It's the Little Things

As I settle back into corporate life . . . it's important to look for the little bonus in each day. A big thrill has been the soap in the bathroom. Who knew that could be so exciting. A few months ago, the company started paying for soap from Bath and Body Works rather than the generic stuff that comes out of wall dispensers, although that is there too for people who don't like yummy scents. So throughout the day I try a different sink with a different scent. Thus far, some of my new favorites are Fresh Lime Basil, Orange Sapphire and Ocean Citrus. It's all about finding joy in the journey, right?

Tell me how you really feel

One of my favorite websites is allrecipes. One of the reasons allrecipes is so great is that you can input ingredients you have - and ingredients you don't want - and it'll come up with matching recipes. Yesterday I was looking for a recipe to use, and I came upon one for pad thai. Here is the picture:

Looks nice, right? It got 4-star average reviews. But then I read this review:
"We were so dissappointed with this. It smells like feet, is too greasy, no flavor, and the recipe calls for peanuts, but doesn't have anything about them in the directions."

I generally don't trust reviewers who can't spell, but I also don't want to eat anything that smells like feet! I made this old standby instead.

Zip It!

So last Friday, Kristen and I found ourselves with the day off (man, I love those Pioneers!). We figured, hey, we're two single gals who can do whatever we want, so you had better believe that we went up to the Utah Olympic Park for the day. And let me tell you, it was f-u-n! Did you know they have not one, but two zip lines? Well, they do! Look at Kristen's form here--impressive!

They also have an Alpine Slide which we loved, because it's pretty difficult to fall off. We all have various fiber glass burns from falling off the Alpine Slide in Park City over the years, but we did not budge on this one. Not that I would know, because the 112 year old woman in front of me decided to ride her brake the entire way down. But doesn't Kristen look like she's having fun here?


They also have a restaurant with an outdoor patio where you can watch the ski jumpers practice jumping into the pool. And they totally give lessons. It was a great day, and this is where I will be lunching every Saturday for the rest of the Summer if you need me.

I Go Nuts for Wrangler Butts!

Okay, not really, but that saying always makes me giggle! I may have mentioned before that I have a smidge of w.t. in me. If there is a demolition derby, motocross race or heck, even someone with a few teeth missing, I will be the first to sign up to watch and point. I also hate parades, so I like to celebrate the Days of '47 by getting my giddy up on and going to the rodeo! As you can see, we had great seats this year. I don't think these photos need a caption. Ladies, you're welcome!

Reunion Time

July seems like the month for reunions and we had our annual Bird Family reunion last weekend up in Morgan hosted by our Aunt Lyn and her family. Brian and his family were up in Idaho all week for another reunion, so we just had a smaller family in attendance. The kids had fun getting wet . . . and then getting us wet as well. Grace had more fun sneaking up on Grandpa trying to get him wet . . . and she succeeded! There was a fish pond with fabulous prizes for the prizes and lots of relay races that kept us moving . . . and wet. It was a nice hot day so the water felt great.

Wet Maggie with the beautiful Morgan landscape in the background

Kristen just got soaked!

Brent with his wet girls

Who knew that Lilli had such a talent for blowing bubbles. She was easily the winner.

Kristen and Melinda teaming up in the three-legged race

Brent and Dad ready to race as well.

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Julie and Grace in our prize winning glasses.

Love Our Kids!

I was going through my pictures tonight and found this little gem that someone took with my camera. A few Sundays ago we got out the awesome fabric teepees that Mom made us when we were little. They are fantastic and we loved nothing better than getting them set up as kids throughout the house and then we would proceed to put everything from our rooms into these little temporary houses . . . books, games, pillows and blankets. It was fabulous! We would leave them up for days and have so much fun together. Sometimes we would even put two teepees together with the doors facing each other so we had one giant room to go back and forth to. Our little kids had never seen the teepees, so we got them set up and they did the same thing . . . filling them with all sorts of things and then playing together. This is cute baby Jena, Sara and Grace having so much fun together in theirs. Love it!

