One man's trash...

This past weekend was a great one in the Player's Club.

It started with a nice mountain bike ride on Friday afternoon up near Blue Diamond. And by nice I mean treacherous, vicious, valley of the shadows of death type scenario. The poor hubs had to listen to me complain through most of the ride but he was a trooper and even walked along side me on some of the crazy scary parts. I'm still pretty new to mountain biking so anything that poses as an obstacle in my way usually gets the better of me and on occasion makes me get off the bike. Kirk is very much the opposite but he loves me so he stayed with me. =)

On our 10 mile trek we did see a couple donkeys and these guys...

These were a little over 100 yards off the trail so naturally I walked over to them to investigate. I think it comes from all my years growing up when my dad always said

'keep your eyes peeled for For Sale signs'.

The amazing part about our little treasure find was the means in which it took to get these cars to their current location. There are no roads anywhere leading to this deserted spot. And the car was totally stripped, engine and all.

The first thing I did when we got up to them was send a picture to my dad. His first reaction was that he wanted them. Not surprising coming from Pop. This is totally his thing.

Maybe someday we'll get in there and trailer the bad boys out. I told my dad that I wasn't sure it would be legal to drive a truck to them to which he replied, "and?". Right, agreed. =)

After the bike ride was done 2.5 hours later I decided that sometimes I hate our biking hobby. Mostly I think I hate it when it's me against Kirk. I think the scales are a little tipped in his favor. Truly it was fun and a great workout. I just need to be less of a pansy. Then we had a great dinner at Great China. Delish!

Saturday we participated in our 'Give a Day, Get a Day' thing. The event was called Touch a Truck. Stupid name but good idea. The premise of said event is to have people bring their trucks, any trucks, and have kids climb in, around and through them. Oh, and of course honk the horn or siren or what have you. It really was a cool thing. I had never heard of this but apparently they have been doing it for years now. There were probably over 100 trucks (Firetrucks, ambulances, police cars, diesels, uhauls, marine trucks and yup, even a garbage truck. Don't worry it was new and clean and completely void of any rubbish.)

There were tons of kids there too which kind of surprised me. We got there at 7am and the thing didn't start until 8 so we wandered for a good hour before someone let us help them. They made us wear red shirts and khakis so we could have quit our day jobs and been hired at Target.

When we got there we tried to find the coolest truck since we would be on one all day. Right away we spotted a S.W.A.T. truck. But no SWAT men were to be seen. Finally they showed up and we pounced. Come to find out they had received a call at 4am that same morning and hadn't even been to bed yet so they ran into the Orleans for a little bite. They were pretty cool guys. We talked to them a lot about their SWATing. Apparently most cities in the US of A have only volunteer parttime SWAT teams. Vegas has two fulltime. I'm so proud of my city and its crazies.

We worked until 11:15am helping small people (children, not midgets) in and out of the truck and handing out stickers. It was pretty fun and totally worth it for 2 free Disneyland tickets. I promise that's not the only reason we did it...ok, maybe it is. But hey we were there.

After our morning of service we went to lunch with Brady and Kirk's other friends that were in town, Jed and Saren. They were cool. They were on that show 'Here Come the Newlyweds'. They didn't win but lasted for a long time. We went for sushi. Ick. I had chicken teriyaki. I know, I'm a disgrace but sometimes I just can't eat sushi. It's raw fish people. Come on.

Then we washed the car. ( I realize that was a random addition but it was in our list of activities this weekend so I thought I'd include and let's be honest, how can you really expound on washing a car?) The remainder of our weekend, I'm talking most of our free time, was spent watching Lost. We even got Brady to watch a few episodes though he swears it's the dumbest show ever. Then the night and weekend were capped off with an $.89 5-layer burrito from Taco Bell. Haven't tried them? Do. They are wonderful and hit the spot perfectly.

So there was our fun-filled weekend.

Thanks for reading the whole post.

