Chopped

If any of you watch the Food Network you know what show I'm talking about. It's another one of those reality tv shows involving chefs. Basically, there are 4 chefs and one gets cut after each course of a meal. They cook an appetizer, dinner and dessert. This weekend Tessa challenged Dad to a Chopped competition. It was quite the event. They cooked dinner and dessert.

Dinner Ingredients: pork chops, bacon, avocado and a special cheese we found.

Winner: Squareknot

He made chili rellenos with spanish rice and guacamole. It was as good as it sounded.

Tessa made a 3 cheese, 3 meat breakfast taco with avocado, tomato salsa.

Dessert Ingredients: Sugar Cookie Dough, Brie Cheese, mango and coconut.

Winner: Tessa
She made a cookie sandwich with a cream filling mixed with brie cheese, mango, strawberries, and coconut. It was covered with strawberries and chocolate. It was amazing.

Squareknot made a mango raspberry cobler that was very tasty.

In the end it really was a split decision. Half of us agreed that dinner was the most important meal and therefore, Squareknot was the winner. The other half passionatly disagreed and said that dessert was more important and therefore, Tessa should win. It was a very close competition. All in all they both did amazing!

Our "Wii" kend

It's official, we have a Wii. About a month ago I told Zach that maybe we should give each other a Wii for Christmas. I had no idea the stream of events that would set in place. Needless to say, we did not wait 6 months before buying one.

I've hardly ever seen Zach so happy and excited.

The other part of our "wi" kend was Wicked! On the 4th, we had 8th row seats to see Wicked at Gammage. It was one of the most incredibly moving performances I've ever seen. Any of you who havent' seen it, I highly recommend it and sitting up close really is that much better!

Juneau

When I asked Zach what the blog title should be he said in a very Mexican accent, "It was really fun...ju know?" I said no. Anyway, to proceed with our trip, our second stop was Juneau. It was a beautiful place and a lot smaller than I thought it would be. We all ended up doing different things. Dad, Zach and I went on a bike ride, Mom went on a photography trip, and Tessa and Tasha hit the town.

Our bike ride was amazing. We started at a ski resort up on the top of the mountain and rode all the way down. We got a view of the Mendenhall Glacier from 9 miles away. Even that far away it was amazing! We had a little bit of time afterward to shop and Tessa found some amazing truffles and I found some huckleberry ice cream. It was a very successful trip!

This is a quick pic of the mountains around Juneau.

Zach with all his gear on.

Dad with his gear and the glacier in the background.

Me and Dad with our pant legs rubberbanded so they don't get caught in the chain.

All 3 of us adventurers.

Happy Anniversary!

Today was my Mom and Dad's 31st wedding anniversary! Way to go Dad for not screwing it up and way to go Mom for being charitable and patient! Just look at what you're 31 years have accomplished. I'd say you've done pretty well!

We love you and here's to another 31 years!

Ketchikan

Ketchikan Alaska was our the first stop on the trip. We all decided to go kayaking around some little islands. It was incredible!! The only disappointing thing was that Mom and Squareknot promised Tessa and Tasha some good looking guys for our guides...instead we got Eric with the missing teeth, father of a 2 year old and Betsey the Amazon woman. They did end up being very capable guides and even let us kayak a little bit longer than we were supposed to. I believe in this instance the pictures will speak for themselves.

Tasha the blueberry...

All of us with all our gear before heading out in the kayaks.

Zach, me, Tessa and Tasha. You can see some of the islands in the background.



It was very scary taking your camera out to take a picture while the kayak was rocking back and forth.

Two bald eagles...Preston named them Sandra and Squareknot.

It was our favorite excursion. We even got to see some whales. Awesome!!

Congratulations Tucker!

My brother in law, Tucker, got his mission call this weekend. He's been assigned to labor in the...



Argentina Resistencia mission.


I'm always jealous when new Elders or Sisters get their calls. I wish it could be me starting out on that incredible journey. Congratulations Tucker! It'll be the best, hardest, most rewarding, most challenging and all together indescribable 2 years of your life. Enjoy every minute because it goes by way to fast and it will be over before you know it!

Alaska

Though I'm still not fully recovered from our trip, I thought that it was time I said a few words!! WOW! That's really the only one that comes to mind. Alaska is some of the most gorgeous country I've ever seen and not at all what I thought it would be. I have so many pictures and stories that need to be shared that I’ll be breaking them up into a few different posts. We’ll start with Seattle!

We started with dinner at Bambuza (thanks Chelsey). Two things to notice in this pic. The enormous asparagus and the guy in the background with the wolverine hairdo! Awesome!

We then took a tour of the Seattle Underground. I would also highly recommend that. It was very interesting.


We didn't have much time for anything else but we did manage to fit dessert in before we went to bed!


The next morning we headed straight for the market!


This was the best clam chowder Mom, Dad and Tessa had ever had!