, we stopped in Heber for some way too big milkshakes.

We said goodbye, but we hope they'll come and visit us soon. Or maybe they'll be moving closer to us? We'll see!

After we dropped them off, we went back to IKEA to make a serious purchase. We needed to buy a bed. Now, my Grandma had given us a bed, a lovely four-poster king bed, but we don't have a king mattress and it may not even fit in our apartment in Pennsylvania. So, my aunt Gwen gave us a queen mattress they were getting rid of. We just needed a bed until we decide if a king could fit in PA and then it could be the guest bed for all of you who will come and visit!

We were going for cheap. We got the cheapest bed at IKEA.


Neither of us like it, but the wood was stainable and we were dreaming up the creative ways we could make it decent: make upholstered panels, paint, new iron pieces with more interest, a bomb. . . As we drove away with our $100 bed, Scott says he hates the bed. "Why don't we spend $30 more and get one we actually like and that we won't have to do so much to for it to be decent?" I thought that was a great idea. So we went back to get this bed.


After returning our ugly bed, we made a stop in the "As is" section on the ground level. Woah! Did you know you can get the coolest stuff for way cheap? They had several beds that had some sort of minor damage which rendered them unfit for resale at the listed price. Among them was this bed.


Original Price: $289
Marked Price: $72

Um, we totally bought it! It had a hole in the packaging of the headboard and a chip about the size of a centemeter, but is otherwise totally perfect. We were so excited about it that we didn't even consider how we would get it home! Luckily, Scott can fold up easily, and we were able to get the bed in and us in and home safely. And now, we have a bed that we actually like!

Artsy Fartsy

I found these lovely blown glass drops on some British website. (one of my blog-hopping sessions led there). I don't remember the site now, and I didn't bookmark it, but I think these are so darn pretty! My birthday's coming up, but I really think they'd be cool all over a Christmas tree with some serious lights all over.

The company had RE in it. I think they repurposed and recycled stuff alot.

Goodness Gracious!

We've been eating really good food with really good people lately. It's been so fun! We just haven't taken any pictures!

About a month or so ago, I was taking pictures of the tasty meal we shared at my aunt's house for my cousin's homecoming. A friend of theirs asked, "Do you blog?" I told her I did. She said, "I thought so. Only people who blog take pictures of food!" I guess it's true! Well, except for the food scrapbookers and the professional photographers who take pictures of food for menus, packaging, magazines, cookbooks, and weddings. Yeah for people who blog about food.

Sunday: meatball sandwiches with homemade meatballs & sauce, tasty fresh fruit, juice, and coconut fried salmon as an appetizer. This was for our last cousin dinner in Utah for a while. (like 6 years)

Monday: smoked salmon with homemade sundried tomatoes and pesto cream sauce on pasta, fresh bread, steamed broccoli, spinach salad. We had a friend and his wife over. We're trying to plow through that wonderful salmon Jessi's parents gave us before we move.

Tonight: any suggestions? Oh, and thank you to everyone who comments. I really appreciate it. It makes me feel like someone is reading what I blob up here!

Happy Things

I've been wanting a little strainer for berries and veggies. This weekend I finally found one! It's so pretty and green and perfect. Ross is the best for stuff like that.

The fun part about it is that it's like the mini green version of our big orange strainer, also a Ross find.

My wedding photographer will soon be carrying books from Couture Book. You should take a few minutes to look at their site. Probably ridiculously expensive, but they are GORGEOUS books. Yeah for handmade stuff and for books being as fashionable as dresses!

Kitchen Fire

Well, last night was my very first kitchen fire! So exciting!

I fried up the tastiest homemade french fries, but as I was transferring the last few fries from the oil to the bowl, the paper towel that was lining the bowl caught fire.

No worries, though. I grabbed the baking soda from the fridge, and after about a half cup of soda, the fire was out. No bowls, counters, or people harmed. Only a few fries were soda covered, but the rest tasted great!

Try the recipe, but be careful of the flames!

Homemade fries

Independence Day

What a fabulous family reunion we just had. My family has this amazing tradition of getting together every 4th of July for a family reunion. We have a monster huge cabin in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho where we all hang out, eat a lot, camp out, and generally have a good time together.

This year Scott was officially one of the fam (last year he was a little less kin and I a little less than kind). It was wonderful. Scott got 4th place in his division of the Soda Springs 5K race. Go Scott! That's without any training at all! He's so cool. I drove him down to Soda for the race (which was a little earlier than I usually get up) and our cousin Jody came too. He got 2nd place over all.

After the parade (all the salt water taffy you can eat) we got a team together for the volleyball tournament (2 Steele teams this time) that consisted of Scott, Gordon, and I plus our cousins Rachel and Scott. So fun! And it wasn't too hot until later in the day. We won the first one but lost to our cousins and then to another team. But we put up some fights!

Gordon let the cousins throw the glowing juice from glow-sticks all over him. He was glowing. I hope it doesn't give him cancer or something!

The fireworks were pretty good this year. Not stadium of fire, but pretty lovely. The allergies kicked my butt, though. It was pretty miserable to sneeze and sniff and scratch my eyeballs like crazy. It was soooo fun to be there with Scott-as-husband instead of Scott-as-boyfriend/not boyfriend.

Here's a look at some of our crazy activities:

Steele-billies games

possom (meatloaf)
It's not about looks. It's about love.

My punk brother.
Turns out you can use bug repellant to transfer images from underwear packages. Who knew?

Jell-o snarfing contest

My cousin Tanner was a super snarfer.

The brothers who snarf together, stay together.

The beautiful Idaho-ness