Where are you Tim Tams?

Ok so I know I just posted about Easter candy and all but I have another post about treats. I feel so nutritious these days! :)

Remember when I told you how much I love Tim Tams. Well, Tim Tams are now being made by Pepperidge Farms for America. For a while I had heard Target was the only store carrying them. We had some at our last Tim Tam party over a year ago and then all of the sudden Target stopped carrying them. Well this last November they came back!! And not only did Target have them but many other stores/grocery stores did too. I was so excited. I bought some for me, I bought some for Christmas gifts and not really thinking about it, I just thought Tim Tams were just available all the time now.

Well after Christmas I didn't really think that much about it until a couple of weeks ago. Then I all of the sudden had a big craving for Tim Tams, so one night I drove to Smith's and low and behold, they had NONE. Not only were they out, there wasn't even a space for them to be re-stocked. So the next day at lunch I drove over to the Target closest to work...surely they would still have some...they had NONE...nothing in site. I was so sad! After complaining to Shane about my ordeal, that weekend we were out to dinner and we decided to try the Target by where we were. I knew they wouldn't have any but thought we should just check. Sure enough, NONE. Then I was determined to find out what happened to them. So standing in the cookie aisle of Target, I whipped out my iphone and spoke 'Tim Tams in America' (side note: I love the search feature of the Google app on my iphone.) This is what came up:

"In the fall of 2009, Pepperidge Farm announced that Tim Tam cookies will be made available each year between October and March."
From Wikipedia...click here for more information on Tim Tams

Are you kidding me? I just missed it by about 2 weeks??? October through March! Now I was really sad and resigned to my fate....I couldn't believe I was going to have to wait until October! Very depressed I turned and left the aisle. As I walked to the front of the store....low and behold there at the end of one of the aisles was a whole section of Tim Tams!!!!!!!!!!!! And...to make matters even better, they were on sale! This was the last of the Tim Tams left and I felt like I had hit the jackpot. I ran over to them and just stared. How many to buy??? I checked the freshness date...they're good until December. Hallelujah. So I decided to buy one for each month left until I can get them again in October. So I loaded my arms up with Tim Tams and bought 8!! There was another lady looking at the Tim Tams so I had to go and tell her to stock up because this is it until October. She looked at me funny and said 'oh are they good?' She didn't even know what they were! I told her yes but really I wanted to say if you don't know what they are save them for others that will be excited.



So here's my almost years supply of Tim Tams...food storage at it's best. So I've already eaten my package for April and am waiting most anxiously for May to pull out the next one. I hope I can really keep it to one package per month until October!

Candy

Those of you that know me pretty well know that I LOVE candy. In fact I think I would rather have candy over ice cream...yep, I'm positive of that actually.

I have a favorite kind of candy for almost every holiday. And when the stores get in the next holiday's candy, I get very excited. My 2 favorite holidays that have my favorite candy: Halloween and Easter.

Halloween brings out the best and only kind of candy corns I eat...Brachs. It makes my mouth water just writing about it. They're soft and fresh and just plain yummy.

So the purpose of this post is to talk about my love of Easter candy. It's actually evolved and changed over time.

Growing up Easter candy to me was the regular types of candy and jelly beans. But the Easter Bunny used to always leave a chocolate Sees egg (you know with the pastel flower on top of it) and some Sees sucker sticks (my favorite was the yellow ones...I need to go get one of those, I haven't had one in years!)

Then the last few years, my favorite candy has been the Mini Robin Eggs, Whoppers with a cool, cruncy, shell. Ask Brigitte, she knows...I ate bags and bags of those while we were roommates. I still like them, in fact I think I have 2 bags sitting on my counter right now.



Then a couple years ago I started eating the Cadbury chocolate eggs. Pure, delicious, milk chocolate with the same fun, crunchy shell as Robin Eggs. Just finished my bag of those yesterday. I might need one more bag before Sunday.



