floating the river. or canal.

friday night recap

What do you do to celebrate not eating out for not one meal for two weeks?
Go and eat out of course!!
But of course we used a coupon. Fong's always has a printable coupon. Thanks Fong's.
Mr. Fong has the best chinese food hands down. Get the sesame beef or chicken.



After dinner we decided it would be a good idea to go on a 10 mile road bike ride. A sweaty road bike ride at that. I wanted it to be a nice stroll, but Kevin wouldn't have it. With him, it's always who can go the fastest. Kevin won.

Right when we got back into our car after the ride, we both said "Sonic?". Oh we are so alike.



We then got into bed with our drinks and popcorn bowl.

sleep fighter

Last night I suddenly woke up with my heart beating fast and only knowing something scary happened whether it was in my dream or in real life.

When I called my husband later in the day, my husband quickly said:

"Oh sorry that I hit you last night..."
Me: "Wait, whaaaat...that was you!? I woke up in the middle of the night horrified."
Him: "Yeah, I was sleep fighting."
Me: "You were what?"
Him: "Sleep fighting. I was on my mission and I got into a fight with some guy. I threw him to the ground and then was elbowing him in the face."
Me, laughing: "You tried elbowing me!? I can't believe you."
Me: "Why didn't you give me a hug, or say sorry last night?"
Him: "I had to get back to my fighting!!!"

Unbelievable.
This guy keeps me laughing and on my toes at all times, love him.

recipe: teriyaki chicken & broccoli

This sauce is so delicious,
And it makes dinner easy.
All you do is chop some chicken up, saute it in some EVOO until cooked, add as much sauce as you want and cook cook cook it. I like to cook it for 10-15 minutes so the sauce thickens/reduces and coats chicken well.
Yum yum yum.
I then steamed some broccoli in the microwave while it was cooking and then threw it in at the last minute.

We buy this sauce in the huge bottle at Costco. We love Costco. I don't know what we do without it. Especially the $1.50 hot dog and drink. And the $1 churro. Mmmm.

fail video

Here is our fail video from our day trip to Deer Creek.
Sorry if you get sick watching it, I am horrible at video-ing. I sometimes forget I am filming so it tends to get really bumpy. And I was on a boat for goodness sake.
Enjoy the poor quality video. We still have not figured out the best way to export videos from our canon T3i. Does anyone have any tips??

Deer Creek from Mal Brower on Vimeo.

pickles and popsicles

What do you do when it is too hot to play outside? You lay in bed, crank up the fan and room air conditioner, take off your shirt and eat a popsicle! Ellie even finished her popsicle before Kevin. That's how much she enjoyed it. She would even get lazy and try and lay down while sucking on the 'sickle. I know Ellie, our bed is just that comfy.






Umm... MORE please!

But don't worry, we didn't only give her just a popsicle to eat.
She ate raisins, pickles (LOVED these), and a roll. But I really don't think she ate any of the roll because there were crumbs. all. over. the. house.




Ellie the pickle monster.

deer creek extravaganza

Boating with the Brower boys always provides the best entertainment. Its even better when they bring friends who are willing to do anything to get a laugh. Our celebratory boating excursion for the 24th of July was no exception. Even though the lake was jam-packed, party boats would get in our way, everyone followed us around the lake thinking we knew where all the good water was (we did), and no one had any boat etiquette (what has this world come too?!) we still had a grand time.









Patrick and his homemade spear gun. That thing is deadly. Beware fish.



Little Patrick was learning how to drive on this little boating trip. Unlucky for me that I got caught in the middle of it. Not knowing that Pat was going to take off, I reached over to grab some apples out of the cooler. The slacked rope caught me right on my stomach when I was bending over and threw me from the middle of the boat, to almost the back deck of the boat. Luckily, one of Mitchell's friends caught me mid-air. It was intense. I even had my camera in hand through all this; you should have seen how strongly I held onto that thing. Death grip. I am surprised I didn't smash it. So this is my lovely little rope burn that I got.



The crew. Shout out to Blake in the green shirt. Thanks for saving me.

recipe: quinoa/mushrooms/spinach

This was tasty and easy. And I had it all on hand which made it even better.

