Halloween is different in primary....

So life in Primary is a little different than life in the singles' ward (Did I mention I'm the second counselor in the primary presidency now?). Take, for example, this crazy week. When the Halloween party, the primary program, and my turn for Sharing Time, all fell in the same week. It went a little something like this:
First off, the party was originally supposed to be on Saturday night, but we switched it with another ward so it was on Friday, which meant I was at work until it was halfway over. Which I think kind of gave the primary president a tiny heart attack.
So Thursday night after the spa, Brad and Brea nicely agreed to come help me decorate my "scary tunnel" that I was in charge of. We did all get to choose our "game," and this was the one thing I remembered best from my Primary halloweens.
First, we had to stop at Walgreens to get some decorations: lights, spider webs, glow-in-the-dark stickers and streamers (thanks to Brea for those last two). And cornbread. And then we headed to the church. I had picked the boxes up from a friend on facebook on my lunch break on Wednesday so we unloaded them and went inside (I actually have building keys, thank goodness :-) ). As we were starting I realized we forgot the cornbread mix (we remembered the other ingredients), so Brad ran to the store to buy some while Brea and I got to taping. (Luckily, the grocery store, the church, and walgreens are all within a mile of each other).
Now, we all know that one of the main reasons I asked Brad to come along was for his creativity (and the more pumpkins I see of Brad and Brea's, the more I realize what good competition Brea is in the creativity department). The other reason I asked them, of course, is because it would have been completely miserable to have done it alone. So anyways, I stepped out for a second to go get tape and came back to see Brad carving individual holes for each spider with his drywall saw. Brilliance. And he then cut tiny little holes to hang each ghost the same way.

Meanwhile, Brea hung streamers and made curtains out of black garbage bags for the doors. She's in the picture below if you look hard enough. 

I crawled through and super-glued in the glow-in-the-dark stickers to the walls. It was a little tighter fit than I had imagined. And at 11:30 at night, we were done. 

Friday after work, I ran home and got into this outfit. (I couldn't untangle my "Tangled" wig.) It worked :-)

The kids loved the tunnel. I loved the 4-year olds who came out and were like, "That was awesome!" or "You have to go through this...it's amazing!" It made me happy. Most kids went through it like 4 or 5 times. :-)The kids below here are my favorites ever. They are the primary president's kids and I basically think they are beautiful. She calls them "my little salt & pepper"

Zack is the blonde boy. He discovered the cake below.

And then he looked like this :-)

This little lady is also in my ward. And she's funny. And she said the skull dude on her shoulder was her lover. Basically I just loved that she would say that so I took her picture. I love my ward. 

After the party, we all cleaned up and then went back to the church Saturday morning for a Relief Society broadcast followed by primary program practice. Afterwards, I went shopping at ULTA 'cause it was the last day to use my 20% off everything coupon. A lot of Christmas shopping got done! Then I ran home to meet up with Vanie and get ready for another party. Last minute, we decided to make me Pebbles. So I ran back to Walgreens and bought their "bag of bones," stuck a couple clavicles in my hair, and we were good to go. The party was typical mormon party times, but it was fun and we saw a lot of fun costumes. Afterwards, about 5 of us went and got some appetizers at Arcadia Tavern and then went to our friend Silver's house and roasted Nutella S'mores on his backyard firepit. mmm.......

Did I mention I still needed to do Sharing Time? Well, before the party, I used my phone to take pictures of old photographs of my ancestors and used the Walgreens app to send them over on my way to the party so that they would be ready in an hour. After the s'mores, I ran to walgreens and picked them up, along with gold candy coins and foil stars. (I created a treasure hunt of finding out about the Carbiener family in France). After picking them up, I ran and met Jonmark across town and went dancing for a little bit before we both decided we were completely exhausted. 

Sunday morning, I got up and went to the primary practice, which luckily turned out great. And I think the kids all thought sharing time was cool. 

AND. I have a new found respect for all callings. All of them. 

p.s. I love Walgreen's. I cannot believe how much this store comes through for me. 

