A Fairly Fabulous Day

A Kiss for the new year! 2010 has been a good year I think. Sure there were ups and downs but we made it just fine. January I'm trying to think of what happened in January.....it was so long ago. Porter was traveling a lot with his job at Flextronics and I was in rehearsal for Fiddler on the Roof at Hale Center Theatre. February We had a lovely Valentine's day at Sanctuary Day Spa (which I highly recommend!) Porter was choreographing Footloose at The Empress Theatre while going to school and working full time which included lots of travel. I opened Fiddler on the Roof and my good friend Kim basically lived at our house which was awesome! I became a vegetarian after reading up on the horrors of Factory Farms. March We did the electrical work in our basement. Porter was laid off from his job at Flextronics so I put him to work on a patio out in the garden. I continued performing at Hale and working at Dancing Moose. I began an obsession with goat cheese. April Porter was

So with December also comes my vocal studio's winter performance. It's a great time, but takes a lot of preparation. The students and I have been working on their songs for a good 3 months. This recital, I actually assigned songs which is unusual. I usually let them pick songs, but this Christmas I wanted some specific songs sung. So from our picture you can see that we take our music very seriously, no goofing off, no sillyness, it's just work, work, work. Haha! of course I'm just kidding. We always have a great time. The students did very well. There were a few who didn't sing at this reciatal, but for the most part these are my students. They rock! This is a video of my teen girls performing Hard Candy Christmas. I had to fill in because one of them was sick the day of the recital.

Porter is finally going to be done with his MBA program this spring. Hooray! And as a capstone class/assignment, every students to required to go on an international business trip. So this spring I believe the choices were: France, South Africa and Brazil. Porter (with a little nudging from me) decided he would like to go to France, and here is the best part, I get to go too! I'm so excited! I've never been out of the country before, come to think of it, I'm the only one in my family whose not been out of the country. Well, it's my turn, whopee! We have a bunch of paper work to do and such. I kept asking Porter when we needed our passports and we kept putting it off. But finally, yesterday was the day. Porter got up early and filled out both of our paper work. Then, I was wondering about pictures, he said we could just take them at the clerks office. But, they were $10 a piece! That is a lot for something that is just a little above mug shot quality. So, I opened our wi

First of all, it's been along time. I get into these funks where I forget to blog, then I fell guilty about it so I pretend it's not there or that no one reads it or that it's not important enough and I try to forget I have a blog. But it's always there in the back of my head, say "hi! remember me....come post something!" So, the little voice won. And I think my new years resolution, at least one of them is going to be to blog at least once a month. Not much right......well see. We had a fabulous Christmas! Porter and I invited all our family over for a Crazy Hat Christmas Party on Christmas Eve. Everyone wore awesome hats and we even had a fashion show with them. Kyle (Porter's Dad) won the craziest hat contest. He came as The Grinch's dog Max. Then we played a very fun game of charade with Christmas words. I think my favorite was my dad trying to draw the word "donkey" and it ended up looking like a mutant cat, it was hysterical! We had our

These are some photos I shot of the fabulous Porter. We drove around SLC and found some fun spots for me to play around with. He did pretty good, considering he HATES posing for pictures. I tried my hardest to keep it quick and painless, although there was nothing I could do for the heat.......98 degrees. Blah! Good thing he kept switching shirts!!! hehe! just kidding. All in all it was a fun little project and I keep learning stuff the more I shoot. So if any of you lovely beauties who read this blog would like to be a model, just let me know ;) I could get some good practice and you could get some fun photos!

I bought a really nice new camera a few weeks ago and decided it was time to give it a spin. My lovey models are Kim and Matt. They are getting married in August and asked I would take some engagement photos for them. I accepted the challenge happily! So, Tuesday evening we embarked on our great quest to Red Butte Gardens......3 hours and 250 pictures later....I was exhausted. I'm sure they were too. We walked all over that place. Here is a sampling of some of the pictures we got. Enjoy!

Ribbon Fries! Lake Como Watching Fireworks in 50 degree weather. Porter I finally were able to take a vacation together! We were very excited. We got the car packed and ready for our 8 hr. drive up to Hamilton, Montana. My grandparents live there. I actually drove half of the way. Usually I try and get Porter to do most of the driving, hehehe! But I did my fair share this time. On our drive we saw over 20 deer (we stopped counting at 20) and I also saw elk, and LlAMAS!!! I love Llamas, they are so cute. We had a blast in Hamilton. We went to the Farmers market and I found lotion made from goats milk, we also found a fabulous booth with yummy cheesy crisps. Although, I bought a red velvet cake.....and it was the worst cake ever. So bland, I couldn't taste anything. It looked delicious, but I guess that's all it had going for it. We went to the rodeo and walked around. I tried "ribbon fries," a potato spiral cut then deep fried. It was kind of like a cross between f

