living with an extreme skier

Living with an extreme skier is not easy. I get worried sick sometimes when he goes out to do some big mountain skiing. Especially after he shows me video of what he hit or what he had to climb up. So now I don't let him tell me. I just don't want to know; it is better that way.
Well today I get the text:
"Hey babay i bit a hole in my tongue again and popped off my 2 front veneers. Stupid. So now i am at the oral surgeon getting x-rays and seeing what needs to be done, im ok call or text me"
First thing, I am relieved. He just has a hole in his tongue and a few missing teeth, thats it!
So I call him and all I hear is gibberish. I had a hard time not laughing while trying to understand him. I am so mean.
Well I guess all he needed was stitches, so they set up an appointment for a few hours later.
He comes home, followed with more gibberish. "Boy I cant understand a word your saying" I say to him.
So I then take him to the doctor. All the way in the car the husband is yelling "I AM A MONSTER!" (Buster from Arrested Development anyone?). But it sounds more like "I mmmm UH MONSHHHHHHEEEEER!"
When we walk in, the doctor makes fun of husband and his gibberish. Funny doctor...
They take husband back, and I am left with magazines.
An hour passes and I am woken up by them asking me to go back to see him. I get all the info on his meds and then husband shows me all his cool pictures on his phone he so diligently asked the doctor to take. A little too much happy gas I think.
We go get his antibiotics filled and then I run to work (late).
Husband has to go get his antibiotics on his own, and ends up going to Wendys to get a frosty. He knows he speaks gibberish now, so he types on his phone what he wants and hands it to them. I wish I could have seen that.
Now we are watching Whip It while he tries to eat some mashed potatoes. He is still speaking gibberish. I need to learn this gibberish. And fast.

cookin' light

So I subscribed to the Cooking Light magazine and boy do I love it. They always have such yummy looking recipes, and also recipes that don't require an arm and a leg to make.
Tonight I made the:

Caramel Pork

1 lb pork tenderloin, cut into pieces
1/2 cup chopped sweet onion
3 garlic cloves
1/2 cup chicken broth
3 T brown sugar
1 Tb soy sauce
1 t. ground fresh ginger ( I really like ginger so I did 1 Tb)
1/2 t. crushed red pepper (I omitted this; we don't like things spicy over here)
2 canned anchovy fillets, minced (I wanted bonus flavor, so I did 3. But I think you should try 4)
lime wedges (optional)

Heat skillet with cooking spray, add pork and saute for 5-6 min. Add 1/4 t. salt. Add onion and garlic, stir-fry for 2 min. Add broth and next 5 ingredients (through anchovy); bring to a boil. Reduce heat, simmer 5 min, until sauce thickens.

Yummy dummy.
I served it with roasted potato wedges and a carrot slaw. It is pictured with rice and peas. Just couldn't get myself to make it. Peas are nasty. And mushy. No bueno.

Carrot Slaw

jullienne-cut carrots
2 Tb sesame oil
2 Tb rice vinegar
1 Tb soy sauce
2 t. honey
1/4 t. salt

mix all together and enjoy

star wars education week

So husband reeeeallly, reeeealllly likes Star Wars. I mean really likes Star wars. When he was little, his parents recorded Star Wars on a VHS tape. Him and his siblings watched it over, and over, and over again. He says it was his babysitter.
He has tried a few times to get me to watch it. But I have a tendency of falling asleep during movies. So I would fall asleep, and he would get really, really angry. "You don't have any respect for Star Wars" he would say.
So I finally talked him into letting me watch it again; and told him I would dedicate the week to it. I called it Star Wars Education Week. He approved and so it started.

Why education week? Well after marrying husband, I clearly needed to gain respect for the movie. But more importantly, I needed to understand the movie. I may or may not of said in the theater at SW Episode lll, "What? HEEEE is Darth Vader!!!!!!?????" a little too loudly. My family will never let that down. I honestly had no idea. Who would have thought that good, little Anakin would turn into the villain?

And even more recently, while re-watching this same movie, did I realize that Anakin was the father of the twins. And these twins were Luke and Leia (I always thought Padme was Princess Leia). And when I learned this, it all became clear:

"LUKE, I AM YOUR FATHER" - Darth Vader
He truly was Lukes father.
Wow. Everything is falling into place now.

And so now you understand why, clearly, I need this week.

baby # 3

ok now this is funny.

So remember me telling you all that my husband has a baby blanket?
Well he still cuddles with it every night (he might not want me telling you this, but for this story, it is necessary information)
So today while I am cleaning our room, I grab his blanket (aka baby) off the bed. I then get confused; there is a baby in my hand, and a baby on the bed. This is not good.
Somehow, his blanket has been ripped into two. Good thing Kevin was already at work... So I go to work and forget about it. I get home late and go to our bedroom to change into some pajamas. Oh crap. He still doesn't know. I hurry and change and slowly walk out to the living room with the two babies in hand. This is how the conversation went:

me: "Kevin, ummm, look what I found while I was cleaning..."
him: doesn't look up yet
me: "your baby somehow....um...got ripped into two..."
him: he quickly looks up "WHAT??"
and right when he sees it, the anger comes out...
"what the HELL happened?
(you know he is angry when he swears, this is not an often occurrence)
me: I started laughing, really hard
him: "What did you do to it!!?"
me: still laughing
him: he starts trying to cuddle with it
"No no no, this isn't going to work!!"
me: still laughing, he is so cute when he is mad
him: "Mal, why would you do this! You just changed your position from my baby #1, to baby #3! Not smart."
" I have had this for 26 years, 26 years! And right when I marry you, you ruin it!"
hahaha he still thinks I did it
i totally didn't

I did not think he would take it this hard. Its so cute.

