Friends for Everyone!

We hung out with some of our Philly friends recently, the Green family! We have so much fun with these guys! We ventured across the Delaware river to the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ (which was awesome!) and right in front of the Aquarium you get a great view of Philly! Do you see it?! Pretty cool.We had a great time and are so grateful for the wonderful friends we have made out here. Everyone in our ward has been so friendly and we've been loving every minute of it! It makes all the difference when Ben is so busy in school. So here's a few pics of us with our friends!

Dylan & Skyler (Which one is Dylan?) We get these two mixed up all the time!

So CUTE! Claira & Jayda (Claira has officially perfected her short people hug...you know what I'm talkin' bout Teresa! lol! You too Karina!)

Just adorable!

Me & Teresa

Lies, Deceit, & Mystery Meat

Let's start out by saying that my kids have become extremely picky eaters as of late. It's very frustrating always needing a "backup" dinner in case they hate what I cook. Hard times call for extreme measures. I ran out of dinner ideas last night as well as chicken & beef...so we were left with seafood (which I LOVE) and my kids aren't fans at all. I got out my Jumbo bag of large Scallops and my evil mind started concocting all kinds of mischief! Muhahhahaha! I tossed those babies in some bread crumbs and fried them in olive oil and BAM guess what they looked like after that? Deliciously round chicken nuggets! Oh yes I did. I put them on the table and Claira warily looked at them, picked one up, examined it, then took the tiniest bite out of it and said "Is this fish?" I looked at her (feeling ridden with guilt inside) and asked innocently "does it taste like fish?" she said "yes" and I said "That's funny! They're chicken nuggets, silly!" she then starts cracking up and to my amazement she said " Well, this is the best chicken you've ever made!" HA! She then proceeds to tell me she is going to eat 10 "nuggets", and of course after Claira's approval Dylan predictably followed suit. She then asked Ben "What kind of chicken is this?" He slyly replied, "Just regular chicken." "Oh, it seems like I've had this kind of chicken before." "You have," Ben said with a grin (she had tried scallops before and refused to eat them). All I gotta say is RASCALS! I never revealed my little secret and I don't plan to...We got 2 more bags of scallops in the freezer! I love my kids so much, they rock my socks off! Here's to lies, deceit and mystery meat!

BBQ Time!

So I have decided to attempt to teach myself how to BBQ this year. So far it's been a lot of fun and surprisingly delicious. We've tried burgers, steak & potato kabobs, hot dogs (can't really screw those up haha) and most deliciously s'mores! The kids get so excited when we fire that baby up, they are mesmerized by the flames and most importantly they love eating the goods (Especially s'mores! Mmmm!) Nothing like a bbq to kick off the summer! YUM!

In Dylan's words "It's Bob-Q time!"

My professional kabob baster hard at work!

Steak & Potatoes...mmmmmm!

I Love To See the Temple!

We were finally able to make it down to the Washington D.C. Temple for the first time on Saturday for our ward temple day! It was really cool because the Primary held an activity for the primary kids so the parents could go to the temple, and there was also babysitting for nursery aged kids too, so we had no excuse not to go! It was a really fun day for Claira she was so excited to be able to see and touch the temple and tour the visitors center. The Primary leaders did an amazing job! We are so grateful to have this temple and will never take a temple for granted again...like in Utah when we could drive 5 minutes to the temple as opposed to 2 1/2 hours. it is such a beautiful temple! We had a wonderful time together as a family and ward, it really was an amazing day:) after our session we took the kids on a walk around the temple grounds and we saw a bunny and a deer just frolicking around! If you've never been here, the temple really is situated in a dense forest kind of area, you really can't see anything around the temple but thick trees, (and apparently bunnies and deer) it's so quiet and serene! We loved it!