However, the last 2 years I have been completely and totally addicted to Sweettart Jelly Beans. Not just jelly beans, the Sweettart jelly beans. You can't find them at every store (try Smiths and K-Mart around here) and you can only get them at Easter time. I can't even begin to tell you the amount of Sweettart jelly beans I have had since February 15 (the day they put out the Easter candy after Valentines.) In fact it would be embarrassing to tell you how many bags I have bought. They are soooo good. My favorite flavors are the green and purple ones and I eat all those out of the bag first.



Some people think I'm weird and crazy...which I realize I kind of am. The good news is Shane likes all the candy I like so he helps me eat it too, and he lets me have all the green ones to myself (what a guy!)

I need to go to the store now and stock up...in 3 days time, all the Sweettart jelly beans will be gone for a whole year (well 10 1/2 months.)

So let me hear from you...What is your favorite kind of candy?

Backyard, part II

Last weekend we had our Gazebo put up in our backyard. Spring is here and the heat is just around the corner (I hope) and I wanted to make sure we had some shade to enjoy our backyard. We still have more work to do in our backyard but I just wanted to post a few pictures of the small progress we made. Now I need some patio furniture to enjoy it with.

Those of you who live around here will know that I took these pictures last weekend. Right now the Gazebo is not brown, it's white, covered in snow!!! SNOW....go away. I want to enjoy the outdoors again very soon!

Thanks

Just a quick note to say thanks for all your comments over the last post. I purposefully didn't respond to any of them because I didn't want this to be a debate, I just wanted everyone to be able to express your opinions without judgment.

I hope everyone enjoyed expressing their opinions as much as I did. I still don't feel settled totally on one side or the other but it sure felt good to express it and to read everyone's opinions.

Now onto lighter subjects...

Health Insurance and Politics

I'm having a lot of feelings about the health insurance bill over the last few days, weeks, and months and I needed to get it out of my head and written down somewhere, so here it is. A lot of you won't agree with me, and that's ok, many close family and friends don't, and I'm ok with that.

A few background facts about me:

• I have VERY good health insurance right now that I love and wish I could keep the rest of my life.
• One day I would like to be stay at home mom
• My husband is self-employed, therefore we would need to get self-insured in order for me to quit my job.
• I had Hodgkin's Lymphoma 2 years ago
• I am cancer free today because of health insurance and the medical industry with it's great benefits and research.
• As the health care system stands today, I am no longer free to quit my job if that opportunity would present itself because no one will insure me.
• I would be crazy to try and live without health insurance.
  
• I am not a political person by nature, in fact I usually steer clear of political debates.
• I am a registered republican and most of my views are conservative in nature.
• 2 1/2 years ago I wouldn't have given health care a second thought. I never had the need to. I was healthy, hardly ever went to the doctor, and would have felt fine going without health insurance for a period of time.
• Now...I feel very different.
  

Now...I can't imagine anyone crazy enough to live without health insurance. Take your chances all you would like but no one ever knows when something totally unexpected and by no fault of your own comes knocking on your door. I've seen the costs first hand come flying into my mailbox, trust me, you don't want to take your chance.

Do I think it's a human right to have health insurance? No.
Do I want the government in every aspect of my life? No.

What I do believe is this:
Everyone should have the opportunity to have health insurance. I'm willing to pay more then the average person for mine. I get that...that because of my 'lucky' situation of having had cancer that my insurance should cost more than the average healthy person. I'm ok with that. But it needs to be within reason so that I don't have to go bankrupt to get it, which I can't even get at all right now. I would get flat out denied.

Many think this bill will deny freedom for them to live the way they want. I agree. However, I am not currently free to live the way I would like to either. Something needs to change.

Do I think this current bill has all the answers? No. I think the democrats are probably hiding some things in this bill that is not in everyone's best interest. I think the republicans are exaggerating and blowing things way out of proportion. The republicans all seem happy to be naysayers but I never hear them coming up with a solution, a bill. They spend all their time shooting it down and yet when Bush was in office he never seemed to push the issue for 8 years. They had 8 years to do something and it never became a big enough priority for them, so they let it go. So I for one am happy Obama is at least getting something done. At least there is action and it's a starting point to me. I don't agree with all of it but for me...I'm all for it.

