Shelby.... READ ME!

This is for Shelby.

This is my way of e-mailing a recipe.

We made this for "family dinner" on Sunday and they were mighty delicious. The dressing is a little funky, though in my opinion.

Costa Vida Sweet Pork Salad
Serves: 6

Difficulty: Medium
Prep time: 30 minutes (excluding Sweet Pork)

• 1 head of Romano lettuce, cut into bite-sized pieces.
• 1 can Bush’s ® Black or Pinto beans
• 3 Cups of Sweet Pork 
• Cilantro Ranch Dressing (see recipe below)
• 6 flour Tortillas
• Pico de gallo (see recipe below)
• Tortilla strip crunchies

Place a warm tortilla in a bowl or on a plate. Place approximately 1/3 cup of warmed sweet pork and 1/3 cup of warmed Bush’s beans on the tortilla. Place lettuce over the meat and beans. Sprinkle ¼ cup of pico de gallo over the salad as desired. Drizzle with cilantro ranch dressing and top with a healthy amount of tortilla strip crunchies. Serve and enjoy.

Cilantro Ranch Dressing

• 1 package of Hidden Valley ® buttermilk ranch dressing. (prepare according to directions)
• 2 tomatillos (they look like green tomatoes, but they are NOT! You may substitute 3 Tbsp of prepared salsa verde)
• cilantro (1/4 bunch)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• ¼ cup lime juice
• 1/8 tsp Tabasco

Peel tomatillos and cut into fourths. Clean and rinse cilantro and remove large stems. Pour prepared ranch dressing in a blender, and add cilantro leaves, tomatillos, garlic, lime juice and Tobasco. Blend until cilantro is finely chopped. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or until dressing has thickened.

Pico de Gallo

• 1 cup diced tomatoes (remove seeds)
• 1/3 cup diced red onion
• 1 Jalapeno diced (at least a Tablespoon, but more if you prefer)
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• 2 limes juiced (about 1/3 Cup of lime juice)
• 1 Tbsp cilantro, plus extra for garnish
• Salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients in a bowl, and stir well. Chill.

Mexican Sweet Pork

Serves: 12
Difficulty: Easy

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 6-8 hours

Ingredients:

• 4 lb pork shoulder roast (the more fatty the roast, the better)
• 1 Cup of Pace Picante sauce. (Medium heat is best, but the mild version will work)
• 2 Cups brown sugar
• Salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:

1. Remove pork roast from packaging, and wash. (Avoid cutting the roast to expedite cooking time)
2. In a separate bowl, mix picante sauce and brown sugar and wisk until sugar is mostly dissolved.
3. In a crock pot or slow cooker, place the roast in the cooker and cover the roast with the mixture of picante sauce and sugar.
4. Place on medium heat, cover and simmer. Check it every hour or so to rotate roast in the juices. The roast will eventually produce enough juices to make the right consistency, so do not add water.
5. Once the roast is fully cooked, it will begin to fall apart. Use a fork to separate the meat into smaller segments. Cover and continue cooking.
6. After 8 hours, continue to shred the meat until no chunks remain.
7. If it appears to be too juicy, turn slow cooker down to its lowest setting, remove the cover and let it reduce as needed.

 

Peacock Flowers

Just to show that my wedding flowers were bomb-diggidy, my arrangements were featured on my florist's blog.
 Bow-chicka-bow-wow You have to scroll down a bit.

Turbo Kick.

A couple weeks ago, Jake came home with a pre-paid pass for me to attend 5 work out classes that the school puts on. They hire certified instructors that do yoga, zumba, step and stability ball, turbo kick, etc. So the other night I went to zumba. There has been so much hype and excitement about this work out so I decided to try it out. It was fun, yes. But not as much as I was expecting. On Saturday, I convinced Shelby to go to step and stability ball with me that night. So we got there and the room was empty. Wha...? I looked at the schedule again and it said 8:00 yup. AM. Ugh. So tonight, Jayne Maricosta came with me to turbo kick.

Bull. No one looks that happy and clean while doing this.

Holy bloody he.............ll!!

