Food poisoning

WARNING...may be TMI (too much information)

I believe this weekend I got my first taste of what I think was food poisoning. I am DEFINITELY not anxious to get it anytime again soon. Let's just say at about 1258am on Saturday night/Sunday morning, I rushed to the bathroom with pains to Ryan "my stomach hurts" and collapsed on the bathroom floor. Poor Ryan came running to the bathroom and asked if I was okay and was very concerned. I find it ironic now that at the time I was coherent enough to tell him I didn't want him to see me like this. Bless his poor soul, he shut the door, and went back to bed and kept asking me if I was okay from the bedroom.

I eventually was able to leave the bathroom and attempt to come and sleep. I didn't go to church, nor anything else, because I could literally, only stand or sit up for about 5 minutes at a time. But, I decided having food poisoning isn't worth it. Even though I bet I have lost a few pounds from not really eating the last couple of days, and also removing a lot of food from my body, I was SO bored out of my mind just sitting around. I couldn't even have the energy to read so poor Ryan read to my basically the entire story of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, some articles from General Conference, and I watched Mr. Krueger's Christmas. He had to make his own Sunday dinner, and take care of me, and I'm not a very good sick patient.

Anyways, I'm feeling better today, but let's just say most foods are NOT even calling my name. Anyone else have stories have food poisoning they want to share?

December 1st

DECEMBER is here! This is the first time so many perfectly wonderfully holiday things happened EXACTLY on December 1st.

I have an advent calendar that I do every year counting down the 24 days until Christmas. Day 1 was "start using Christmas plates". Aren't they so cute? And the pancakes that Ryan made me were yummy!

We have a wooden stove in our living room, so Ryan made our first "fire" of the season. YEAH!

We also put up a new mailbox. Our old one, that Ryan called "topless" had totally no top and fallen completely off our house... we look GQ now.

The best part of the day was seeing our Christmas wreath...

in the middle of one of the BIGGEST snowstorms.



Our house totally looks winter wonderland, at least on December 1st! Happy holidays everyone!

O'Berry Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year, we had an O'Berry Thanksgiving... Ryan's oldest sister Kathleen and her family drove the treacherous route down from Montanta to visit and stay at our house and Ryan's dad flew in from Colorado.
Here is a picture Thanksgiving morning of the Walker family at breakfast. Ryan and I were so excited to have them stay at our house. Ed and Kathleen have a GREAT family (kids Kelly, 13, Grant, 11, Craig, 7, Grace 6, Audrey 4).
Thanksgiving morning, Kelly TOTALLY saved me on peeling and cutting up the mashed potatoes for part of my assignment. She was SO much faster than me. Even Audrey and Grace helped me wash the potatoes! My assignment was made SO much easier by the hands that helped!

Late on Friday night (the day before they left to go back to Montana), all the kids helped us put up our decorations for Christmas. Man, were they FAST! It was SO fun! I especially liked all the tinsel that Grace and Audrey helped me put up in the basement.

YEAH! More decorations! Craig was SO funny. He was a 30 year old voice and talker in a 7 year old body. He was HILARIOUS!

Grant and Kelly standing in front of our tree. Grant is one smart kid.

This is a very cute picture of the three Walker girls when we went to Ryan's grandma's house for pie on Thanksgiving night.

Who said girls couldn't play with toy guns?

But, we had SUCH a fun time with the Walkers; come back and visit us again soon!

Partying with Princesses, Part 2

This is what greeted me when I came over Thursday morning. Two ADORABLE girls in pajamas SO excited to play with me. I love, as a friend told me, being adored by these little kiddies.

Ava has the best smile ever now. You just say smile and this is the result. Sadee went to preschool the first day I was there. Ava is normally at the babysitter, so she was SO excited, as you can tell. They both had their backpacks, and Ava was SO sad when she didn't get to go out of the car to the preschool.