Do any of you know someone in your family that if they had to go get health insurance on their own today, they wouldn't be able to? I would bet that most if not everyone knows someone that because of a minor or major medical issue, wouldn't be able to get their own insurance today. Most are just lucky they get it through their employers that can't deny for pre-existing conditions.

I certainly don't have all the answers but I really felt the need to vent a little. And hey it's my blog so I can do whatever I want. You are entitled to your opinion...in fact if you want to post a comment on your opinion, I'll read and listen to it. Just let me have my opinion as well.

Girls Weekend

(from left to Right, Christy, Michelle, Mom, Lori, Jennifer, me)

My sisters, mom and I all had a girls weekend down in St. George. There is lots going on this summer and we knew with everyone's schedule that we won't be having a family vacation this summer. Christy and Lori are both pregnant so traveling for them is limited and coming to a close here quickly. So a couple months ago I decided that all the girls should have a weekend away.

We rented a condo down in St. George and left all the husbands and kids at home. Luckily all the dads stepped up and allowed us all to get away. We had such a good time. We shopped, slept, ate, watched movies and talked and talked and talked. We are all very close and talk a lot to each other as it is but it still felt like we had a lot to catch up on. Seriously, I think we talked straight (besides when we watched movies and slept) the entire weekend and never ran out of stories or things to talk about.

We ate at our favorite restaurants, Brick Oven, Olive Garden and Cafe Rio. We saw 2 good movies, Dear John and When in Rome (liked Dear John, loved When in Rome.) We brought some fun games to play and never found time in between the talking to play. We slept in both days and just took our time getting ready. What a nice, relaxing weekend.

We even found out some things about each other that we never knew. Like...Christy snores! She claims it's only because she's pregnant, but we aren't so sure. Other things we found out were for our ears only...sorry!

We hope this will be a tradition we can do each year and we all felt refreshed coming home. We hope next time our favorite, one and only, Sister in law will join us!

Driving in the car...we stopped talking for a picture!


The 2 pregnant sisters due appx. 6 weeks apart


The great shopping find...$1 bags

4 States in 5 Days

This past week to celebrate our anniversary, Shane and I went out of town. The last 2 years we have gone to Florida and had a great time with warm weather. This year we decided to change it up and we went to the mid-west. Why would we go to the mid-west in February? I was kind of wondering the same thing. And in fact since we booked the trip, they didn't have 2 dry days in a row. I was a little concerned, but I knew it had to stop snowing at some point. And in fact it did, and although it was cold...very cold one particular day, it was blue skies the entire trip.

We went to the mid-west to visit some LDS Church history sites. I have never been to any church history sites outside of Utah before and Shane had been to a few of them. We had a great trip and visited 3 different main cities and 4 different states (Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas if you're wondering.)

St. Louis
The first night we flew into St. Louis and spent the night. That day was our anniversary so we found a good steak and seafood place and had dinner and then drove around and looked at the Arch lit up at night.





The next day we were able to go up to the top of the arch and look out over the whole city. It's 630ft high so we could see a lot!

View of St. Louis from our hotel


The 'elevator' or capsule we rode in to the top of the arch




The view from the top:




After the arch we headed north towards Nauvoo, IL. We stopped at Carthage, IL on the way up and I think this was my favorite part of the trip. This is where Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were martyred. There was such a spirit about that place and I think it was my favorite place we visited on the whole trip. I've seen pictures, videos and heard the account of what happened there many, many times. But seeing the rooms and hearing the story again while you're standing in the exact place it happened was incredible to me.

Carthage Jail




Nauvoo
The next day we spent the whole day in Nauvoo. We were able to see so much in just one day because I'm pretty sure we were the only visitors in town. Well I know there was another couple there but most places we went to the missionaries told us we were their first and only visitors of the day. They were so excited to see us and gave us great tours. We saw Brigham Young's home, the blacksmith shop, printing shop, post office, gun shop, brickyard, the 70's hall and the bakery. They all had so much information and we were able to ask lots of questions. Then we walked down Parley's street. This is the street the pioneers all left from in Nauvoo to cross the Mississippi and head west. They have a trail of hope with different quotes from the pioneers describing their conditions, etc. The first group left in February so it was interesting to get a little taste of what it would've looked like as they left. It was really cold and I didn't even make it all the way down the street let alone across the Mississippi (which was frozen over) and out into the west. It gave me a great appreciation for the sacrifices they made. It was also interesting to look up at the Temple from there and imagine them walking away from all their hard work of building that beautiful temple.