This summer has been surprisingly busy busy so far. Both Porter and I are taking the summer off from doing shows....and I thought I would have so much free time! Ha, that's a good one. I finished up the school year teaching at Dancing Moose, and then I went right into teaching at the University of Utah's Youth Theatre Program. Currently, my company is producing a version of "Jack and the Beanstalk" written by yours truly. We perform in one week from now. Then I get a whole week off! I am super excited, it will be the first trip for me in a long time. Well, big trip. We did go up to Lava Hot Springs a few weeks ago, but that was just over night. This time, we will be gone for a week to Montana. My friend, Kim is going to house sit for us and watch the dogs..............umm, I hope she is still my friend when we come home! The puppies can be....challenging at times. Our garden is growing so well this year! I am very happy. We have already gotten to eat a some things in

We had a wedding on Saturday. Porter's little sister, Mckenzie, got hitched! I feel like it has been in the works for so long, I can't believe it's done! They were planning since January, and I was helping Kenzie with her hair and make-up and other misc. things so it's seems like we were planning for so long, and then suddenly the wedding was here. We got up at the crack of dawn, alarm goes off at 5:45 am, and we get up and start the crazy day. Porter went and picked Kenzie up so we could get started with the beautification process. It was very fun. We did a lovely hair do with loose curls and a few choice pieces swooped up. I thought it was so funny, she thought that I was putting to much "poof" in the hair. I on the other hand disagreed, I was like," you should see some of my theatre friends, they can have major poof in in their bumps!" And p.s. I LOVE volume in hair, so I kept trying to make nice and voluminous. I think we reached a happy medium.

Porter has really jumped onto this whole natural food kick I've been on. Which is fabulous! It makes eating together, and discussing our grocery list so much easier. He even has been cooking alot more. He makes me breakfast every morning, and not just pop tarts and a box juice, I'm talking about fresh made egg sandwiches with sauteed mushrooms! He is turning into a 5 star chef! We've been trying a bunch of new recipes lately. A few nights ago, Porter was like, "we should try to make our own veggie burgers." So, we began slicing, shredding and cutting up many different veggies. Everything was going well until we got to the part where it said we should use a food processor....well we don't own a food processor, but we had a magic bullet. Let's just say, it's not so magic. It took FOREVER to grind everything up. But, an hour later we had delicious veggie burgers! We even put A1 Steak Sauce on them. I think A1 is the reason I loved steak so much. They were

We haven't cut the puppies hair since the fall. Not counting the horrific haircut I tried to give Daisy. (She ended up looking like an old man dog, seriously) So, as you can imagine with their curly hair that is thicker than thick, there was a lot of hair to be dealt with. We try to brush it, but they don't hold still, and it can be quite a challenge. We took them into Petsmart, but I don't think the ladies there were very excited. They told us, they would have to shave them down a lot because the hair was just too thick. We were fine with that, after all $100 ish dollars later, we wanted the hair-do to last a while. So, 5 hours later this is what we got Before After

Lately, I've leading a revolution in my kitchen. I have been trying to rid my cupboards of all processed, unnatural, salty, sweet, oily goo that I used to think was food. This all began with the reading of a book entitled Gorgeously Green and The Gorgeously Green Diet both by Sophia Uliano. She talks alot about all the crap that is in our food and personal products that we don't know about. Also, a great movie, Food Inc. shows how corrupt the food industry is. My research has left me in shock, sadness, and anger over what has happened to our food. It isn't even food anymore, it's processed sugar and fat that has to be fortified with minerals and nutrients so that is can be passed off as "good for us." Why should food have to be fortified? Shouldn't it naturally contain everything we need from it? I am also appalled by the meat industry. The treatment of animals before, during and after slaughter is horrifying. In the book Skinny Bitch it details about

First, I must apologize for how long it has been since my last post. And second, I must thank one of my students for finding my blog and asking when I was going to post something new. So, thanks Buddy! Spring is finally here, the weather is warmer, the grass is getting greener, my tulips are starting to appear and I have a cold. A nasty cold, that has held on for 3 weeks! It is very frustrating, especially when I'm trying to perform and teach voice lessons. So, I been trying a new herbal remedy, Kombucha, it's this herbal tea that has been fermented. It's an ancient 'elixir of life' from China and Russia. It was thought to have made you live forever. I sure know I feel alive when I drink it! It has quite a kick to it, it's very tangy. My favorite flavor is the berry and hibiscus. I think the label said the one bottle contains over a billion organisms! So, I'm hoping those little guys will get to work and make me feel better. With spring in the air, Porter ha