"You've Had A Birthday Shout HURRAY!"

Last year on my birthday, I had to work, so this year I asked for the day off. BUT Dan had OB/GYN clinic until 5pm, so I was solo until then.

I woke up around 8, when my dad called to wish me a happy birthday. It was great to wake up to a call like that. For one, it was my dad & for two he was the first to wish me a happy birthday! We chatted for about 15 minutes until he had to get back to the real world and then I looked out the window & noticed it was raining. Bummer. Now what to do until 5pm?

Naturally, I called my mom, we chatted for about an hour or so and then I decided to go for a run. I got all dressed up in capri running pants and a dark black running shirt.

About 15minutes into my 8 miler, the sun popped out and it was HOT. I was zapped with a mile or 2 left to go. There is one saying about Omaha weather that I now know to be true: "If you don't like the weather, wait a second and it'll change"

So I got sun burned on my birthday. Bummer. (Now that I'm in nursing school, I avoid the sun like the plague. We're practically taught that: skin+sun=cancer)

The rest of the day I read, ran some errands, & baked my birthday cake.

At about 6pm, Dan got home. (Being a med student's wife, I've learned that: If Dan says he'll be home at 5, that really means he'll be home at 7--Dan got off at 6 because he told his Dr. it was my birthday :)

I think it was Father's Day when I first discovered that Dan's family & my family have the exact same tradition for giving birthday gifts: Heavy, heavy hangover! I about passed out when they started singing the song. That pretty much sealed the deal, jk!

Dan's mom gave me some table cloths and hot pads in all different holiday prints!
Thanks, Julie!

She also gave me a cute wall hanging.

My mom gave me this cute skirt, which I wear at least once a week!

Here's the adorable lacy top to match!

And my ultimate favorite, the pencil skirt that also goes great with the matching top!!!
Thanks, mom & dad!

And Dan had Steph send me 2 white wonder tees, aka my clothing staple!
Thanks Steph & Dan!

And here's the birthday outfit!

A couple days before my birthday, we discovered a website filled with free things you can get for your birthday. So we signed up for them. On birthday I got a free Krispy Kream Donut & split it with Dan!

As for dinner, we went to Famous Dave's BBQ, aka the best BBQ ever! My meal was also free!

They let us try all their sauces on homemade potato chips, yum!
Dan's favorite sauce was Dave's original, but I liked them all!

Here's our meal!!! We also got some extra ribs because they were having a special (1/2 off!)

Did I mention my meal was free & so was my surprise dessert, which had a massive firework on it?!?!?!?

We didn't have enough room for the cake I made, but we still invited our friends over and had a great time scarfing down lemon cake anyways!

I guess turning 23 really wasn't as bad as I thought!

Jazz on the Green

Omaha is an old railroad city, so a lot of it is VERY old and run down. Especially the old "down town" areas. Recently, the city of Omaha has come up with a project to "beautify" Omaha. The initiative is called "O! What a City!"

In an effort to beautify Omaha, mid-town crossing has been built up. In the middle of mid-town, is a beautiful park. During Christmas, the trees are lit up with Christmas light. What a sight! It's so beautiful! In the summer, every Thursday it's filled with beautiful Jazz music.

We decided to check out "Jazz on the Green" with some of our friends, so we packed up a picnic and headed out for a fun night!


It started to sprinkle a bit during our picnic, so we moved under a tree to provide some cover. With the tree, came lots of bugs!

Next time, we'll take a football to throw around.

More bugs!
(By the way, Dave, a med student in Dan's class, LOVES bugs, which is very entertaining)

A guy even played the xylophone. I was impressed!

Speaking of Jazz, one night I came home from work and Dan handed me a coupon for free dinner for two at Jazz, a Louisiana Kitchen!!!! I love Jazz!!

Since my family was stationed in Louisiana for 2 years or so, we all love Cajun food. In fact, my mom taught me how to make jambalaya. YUM! The first time I made jambalaya for Dan, I thought he was going to hate it, but he LOVED it!!!

Anyways, I was first introduced to Jazz in Kansas City at Legends, an outdoor shopping mall. Legends was a really fun place to shop and eat and my parents took Celina, Carson, and I there often since Leavenworth didn't have much to offer by way of shopping & restaurants. Anyways, one day we were shopping, we noticed Jazz tucked in a little corner of the mall. Of course, we had to eat there. The food was delicious! In fact, we ate there for my senior dinner after I graduated.