View from Parley's street looking back at the temple


View of the frozen Mississippi River (right past the bushes and trees is where the river starts and then you can see the other side way out in the distance.)




Smith family cemetery where Joseph, Emma, Hyrum and many other Smith family members are buried.


That afternoon we went and attended the temple, which is just as gorgeous on the inside as it is on the outside. That night we went to a little musical all the missionaries there put on every night for the visitors called 'Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo.' It was cute and we met a nice missionary couple next to us that ran out to their car afterwards and gave us some homemade banana bread. So nice and so yummy.





The next day we woke up and went and saw a few more sites in Nauvoo, mainly all the ones specific to Joseph and Emma Smith that are owned by the Community of Christ church. Once again we got our own special tour and were able to see the Homestead (their first house in Nauvoo), the Mansion (their bigger house and part of it turned into a hotel because they had so many people coming from out of town that needed places to stay before they found their own,) the Red Brick store (the main store in Nauvoo and where the Relief Society was started upstairs) and the Nauvoo House which was only started when Joseph died. It was a very interesting tour and our guide knew a lot about the history back then.

The Mansion House


We finally made our way out of Nauvoo and started driving down to Kansas City. We stopped and 2 places on the way, Adam-ondi-ahman and Farr West. Adam-ondi-ahman was a very peaceful quiet place and I'm sure it's more beautiful in the spring and summer...although it was actually kind of pretty with all the snow covering it too. Farr West, where there are the corner stones of the temple that was never built, was interesting as well. For it being such a big city back then and having thousands of people that lived there, it sure was more desolate then I thought it would be but still a fun place to see.

Adam-ondi-ahman




Farr West (we didn't get a good picture of the corner stones cuz they were pretty covered in snow.)


Kansas City
Kansas City had us back in civilization and being the city girl that I am, I was happy to see that the hotel we had randomly picked was right near a lot of restaurants and shopping. 2 places we've eaten at in Florida and really enjoyed were both within walking distance here (although we still drove!) Steak n Shake (good burgers, doesn't compare to In-N-Out though and really good chocolate shakes that I love), and The Waffle House. I don't know what it is about The Waffle House but seriously I LOVE their waffles. In fact I gasped as we exited and saw both those places right next to our hotel, I was a happy girl and Shane is all too happy to to go along with me.

After The Waffle House we went over to Liberty Jail and saw the jail that Joseph Smith and 4 or 5 others were jailed in for 6 months. It's incredible to see as they were in the basement with no heat in the middle of winter and were never able to stand up straight because the ceiling was lower then they were tall. Quite the trial for them to go through and yet Joseph called it a time of refining, great learning, and revelation.

Liberty Jail (we had to take 2 pictures, one so you could see us, and one so you could see the jail)




Next we stopped by the Independence visitor's center and then went across the street to the Community of Christ's temple. We took a tour and then walked through the museum they have with a lot of Joseph Smith artifacts, original paintings, original door of the Liberty jail, first edition Book of Mormon, the printers copy of the handwritten Book of Mormon...amazing to see. We spent a lot of time in there looking at everything and I loved it.

That afternoon we drove into Kansas and got an ice cream. Yes they sell ice cream on the Missouri side too, but we had never been to Kansas before so why not. I looked for the yellow brick road and didn't find it, so we left and as we came back into Missouri Shane just had to say 'you're not in Kansas anymore.' lol...good times in Kansas for 30 minutes...check that off our list.

Our final day was spent going to church and driving back to St. Louis for our flight home.

We had a great time, learned a ton, and loved seeing the sights that I have heard about my whole life. I recommend everyone go there at some point if they ever get the chance. And even winter time wasn't too bad. I would love to see it in the summertime cuz I'm sure it's beautiful but I loved having it so quiet and to ourselves as well.