Tornados

When Rory and I originally moved out here to Indiana, we had no idea we were pretty much living in Tornado Alley. Lucky us! So for the past month or so, usually about once a week, there are tornado watches and warnings in our area. Luckily, we usually just have a tornado watch. So last night there were tornado watches for some areas north of us. We didn't see anything about us so we went to bed not worrying about it. Rory's mom told him she saw that the sirens were going off here. We never heard anything. Although I did wake up at one point to some pretty crazy thunder that kept going. I woke up this morning to a text from Rory telling me to go check out the cars under the tree and to check on our car. So I went outside to find this

The tree was huge! Luckily only the ends fell on the two cars.


The cars didn't seem to be too damaged. They might have a few dents in their front hood. A branch did almost completely rip off one of the side mirrors on the dark car. That seems to be the worst of the damage. This will be a nice surprise for their owners to come out too. I hope they're not in a hurry to get somewhere! Don't worry! Our car is fine. This seems to be the only tree around our apartment that decided to go down. I just thought I'd share these pictures. We have a little break in the weather right now. But the temperature dropped and it's still overcast. For now, though, no more severe weather!

Recipes!

Since I have a lot of time on my hands I've been trying to better about cooking dinner at night. It's still not my favorite thing to do, but it's fun when the meal turns out well. I've found some good recipes online and on my www.allrecipes.com app on my ipod. I tried a Spinach Lasagna on Monday. It turned out alright. It was a little too much spinach though. Next time I think I'll try another recipe. If anyone has a good veggie lasagna recipe without broccoli let me know! I made chicken cordon bleu in the crock pot last week. It was really good! :)

I was just browsing recipes last week and found one called Uglies. Not a great name, but they were actually really good. It was basically just a biscuit and bbq ground turkey on top. It's super easy. You just brown 1 lb ground beef chuck (we used turkey) with 1/2 cup chopped onions. When that's cooked, drain it, and add 1/2 tsp garlic powder and 1 1/2 cups bbq sauce. Use a 10 ounce package of biscuits. Put a biscuit in each muffin cup. You put a spoonful of the meat mixture on top of each biscuit and then sprinkle shredded cheddar cheese on top of each. Put it in the oven for 15 min at 400 degrees. And that's all there is to it! It was surprisingly good. The reviews on the recipe said it's a great meal for kids. It's really cute and I think kids would think it was fun. And it's even easy for them to help you make it!

So I've been trying to find recipes that are good to freeze so that if I make a full recipe then I can freeze the other half for later. So if anyone has a great recipe that's great to freeze, then let me know! Also if you just have a great recipe to share I'd really appreciate it! Sometimes I have a hard time coming up with new things to try. The easier the meal the better!

Easter!

The Housley family looks forward to their Easter Egg Hunt all year! :) Before Rory and I started dating I went on a weekend trip to Zions National Park. While I was there Rory went up to Salt Lake with his family to his aunt's house for their annual Easter egg hunt. Rory told me he was taking his cleats so he would have better grip as he ran to find his eggs. I thought that was pretty funny, but little did I know what I was getting myself into! :)

This year, however, Rory and I will not be by family during Easter. Luckily the Easter Bunny took pity on us and we had a mini hunt while we were there a couple weekends ago. :) You would think with there only being Rory, Hunter, and me, that things would be a little more calm than normal.... you'd think wrong. :) I was hunting around on one side of the yard when I heard yelling. I was not lucky enough to see what was going on because I was around the side of the house. But Rory says that Hunter was close to an egg, but he hadn't seen it yet. So Rory hurled himself in front of Hunter just as Hunter saw it. There was a nice collision and I think Hunter ended up with the egg. After Rory reads this I may have to fix this story a little bit, but I think that's what happened. :)

The reason for all the pushing, shoving, wearing of cleats, etc., is that there is great pride for the hunter who collects the most eggs. This year I don't think it has the same effect though because the whole family was not together. We missed doing it with Rhett and Julie and all the cousins. I especially missed watching the little ones have their Easter Hunt. I probably should have said that earlier so you didn't worry thinking the little kids were getting shoved around! Don't worry, there are two separate hunts. :) Boston is getting so big it would have been fun to see him really get into it this year! Oh well, I guess we'll just have to see pictures!

