Snow & BYU

When I looked out my kitchen window this morning guess what I saw? SNOW! The tops of the mountains received a fairly good dusting of snow yesterday and it really does feel like fall outside today. Yeah! I'm ready!





Now to change to subject. HOW ABOUT THEM COUGARS!!! They won their game again last night. They are doing awesome this year. However, I fear a certain family member may have gone to the game last night and not cheered for the cougs. (gasp) How could this be? I must do some further investigation into this!

The Chick's side of things

Well, okay...so you have Mom's acount of the scrapbook convention below....here's mine: We got to the convention around 3:00. The first thing we did was sign up for the raffle drawings, of course. We found a table, planted our stuff, and started around the loop looking for make-and-takes. I was working on a cute little flower card, when, low and behold, "Emily Rule" comes over the loud speaker. Mom pulled me away from the booth and shoved me in the direction of the announcer. Excited, I rushed to the center, expecting stickers, paper, pens, something awesome. What did I find??? What, I ask you, did I find?!!! An organic sock doll. I am SOOO not kidding. This random lady had set up a booth selling baby products that are made of all organic cotton. Random?! Disapppointing?! Yeah.


So I returned to mom, confused and disgruntled over my "baby safe doll" (who, by the way...had no arms. What's up with that?), and we continued around the loop. We got to one booth about half way through that was having a "super-duper special." The guy sold lines of paper with the embellishment in packs for $20 each and every hour, on the hour, he would throw two or three kits in a bag and sell the bag for twenty bucks. When you bought a bag, you'd get a raffle ticket and ten minutes after the hour there would be drawings from the raffle tickets. Well, mom and I ended up at this booth and the guy who was bagging the special was...well, basically totally incompetant,...and needed help. Being the kinda nice, OCD person that I am, I offered to help. Another lady joined in and, afterwards, the guy insisted that me and the other lady take extra raffle tickets. Thinking that there would be no chance that I would win, I accepted. Well, not ONLY did mom win a raffle, I won the grand prize. SOOOOOO not kidding. I got not one, not two, but 32 little bottles of buttons!!! A $92 dollar value!!!! Random? I think so. Sooo....all in all...it was a great night. I walked away with 32 bottles of buttons, over 400 pieces of designer paper, and....and organic doll. Very, very good night.

One Reason I Live in Utah

I love to scrapbook. Utah is like the scrapbooking mecca of the world. Many of the major scrapbook companies are located here and there are lots of really cool stores. Also, twice a year, in the spring and the fall, is the SCRAPBOOK USA EXPO.
The EXPO puts on a crop, which is a chance to sit and scrapbook (added that for all you non-scrapbookers). The crop begins at 10:00 am and goes until midnight. There is a DJ playing "The Hustle", "YMCA", etc...(you get it :), there are prizes and contests. All the while, thousands of "die-hard" scrapbookers are furiously shopping and madly working on scrapbook pages. LOTS & LOTS OF FUN!!! I have been to this scrapbooking extravaganza four times since I moved here. The first year I went with Erin (miss you, Erin!). I think we were both a little overwhelmed at the size of it. The second time I went alone. I sat at a table with women whose husbands were stationed at Hill Air Force Base. Really fun group!!! Last year I talked Emily into going with me. I think she was a little surprised at the size and all that went on. This year I didn't have to talk quite so hard to get her to go - (I AM SO GLAD I HAVE A CUTE LITTLE CHICKIE TO DRAG ALONG WITH ME TO THINGS LIKE THIS!) We got there about 4:00, found our table and joined the throngs of other creative seeking women who express themselves and their love for their families through the art form of scrapbooking. Yes, I really am glad I am a scrapbooker!

Yummy Peach Crisp

Last week my neighbor, Shirley, brought me some delicious peaches from her sister's peach tree. They were not quite ripe, so I set them in a bowl on the cupboard. Yesterday I noticed the peaches were at the perfect stage to make a peach crisp -- and so that is what I did. This time of year there is nothing better than fresh peaches or crisp, juicy apples turned into a crisp. The recipe I use is quick and easy it calls for:

5 medium size peaches or apples

3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup butter

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

Simply peel and slice the fruit, then lay it in the bottom of an 8"x 8" baking dish. Soften the butter in the microwave, add the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt. Mix together (it will be kind of grainy) and then spoon over the fruit in the baking dish. Bake at 375 for about 35 minutes. ( You want to cook it until the top is quite brown and crunchy). Top with whipping cream or vanilla ice cream. It should look something like this. Enjoy!!

The Chick

Hey all, This is the said "chick." (Emily). I just wanted to update everyone on what I'm learning at BYU. My physical science TA showed us this movie in class last week and I found it so...*ah humm*...educational...that I thought I'd share it. Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-jVAHAuiS4

I have been lurking around the internet for quite some time - enjoying reading other people's blogs - and have finally decided that I need a presence here on this marvelous world wide web - thus the creation of my "Old Hen" blog. Of course all of you who will read this will know immediately who my "chick" is . . . and she may post on here occasionally too. So . . . WELCOME to the BLOG of AN OLD HEN AND HER CHICK. Bookmark this site and come back to visit often.

I must admit that fall is my very favorite time of year. The mountains here in Utah are beginning to turn colorful shades of red and orange. (Emily says they look like they are bleeding!) I am posting a picture of the mountain I look up at every day when I come out from work. This mountain never looks the same and always kind of takes my breath away at the beauty and majesty of it. How blessed I am!

I have been working at getting my little townhome all fixed up (which I will post pictures of another time), but probably my favorite part of all the fixing up has been the completion of my deck overlooking the lake. I love to sit out there and enjoy the sunsets. Yesterday Emily caught a family of quail perched on the back fence - what fun!