Little did I know, Omaha has a Jazz, too. Their bread & Cajun butter is the best!

For dinner, I ate Craw fish etouffee with jambalaya!

Dan ate Chicken a la Mar, which is by far the best meal the serve! It's heavenly. Just ask Dan!

All stuffed & Jazzed out. They have a live jazz band playing at night! (You'd think I was advertising Jazz or something?!)

After dinner, we walked around down town & we found these slides. They're a lot of fun especially for grown up kids.

Stuffed Peppers!

Dan LOVES Mexican food.

I attribute his taste bud cravings for Mexican to his 2 year mission spent in Southern California. Don't get me wrong, Dan loves a good slice of pizza just like everyone else, but if he had to eat tacos and burritos for the rest of his life, he'd be pretty happy! In fact, about a year after Dan and I were married, Dan's parents gave us a 50lb bag of dried pinto beans and a LARGE box of taco, fajita, & enchilada mixes because they knew, first hand, all about Dan's addiction. No joke!
Needless to say, I can make some mean refried beans from scratch. Yup, I've been domesticated!

Here's a taco salad that frequently gets eaten in our home. (When I say frequently, I mean like once or twice a week:)

I also know Dan's itching for some Mexican food when he brings half a dozen green peppers home from the grocery store. Yes. 6. green. peppers. So what's a girl to do with half a dozen green peppers...? Well for one, cut half of them up and freeze them for fajitas in the future. As for the others, I decided we'd better mix it up. But how? Immediately I thought back 2 summers ago when my favorite cousin Elsie Kay told my grandma to "google it" and see when she could come visit her next...lol!!!

So that's what I did. I googled it. And this is what I came up with:

Yummy Stuffed Bell Peppers!

In case you don't know, Dan and my dad have many things in common. In fact, they've got A LOT of things in common. I remember when I was younger, probably from about ages 4-7, I wanted to grow up and marry my dad. That dream pretty much came true in a lot of respects when I married Dan. Among some of the things they have in common is their favorite foods. For instance:

Dan loves ice cream, so does my dad.
Dan loves nuts, so does my dad.
Dan loves popcorn, so does my dad.
Dan loves steak & potatoes, so does my dad.
The list literally goes on, and on, and on.....
....But the one that applies to Dan's craving of Mexican food is:
Their love for chips & salsa.

I remember when my dad would come home from work, pull out a bag of chips, fill a bowl full of salsa, & top it off with some cheese. Dan's no different. He loves chips & salsa so much that we buy the HUGE "All I eat is salsa" bottle from Sam's Club. You know, the 80 something ouncer.

Well, one day we're eating breakfast burritos & Dan goes to get the salsa. He notices the cap on the salsa bottle is kinda bulging. So, of course, he taps on it and....BOOM!!! The kitchen was covered in salsa:





Update: We counted 6 tiny jalapenos on our plant tonight!!!!

What's been keeping me busy when Dan's on call...

Earlier this summer, Dan was looking on Craig's list and came upon a posting giving away free plants to anyone who would pick them up. With our flower box looking like this...

Dan decided he'd go and pick a few plants up in the morning. When I came home from work that day, I came home to this...

I was so happy! I loved my new little flower box even though all the flowers were nearly dead. It was finally filled with flowers and with the box now spray painted it looked a million times better!

But after a little TLC my pretty little flower box looked like this!!!

Still a little sparse, right??
This week my little pretty flowers burst into full bloom!!!!

These dark purple flowers just bloomed yesterday!
A little baby humming bird keeps kissing these little flowers! It's so cute to watch!

I love these white ones! They are SO beautiful!!

The best part about these flowers is the way they smell when you walk past them! They smell so sweet! These flowers are a highlight of my day. I love to weed them and water them everyday!

When Dan picked up the flowers for me, he also got some tomato, bell pepper, and jalapeno plants. They haven't done so well....

This little plant looks great, but it just hasn't grown anything. Major bummer.