Quinoa with mushrooms & spinach

1 cup quinoa
2 1/4 cup chicken or vegetable broth
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp thyme

Put all in rice cooker. Mix and cook.

1 Tb olive oil
1/2 chopped onion
1 tsp minced garlic

Saute onions until desired softness. About 5-10 minutes. Remove from pan.

1 Tb olive oil
8 ounces sliced mushrooms
4 tsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable broth
1 tsp thyme
salt and pepper to taste

In same pan heat oil and saute mushrooms for 5 minutes. Add rest of ingredients and cook until the sauce is reduced to desired consistency.

spinach (however much you want to add)

Add spinach and already cooked onions to pan and cook for about a minute. Remove from heat. Add cooked quinoa. Mix and enjoy!
You could top it with goat cheese (any kind of cheese for that matter) and extra balsamic vinegar.

Draper Days '11

I am a very proud Draperian. That means I love Draper Days. Growing up, I always remembered it being huge and filled with fun. One fond memory I have of Draper Days is where me and my friend Whitney decided to do the over-sized boxing glove game. She went crazy on me and hit me left and right (she had a killer left hook). I quickly gave up and recruited myself to the corner where she continued to hit me. I was laughing so hard telling her to stop, when I peed my pants. And I couldn't stop. She only stopped hitting me when our time was up. I feel bad for the next fighters. That wasn't sweat on that little blow up boxing arena.

Now that I know my bladder can't handle any blow-up toy offered; I just look forward to the fireworks. I dare say Draper throws the best firework show ever. Or maybe its because we have the best place to watch them. They pretty much fire them off right in my in-laws backyard. You feel every single firework.



I tried to get a picture of all us Brower couples but since it was too dark, I pretty just held the camera out and hoped everyone was in it. I had to try a few times. Every one with "Ok guys one more!" with the flash incredibly blinding. As you can tell.



1st try.
heres kevin going "ahh mal stopppp it! too bright!"



oops sorry jumeee. i'll try again



haha jeremy's face.



I got one!



and all the teenagers coming off the roof. we were helping them get off with our flash. or maybe we were blinding them...

this made me laugh...

And right when I showed it to kevin, he laughed.



I am really not so sure why it is so funny...but it is.

me rope swinging

And here was my attempt at the rope swing they made for us girls. I am sure you will notice how awkward I am and how my legs and arms go limp. They didn't know what to do. Thank goodness I at least let go.

your gonna wanna see this...

Here is a video recap of our awesome little weekend getaway:

friend time

Our friends Jordan and Jennie invited us to their families cabin up in Eden.
Holy cow were we in for a treat.
They own the most beautiful cabin known to mal.
It had everything you could dream of: candy, soda, pinball machines, arcade games, ping-pong, billiards, some sand game, huge theater with legit theater seats and crazy surround sound, flat screens in every room, a huge pond filled with fish in the backyard, horses, and last but not least...steam showers. You may not think that a steam shower would be that cool... until you try one. Oh man. Once you take one, you can't go back. Kevin was in love. Right when we got home he googled how much one would cost.
Too much.
But then I gots to thinking...Hey we have one right at home and we didn't even know it! Our clothes dryer that we have is pretty darn old (but it works great). Whenever it dries, it steams up (mainly heats up) our little basement apt. So I usually close the bathroom door (yes our washer and dryer is in our one and only bathroom) and let our bathroom take in all the heat. It ends up a steamy mess in there. Well who know you could actually enjoy it. All you need is to take a shower during the drying of clothes and VIOLA! a steam shower.

Back to the cabin.
We did everything. Jordan and Jennie were the best hosts ever.
We went to the hot pots late sunday night. Then came back and all fell asleep to Iron Man 2.
We got up early to go wake-boarding and despite some rain, it was a beautiful day.
We found a rope swing and the boys went to town on that thing. Us girls just stayed in the boat and had some "girl talk."
But then the boys made us a mini rope swing off the boat just for us girls. Such sweeties.
We were worn out by 1 and decided to head back to the cabin to treat ourselves to a matinee in their huge theater.
But we didn't forget to take a 30 minute long steam shower before.
What do you think the boys picked? Yep, Star Wars. It was epic. Until we all fell asleep. Again.

It was an awesome weekend.
Goodbye and thank you steam showers.