Rory and I were happy the Easter Bunny thought of us. I know Rory would have been really sad to miss out on this tradition. We had a lot of fun. Thanks Easter Bunny!

Jimmer Mania Comes to Vegas!

Rory and I got to go to Las Vegas for the Mountain West Conference Basketball Tournament a couple weekends ago. We had a blast! When we weren't watching great basketball we had fun around Vegas. :)
You have to get the classic Las Vegas photo!

We spent one morning at some of the outlet stores right by our hotel. Rory and I spent way too much money. But it will save us money in the future. :) I bought a couple pairs of the shoes I like for half the price I normally get them. So when I need new shoes I already have them and they were cheaper! Rory bought a bunch of new golf shirts for really cheap. He loves wearing them to work because they are pretty comfortable. I bought a cute new golf outfit. Hopefully the weather cooperates and I can try it out soon! Hopefully I remember to take a picture and I'll post it. :)

We also went through the M&M store and Coca Cola store.

Saturday before the championship game we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower! I'd never seen Vegas from above like that. It was pretty cool. The best part was that we got to watch the Bellagio Hotel fountains from above! They were so cool!

Thursday afternoon was the first BYU game! Unfortunately Rory and Hunter weren't there to watch with us. I actually flew to Salt Lake on Tuesday. I went with Jenny to visit my Grandpa Butterfield. It was good to see him. Then I got to spend the night at Jenny and Scotts. Wednesday I visited April at school for lunch. :) After that Rory's aunt and uncle picked me up and we went to St. George. We spent the night there and then headed down to Vegas Thursday morning.

BYU played TCU and the game was a little crazy. We weren't sure we had it until the game was finally over. But we won! I was just glad we won so that Rory wouldn't fly out that night and then not even get to see a game!

The second game BYU played New Mexico. We witnessed history! Jimmer scored an all time high 52 points! He beat a bunch of records and it was never a question whether we were going to win that game. It was a great game to watch!


And then the championship......I don't really want to talk about it. BYU lost to San Diego in an ugly game. That was the hardest game I've ever sat through. Especially since all week all we'd been hearing was all the fans of every other school trash talking BYU. It hurt to lose. Oh well, life goes on.

BYU got a 3 seed in the NCAA tournament! We'll take it! Now BYU had won it's first two games in the tournament beating Wofford and Gonzaga. Both were great games. BYU is now in the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 1981! Our next game is this Thursday against Florida! And Jimmer is up for player of the year! He's one of 4 finalists. 25% of the vote goes to fans. So everyone should text "VOTE" to 345-345 and vote for Jimmer! I think you can vote once every 24 hours until they announce the winner in April.

GO COUGARS!

SDSU Got Jimmer'd!!

BYU is going all the way to the top! We've been nervous for the BYU vs. SDSU game for a little while now. It was going to be the last big test for BYU before the tournament. BYU passed with flying colors! Jimmer got hammered over and over in the first half and he didn't get any calls! Not a single call! Not only that, but he ended the game with 4 fouls and 3 of them were offensive! Luckily Hartsock, Abouo, and Emery stepped up to hit some huge 3s! In the end Jimmer and the rest of the BYU team were just too good for San Diego. When we get hot shooting no one can stop us. What a game. We could very likely get a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament now. That would be sick! But if not, we should still be pretty much guaranteed a #2 seed. Rory and I sported our new t-shirts today that his mom gave us. We had a little fun taking pictures after the game. :)

Jazz Rebuilding

I thought Jerry Sloan retiring was going to be the biggest shock of the season, but we just got another huge change! Deron Williams has been traded to the New Jersey Nets! Even though it's a pretty decent trade for us too, I am sad to see Deron go. I loved watching him play. He is an amazing point guard. Probably the best in the NBA right now!

In return for Williams, the Jazz are receiving Devin Harris and Derrick Favors. Harris is in his 6th season. He will probably be our new point guard. Hopefully he can live up to the high expectations of Jazz fans! Especially since he will be replacing Williams.


Favors is a rookie and plays forward. Hopefully he can add a little more size to the Jazz.


The Jazz are also receiving two first round draft picks. Hopefully we can pick up some good new talent in the next two drafts!

Our new coach is Tyrone Corbin. He has been an assistant coach for the Jazz for about 7 years. He even played for the Jazz during his career in the NBA. He knows the Jazz system so hopefully he is a good choice as the new head coach!


