Ultimate Super Birthday Cake

I know Justin's birthday was a long time ago...September 2 to be precise (there seems to have been some confusion about that among certain members of my family who were using the anniversary of the restoration of the priesthood (May 15) as a way of remembering his birthday, so I thought I'd clarify).

Since we were going to be on vacation with the Piersons on his magical day, Jen and I decided that we should join forces to create a fourteen-layer cake-of-a-lifetime.  Here's  what we came up with:

Jen and I both made a cake and baked it into seven pancake-thick layers.

Then we made a delicious chocolate glaze to smother over each layer.

It took both of us to do all the layering and smothering.

It was getting pretty tall...

...and tasting pretty darn delicious.

However, it wasn't much to look at, so we decided to add an outside layer of chocolate-cream cheese buttercream frosting.

That looks better.

We forgot to bring any candles with us, so we had to use a flashlight.  It's amazing how he was able to blow it out.

And then we cut into it.  Yum.  No, double yum....to the max.

Happy Birthday Justin!

Tool belts

Justin was in Colton's room (so that he could take apart the crib and spray paint it brown) with his tool belt.  Colton didn't want to be out-done by Dad, so he grabbed his tool belt as well.  Colton quickly discovered that a felt hammer is not as good of a tool as a real screw driver....

(And I will soon post the grand results of the spray painting and Colton (and baby's) new room...Get excited!)

Sour face

Even though Colton is currently choosing not to make the sounds of about a fourth of the letters of the alphabet, he isn't let that hold back his communication.  Case in point:

He's not really into the "s" sound, but this is the face he makes when something is sour (or more often to tell me he wants a piece of sour candy).

Apparently the "sour face" is contagious...or (more likely) they both wanted me to give them candy.

3:21:21

Justin ran his first marathon six years ago--and missed qualifying for Boston by a mere 46 seconds.  So every few years, he decides to ramp up from nothing and try it again.  This year we arranged our annual visit to Utah with his third and most recent marathon attempt.  And I must say that he did amazingly well, finishing in 3 hours 21 minutes.  He was a little disappointed that he missed his goal again, but this time he's not going to wait three years before he tries again...  Here's his strong finish:

Colton was yelling "Go Daddy Go!"  We worked on it all morning.

A few yards from the finish...

He said he was about to pass out, so I offered him some chocolate milk.

Colton was enjoying the chocolate Creamy that was provided for the runners.  Thanks for sharing, Dad.

On the way back to the car, Justin stopped to stretch his calves.  Colton couldn't figure out why Dad was trying to push the tree, but he decided to help.

Really, Dad.  Why are we pushing this tree?

Important life lessons...

You are never to young to learn how to make chocolate chip cookies.

Start out with a bowl and spoon (and some other stuff).  

Now add some vanilla.

Stir.

Sample.

(Okay, so this is technically a picture of him eating his birthday cake.  We didn't take a picture of the finished product, but I think this picture is a good representation of what you would have seen had we kept the camera out...)  We did however film him performing for chocolate:

Surprise!

I really wasn't going to throw Justin a party.  He's not the kind of guy who wants a party.  I mean, I'm the kind of girl that wants a party and lots of recognition on my birthday (November 30th hint, hint), but Justin has always been pretty low-key about his birthday.  When I found out his parents would be flying in the Saturday after his birthday (September 2) thereby providing the perfect excuse to get him out of the house, how could I not throw a surprise 30th birthday party?  It was a small affair, and one that I know I forgot to invite many people to attend.  (Do you know how hard it is to come up with a guest list without being able to brainstorm with someone else?)  Anyway, to those I forgot to invite, I'm very sorry!

But it was really a huge success.  The only hitch was that they got back from the airport WAY sooner than anticipated.  People were supposed to show up at 6:30, and I got the text from Barbara (Justin's mom) at 6:10 that they were ten minutes away.  Yikes!  She did a great job stalling.  She told Justin that she'd been craving Dairy Queen all day.  Too bad the good folks at DQ are so efficient because I got a text at 6:25 saying that they were on their way home.  That's when Justin's sister Cortney (just arrived from NY) helped out by calling them and telling them they had to go back to DQ to get her a blizzard as well.  Two trips to DQ later, and we'd made it long enough to have a nice group of people at the house to surprise him when he arrived.  Too bad I forgot to get out my camera (or take any pictures at all), but I can assure you that my 30-year-old hubby was completely surprised!  I suppose the decor pictures I made for the event will have to do for this blog post.

Justin Scott, M.E.M

After years of torturous work, I'm proud to announce that Justin has officially finished his Masters degree in Engineering Management. The professor who graded his capstone project said that Justin's was one of the best executive summaries he's seen of the hundreds that he's read for this program and that writing such summaries was an art that Justin had clearly mastered. Justin said that the real art was taking the executive summary and making it a 40 page capstone paper. Either way, I'm proud of you for pushing through to the end. Way to go!!!

Here's a closer look at those cupcakes:

Better than flowers

Today when Justin came home from work, he brought me a present. I mentioned on Sunday how my dress would look cute with bright red shoes...and out he went and found me a pretty shnazzy pair. I love it. I love him. Who says engineers aren't romantic?