Surprise Favorite Show

My friend, Jen, turned me onto watching Crossroads on CMT. There was an episode coming with Reba McEntire and Kelly Clarkson that she thought, me, the reality show junkie would really like. Now, I like most music, but country just doesn't happen to be something I turn to of my own free will. I didn't even know that I had such channels on my TV. She insisted, so I reluctantly taped it, waited a while to watch it, and then was pleasantly surprised. This show takes an artist from another type of music and mashes them up with a country artist for a live concert where they do takes on each others songs. I since have the show set to always record and one of my absolute favorites was the Taylor Swift/Def Leppard combination. I love all things Def Leppard. And more recently there was a John Mayer/Keith Urban episode that was great too. I even have to admit that I have downloaded some country tunes from these shows and may slowly be coming a convert to some country artists.

What Comes Around

My job sabbatical has officially ended this week as I start my new job. Funny enough I'm back where I started as a babe in 1992 . . . at a division of Questar, your lovely gas company. It's actually a little blessing how the whole thing worked out, however, I feel like I've just gone back in time.

Back in the day, I worked with a great group of guys - Carson, Derek, and Jeff - in what we lovingly called "The Pod". Our trading room was filled with low 4-foot cubicles that made a wheel and was partitioned into 4 or 5 sections - so pretty much there was no privacy whatsoever. I spent years with these guys as we faced each other day in and day out. We helped each other with work, jumped in each others conversations, had great discussions from TV to religion, went to lunch together, had tailgating parties in the parking lot and just generally had lots of good times together. A lady in our Oklahoma City office thought it was funny how we all got along in our little "Pod" together and stitched a wall hanging that said "Bless This Pod" that we hung up above us in the room and I understood that it stayed up long after I had left and two of the three guys had left as well. Now that I'm back and the large open room has long since been converted into offices and regular cubicles, I asked what had happened to our little wall hanging. My new group of co-workers said that they thought it had been thrown out long ago as they moved around. However, my former supervisor, who is also a great guy, dug through a file room today and brought it to me as a little gift, saying that through the moves he just couldn't get rid of it. Now, that's love. So, here I am . . . many years later back at my old stomping grounds . . . with our little sign. Good times.

Farmer's Elbow Tan

It's never long into the summer before I've got a killer farmer's tan. In addition to the typical shirt sleeve and shorts lines, I also get farmer's tan on the inside of my elbows! Is that not the worst? I run outside when it's really hot, and my arms are bent at the elbows. If I'm at the pool, my arms are bent while I read a book. That inside elbow is pretttttty pasty. What's your worst tanning experience? (Melinda has one that has to do with a fake tattoo!)

Girls Gone Wild

This weekend the Bird girls escaped for an overnight stay at Deer Valley. We had a yummy dinner where Lisa and Lilli even tried sushi! Kristen made her famous guacamole and we gorged on the Bird version of trail mix (just plain M&M's and dry roasted peanuts . . . no raisins) which no road trip is complete without, and a double batch of Holli's pina coladas during our Phase 10 Tourney. We got to swim, talk lots, shop a little, of course eat, and have fun catching up with each other. Thanks, Dad for the time away and Brian and Brent for taking care of the kiddos. I'm ready to go again!

Look . . . no hands!

Hey Mandy . . . . we're all ready for Girls Camp now . . . it's insulated, holds six cans, and keeps our hands free. I may start a little side business with the ladies up at camp. What do you think?

I Don't Know Everything

I feel like I know about a fair amount of stuff. But the other day I heard someone say they were double-parked outside, and it occurred to me: I have never known what that means. I presume it's illegal. But what does it actually mean - is the car taking up two spaces? I still don't know.