The biggest new thing we did is play this game in the basement that Sadee has called the "dead game". This consists of Sadee (she is now Princess Erica) and Queen Ava (which she HAS to wear the queen dress, see above picture) getting pretend drinks from Sadee and while we are drinking them, Sadee falls down dead, from poison. My embellishment of the game is I had to hunt the evil witches in the mountains (the room next door) or find the special potions to cure her. Then, Ava wanted to get into the act. I didn't take a picture, but you should have SEEN Ava trying to be dead. Too funny.
Sadee as Princess Erica in the "dead chair"

Ava LOVED the blocks... gotta love the total cheese smile.
Sadee you can tell helped us begin the "beautiful" castle. It fell a few times.

The castle is complete! Just so you know, that tall tower in front is the mailbox. These are TALL princesses Sadee told me.

Finally, of COURSE we had to have a dance party again, although Jasmin and Aladdin are now "the in thing", we danced to Prince Ali, One Jump Ahead, and a Whole New World. Can't wait to visit and babysit again!

Book reading ideas anyone?

Many of you may know I devour books and love reading. Normally, I have a bazillion books on the "need-to-read" list, but alas, I'm coming up short. Ideas, anyone, of any good books read lately?

Looking forward to babysitting

So, this week, I'm taking Thursday and Friday off to go and babysit Sadee and Ava again. I haven't really seen them since August (which is a HORRIBLY long time for me, though I know some people never get to see their nieces or nephews) so I am SO excited. I called my sister last night to find out if I need to bring anything. Apparently, Sadee has been putting together a "list" of things she wants to do with me, including, but not limited to, doing my hair, having me draw pictures of the princesses (seriously, this girl LOVES to have me draw, I don't understand it), having me take her to preschool and get a tour, watching about 6 movies with her, and having a swimming party in the bathtub. Plus, Ava now talks up a storm, or so I have heard.
Man, I can't WAIT! I'll have some fun pictures next week when I get back :)

White dresser

Ryan and I got an old, but great condition changing table, from his sister awhile ago. So, no we don't have any needs for it super soon (no, I'm not pregnant), but it's been on my list FOREVER to paint for some future little SuperBaby O'Berry. This weekend, it finally got done. Doesn't it look AWESOME? I wish I had a before picture.
Oh, and PS, we finally have a new camera, no one called us with our old one and all our Cruise the Fourth pictures... oh well :( BOO HOO!

Fiona and Little Red Riding Hood

Sadee decided to be Fiona for Halloween this year. I guess she debated between lots of princesses, but she LOVED being Fiona because she was the only Fiona. And she was NOT in a smiling mood during camera time apparently. Ava on the other hand, is the CUTEST little Red Riding hood I have seen. And she was in a smiling mood :)

Ryan and I also dressed up. Ryan went low key this year as a lumberjack and I decided 5 minutes before leaving for work basically that I wanted to dress up this year...so Ryan threw together a 5 minute "California Raisin" costume for me... which consisted of a black garbage sack and black tights with white tennis shoes. Apparently, no one got that I was a California raisin until I told them. I was "garbage", "someone waiting to get her hair done", etc. Mostly, I was a put-together-in-5-minutes- costume.

We did carve a lot of pumpkins, okay Ryan did, and we ran out of candy giving it to trick-or-treaters, so the holiday was a success!

New front door loveliness

We have a MUCH better new front door now, complete with window and a deadbolt. Since our other door was NOT so good, this is a wonderful excitement for us. I'll have Ryan tell the story of how we got it.

Ryan says, "Yeah, it took a lot of work. I had to go cut down the mightiest tree in all the forest (with a herring!) and fashion it using primitive tools to make it look just right. Than I went through the desert on a horse with no name and found the purest sand to melt into the beautiful glass for the window. I than traveled in my time machine back to the days of Middle Earth and traveled to the mines of Moria where I obtained some mithril which the dwarves helped me to fashion into the door handle. Than, to top it all off, Alisa’s dad and I had to install it. It was rough but nothing is too good for my Alisa."

I'm SO glad I have such a wonderful husband!

Call me Betty Crocker

So, last night was my first attempt at becoming Betty. We have two HUGE apple trees in our backyard, and the one apple tree we missed out on doing anything with because the apples got too old before we realized it. Our other tree, though we have given TONS away and eaten a lot, still had a PLETHORA (I mean, like at least hundreds) of YUMMY apples on it.

