Bountiful Baskets

If you haven't heard of Bountiful Baskets, listen up! If you have heard of them, but haven't tried it yet, you have just got to do it! If you are interested in trying, you are welcome to split a basket with me, seeing as how I can't usually eat it all anyways! Today was my second time buying a basket and I am still in awe at how much fruits and veggies you get for only $15!

Bountiful Baskets is a food co-operative, meaning that it is all run by volunteers. Which also means that what you pay for your produce doesn't have to pay employees as well! The produce is purchased from local farms in different areas, so you can feel good about supporting small businesses too! Bountiful Baskets has pick up locations in across Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Nevada, and Washington. All you have to do to participate is log on to their website (either Monday or Tuesday, depending on where you live. Utah is Monday.) and pick your location and contribute your $15. The following Saturday, you take your own basket (a big laundry basket with handles makes for easier carrying) and your receipt to your chosen location and you get to go home with all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables.

This is the basket that I got this week. Wow! Look at all that health! 10 tomatoes, 9 bananas, 6 bell peppers, strawberries, celery, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, 8 peaches, 9 pears, a cantaloupe, and grapes!

They also will have add-ons available like fresh tortillas, bread, and other fruits and vegetables. My sister did get the tortillas once, and they were so big she didn't know how she was going to cook them!

My favorite thing about doing this is that it encourages me to try new things. The first basket that I got had brussel sprouts in it. I have never had them before and it was a great opportunity to try them!

If you haven't yet, you should give Bountiful Baskets a try! Visit their website for more info!

Credit is due

I need to give some people some credit for my couponing. I said that I went to this class that my cousin put on and it was great. The women who put it on does this blog she shops smart. IT seemed so easy, fast, and practical. I decided to give it a go and I had my exciting shopping trip yesterday. She showed us how to use a website called grocery smarts. Grocery Smarts takes all of the weekly ads from the newspaper and matches them up with the coupons to get you the best deals. They do all the work for you! And you get all the fun money saving benefits! Best part of all, both sites are FREE! I hope that I can keep up with doing this and see how much money I can save!

Trends

Usually I am the absolute most stubborn person when it comes to being "trendy". I will do absolutely everything possible to get away from any current "trends". However. A month or so ago I went to a class on couponing that my cousin hosted. (Thanks Kindra! and Mike and Trudy!) And that was the day that my life changed forever. HA ha, just kidding, but really. Today was my first real coupon experience. This is what I bought. Your job is to guess how much I paid.

10 boxes of cereal, 10 yogurts, 2 packages of ham, and some corn tortillas.

St. Louis

Kyle has been busy flying all over the country doing interviews for pharmacy residency. He had interviews in Madison Wisconsin, Nashville Tennessee, Lexington Kentucky, Los Angeles California, and St. Louis Missouri. I was only able to go with him to St. Louis, but it was still a good get away for a few days.

We went to the St. Louis Zoo, which was really cool! The best part about it was that it was free! They had a lot of children's exhibits that you had to pay to get into, but the main zoo was free. The only down side was that the day that we decided to go it was pretty rainy. By the end of our trip the map was falling apart because it was all wet. Some of the animals weren't outside because it was so wet, but we were able to see a lot of them inside of the buildings.

We also went on a tour of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. It was pretty interesting to hear about how the beer is made. It was like a science field trip! And we got to see the dalmation, and a few of the clydesdayles.

Of course the gateway arch was a must see when in St. Louis. I have been to the top of it before with my dad and Sam, but kyle never had seen it. We were lucky that the day we went it was clear skies so we were able to see a lot out of the top.

Christmas

I only got a two week break for Christmas so we took full advantage of the little time we had. This is the only break that I have until I graduate, so we went out to California to see Kyle's family. On our way out we decided to spend a few nights in Las Vegas. While we were in Las Vegas we went on Let's Make a Deal and went to the Las Vegas Bowl.

We didn't get picked to make a deal with Wayne Brady, but it was still a lot of fun! We went to two tapings and on the second one they sat us right behind Wayne, so we were on the TV for most of the show. Our costumes were made by one of Kyle's co-workers, Winter. They made them for themselves for halloween and we borrowed them for the show. They were a real hit! During the first taping during the breaks the whole crowd was chanting, "sushi! sushi!". It was a lot of fun. These pictures aren't the greatest, I had to take them of the tv, and the recording got deleted, so they are all we have!

The Las Vegas Bowl was sooo cold! The wind was blowing really hard, they said that there were gusts of up to 42 mph and it was 45 degrees. We were definately bundled up as much as we could be!

This video shows some highlights and some good shots of how windy it was!

We were able to spend about a week with Kyle's family too, which was really nice. Marsha (Kyle's Mom) had connections to a behind the scenes look at the rose parade. It was really cool to see how much time is put into these floats. They were so detailed!

Happy Birthday!

My dad's birthday is today. I made for him an Ice Scraper Mitt It is basically a mitten that has a hole in the top so that you can put an ice scraper inside of it. It is felted, so it will hopefully keep your hands warm and dry! Happy birthday dad!

ever bearing raspberries

These raspberries were picked off of our plants TODAY! November 6th, 2009 and we still have raspberries growing! We planted these plants in the fall of 2008, and didn't even expect to have many berries on them at all, let alone clear into november! Apparently there is a kind of raspberry called ever berries that produce fruit longer than normal raspberries, who knew?! There are still a lot out there, so we will see how much longer they last!

These plants have done all this growing in one year! We planted two raspberry and two blackberry plants and they have taken over!