Shower and Shrimp

We had a baby shower on Friday night for Scott's sister Lisa. She is having a baby girl in May. I was happy that my little home could fit 30 people- it was a great turnout. It was fun to see relatives from both sides of Scott's extended family. It's always fun when a bunch of girls get together.

The adorable little lady in green is Scott's youngest sister, who is in kindergarten! It is hard to believe she was 10 months old when Scott and I started dating! She and I are great friends. This year she started taking violin lessons and I am so proud :)

Check out that cake! One of Lisa's friends made it. It even had a little baby made out of fondant.

Easter was great. In keeping the tradition of my obsession with holidays, we did have easter baskets. We also had a fun egg hunt at my parents house (now that we are older the eggs are filled with $ instead of candy- how cool is that?) We got to see my Cutler-side extended family at a gathering on Sunday. It was great! (p.s. Colleen I want your jeans! They were sooo cute.)

I don't know if any of you like shrimp (I know for a fact a few of you don't :)...) but Scott and I LOVE coconut shrimp and I found a great recipe for it. I thought I'd put it on here in case anyone wants to try it. If you don't want to cook it yourself but want to taste it, just come to my house and I'll make it for you!

Coconut Shrimp
24 jumbo shrimp (1 1/2 pounds total) shelled and deveined- leave tails on
1 bag (7 ounces) sweetened flake coconut (2 2/3 cups)
3/4 cup blanched whole almonds (I used macadamia nuts instead because that's all I had)
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 teaspoon salt
Dipping Sauce
3-5 Tablespoons of Apricot preserves
3/4 cup of mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon of curry powder

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Chop up 2/3 cup coconut and the nuts untily finely ground. In medium-size shallow dish, stir together the ground up mixture, the remaining cocounut, and the flour. In small bowl, whisk together eggs and salt. Set up an assembly line for coating shrimp,

2. Slice the shrimp (not all the way through) from top to tail and flatten with your palm (to open it up). Dip it in the egg mixture allowing excess to drip back into bowl. Then transfer to coconut mixture, gently pressing with fingertips to help mixture adhere. Place shrimp on a lightly oiled cookie sheet.

3. Bake in a 450 oven for 10-12 minutes (or until brown) turning once.

4. If you want dipping sauce, combine ingredients, then cover and chill in fridge.

Enjoy!

Family & Sunshine: good combo

I don't know why I didn't blog about this sooner...but last weekend we were in beautiful St. George for 4 days with Scott's whole (immediate) family. It was so nice to see everyone, especially baby Linley who we met for the first time.

We all had fun hanging out in the hot tub (I didn't go in the pool because it always had a vacuum in it. Remember that story?) We went to a wildlife museum (hundreds of stuffed animals...even things like giraffes). It was really interesting, who knew there were such things as golden beetles? Of course we did classic things like eat at the Pasta Factory and go to the outlets. Scott was the champion shopper- at Rue 21 he bought three shirts at a dollar each.

We did do a little site-seeing. Lisa and I cut Joe and Scott's fun short when we pleaded they get away from these cliffs- they were scaring us so bad! It really was beautiful there- it was so nice to be in some 80 degree weather.

The boys had fun with a pickleball tournament that they organized- complete with brackets. If you don't know (like I didn't), pickleball is like mini tennis mixed with life-size ping pong.
Jeff was the winner, Scott came in 3rd I think.

We offered to take this little cutie home with us, but her parents are pretty fond of her too :) We loved seeing all our nieces, I'm sad we didn't take enough pictures on this trip. I hope we can all get together soon, we always have a blast. What a great family.

Wii both blog.

I (Scott) just wanted to take a moment to blog from the comfort of my couch. We just got internet from our Wii so we never have to move from our couch. Heather feels like this is something girls don't particularly blog about but I think it's entertaining. You might just see more frequent posts from me. For more entertaining posts feel free to scroll down to read about my beautiful wife's new do.

Did I?

Yes we all did it :) Here's the three of us a day after our haircuts! It feels great and now I am just wondering why I didn't do it sooner. Ashley ended up cutting 13 inches and I cut off 10. We donated our ponytails to Locks of Love. I still haven't got on the scale to see if I really did lose 'weight' by cutting it off but I swear my clippings weighed 2 pounds.

My friend Brittany who did all the work is great so if anyone in the Layton area needs a cut she works at the Old Mill Salon! We all recommend her :)

And here is a cute picture of little niece Claire today (just for fun).

I'm going to. Most likely.

In the past month or so I have been complaining about something quite a bit. My hair. Like I've said recently, it is the longest its ever been- which is cool. I haven't colored it in about 2 1/2 years, so I imagine it's pretty healthy. But I have reached the point where it is driving me crazy. Here are a few of my gripes about it- maybe some of you can relate:

1. It is so extremely thick that it is heavy! Oh man when I wear a ponytail (which is often...see #3) I get a headache within an hour that lasts all day.

2. I shed like crazy and it is kind of sick to find 16 inch hair all over.

3. It doesn't lay straight or go completely curly- so I either straighten or curl it every day. Since that takes too long I actually usually end up putting it in a ponytail.

As you probably guessed by now- I have decided to cut it. I'm doing it a little sooner than I expected because my sister Ash and sister in law Marilyn are cutting their hair on Saturday. (Ashley's is even longer than mine!). We decided to all do it together.

Scott has seen me flip flop about this decision all week. I know it is silly and seriously not a big deal, but it is still kind of emotional for me. I do LOVE having long hair when I actually take the time to do it.

So Scott called me on my way home from work today and told me that he had a surprise for me...a sort of hair-cutting-party. He told me he had made dinner reservations for us at a nice restaurant in Salt Lake. He told me to go home and put on a dress and fix my long hair all pretty 'one last time'. How fun!

Here are some pictures of me going-out-with-a-bang


I straightened my hair...






I put on these shoes...




...and we went to Bambara, the restaurant in Hotel Monaco.
It was beautiful and the food was divine! We had 3 courses and it was great to take it slow, enjoy our food, and talk (not just about my hair I promise).







Here's my goodbye picture. Or I guess you could say it's my 'before' photo. Check back next week to see the after shot (or after shock).


Unless I chicken out.