Opa!

So, for the first time in our three years of marriage, I made Greek food!!! And it was soooo good. I didn't remember to take pictures until we were almost done, but that's okay. We made "souvlaki". It's basically kabobs inside of a pita with tzatziki on top. All of which I made from scratch. :) It was amazingly delicious and we decided that we should have it everyday for dinner. Jeremy was so cute and just smiled and groaned like on "What about Bob?" all through dinner. He talked about eating these while walking around in Cyprus with his companion and just seemed so happy.

Here he is devouring his third one:Close up of the works and a kabob in the background:
Souvlaki:
I marinated chicken a couple hours before and then put on some green peppers (from our garden) and some yellow and red onions, and then broiled it in the oven for about 15 minutes. If you want the recipe, click here for the link. It's really good, and you should all try it.
And here one of the pitas: (Click here for the link)
And the tzatziki: Tzatziki is a sauce that is made with greek yogurt (or plain full-fat yogurt, better if it's strained), diced cucumber, garlic, and salt and pepper. It is really easy and really delicious. I kind of amended a recipe I found. Here's what I did:

2 cups plain yogurt
1 cucumber, diced very fine (dice the skin, or half of it, too)
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt & pepper to taste
a bit of lemon juice

And if you have leftovers, add a little fresh parsley to it, so the garlic taste isn't too strong.
So that was our fun dinner last night. My good friend Rachel Cox stayed with us last night (and her sweet baby McKay) and we all really enjoyed it.

We also watched the movie "North & South" last night and oh my goodness, it is so good! I had heard it was really good from a friend of mine, but I didn't expect it to be that good. It's about 4 hours long (I know, it's lengthy) but it is well worth it. It is based on the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell and it takes place in England during the Industrial Revolution. It is very moving and really great. I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone! Jeremy and I both agreed that we even liked it better than Pride & Prejudice, and that's saying a lot. It's deeper, and just really touching. Be prepared because it's really sad, but there's some happy parts too. :) Anyway, so that's the update for today. Try the Greek food, it's great!

Name that flower!

So, I planted some lovely flowers about a month and a half ago, and while I was planting I saw a couple other plants only a few inches tall. They didn't look like weeds, so I thought I might as well leave them and see what they turned out to be. So, finally a few days ago, they blossomed! I'm not sure what they are, but they're beautiful! I think they could be some kind of iris or something, but I'm not very good with flowers, so I don't know. If anyone has an idea, let me know! They're really tall now and have long stiff leaves. Here's a picture of one of them:And here's a close-up of the flower:
Here's another picture with all my flowers by the back patio. I'm so proud! They're doing really well. The mystery flowers kind of stick out, but I don't care. They're pretty. :)
While I was taking pictures outside, I thought I would put up another couple pictures of our garden. It's grown a lot since I last put some up. We've gotten a lot of zucchini, herbs, and peppers. We're waiting for the green beans and cucumbers to grow and the tomatoes to ripen.

Reunion!

So, this last weekend my dad's side of the family had a reunion here in the Sandy area. Almost everyone in the family was able to make it. (Everyone except 3 of my siblings and 1 of my cousins and another cousin's husband). So, it was a big group! We had about 40 people or so and it was a lot of fun. My dad is the oldest of 6 kids and they all have a bunch of kids ranging in age from about 5 to 29. So, it went from Friday night until Monday night. Friday, we ate dinner in a park and then my aunt had set up an obstacle course thing, so we split up into teams and did that. It was pretty challenging! We had a good time. That night, Jeremy and I had the teenage girls stay over at our house, so that was a party!
Then, Saturday, we went to Seven Peaks water park for the day. It was a nice hot day so it felt good to play in the water. They have a bunch of water slides there and a wave pool, a lazy river, and some other fun things. We were most entertained by my grandparents, ages 77 and 76, who went on almost every ride. Pretty incredible. :) They always amaze us. Here is a picture of all the men who went on the very scary orange slide. It was called "Free Fall" and that's exactly what it looked like. I thought for sure they would all fall off and die, but they didn't! Yea!
Grandpa, Uncle Clint, Dad, David (cousin), JeremyHere's my mom and me
Cousin Sabrina and sis' Heidi
Jeremy and I relaxing toward the end of the day. (Also my aunt Marie standing up on the left)
My cute grandparents looking through a double tube. :) They are amazing!
So, that was Saturday. Then on Sunday, we went to church and had dinner at my Aunt Laura's house. Here's a picture of the teenage girls in their backyard:
Ally, Sabrina, Katie, Heidi, & Kori
So...then on Monday we had a delicious breakfast at my grandparents house and then we all ended up chatting so long that we were there for lunch too. That night, we all went to Cafe Rio for dinner and then went up the canyon for a little campfire. It was a fun way to end the reunion. We sang camp songs, roasted marshmallows, and had a good time visiting.

Heidi, Jeremy and I. We were trying to play the ukelele. Some of my family members are pretty good!
Aunt Cassie, cousin Alex, Dad, Mom, Aunt Bobby, cousin Annie, Aunt Marie
Heidi and Sarah
Dad, Aunt Bobby, Aunt Laura, Mom, Uncle Chris, Jeremy
So, we had a great time! My parents and Heidi stayed until Tuesday. It's so fun being around people you love and who love you! We missed those who weren't there! Maybe next time. So that's what we've been up to lately. By the way our garden is growing like crazy. We've picked about 20 zucchini so far and they just keep coming! I'll post some new pictures sometime soon.

St. George

Jeremy and I just got back from a little trip down to St. George. Jeremy didn't have to work on Friday for the 4th, so we decided to go visit our dear friends, BJ and Rachel Cox. They just had their first baby, McKay Daniel Cox, on June 14th. We got to be there for his blessing on Sunday and we had such a fun time visiting with them again. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the four of us, but I have pictures of the baby and Jeremy and I with the baby. He is so adorable and such a sweet boy. While we were down there we went to Les Miserables at the Tuacahn outdoor theater. The stage was amazing and the back drop was the beautiful canyon. We were really impressed with the voices, acting, staging, and everything. It was pretty hot outside, but it was well worth it.
So, here's little McKay asleep. What an angel.And here's me holding McKay on Sunday after his blessing. He has a cast on his right leg to correct his club foot. Poor little guy. But he's doing really well and he's quite the happy baby.Jeremy and McKay. About 10 minutes later, both Jeremy and the baby were asleep. :) Jeremy was great with him; he definitely had the magic touch. We're going to miss this little guy!So, all in all, it was a fabulous weekend. It was so fun to see Rachel and BJ again before they go off to dental school in Kentucky in a few weeks. We love having such great friends and we're so happy for them and their new baby!

Yea for being an aunt!

So, a couple of days ago, Sandefur Schmidt (who's in charge of publicity for BYU Singers and comes on tour with us to sell CDs, take photos, etc.) sent me this picture from our Singers tour. While we were on tour we went to Disneyland and Amy and Rob and their kids were down there too, so I got to go to California Adventure with them for the day and it was so fun. Anyway, I just remember how happy I was to see them. It was day 11 of the tour and I was getting a little homesick, so this just carried me through to the end of the tour. It's so great having family that loves you! And it was so fun to be attacked by the kids and have them hang on me. I loved every minute of it! So this picture just captured that moment well and I wanted to post it. (Even though my face is all scrunched. It's okay, I was happy).I love all my neices and nephews on my side and Jeremy's side. They are all so sweet and loving and cute and wonderful. :)