Recent Happenings

We recently journeyed to Boise, Idaho in order to attend Heather's grandmother's funeral. While in Boise, we went over to Dallin and Maren's apartment and hung out with them and little Noah. Then we came home. Despite my previous "snow picture" postings, I have to mention the incredible storm that we had last week. It took me probably two hours to get home, and when I made it home, I could only make it to the base of our driveway. We then spent that evening (until 1 AM) shoveling our driveway. The next morning, the driveway had to be shoveled again and I was sure to take some pictures so we can remember just how bad the snow was.

Jaiden Bouncing!

Jaiden's in the big tub now!

My Grandma

My grandma passed away on January 29th. I miss her very much. She was an extraordinary women. I felt like we were a lot alike. I got my red hair from her along with her gentle and loving personality. The talks we shared were invaluable. Her advice was something I cherished. I was also taught to say yes instead of ya, to sit up straight, to say thank you and please, to hold my head up high, to be positive, to be modest, to be respectful, to wash my face before bed, and to love everyone. She was a hard worker and loved her family very much. She was dignified in all she said and did. Some of my favorite memories with her were getting "pronto pups" with her in downtown Boise, hearing about her trips to places like Russia and San Francisco; playing Racko, trouble, rummy, and Sequence, her homemade chicken noodle soup, dinners in her fancy living room with her fancy dishes, getting to ride in her big blue car and using the automatic window buttons for the first time, playing my clarinet for her and bringing tears to her eyes, hearing her stories of Grandpa and my mom when she was younger, seeing a movie we wanted to see, getting ice cream at Baskin Robbins, always having candies in the bottom of her purse, getting to pick out Easter dresses, watching movies like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, An affair to Remember, and Miss Congeniality. I am very glad she got to spend some time with Jaiden. I hope that I can be the type of person she was.

Jaiden eats broccoli for the first time, laughs!

Tonight we tried giving Jaiden broccoli. He didn't like it very much and he got it all over his face, including his forehead! Just before I cleaned him up, I tried to make him laugh and he rewarded me with a really cute laugh. I happened to have the video camera handy so I captured the moment.

Update on snow and cake

It was actually raining last night! RAINING! We could hear the wind and rain pounding our house as we slept. I said "That's odd that it would be raining in January. I bet it snows." Sure enough, when I looked out the window, our cars, driveway, and the street in general are covered, deeper than it's been this year so far. Ugh, I really wish we had a snow blower.

After having made two cakes, I decide to make a smaller version of the cake (without frosting) to try to improve the taste. I decided that the foul taste I was detecting in the cake was not due to the whole wheat flour, but due to the olive oil (after tasting some plain olive oil by itself). So I replaced the olive oil with canola oil and remade the cake, using whole wheat flour, and half Splenda, half sugar. It actually tastes pretty good. In fact, Heather didn't even realize that I had used whole wheat flour!
So at this point, I would still like to eliminate as much of the sugar as possible so I thought as a possible compromise, I could replace half of the whole wheat flour with white flour, and add some Benefiber to offset the effects of the white flour. The problem is, I don't know how much fiber to add to make the white flour have as much fiber as whole wheat flour.

A healthier cake, and more snow

Last night, I tried an experiment to make a healthier cake. Instead of white flour, I used whole wheat flour. Instead of butter/margarine, I used olive oil. Instead of sugar, I used Splenda. Instead of eggs, I used egg whites.
The only area in which I "splurged" was using real powdered sugar for the frosting (mainly because I couldn't find a substitute for it).

How did it taste?
Like whole wheat pancakes, with a sugar-substitute after taste, and some chocolate.
It's not that good.
If I ever do this again, I will maybe mix the sugar-substitute with real sugar (as a compromise), and add some fiber to white flour (to approximate the same effect as using whole wheat flour). The olive oil and egg whites weren't a problem and I would definitely use them again.

This (Sunday) morning, it's snowing relentlessly AGAIN. Our street is completely covered with fluffy powder. I am not accustomed to the snow staying on the roads for this long. Shoveling the snow is becoming really tedious. I am becoming more and more in favor of a snow blower.