Video Chat with Noah

Most every week I Skype with my sister Elisa and her husband Alex. A few weeks ago Skype was giving us some troubles and Alex suggested we try to video chat using Google+ hangout feature. It actually seems like a decent alternative, but I'm not completely sold on it. I don't like that I can't view the video in full screen, but there are some silly fun things that you can do to entertain yourself.

One of the things we enjoyed was watching a few You Tube videos together. What was really cool about that is you watch the video together and although you can't hear one another unless you press a talk button, you can see the other person's reaction as they are watching the video.

The other thing we enjoy is the Google Effects app that allows you to place silly hats and other random things on your video. Yesterday, we were talking again and near the end Noah was in the perfect position to try out some of the effects on him. We might have had a little too much fun dressing him up. He is so cute!

Monopoly Man Noah

Dread Pirate Noah

Snorkeling Noah

Iron Chef: Vegetarian

So I have been thinking for a few months that there are quite a few young people in our ward and I don't know very many of them that well because we are all so busy, so in the spirit of getting to know people a little bit better I took a good friend's great idea and started an Iron Chef group. Now to be completely honest, I have never watched the show from where this activity gets its name, so I have no idea what it is really about, but the version of the activity that I have come to understand is to come up with a theme and/or a special ingredient that each participant is to use and no matter what group they are assigned (appetizer, main dish, dessert, drink) they have to incorporate the theme/ingredient.

I wanted things to be fairly simple for the first activity and I knew that we had a few vegetarians in our group, so I thought a no meat theme would be a good kick off. It could serve  at least 2 good purposes in my book, 1) make sure that for at least one of the get togethers, my vegetarian friends could eat something else besides what they brought and 2) maybe I could get a few new no meat option recipes.

So I collected e-mail addresses and sent out invitations asking for RSVPs so I could assign groups (assigning people to groups helps to ensure a little more variety). I never tell people what to make, but  give them an assignment of dessert, appetizer, etc.

 Drinks and Appetizers:

Dips: An olive dip on the left and spinach dip on the right

Yummy cheesy bread!

Entrees:

Meat free enchiladas and pizza

Butternut Squash Soup with cheese Ravioli

Desserts:

An Eclair cake and chocolate cupcakes made with spinach

 Pies!!

 Friends:

L: Kristy and Trevor Lacey R: Jack Quincy, Jordan and Summer Rigtrup

L: Bryon, Steve Hulet and Matthew R: Kevin McBride, Dave Shepro and Jen Wilson

Jeff Raj, Christie and Ben Rogers

L: Jessica and Mason McBride R: Nellie

L: Charles and Beautiful girlfriend R: Jack n Jamison with Jessica n Mason

I think our first Iron Chef was a great success! I hope people enjoyed it and are excited for more to come!

Ready to Run?

This is a picture I took of Matthew right before we headed out on one of our training runs. Doesn't he look excited?!