There's other stuff that, until recently, I made it through my whole life not knowing (thank you, Google, for helping me out). For example, what is a marshmallow? Turns out it's just sugar. I still don't know how they make 'em, though. And where does popcorn come from? Apparently it's a type of corn! I really had no idea. All those years singing "Popcorn popping on the apricot tree" have led me astray.

What seemingly obvious stuff don't you know?

Rocky Mountain High!

To celebrate the big weekend, we were inspired by John Denver, so we left on a jet plane, and visited his signature town. Because you know, why the heck not? I had not been to Denver for several years, and remembered that it was a jaunty little town, and I tell you, it did not disappoint!

We got off to a rough start when, 10 minutes after picking up our sweet mini van (I am cursed!), we were backed into by some fool who claimed he didn’t see us. Okay sir, a large silver mini van is pretty hard to not see. See how sad you’ve made Julie?
But things soon picked up. The silver bullet just had some scratches on it, so we were off on our adventure! Kristen had done a good job finding some fun things for us to do once we got there, so we started by going on a culinary walking tour of one of the neighborhoods outside of Denver. I don’t know if we’ve mentioned this before, but we love to eat, so this was a delight. We went to four different restaurants and sampled tons of delicious food. I could have turned right back home at that point and been completely happy. And all of our Bishop’s should be proud of us, because we were presented with multiple opportunities to have free liquor, and we turned it down every time! (At least, that’s our official story, and we’re sticking to it.) At the last place we went, they were doing a wine and chocolate pairing, and we were literally surrounded by wine, so I ate an equivalent amount of chocolate. Is that bad?
We then went to the adorable town of Golden to go to the Coors brewery, and stumbled upon a fantastic farmer’s market. I love finding little gems like that! Who knew Golden was such a great place? I think Kristen would have stayed there if she could have. So then we went on the Coors tour, and our favorite part was the gift shop! Drinking shirts are funny.

We also found a great Arts Festival in Cherry Creek, and Julie was so excited to get some “street food,” i.e. fancy food sold from a cart in the street.

Pretty soon, it was the day of our country’s birth. What better way to celebrate than to run four miles? Kristen found a nice local race, so we ran it! Please ask Kristen what she yelled to get a free reusable grocery bag that she will never use.
That night, we were excited to go to Red Rocks amphitheater to see Blues Traveler in concert. What could be more patriotic than that? It had been drizzling rain throughout the day, but the show would go on, rain or shine, so off we went. Once we got there, the rain started dumping. We of course bought some ponchos, because we just look cute in them, and hoped that the rain would stop. When Blues Traveler finally took the stage, the rain was pouring down. After 3 songs, we made an executive decision to leave. On our mile long trek to the car, we were caught in what had to be a tornado or monsoon! My poncho was blown right off of me! Sure enough, that night turned out to be the wettest Fourth of July in Denver’s history, so we saw nary a firework, and barely any music. Boo. But we made a new friend, and we totally hung out with him afterward.

We sure had a grand time, and now that we have those crazy one way streets figured out, will go back any time!

We need an Old Spice man!

Kristen, since you turned us on to the first one, have you seen the latest commercial? Love it.

Ooops . . .

I made dinner tonight for a cute family in the neighborhood that just had a baby. I got this picture in a text back from them later in the night saying how much Ashton especially enjoyed his dessert. You can tell I don't have kids because I sent an ooey, gooey, red dessert. Ooops!

Refreshing . . .

I love a good drink. A nice cold Coke, a refreshing Welch's grape soda, and certain tart citrus delights. I love lemonade from Hot Dog on a Stick, the Training Table and the Cheesecake Factory with the sugar-rimmed glasses. When I was at Matt and Camille's the other day, they were serving Simply Limeade . . . which is right up my alley . . . and I have since purchased it for myself and in fact have a nice cool glass of it that I am sipping right now. It is totally refreshing.

I also love Brazilian "lemonade" that you find at the Brazilian meat fests. This version from AllRecipes is darn close and so yummy. Love a refreshing drink.