Promise to liven them up more in the future. =)

St. Patty's Day Mayhem

This year for St. Patrick's Day Kirk and I had a little party at our house. It was pretty stressful but way fun. I invited the fam to come over and only 8 of us were going to be able to make it. Then day of during lunch 14 more people were added to the festivities. I knew I was going to be in quite the time crunch so I text my boss and told him of my crisis then headed home. I had to rush and buy more food but once I got that taken care of everything went great.

It was my first time making corned beef and cabbage but I think I gave any Irish maiden and even Martha Stewart a run for their money. It was that good. I put some carrots and red potatos in with the corned beef which was perfect.

The food was delicious if I do say so myself. My mom also made garlic mashed potatoes and Emily made Irish soda bread. Amy made some delicious cookies that just tasted like St. Patty's day and Becca brought cupcakes that eerily resembled Shrek. Christina topped it off with green soda. It was a great feast of greenness.

Kirky carving the meat.

Some of the crazy party goers.

All the crazy party kiddies. Well and Becca and Amy. All the kids got a little pot of gold from the end of the rainbow at the end of the night.

Here I am showing off my awesome 'IRISH PRINCESS' necklace. Yes I did wear this all day long. Cause I'm awesome!

Yi-Ya pretty much sums up our night's enjoyment. Instead of celebrating with beer we get drunk on green cupcakes and frosting.

Erin Go Bragh!!!

Going Private

Ok everyone, after lots of deliberation and thought we have decided to make our blog private. We keep getting creepy comments from random people we don't know so I think it's time.

I won't actually do it for a couple weeks but if you'd like to keep reading our blog just message me and I'll send you an invite.

You've got two weeks...ready...go.

I can not tell a lie...

...I chopped down the cherry tree.

A couple months ago I asked my sister to find me two large branches that were relatively straight from one of our job sites. Luckily we are redoing an old golf course and demolishing a lot of the trees so she was pretty confident she could find the perfect one. When I got home that day I had two perfect branches to choose from waiting in my backyard. Kirk didn't really see my vision for this lovely foliage but I assured him it was genius. After months of Kirk making fun of me for my branch obsession I finally decided I had to prove their decorative worth. I got home a little early from work today because of a meeting I went to on my side of town and strapped on my lumberjack clothes and got to work. (No I don't really own lumberjack clothes).

It took some blood, sweat and tears (ok only sweat really) but I did it.

The saw

The muscle (The best part of this picture is I'm not flexing my muscle at all. It's only showing because I have such stick figure arms.)

The spoils

And the outcome

I love it. I think it turned out better than I thought. And if all else fails I think I have the makings of a logger in my future.

February Goal Recap

Time for this month's goal recap. This was my "no fast-food/soda" month. Oh man that was hard. But I am pleased to announce that I was very successful. Not perfect but I'd give myself an A- for sure. I had fast food 2-3 times for lunch and only 2 full sodas all month. All month people. And that is huge! I feel pretty great and actually lost a little weight even though that wasn't part of the goal. Today I celebrated with an oh-so delicious In-N-Out burger and fries and 44 ounces of Squirt. I am still going to try to steer clear of caffeine. So we'll see. =)

Next accomplished goal: 2 new recipes

This was by far my favorite goal this month cause these recieps were awesome.

(I don't think I should post these recipes since they were out of a cookbook, plagiarism and all, so sorry but you can just imagine their deliciousness.)

First- Fire Roasted Tomato Soup

Oh My Goodness!!!!

I made this recipe Feb 9th when it was still kinda cold in Las Vegas.

This next picture is an ingenious way to solve the exploding blender fiasco that was my pumpkin soup this past fall. (Thanks Natalie for the awesome idea.)

So apparently hot liquid explodes when blended. My friend Natalie told me to use a dish cloth instead of the lid and only use the lid to keep said dish cloth in place. And Viola! Worked like a charm.

My next recipe actually came first in the month but oh well.

I made this wonder of wonders on Feb 2nd.

I don't really like fruit but this was delicious and has actually led into more fruit consumption in my life which is great.

Lemon Berry Tart

Look at this thing people. Doesn't it just look heavenly? =)

I am still adding mileage to my year goal and have kept up on my reading. I like making goals and accomplishing them. It makes me smile.