The Princess

So basically my whole life, my mom and I have talked about how cool it would be to spend a week at a spa. We've thought about it for years, but it's not exactly one of those things you can just up and do. BUT, since their parents have passed, my mom and her sister Jill have some time on their hands, and they did just that. They stayed at the Fairmont Princess in Scottsdale and got 1 or 2 treatments done at the spa every day. And got in a little shopping. AND- they were nice enough to ask me & Brea to come up for a day. I came over Wednesday night and we watched a boring movie (cannot remember the name) and fell completely asleep watching it. Brea came over the next morning and we had massages done at about 10, followed by pedicures at 1. I love spa food, and everything here was so so good.

This is Basil Chocolate Sorbet. Weird? Kind of. Delicious? Definitely. 

Mom's shrimp cobb salad

Waterfall Therapy. Each waterfall is progressively more forceful and
massages your back harder and harder as you walk along. 

Little Lobster tacos. These fit in my hand, and they were just awesome. 

Park City Provider Retreat

I feel a little guilty blogging this next bit, but it was just too cool to keep to myself. The four weeks after my crazy Guatemala week were rough. I felt like I basically lived at work, and I did work more hours every week then than I think I had at any time in the past year. I was seriously dying for a break (yes, already). And we got one. See, personally, I feel like my work pays me less than it should. (Which, is why, as of November, I will be changing jobs. Yay!!! :-) ) But, to make up for the money they should be paying us, they take all the providers on magical retreats every year to help us forget about that. And they are good enough that they almost succeed. This one was particularly perfect for me. (And I really was so so grateful for the experience.) We worked Thursday morning, and then flew out to SLC in the afternoon. We had a great dinner and then headed off to our hotel. The rooms were absolutely insane. I've never stayed at a place so incredible in my life!! And I really could have just stayed in the room all weekend long and never left and been perfectly thrilled. But they wouldn't let us.
The next morning breakfast was supposed to be at 7:30. BUT...I decided sleep was more important. So I woke up at 8:30 and went downstairs. They were still eating. So I got to eat AND sleep. Win. Win. We then had a comedy show where they had us learn stand-up comedy, and really, that was just so fun.

This was my hotel room. Yes. Just mine. At the Waldorf Astoria. Oh, are those Viking appliances in my kitchen? oh yes, I believe they are. (I didn't get to stay long enough to cook anything, which was a small travesty.) 

The bedroom. Me+4 pillows. 

The Master Bath (yes, there was another one downstairs). Ahhh!!!

Basking in the craziness. 

Loved these water bottles. 

The View (I swear I had the best in the whole hotel.
I seriously would love to buy this room)

Beautiful trees!!

Next, we went to the Olympic Park, where we spent the day ziplining, riding the alpine slide, and riding the Olympic bobsled. Where you go 67 mph on the same track as the Olympians and experience 4G's!! It was awesome. Not everyone thought so. But I did. It was one of the coolest things ever. 

Alpine Slide! So fun! (Yes, we did have to wear these awesome matching shirts.
I donated mine to the Salvation Army today. :-) )

The next day was Spa day. Beautiful spa day. It was so much incredible. I had a Thai massage, which is basically where a guy walks on you and pushes you into yoga positions. It was fabulous! And then I had this facial done: http://www.hydrafacial.com/, where they basically vacuum out your pores. And I swore I looked younger. So I went and laid by the pool, which, ironically, I hadn't done all summer in AZ. Maybe because it was a hundred bazillion degrees. 

Immediately post-facial. Pretty sure I look 5 years younger :-)

The Spa

Spa Lunch. Melon gazpacho. mmm....

Kristina and Cameron. Kristina and I are good friends. 

These tile recliners are heated!!

We were all just so chill....Roxanne is in the stripes. Love her. 

And after our spa treatments, we had dinner and almost missed our flight home. It was a quick trip, but so fun. And so needed!

Fancy Feast

So I may have taken a month off of eating healthy to eat a lot of ice cream for dinner. However, I've been doing much better lately. Tonight, I made this: The Tastiest Roast Chicken Recipe Known to Man
Mmmm...so so good. I've been wanting to make a whole chicken since I saw Food, Inc. (in 2008) and started to feel bad about only buying chicken breasts and wasting all its other parts. Four years later, I finally did it. The pictures will show you that I'm not a food blogger, but I still like making fun new food.

Sprinkle generously with salt & pepper

Brown evenly with butter. This got a little smoky. 

30 minutes left to go..... Warning.... it burns the eyes while cooking!

I need a smaller pan. Too much of the sauce burned up.