The first 10 minutes I was feeling good, I was pumped, it was great!! Then I wanted to cry, puke, lay down, all at the same time but I absolutely REFUSE to be that person that "takes a breather". And I have this overwhelming competitiveness that  makes me want to be able to go beyond what others are doing and keep up with the instructor. So I kept going. Uh no, I did not take it down a little I was high intensity the whole time. Then... 40 minutes in I felt amazing again! My adrenaline kicked in and it was fantastic. We did some ab work and stretching for 15 minutes after our hour work out and I am so glad I stuck with the work out.

The instructor was this teeny-tiny itsy-bitsy ball of energy... energy of like 6 three year old girls hyped up on candy. And she was so motivating. I just burned 1,000 calories in an hour! 

I am here personally endorsing Turbo Kick. It was the best work out I have had since my "Nazi" pole vaulting coach my freshman year of high school. My mom and dad know exactly who I'm talking about. If you get the chance, try it out at least once. Once you get past the initial "Oh mylanta I want to die" feeling you will feel like you can conquer the world. Here's a sneak peak of what I just did for the past hour. My instructor liked to add alot more kicks than this girl did. Turbo Kick-my-A

10 Things plus 2 bonuses

The other day I knew I was going to write a "10 things as of lately" blog so I kept a few things in mind. 

And then... 

I forgot them. So here is what I do remember though.

(In no particular order)

1. I have an AWFUL knot in my back for the past week-ish. It has woken me up in the middle of the night so I in turn wake up Jake... who rubs it for me. He's only half awake when he does it and he sleep talks so it's fun for me to talk to him.

2. Whenever Jake goes DP aka dawn patrol aka gets up at the butt-crack of dawn to go surf, I ask him to give me a kiss before he leaves. Today I was leaving for class before he woke up so I bent over to give him a tender kiss and in turn I get a freaking punch to the face!! Unintentionally he claims. Luckily, no visible injuries were received.

3. I finally got accepted to do my internship(s) in Reno!! YAY!! I will be working as an athletic trainer at Jake's old high school, and working in an athletic club training rehabilitating athletes... the two topics I am torn between pursuing.

4. A few nights ago, I made hot chocolate in the microwave. My hubby told me not to do it again because making it that way will give me cancer!

5. Look at what what my husband gets to wake up to every morning. Cute, huh? Oh yeah... and that is drool surrounding my mouth. He is one. Lucky. Son of a gun.

6. I've discovered that Benny has an urban legend! TVA residents have thought that homeless people are living in it! Well... some actually have. Including myself.

7. I made a married friend. Shelby. That's actually my age. And not pregnant. And not weird. But yet weird enough to see me as normal. And the cool thing; she and her husband were married on August 7, 2010 and we were married on September 7 of 2010.

8. Today I discovered Turbo Kick which deserves its very own blog.

9. Whenever Jake and I turn 12 again and swap comebacks over nothing his is always "your mom goes to college" which I reply with "no, actually she already graduated".

Mom. Graduating college. 7 1/2 months prego.

10. Last night I took too much Excedrin Extra Strength and laid on the bathroom floor for a few minutes. Jake sat next to me and it reminded of last time I was sick and he SLEPT on the bathroom floor with me. For a full night. Come on now, that is true love.

And a bonus!

11. Jake goes surfing all the time. Duh. This is no secret to an.y.one. A few days ago, our friend is a great photographer, Bart took some awesome pictures of this stud surfing the North Shore brah!! Check ' out, yeah.

12. Another bonus. Jake is the president of the Scope Club at school. It's a club at the school that helps students find opportunities in the supply chain and operations field through speakers, internships, field trips and networking.

It's a wedding dress... not just another Sunday

I'm a bit of a wedding critic. Okay a lot of one.My husband often asks me "how they did" and "from a scale of 1 to 10, what did they get?"

So I have a question.

Whatever happened to wearing a wedding gown on your special day?

(Don't be offended by my opinion)

Not a white dress suit.

Or a white cocktail dress.

 But a wedding. dress.

Sure, I appreciate a good ivory, or off white tone and perhaps a tea-length but seriously...? Ladies...! What are you doing? Do you really want to look back and think to yourself "oh good, I'm so glad I wore something that I'm pretty sure I could wear to church next week!" 

