This weekend's adventures

To start off the weekend, Dallin got up early on Saturday morning and surprised

 me with a delicious omelet for breakfast. :) Yep, I am spoiled. It was so good! 

See the green onion heart? I'm SURE he did that on purpose... :P

Some of the adorable nieces and nephews I gained when we got married came up on Saturday. It was fun to see them! We went to a wildlife fair at the park with the crew. Cy liked watching this snake shed it's skin.

I like his face.

We also hiked Christopher Creek on Saturday. It was beautiful weather and such a pretty canyon. :)

A little slide 

Ryan and Dallin being manly

We were starving afterward so we went and got an Alfonso's burrito to share.
Yes, that is one burrito... isn't it huge?!

I bought myself a cute little tomato plant! 

I also FINALLY got some basil! I love being able to pick fresh basil from my own plants. And it smells SO good. 

I got to use some of my basil for the pizza margherita that we made

 yesterday for Dallin's parents to celebrate Mother's Day! Yum. :)

Look at this sweet present my husband got me for Mother's Day! It's a Lladró figurine. :) 

It's not a great picture but that's the best I could do. It looks so much prettier in real life!

If you don't know what Lladró is (I didn't until I was dating Dallin), it's a Spanish company that makes these beautiful porcelain figurines. Dallin brought some back from Spain, which is where he served his mission. We found this one at a thrift store for MUCH less than they usually cost and he tricked me into thinking it was for his mom. It worked... I was very pleasantly surprised when he gave it to me. :)

Also, speaking of Mother's Day presents, one of the perks of being married is getting a share of the treats they pass out to the mothers (or future mothers) in the ward. ;) Cha-ching!

(P.S. I am not pregnant... :P)

Well, that's pretty much it... have a lovely day! :)

Три месяца! (Three months!)

It's been three months since this happened:

This was such a happy day. It was also very stressful, busy, long, and exhausting... but so good. I know I was really happy then, but it just gets better every day. I sure got lucky. :)

Happy anniversary, Weeber! You're the best. :)

Blow guns, monkey bread, and clean windows

Last night we had some fun with the awesome blow guns that someone gave us for our wedding.
These things are addicting! I've been playing with mine all morning.

I like that the shadow above his head kind of looks like an afro. :)

Household items immediately became targets... naturally. At least for Dallin. ;)

Also, when he shot this tack it ricocheted off the candle on the left 

(see that little nick where it hit?) before sticking into the candle on the right. 

He was pretty proud of himself. :)

After a few minutes of goofing around with the tack, we set up a target and got serious.

Part of the reason we set up the target was the fact that we lost the tack somewhere, and also because I knew I had a much higher chance of hitting the target (or at least the box... haha) than a candle. ;) 

I definitely need to practice... haha. At least I did get that beaver on this round! 

(Mine are the orange/red darts, by the way)

Nicely done, babe!

We go on one planned date every week, but I love evenings like this where we start doing really random and spontaneous and have such a good time just being weirdos together. I'm still not sure how I got so lucky. I really, really like this guy. :) I love having fun with him every day. 

It seems like every post has something food related... I wouldn't want to break that streak today, would I? ;) I made some delicious monkey bread yesterday. Here's the recipe I used. It takes a looooong time to make since it has to rise twice, but it's worth it. Cream cheese frosting on top makes it ever better! 

Then again, cream cheese frosting makes everything better...

Plus, it is completely FAT FREE!

(Except the opposite... :P)

Last but not least, this video is awesome and you should watch it. :) It's really funny, but also makes some very good points. I know I need to work on always "keeping my windows clean". 

It's based on a story that President Thomas S. Monson, the president of my church, told in October 2010. You can find the whole talk here.  Here's one of my favorite parts:

"Charity is having patience with someone who has let us down. It is resisting the impulse to become offended easily. It is accepting weaknesses and shortcomings. It is accepting people as they truly are. It is looking beyond physical appearances to attributes that will not dim through time. It is resisting the impulse to categorize others."

-President Thomas S. Monson 

Happy a happy day! :)

-M 

Primary shenanigans, pizookie magic, and curry

(This is a pretty random post... consider yourself warned. :P)

I teach the 9-year-old primary class in our ward. It's the best! My kiddos are so cute and they teach me so much every week (...especially when it comes to patience :P).

Today was a little weird. Everyone was in a goofy mood, and not just my class either. My lesson might have been a flop this week but at least I was always entertained. Here are some examples of today's shenanigans:

• While I was teaching my class about Alma and Amulek in prison, I asked a question (I think it had to do with how they were able to endure the persecution or something like that) and one of the kids shot up his hand and said, "I love potatoes. I don't know why, but I just DO!" Hmmm... well, good to know I suppose! :)
• Later on, we were talking about how it was through the power of God that Alma and Amulek were able to escape from prison, and I asked my class if they could think of an example of a time when someone might need Heavenly Father's help. The same kid who likes potatoes so much raised his hand and said that maybe if someone was robbing a bank you were at then you could pray for God to protect you. That's sound, right? It wasn't until primary was almost over that one of the kids, clearly very confused, asked me why I agreed with their classmate when he said that God would help us rob banks if we prayed for Him to help us. I'm just glad they asked me so we could clear that up, not that I didn't want them telling their parents that Sis. Durfee teaches them that God will help them rob banks... hahaha!
• The kid sitting in front of me during sharing time turned around and asked me how old my "boyfriend" was. Nope, that would be my husband! 
• After overhearing that, the kid who likes potatoes gasped, stared at me with big eyes, and exclaimed, "You're married? I thought you were like 15!" Oh geeze.

