Party Time!

I decided to throw a dinner party for Jeff, since his last day of work at his old job was on Friday the 17th. I was really excited to throw my first dinner party, and I planned for about 3 or 4 days before it, all of the yummy food we were going to have! I researched a whole bunch of different recipes online, and also took some from the recipe books I had checked out from the library. I decided to go with a "summer" or possibly "hawaiian"-ish theme. And after about 5 hours of narrowing everything down, I picked the menu, bought all the food, and planned out a rough schedule of the day.
Everything went smoothly! I had my family over, as well as my grandma and her new puppy, Chester. I started cooking at around 1:30 and spent about 4 hours cooking. Here is a pic of the finished product(s):

(In order from L-R)

~Sparkling Raspberry Lemonade

~Fruit salad: pineapple, strawberries, blueberries, bananas, mango

~Awesome plastic margarita glasses from Wal-Mart

~Black bean and red pepper couscous salad

~Chinese noodles, pineapple, olives, green onions, coconut for the Hawaiian Haystacks

~Cocktail sauce and red chili sauce for the shrimp

~Baked coconut shrimp

~Chicken sauce for the Hawaiian Haystacks

~Thai coconut rice (not in the pic)

And here is a picture of the desserts (I forgot to take one before everyone started eating)

(I have to give credit to my 9-yr-old brother Lucas for frosting the cupcakes :)

~Banana Cream Pie

~Mango Margarita Cupcakes (very delicious, very virgin....;)

~Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

This is the adorable pie server my sister Abby got me for my birthday! 

It's a high heel, and the heel is magnetic so you can take it off and throw the server in the dishwasher!!

The food turned out sooooo yummy! I was pretty proud of myself! For those of you who know me, know I am not terribly fond of cooking, so this was kind of a big deal for me :)
The rest of the night we just talked and played with my grandma's new puppy, Chester. He is so much fun and has the biggest, funniest personality! We all love him!

Yes, my grandma is sitting in a camping chair... 

We only have 3 real chairs :)

I was very pleased with how everything turned out. I didn't let my expectations get too high, just in case it all fell apart and we were left eating grilled cheese or PB&J! 

If anyone wants any of the recipes of the delicious cuisine shown above, just email/txt/facebook me and I'll get it to ya! :)

Celebratory blog post (as promised) and MORE

I mentioned in my last post that you'd all be seeing a "celebratory blog post" pretty soon about Jeff's interviews for Edward Jones- and this is the one!!!! Jeff was offered a job as a Financial Advisor for E.J. on Wednesday! We were both very excited when he got the call. We have felt very blessed through this whole process of Jeff hearing about the job, shadowing, finding out he really enjoyed it, applying, interviewing, WAITING, and now finally hearing the good news. And why shouldn't we be excited?? He's going to have a very stable, rewarding career, he will be helping people toward their financial successes, he'll be working for a top-rated company in terms of job satisfaction as well as client satisfaction,  we will, as he builds his clientele, qualify for all-expense paid 5-star vacations to reward him on his excellent work....... Sweet, right??    

.................It gets better.

Jeff got another call on Thursday from Edward Jones. (We're beginning to LOVE calls from them, bringing us good tidings of great joy). This time, it was a guy named Chris, who is a Regional Hiring Manager for E.J., and who Jeff originally contacted to see about starting a career at E.J. He gave Jeff some even better news: he wanted Jeff to take over an entire office, inherit all the clientele for that office, which means the difference between starting out with a strong base of clients rather than starting out with zero clients. AWESOME!!!!

...................Almost.

I've failed to mention one majorly important detail about this job opportunity- can anyone guess what it is? LOCATION. Where in the world could this golden opportunity possibly be? Meridian? Nope. Boise? I wish!!! Utah? Thankfully, no. Sunny California?? If only. Ladies and Gentleman..... Let me introduce you to our new home-

Rupert, Idaho.

Home of the.......... uh........ um............ Wait, what is in Rupert??

So I do a little bit of research: Google- Rupert, Idaho. Search results- travel.yahoo.com/rupert, idaho. "Things to do" in Rupert-click. 

This is the result I got:

Insta-panic! 

"Okay, self. What about shopping?..... Okay there's no button that says 'shopping'." 

Breathe in, breathe out. 

"Okay, self. What about restaurants?..... Okay- Wayside? Guadalajar Mexican Restaurant? Doc's Pizza? Aguila con el Taco? Le's Chopsticks? Burgers Etc? Cargill Animal Nutrition?- Wait, what? Cuisine type: Agricultural Supplies & Equipment???" 

Sheer panic!

Well, this will be an adventure. One of much learning and.... change. But we really are so grateful for the opportunity that we have been given and feel so very blessed to have gotten it. I have to go, but I will write more once the whole idea has settled in a little bit more.