Dan thinks I water them too much, so I've cut down on the watering. We'll see if that's what's killing them. Maybe I should move them into more direct sun light? But I don't want them to burn up...Either way, aren't they beautiful to look at?

Lost in Nebraska

I think I've mentioned before that Dan's the fundraising chair for a free medical clinic in Omaha called the Magis Clinic, which keeps him pretty busy. Well, as the fundraising chair Dan obviously has to set up A LOT of fundraising events to help raise enough money to help run the free clinic.

Dan's in charge of a few very crucial fundraisers for Magis. Among these are two wine tasting events. Since we don't drink, it's quite interesting that Dan's in charge of such events. But really it doesn't matter what event Dan is putting on, he always does a fantastic job and this event was no exception.

Unfortunately, the event had to be held on a Sunday, so after sacrament meeting we headed to Nehawka, NE where the event was to be held. We simply plugged the address to the winery into the GPS and we were off. Dan had to do some setting up before the event started and we were on schedule to pull into the winery an hour before it began, so Dan could do what he needed before everyone showed up.

About 45 minutes to an hour later we knew something was wrong when the GPS announced we had arrived at our destination on the left and we were surrounded by nothing but cornfields. I could see the panic swarm through Dan. If anyone knows Dan, they know he hates being lost. Immediately we got onto our phones making calls to someone who could help us. But everyone was still in church. Finally Dan got a hold of someone. He explained where we were at the best he could and they tried to give us directions. We back tracked for about a half hour and followed the directions we were given to a T but got lost again. Dan spotted someone on the side of the road and stopped to ask for directions (after I insisted). The guy was not helpful at all. So Dan tried to use his phone again, but this time he had no signal. So we guessed the best which way to go. No such luck! We drove until we could literally drive no more because the road was flooded and roped off.

Frustration doesn't even put into perspective the way we felt. It was extremely hot and humid outside and after all this driving we were down to a fourth tank of gas. And now we were late. Dan kept driving and kept trying to get someone on the phone. When he finally got someone on the phone, we got new directions. Directions that worked this time. But we showed up an HOUR late. Yes, a whole HOUR late. Which actually turned out to not even be a big deal, but it was embarrassing nonetheless.

After all the hassle we went through to get there, we surprisingly had a great rest of the day despite the blistering heat!!!

Smiling even after getting lost in Nehwaka, NE aka Nowhere, NE.
The event had live music the entire time. This guy is a fantastic country music singer. He even got his little son to come up and sing with him!!! So cute!

The vineyard was really quite sparse. Nebraska doesn't really have the climate for growing grapes, but people still try. We loved this old truck!!!!

This little shack is actually an outdoor shower you can use if you rent a bungalow for the night.

A little man made pond. So pretty!
I thought the waterfall was gorgeous underneath the bridge. Maybe someday in out yard?!?!

These two little ducks were very entertaining. There were two brown ducks that kept trying to beat up the white ducks. It was hilarious!

We ate brats and listened to some good music!

Lesson learned: Don't rely on the GPS in Nebraska!

Come on Home!

On Wednesday night we went to the Winter Quarters Musical called "Come Home to Kanesville." The musical was put on at the Kanesville Tabernacle where Brigham Young was set apart as prophet of the church many, many, many years ago.

Dan and I went to the play last year and absolutely LOVED it! It's a story of love and faith amidst a pioneer family's journey West. The musical has me near at tears every time we go. There is a live band playing all the music behind the screen of the play so you can actually see them playing as the actors and actresses are singing. Also, there is a choir behind us who sing along as well. The performers dance up and down the isles too. All of this combined with the lovely story brings the spirit so strongly to my heart. My testimony of the gospel is always strengthened each time we go. I love it!


They always perform the play around pioneer days which is perfect because outside of Utah and Nauvoo no one really celebrates the 24th of July to honor the faithful saints who scarified everything so their posterity would no longer be persecuted for their beliefs.

Needless to say, I'm grateful for those who work so hard to put on the play so others, like myself, can enjoy the message and spirit they bring.

For dessert, I made vanilla cream pie since we were fresh out of banana pudding! Dan LOVED it!
Strawberries are on sale right now for $0.88/lb, so I just had to throw some of those in! I'm thinking I should can some strawberry jam since strawberries are on such a good deal, but I don't know if I dare do it by myself.....