Justin Has Taken Up Smoking

Even though I am the star of this blog, every once in a while I'm willing to step out of the spotlight so that I can feature the handiwork of my crazy (and by crazy I mean incredibly motivated, capable, and talented) husband. So this is an ode to Justin.

His most recent project: a smoker. No, he's not violating the Word of Wisdom (although it may encourage us to eat meat more than just "sparingly"). He found a foodie blog for engineers that showed how to build a ceramic smoker for less than a hundred bucks (compared to $800 for a big green egg) using terracotta flower pots and a hot plate. He seemed very excited about this construction project, so I only laughed quietly to myself when he brought home all the supplies. I laughed a little less quietly and not entirely to myself when I discovered that he could have purchased an electric smoker for the same price as the supplies for the one he was building himself. Apparently, there is some satisfaction to be had in making something yourself...

He started by getting out all the tools he possibly could. Okay, maybe just the power drill and set of masonry drill bits, but it seemed like a lot of tools.

Then he drilled holes in the bottom of a 14" flower pot (for the hot plate connectors to go through). It made the weirdest ringing noise. I'm sure that our neighbors hate us.

Next up, he had to take the hot plate apart and rewire it so the element was inside the pot and the controls outside the pot.

Like so.

Then you add a cast-iron wood chip holder box (where you put hickory wood or mesquite wood or apple wood, depending on how you would like to flavor your meat) and a grill thingy for the meat to sit on.

Put a lid on it, and the smoker is done. I'd like to point out, that Justin is standing in his official "summit" pose. I think he's pretty proud of his handy work.

And when he pulled this hickory smoked chicken out of that thing, I must admit that I was pretty proud of him too. (We'd also like to give a special thanks to Em and Dan for the Chuck Norris t-shirt.)

And what was I doing all this time? I was making a lovely Quiche Lorraine for dinner. It was exceedingly delicious.

Mmmm... Bacon...

Justin decided to cook the turkey in pieces this year in order to avoid the over-cooked dried out turkey breast, which involved him hacking apart a 20 pound bird. (When you go grocery shopping the night before Thanksgiving, you can't expect there to be a lot of selection left...) Once he got the legs cut off, he realized that the remaining carcass bore an amazing resemblance to an alien's head...

Look what Justin made!!

Well, as if Justin didn't already do everything, we can now officially add "artist" to his long list of qualifications. Believe it or not, he made this from scratch. Well, he didn't make the license plates, but he did cut them out and build and paint the backdrop. We got the idea for this about a year ago when we saw a similar work of art at the National Portrait Gallery.

Anyway, Justin decided that he could make one...and it turns out that he was right (which is good because the one at the Portrait Gallery cost $4,000). Besides the suggestion I gave him to actually plan which color of license plates he was buying (so that all of the Western United States didn't end up the same color) he did the whole thing himself. And it fits in so nicely with our vibrant red couches. Bravo, my love! (Watch out Dan Bradshaw--you're not the only "arteest" in the family now!)

Here's a better view...

And here it is when I used the flash...you can tell which license plates were really old because they didn't reflect...

Pretty sweet!!

There is something sparkly on my finger...

You'd think that of all blog postings, this is the one that I would spend the most time on...and yet I find myself with an unexpected deadline at work (moved up from March to January 3) and do not have time to create my usual literary masterpiece. Suffice it to say that I am officially engaged!! I'm sure that as you've read the recent postings of my adventures with Justin, you have probably suspected that this would be the outcome, and you were right!!

He totally surprised me. I mean, I knew that it was going to happen, but I was expecting Christmas or Christmas Eve, or at least the weekend. But like normal, I called him after work to see if he had any plans or if there was something in particular he wanted to do that night, and he suggested that I come over to his house and we decorate his little Christmas tree (he has been growing a tiny evergreen tree in a pot for the last two years--if you picture Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree, that should give you a pretty good idea of what it looks like).

So I went over to his house, and his roommate was there having dinner with a friends. I mention that to emphasize that this was just a normal day. So we decorated the little tree, and then we were just chatting, and he looked over at it and said that it needed a star for the top. I suggested that we juts print one out (paper is about the heaviest thing this little tree could support). He said he thought he had a bow--one of those you just stick on presents--that he thought would work, so he started rummaging through his closet, and when he turned around, he was holding a ring, and he said, "or maybe this would work."

I think it took me about 10 to 15 seconds to process. I was staring at a ring, but I was asking myself "Is that a real ring?" "Is he proposing?" (He said I had a look of bewilderment on my face.) And then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, and I said yes!!!!!!! He wanted to do it on a Thursday and kind of low-key (which I'm a big fan of) so that he could surprise me, which he clearly did.

We are planning on getting married in the Salt Lake Temple on February 22, 2008. (Of course we haven't actually called the temple yet, but we figure that our chances in the middle of a semester are pretty good.) So mark your calendars!

And this is us posing with the beautiful turkey Justin made for Thanksgiving. Pretend like there's a ring instead of a turkey, and it would be the perfect engagement shot!