Needless to say, when I create my own world, there will be a way to preserve apples just to eat raw, like you do from the tree, but until then, I felt horrible letting all the apples go to waste. And these are DANG GOOD apples! Last week a dear friend (who had taken a plethora of apples from our tree and made lots of yummy things) offered to help me make homemade applesauce... HELLO! YES!

What I thought would be a simple project, which my friend did as well, turned out to be an almost 8 hour project, beginning at 6pm and ending with my dropping into bed at 145 am. But, (I wish I had a camera to take pictures of the whole process, but alas, still no new camera bought yet, this picture is one that I tried to find that looked closest to the applesauce I made), 15 quarts of applesauce later, and a tired body and eyes day after, I have become Betty Crocker.

By the way, the applesauce is chunky and tastes HEAVENLY! Plus, eight hours is a long time to play catch up with a dear friend. The only loss was a small stab wound in my left hand from peeling the apples. You would think we would have made a dent in it, but alas, no. We still have TONS! Apples, anyone?

Dear Colorado friends

Ryan and I last week took a trip to Denver, Colorado to visit some of his family. It was a great trip. One highlight for me was I got to have my old roommate and friend Kristalyn drive up and visit and bring her husband and little boy. We had such a great time visiting and it was just like old times, it brought back so many memories of living in The Colony at BYU (see above picture)... Kristalyn is such a dear friend, I'm SO glad we were able to get together on our short trip for a couple of hours! Man, seeing this picture of The Colony REALLY brings back some good memories.

Ava turns "two"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AVA! Ava got to graduate to a "big girl" bed for her birthday. She is on the bottom bed of bunk beds, and my sister has said she gets up all night long to come in her mom and dads room to say "Hi, mom!" and then goes back to her bed. She loves her new freedom. She thinks she is all grown up and stuff, after all she is two now.
Last Friday, Ava turned two years old. Here are some cute pictures from her birthday party, that I was unable to go to sadly, but when I called and wished her a happy birthday she got on the phone to tell me "I two!". I sent her an Elmo shirt for her birthday since Elmo is her thing, not princesses like Sadee. Sadee had a little bit of a hard time not getting presents herself, so she helped Ava open them :)

Random thoughts

For those asking, no we still have no camera :( It is really quite tragic. And yes, we are going to probably have to buy another one, but we had some other bills come up this month, so not yet. Hopefully soon you will see more pictures. I wanted to post pictures of our perfect little orange pumpkins and WONDERFULLY crunchy red apples from our garden, but alas.

Here is one picture my sister sent me of Sadee and Ava doing yoga with her. It made me smile. Ava especially, since she wanted a "mat" like her mom, she had to do it on a towel. They only lasted 5 minutes doing it, but I thought they looked great!

And yesterday, I felt quite successful in the cooking department. For many, many moons my Grandma Tippets made THEE BEST string beanies from her garden. Seriously, I have never eaten any that even compare to hers. So, ever since she passed away, and I have had her pressure cooker, I have wanted to try and make them....but alas, I have never, until yesterday. Actually, yesterday was my first time. I had no real idea what I was doing, since it's been so long since she has made them, and she never had a recipe and she died before I was able to officially write down exactly what she did, so I had to improvise. And, though they took a bit longer than expected, and since we still haven't found our camera, I can't take pictures of them to show you, it MADE MY NIGHT! They tasted 95 percent like Grandma's beans...and I'd like to think my grandma was smiling down on me :)

Cruise lamentations

So, Ryan and I have returned from Cruise the Fourth last week. It was heavenly!! Why, do you ask, do I have lamentations then?

• First of all, we came back and our power was totally out in our bedroom and bathrooms upstairs, pretty much the rooms we use most. So, the breaker kept tripping and yeah, we still don't have power in those rooms, so now Ryan finangled all of the outlets and extension chords to use some lamps in our bedroom, but alas, bathroom, showering in the dark is interesting.

• Also, apparently a big windstorm came about while we were gone and several branches had fallen off the trees, and half our corn fell over in our garden. Sad.

