This is what I get for reading blogs.
I innocently stumbled across a random post a couple days ago, and pretty soon I had these circular packets of irresistable goodness shooting out of my oven. Either I'm going to have to stop reading blogs, or everyone needs to stop posting instructions for how to make a healthy diet's nemesis.
On rare occasions I get the urge to make a fantastically elaborate dessert. After seeing this recipe in my inbox (I'm admittedly among M. Stewart's following) I decided to give [a slightly modified version]* a try. You see...I had cherries on hand AND an overdue thank you to deliver to our friend who tended our plants while we were in Yellowstone. As the days passed, and I still hadn't appropriately expressed my appreciation, I felt that a simple plate of cookies would not do. The more belated the thank you, the more spectacular the reward ought to be, right? So, I give you:
p.s. the recipe makes 24 cupcakes--too bad I didn't realize that before I started
*sans kirsch, fresh cherries instead of preserved
Mr. Steve went to town today...on the pork chop sale at Central Market. Something about being unsupervised around food, and .99/lb sales--he can't seem to resist bringing home bulk quantities. (He would've made an excellent hunter/gatherer.)
We've now catalogued and filed
of these in our freezer, next to all the peaches.
Meet Mr. Nibbles. 
Summer birthdays are great! On my special day I celebrated at the TX DPS (the DMV in Utah terms) by getting m'self a bonafide Texas drivers' license. I could tell that I wasn't 16 by the fact that I did not find my visit(s) to the DPS exciting in the least.
I enjoyed these flowers Steve got for me. Lovely! 
Then I found this surprise in the mailbox from Kimberly-Clark. How did she know??!
My handsome prince took me to dinner, but not without a photo shoot...
...and the waitstaff at the restaurant gave me this personalized card to celebrate the occasion.
Thank you to all my family and friends for making that day so special!
Steve and I celebrated the 4th of July in Yellowstone National Park with the Broadbent family. Highlights for me include being outdoors without melting, the scenery (wow!), and listening to passersby comment on the matching reunion t-shirts. Highlights for Steve include depriving himself of limited sleep to play Acquire, river rafting, and attemping to hold resistant nieces and nephews. We loved our time there and spending it with family.
You can't go to Yellowstone and not see geysers...
...or accidentally stick your finger into the hot springs to test the temperature.
We got up close and personal to the bison, while I kept re-envisioning the warning signs I'd seen of "Many visitors were gored by buffalo last summer" in my head.
We stopped here for a picnic.
"Nature! That's why I love to come up here." 
A scene from the Yellowstone Grand Canyon.
Braving the rapids of the Yellowstone River...in Everyone told me before I got married that I would discover all sorts of surprises about Steve I didn't know before. I thought that would be difficult, given the amount of time we'd spent together while dating...but today I ran across the first of this set of surprises. I was sorting laundry when all of the sudden...these popped out of the basket:
For those not familiar with the logo on these socks, it's a shield containing the acronym CTR for Choose the Right. I checked to make sure what I was looking at wasn't sized for a Primary child, but sure enough they appear to fit a grown man. I think Steve has some explaining to do...
Yesterday we tried using our blender to make ice cream after we watched the salesman in Costco make it effortlessly. Just as the Blendtec guy did, Steve turned our batch upside down to impress me. And impressed I was...until I tried the icy...watered down...slushy...not similar to ice cream in any fashion...mixture. Maybe it'll take us a few tries before we're Blendtec-Demonstration-Ready at making ice cream.
I got a remote for my camera a few weeks ago and this was my first time to try it out. The $4 was worth it!