So now he is cuddling with my baby.

our valentines

Last week I got to go up with Kev, Mitchell, and Mark to watch them ski race the Masters at Park City. I looooove watching Kevin race. I never really get to see him truly ski, since whenever he skis with me, its very low key. Well this race was going to be a good one, since Mitchell is now back. He was 12th in the nation before his mission. So you can imagine how badly Kevin wants to beat his little brother. So for this race, they gave each other handicaps, and put $100 on the table for the winner. Mitchell ended up getting 1st in the races and Kevin got 3rd. I told Mitchell to go back on his mission (I was kidding....). They then tallied up their handicaps, and Kevin ended up winning the $100! Surprisingly, Kevin alloted this money for Valentines Day.
So the day after Valentines (we both had to work that night), we went skiing at Solitude, then decided to stay downtown in a hotel and enjoy a yummy dinner. We both looove staying in hotels. We love the hotel TV (we don't have cable at our house), I love to make the complimentary coffee just for the smell, and I love to go get ice out of the ice machine...oh the list could go on; lets just say I always use all the amenities being provided for me. We even used the hot tub which had a beautiful view of temple square. We had it to ourselves for a while until two guys with their big gulps barged in on the too-small hot tub. They were clearly not LDS but thoroughly enjoyed the view of the temple. When they looked out the window one guy said "Hey look, theres the temple right there!" And the other guy replied (with his hillbilly accent) "Well, no Shiiiiit, it is right there! Thats really pretty!"
This was our view from our hotel room of temple square and the capitol.

brown-bagged our lunch. have you ever had the basil pesto and roasted tomato basil pesto from pirate o's? it completes a turkey sandwich. it makes the best sandwiches ever.
kevin making a business call. first night and day away from his business. a lot of calls were made.

For dinner we were planning on going to The Copper Onion. I have heard it is really good, but so had a lot of other people. The wait was far too long for us so we ended up going to Macaroni Grill. But since my mind was set on having a good juicy steak from the Copper Onion, Macaroni Grill's fish did not satisfy. And the presentation was horrible. And yes, I am a food snob now. I blame it all on working in the "fine dining" business.
This Valentines ended up being so much better than last years. That day was spent with food poisoning, and not enjoying the company of the toilet all day.

and here is kevin showing his skills

and me showing my skills. kevin tried to catch up to me...but failed. Who's the pro-skier now?..
ha and the tuck at the end...oh dear...

he tried to get Ugg to sponsor me

At the SIA show, Kevin found an Ugg booth. Because of my great love of Uggs, he went up and tried to get them to sponsor me. It didn't work. He even tried to buy some samples off them. That didn't work either. Stupid, always expensive Uggs.
He got all of this from his sponsors. It. was. all. free.
Kevin is their poster boy

and of course some more publishments...

as of late

The photo that won the Salt Lake Shootout 2010. This year, it will be Kevin.

Nothin too exciting happening over here at the Brower residence lately. Kevin has been doing the Salt Lake Shootout all this week which means he is gone from 7 am to 10 pm every day. Joy. But he has been skiing, so he is a happy camper. And by golly have I ever mentioned how much work it is to feed this man of mine? I think cooking and packing food for him could be a full-time job.

It has just been school and work for me. My classes can be quite a headache this time around; every week I leave my health econ class with one. There is a lot of debating. For both (in actuality, 3) of my classes, my professors and TA's have let their political beliefs shine right on through. There is no holding back; especially for my health econ professor. She is pretty stubborn. But in reality, especially here in Utah, we are all pretty stubborn about our beliefs and political views. So you can imagine the heat this causes in my classes.

So one argument we had in class was whether health care was a human right or not.
What do you believe?
I personally believe it is not. I believe health care should be obtained, not freely given. I cannot stand to think about all the lazy, no-good people out there receiving government money, our tax dollars, every month and calling it good. Thinking that they don't need to work, don't need to add to our society, and don't need to pay back there debt to our country. I know there are people out there who need it and don't abuse it. I know there are people that need help. But I know there is also a lot of lazy people out there too. Even just talking to a kid in my class who is an EMT in Salt Lake has helped back my thoughts. He says that the majority of people that call for an ambulance and receive emergency care are under Medicaid. He also says that the majority of the people that call are hypochondriacs and call weekly. Most of you know that emergency care is very expensive. Well, we are paying for all of these visits. Too many people think, oh our government has it don't worry, they pay for it. No this is not how it works, where does the government get its money?.....Us. And lots of the time, these people go to the ER, get treated, and don't pay their fees. Who covers this? We do.

I told my group in my class how I felt about this, and they could not believe me (other than the EMT kid, he had my back). They thought I was a horrible person, not caring about the poor people in our nation, how could you!? they said. One kid in particular thought I was the worst person on earth. I asked him if he paid taxes. He didn't answer. He just said he wanted to "equalize the playing field." You know, socialize; spread the wealth. I told him a story. I said ok kid, lets say we socialize this class. That would mean that we all would have to do equal work, equal studying, equal presenting, equal everything. Well so far A. You have missed an entire class (3 hour class, only 3 classes so far) B. You are always late to class C. You have completely missed a test (aka you failed) and D. On the one test you did take you pretty much failed (sorry kid I saw your score). As for me, I have been to every class, taken every test, did well on the tests, and I am always on time. But because of us being socialized, I take care of your failures and absences. I equal it out. So how do you think I feel right now? I work very hard, I dedicate my time; where you are lazy, late and fail. Can you see why maybe I don't like you? Why maybe I don't think it is fair?
Wabaam.

Ok maybe that was what I really wanted to say to him, but because I am way too nice for that I couldn't.
I did debate with him though.
But I was nice.
Next time I am not going to be so nice and I will pull out my mean side.
Lazy kid bewaaaarre!