Bride

Bride

Bride

Okay... This is more something I would wear if it was my second or third marriage and only 6 people were going to come.

*Sigh* Gwen, Gwen Gwen...

Very cute dress! But... I don't see how this is a bridal gown.

I have been stumbling upon blogs and facebook albums of weddings and have become increasingly disappointed with the lack of actual "wedding-ness" they contain. Perhaps this is just my opinion, but while asking others on their thoughts it turns out I am not the only one.

Rhonda

This is my new form of transportation.

Yesterday, we made a trip to town to do a few errands and came home with Rhonda. Lately, I've been trying to do a lot more walking around town and taking the car less which takes for.ev.er. So we figured that it was time we/I broke down and bought a bike. Jake put it together and got it all set up for me. Last night I insisted that we keep it inside.

Wish me luck. I've never been the best bike rider.

Dammit.

This...

Don't mind me, just holding the screen door open with my leg.

Is our door dam. Which very quickly received the name the "dammit". We have this at our door because our building floods. And we were lucky enough to have the privilege of living in the one that floods first! As you may or may not know, we are having some serious SERIOUS rain this year. Our door dam used to be about knee height, but some of our neighbors had theirs stolen so we cut ours in half so it is at that perfect height where it trips you but low enough to not see it and forget that it's there.

Our friend, Nicole, had this experience. She came over the other night after eating it at her own place with scrapes and serious bruise-age all up and down and her shins! If the flood doesn't get us... the dammit will.

Our Temple View Apartment

Here it is. Our second place. AKA our 500 square feet of bliss!

 

We took a picture at a Dave and Buster's photo booth and apparently one of our babies will look like this. Of course I put it on the fridge!

Our first milkshakes in bed. Awh!

Just thought I'd show you all how genius I am. Our storage was exposed so I put a shower curtain over it.

Our smoke detector that keeps beeping...

I've accepted the fact that our shower/tub always has swimsuits and sand in it.

These are great. Just remember it's there when you lean over to adjust the water.

This is our water heater. Our showers are limited to about 3 minutes, the water goes cold after that. It's weird knowing that I have to choose between shaving my legs, or washing my hair.

We now have 3 cans of SPAM in our cupboards. We LOVE to make musubis, which we cannot get enough of. Before, if I had bought this it probably would have just sat there. But now, these cans are being emptied almost daily. AND I have to give Jake credit because he makes better musubis than I do.

I have also accepted that surfboards are a regular piece of decor through out the house.

And again...

I love our massive closet. But it looks so empty... ;)

Our toilet will randomly flush when it is not even being used, then when we want it to work of course it doesn't. I like to think of it as a guessing game.

I wanted to point out to my mom just a few of our text books that yes, we do use.

And last but not least, the piggy bank. Every good house becomes a home once there is a piggy bank involved... especially if it has been won from game tickets.

X.Mas.Break

Random Happenings you may enjoy making fun of.

Decorating the tree

Kellen Melon putting on an ornament. He's so precious.

Katie and Kellen had fun playing with the packaging that Ma and Pa Hansen sent our gifts in.

A delightful trip with Morgan to the temple grounds.

Dave and Buster's

I got in trouble for trying to talk to him while he was concentrating on his game.

Bye-bye Beardy

For our previously mentioned costume Jake grew a beard and we decided to have some fun while he shaved it off. Please excuse my spelling.

Beard... and lookin' a little stoned. =)

 

Goa-tee

Fu-man-choo

Molesto-stache

Lyle Family Traditions

This year for Christmas, Jake and I went to Arizona to spend the holiday with my family.

Well...

In the Lyle home on Christmas Eve, we dress up like biblical characters and eat what we like to call a "Jerusalem dinner". Jake and I were the Hawaiian Mary and Joseph complete with facial hair and a belly.

Biblical Family

Tom sitting at the "table"

Papala participating in the dress up. I wonder where Mom's picture went...

Katie Nana as a sheep

Another crazy thing we do is the "Polar Dip". In the beginning of January we jump into our freezing pool and swim across. I have gotten some interesting questions about it and even as a family we don't know why we actually do.

I couldn't get Jake on video because he jumped in too fast. The pool was 50-ish degrees this year.