• Finally, the biggest lamentation, is even though the cruise was HEAVENLY, we have managed to misplace our camera. I realized it in the middle of the night when we were finally lay down to go to sleep (at 130am) and I just felt sick. I immediately got up and called Thrifty thinking we had left it in the car rental we had, but they apparently only have voicemails for the lost and found department and it can take several days before they get back to you. So, now, instead of posting and reliving our cruise experiences, we have nothing... but memories. And I know there are a lot worse problems, in the world than my lamentations, but alas, it would have been nice to come home to a powered house, perfect yard, and pictures to share with everyone :)

Like auntie, like niece

I have to tell this story on the blog. So, my 4.5 year old niece Sadee I found out while I was gone on the cruise, fell and hit her head on a table and had her first "doctor visit". Of course, I had to call my sister to get the scoop. Alas, Kari was not allowed to tell the story, Sadee "had to tell me"...thus ensued the funniest explanation of what happened I have ever heard.

"Alisa, blood was GUSHING down my shirt and head."

"Sadee, what happened?"

"I cut my head and blood was gushing Alisa".

After a few more attempts to try and get the real story out of her, I got the story from my sister. Yes, she fell, hit her head on a table, had a hole in her head and my sister said "you should have seen the look when she saw the hole Alisa, not pain, more like wow, there is a hole in my head". So, they took her to the emergency room, where they now don't give shots, just numbing glue on the wound and sewed her up. The doctor thought she was a little spitfire because she told the doctor "to fix the hole in her head" and when he joked with her if she had apologized to the table, she told him, "I don't have to say sorry to a table Doctor!".

But, with her bandaid on, she thinks she is SO cool, and now she is telling EVERYONE her claim to fame, how she had blood gushing and got stitches and how her little sister Ava screamed harder than her when she saw the hole. And she thinks the "purple spot" on her head is just BEAUTIFUL Alisa.

Yeah, made me laugh so hard. Made me think back to when I was three, and chasing my dad around the fireplace, cracked my head open. I also got taken to the emergency room, where they had NO numbing medicine, and all I remember is being strapped to a blue table and screaming for life.... and I did NOT look like a pirate. I had a huge bandage in the middle of my forehead forever. If only I could have the "exotic" trip to the doctor that Sadee did :)

Ryan's birthday

The secret birthday party for Ryan's birthday was on August 26th, even though his birthday is on August 27th.

I drove him around and then took him to Shannas...

Here is Ryan and Brandon after the remains of eating the Butterfinger cake.
The cake with the candles lit
When we first came in the door, Brandon and Eric did a great job of "dogpiling"Ryan. It was too funny.
Ryan's Grandma Norberg (to the right) and Aunt Phyllis drove up from Lehi to enjoy the surprise party. It was so fun to see them. Aunt Phyllis is FUNNY and Grandma Norberg is just the sweetest.

The Garden Bounty

These are a few pictures from our first garden. We planted four different tomato plants, but they have now become the "tomato jungle". Every day I go out and pick at least 4 big tomatoes and eat about 8 cherry tomatoes for a snack. It is HEAVEN!

Our corn is going gangbusters FINALLY. We have eaten a few ears, and YUM!

We have officially found 6 growing pumkins. This one is starting to turn orange. We plan on providing pumpkins to a lot of kids :)

This is from our second apple tree. The first apple tree is transparent apples, for canning. These apples are starting to turn red and hopefully will be YUMMY eating apples!

I made a fresh batch of salsa with most of the things coming from our garden. In case you are interested in a sweeter salsa, this salsa is HEAVEN. I got the recipe from my sister, and honestly, it is AWESOME! However, you probably always want to double the batch because it goes SO fast and it is SO yummy!

Kari's salsa
1/2 red pepper

1/2 red onion

1/2 green pepper (I used 2 small green peppers from the garden)

2 cloves pressed garlic

1/2 c. lime juice

salt and pepper to taste

3 slices of pineapple, chopped

1/4 c. pineapple juice

6 roma tomatoes ( I used garden tomatoes and probably put an extra one in)

small bunch fresh cilantro, I used a little less, like maybe 3-4 TB chopped