So now, with a new coach, the loss of an all-star, and the addition of two new players, we'll just have to wait and see what's in store for the future of the Jazz.

Cruisin'

Our final excursion day was in Cozumel, Mexico! I had been looking forward to this excursion all week! We got to swim with dolphins in the Chankanaab National Park! It was a blast! And lucky for us Hunter had a waterproof camera and we got some great pictures! They tried to sell us a CD with pictures they had taken of us for like $200! That's an insane price. We were happy we had our own pictures.Here we are all ready to swim with the dolphins!

Rory and I are holding the dolphin! They're heavy! :)

We each got to kiss the dolphin on the mouth! And then the dolphin kissed our cheeks. There was a lot of kissing going on... We also got to dance a little with them and touch the inside of their flippers. And then we held our hand out hi and the dolphin came up and touched our palm.

Here we swam out and the dolphin came out to us and flipped over on his back. We held onto his flippers and he gave us a ride back it. Both Rory and I have our eyes closed in our pictures because we were getting water in our faces. :)

The last thing we got to do with the dolphins was swim out with a boogie board. We were told to hold our legs out straight and wait. The dolphin swam around behind us and pushed on one of our feet with his nose. It was so cool! We went pretty fast. Look how happy we look! :)

Before we left we saw the dolphins put on a little show. :)

After we played with the dolphins we got to pet a manatee. That is one big animal. His skin I think is a lot like an elephants with moss growing on it.

After all of the fun with the dolphins it was time to relax a little. Here we are living the life in some sweet hammocks.

I've told you all about our excursions, but how about a little about our time on the ship. We were on the Norwegian Spirit. This cruise is what they call a freestyle cruise and because of this I've been told by the Housley family that it is quite a bit different from most cruises. We never had to dress up which was nice and we could eat as we pleased. On a regular cruise I've been told you have your block of time each night when you are supposed to eat in the dinning room and you have the same server every night which is great because they treat you really well. I'm looking forward to this on our next cruise! :)

We ate a lot of meals in the general buffet area. They had food there pretty much all day and you could eat whenever you wanted. We had breakfast there every morning and we had lunch and dinner there once or twice. The picture below is Hunter with one of the guys who welcomed us to breakfast every morning. There was always someone at the door who would have a spray bottle with hand sanitizer to spray your hands as you walked in. In the morning they would all year really loud "Gooooooooood Morning!" or "Wakey, Wakey" or something like that. It really got on Rory's nerves, but it was pretty funny. It may have been funnier if it wasn't always so early in the morning! :)


My favorite was the Windows Dinning Room. They had huge windows that gave you a great view outside. Here you could choose an appetizer, main meal, and dessert to eat. Sometimes we ever got two main meals or appetizers because you can have whatever you want! The food was really good for the most part. We were told that the average person gains one to two pounds a day on a cruise! I believe it! :)

The Blue Lagoon was our favorite for our late night snacks. They were one of the only places open 24-7 so it was always packed at night. It was right below our room so it was very convenient and they had tvs to watch all the big football bowl games going on at the time. They had chicken fingers, fish & chips, artichoke dip, hamburgers, wings and lots of great stuff.

Each night there was a show at 7:30 and then again at 9:30. We made it to every show except for one. They were great! We had great seats every night! For one of the shows they performed songs from different musicals including, Wicked, Jersey Boys, In the Heights and a few others. It was fantastic! My favorite show was their big finale show on Friday night. They had two acrobats from the Russian circus perform. They are husband and wife and they can do some amazing things! There was also a magician who performed some pretty amazing tricks. And then the dance and singing crew on board did some great numbers.

When we were eating, or out on excursions, or at shows we enjoyed playing games together. It's great to just have time to relax. We played a lot of Scum, Rook, Phase 10, and a few others we found. And sometimes we'd even eat and play at the same time! :) It was great to have a snack ready for you whenever you wanted!

When we were walking around the ship one day we found a shuffle board painted on one of the decks. So we learned how to play shuffleboard. It's not as easy as it looks! :) Rory and I took on Hunter and his Dad. We had a lot of fun playing!


So there you have it! That was our cruise to the Caribbean! We had a blast and I can't wait to go on another cruise! It's a great way to see multiple places on one trip and not worry about food, where you're staying, and how to get from place to place. I thoroughly enjoyed my first experience on a cruise!