Maybe I should start writing these things down every week... haha. These are just a few of the gems I remember from today, and my kids say and do awesome things every week. It makes me excited to be a teacher! :)

On a somewhat unrelated note, I will be happy when everyone in our ward figures out that (a) I am not in Young Women and (b) I am Dallin's wife, not his sister. Someone tried to steer my to the YW room again this week. I guess I should have introduced myself when I bore my testimony today to help clear that up... hahaha.

This weekend Dallin went to do a canyon that is a little too hard-core for me, so I went to visit my family and stuff while he was gone. 

I finally got to have a pizookie with Alix, the first one we've had since before we went to Russia last year. She is awesome, and man did that pizookie taste good, as always! Maybe one day I'll figure out how to duplicate it... 

I made curry for dinner. I hope they have this in heaven because it is so, so good. ;) 

That's pretty much it for now... have a happy week!

Happiness is a thankful heart

Today is such a beautiful day. I went and sat on our deck out back for a while this morning since the weather is so perfect. The sky is blue, the trees are spring green, and the air smells sweet like summer.

I was in a thoughtful mood, thanks to the beauty and peacefulness. Here's what I was thinking about.  

It is so easy for me to forget how blessed I am. I am not thankful enough for all the wonderful people and opportunities and happiness in my life. The past few days I have been kind of stressed about some silly things, and it hasn't exactly made me feel like a ray of sunshine, to say the least. ;) I realized today that usually when I feel like this it is because I haven't taken the time to count my blessings and appreciate all the good things I have in my life. 

It's amazing what a difference it makes in my life when I am aware of and thankful for my blessings. I can't name them all, but here's the main ones I've been thinking about this morning.

1. My faith. I can't imagine not having the gospel in my life. The knowledge that my Heavenly Father and my Savior live and know me personally means everything to me.

2. My husband. I don't even know where to begin... All I know is that I am the luckiest girl that ever lived, and I'm so lucky blessed to be "stuck" with someone that loves me as much as he does. :)

3. My family. I know that I am who I am because of my family, especially my parents, and I will always be so thankful to them for putting up with their feisty, stubborn, redheaded daughter. :) And I really lucked out when it came to my in-laws, that's for sure! They are awesome. :)

I was looking up some stuff about gratitude on www.lds.org and found this
poem that President Eyring shared in this talk. I loved it so I had to add it to this post. 

Some murmur when the sky is clear

And wholly bright to view,

If one small speck of dark appear

In their great heaven of blue.

And some with thankful love are filled,

If but one streak of light,

One ray of God's good mercy, gild

The darkness of their night.

-Richard Chenevix Trench

Have a happy day, and don't forget to be thankful. :)

Stalkers vs. Stockers

Random story of the day: A couple of years ago, I was shoppin' away at Target. I think my mom sent me to pick up some things since it is a lot easier for me to make a quick trip to the store than it is for her since she comes with a herd of wild animals children.

(Just kidding... they really are pretty well-behaved kiddos :P)

I was trying to find a lip to fit the rubbermaid container I wanted when this guy (who didn't appear to be an employee) came up to me and asked if I needed help finding anything. He was acting weird and attempting to be flirty, which is probably why I didn't understand the next thing he said at first.

Here's what I heard:

"I'm a stalker."

What he actually said:

"I'm a stocker."

Thankfully, he clarified his meaning when he saw the confused look on my face.

"I'm a stocker... I stock the shelves. It's my day off."

That makes much more sense, wouldn't you say? I love English...

Be an Optimist Prime, not a Negatron

This weekend we went and did a couple of canyons. The water was cold, but it was awesome! Plus, I can now say I've done a 180 foot rappel... the highest one I have done so far. Here's a few pictures.

Yes, that is SNOW. 

Dallin pulling out some ninja moves to stay out of the water

The big 180 footer! Those are trees at the bottom, not bushes... haha

Here I go! :) 

Once I had the chance I took a couple pictures to try to capture how high I was. I was almost halfway down at this point, but the ground is still pretty dang far away! That is Dallin way down there. 

Take 2... a little better focused on the ground. It was really hard to take pictures with my left hand especially with thick gloves on... 

Here I come! :) 

I like this guy. :)

We also made pizza margherita this weekend, which is THE best pizza ever, in my opinion. It tastes so fresh and I just love it. It's my favorite for sure. The sauce is made with fresh tomatoes, salt, and a little olive oil, and it is topped with mozzarella cheese and fresh basil. SO GOOD.

My mouth is watering just looking at this...

Yesterday was such a good Sunday. We spoke in the Spanish branch (That's what I get for marrying someone who went to Spain on his mission :P) which was fun. I liked hearing Dallin speak in Spanish, even if I didn't understand all of it. ;) My primary lesson went well too, and that always makes me happy since it is hard to have a good lesson sometimes with squirmy 9-year-old boys! The rest of the day was really nice as well. Sunday is my favorite day of the week by far. :)

I also indexed for the first time yesterday. I've been meaning to do it for a really long time (like... years, unfortunately), but just never begun. If you don't know what I am talking about, you can go here to learn more and maybe start doing it yourself! Basically, you just type up family history information from scans of genealogical documents so that there is a digital, searchable copy. Right now the focus is on the 1940 census that was recently released. It is really easy to do, and I've enjoyed it quite a bit more than I was expecting, to be honest! :) It is cool to think about the people whose names and information I am indexing and wonder about what they were like and the kind of lives they lived.

Seriously though, if you have been thinking about indexing but haven't started yet, I highly recommend it! I wish I had started a long time ago. It's a very easy way to do something very worthwhile.

And... this is completely unrelated, I just think it is awesome and it makes me happy. :)

Are you an Optimist Prime, or a Negatron? :)

Have a happy day! :)

-M