Harmon's Draper Crossing: A Grocery Oasis

If you haven't been to the new Draper Crossing Harmon's near IKEA, you are so missing out. Harmon's has long been my favorite grocery store in the state, but now they've upped their game even more by opening the new Draper Store. The first thing you notice as you walk in the store is their insanely cool cheese bar:

There are well over 300 kinds of cheese, and I was amazed by their selection. Among my favorites include a sage derby cheese, an applewood smoked white cheddar and a cocoa goat cheese. In addition to the amazing cheeses, they also carry a full line of Boar's Head deli meats. They have Boar's Head meats we've never seen before, including their natural uncured line.

In addition to grocery items, the new Harmon's also boasts a gelato bar, tons of prepared food, a dining room to sit down an enjoy your meal in, an artisan bakery with delicious whole grain breads, dry aged beef, a gourmet chocolate counter, and much more. I've been there twice so far and still haven't made it through the whole store. Oh, and also, they have really nice clean bathrooms there.

Stop by the new Draper Harmon's and prepare to be ruined for all other grocery stores :)

The Adventures of Zeb

I just have to share a news article that I got the other day from The Elko Daily Free Press. I have just been informed that one of our closest friends Zeb is running for office in Elko, NV. A lot of people who read this blog know and love Zeb, so you will find this interesting. Zeb is one of the most hysterically funny people I know, and has the best stories ever. From his stories growing up on the farm to his stories of living in the Dominican Republic, a conversation with Zeb is never, ever dull. He makes the ideal dinner guest. Here's what Zebulon is up to these days:

Two county seats will be contested
By JOHN SENTS - Staff Writer
Friday, May 16, 2008 11:50 PM PDT

ELKO - The Elko County Commission race will have two contested seats this fall.

Spring Creek resident Zeb Weeks filed Friday for the District 5 seat currently held by Warren Russell and Ruby Valley resident David Neff filed for the already-contested District 1 seat.

Weeks, 35, is a former university professor and U.S. diplomat. He is a Republican who said he is conservative and believes in limited government.

“I'm very interested in getting in the thick of things and getting involved,” Weeks said. “I think this is a good way to do it.”

The Elko High School graduate has a bachelor's degree from Weber State University in Spanish and history, a master's degree in comparative literature with a focus in Greek and Latin from Brigham Young University and a doctorate in rhetoric and history from Boston University.

After teaching comparative literature, classics, humanities and Latin at Brigham Young, Weeks served as a U.S. vice consul in Juarez, Mexico, working mainly on immigration issues.

Weeks' experience with federal issues was not as satisfying as he hoped, and he said he is more interested in working on local government issues. He is an investor who is looking at other business opportunities in the area.

Moreover, he plans to open a school in the area that teaches the classic Latin language.

Both Weeks and Russell are running as Republicans in the partisan race. The two will be included on the general election ballot.

The other contested commission seat is in District 1, where David Neff of Ruby Valley filed Friday afternoon. Neff, a member of the Independent American Party, could not immediately be reached Friday afternoon for comment. The Free Press will continue election coverage on Monday.

Neff will run against Starr Valley rancher Demar Dahl and Wells Mayor Rusty Tybo for the District 1 seat currently held by Mike Nannini - who cannot run again due to term limits.

Incumbent John Ellison will not have competition for his District 3 seat.

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Zeb is a very inspiring guy. Once, just for fun, we Googled his name and much to our surprise, found out that he is a very talked about guy. Here's one entry that we found on a "rate your professor" web site:

"Dear Everyone Possibly Interested in Latin,

Okay everyone, listen to the Latin major. Latin 111 is challenging, and especially if you haven't taken Latin before. This should be obvious given that it's a 5 credit class and all. Most people that take it without any prior Latin knowledge end up retaking it...Zeb Weeks is the hard teacher, way hard. He's also the coolest teacher in the department. The guy has a serious passion for the classics."

Huge compliment, in my view.

Here's another huge compliment to Zeb. In all my years Googling people online, I have never, except in the case of Zeb, come across a song written about someone and posted for all the world to listen to. Yet here one was. You can listen to the song by clicking here.

Zeb is awesome! John and I would drive to Elko and pass out campaign flyers for the guy. If anyone from Elko happens to read this blog, take my advice: Vote for Zeb and all your wildest dreams will come true!

Another Month, Another Girl's Night

This month, Girl's Night was held at La Vigna again. Unbelievably, we were once again short two people. How long has it been since we had all six of us there? I can't even remember the last time. Next month is Cheesecake Factory with pedicures at Serenity Day Spa beforehand, so I have a feeling everyone will show next month. By the way, I love the photo of the Godfather in the background here.

Best Weekend Ever

Every once in a while, a perfect weekend comes along. Sure, I look forward to the weekend every single Friday, but usually there is a long laundry list of thing that have to be done (mostly laundry, at my house). This weekend we had a list of things that should have been done, but we ditched most of them, which was sweet. Here's how the weekend went:

Friday night:

John got home from work right at 5:00 and we immediately jumped on the bikes and rode up the canyon to Bridal Veil Falls. It was such a great ride, the weather was so perfect and the scenery was breathtaking.

We made really good time, and had the best date night. After we got home, we lounged around a bit and watched the Office finale, which we had saved on DVR. This was one of the funniest eps ever--my favorite moments included Holly helping Kevin buy a treat from the vending machine, Phyllis knocking all the books off Angela's desk, Dwight and Mose attempting to put a raccoon in Holly's car, Michael singing his rendition of "Goodbye Toby", Andy proposing at the work party, and Michael threatening to kill Toby in his exit interview. Fantastic way to end the season--it left me wanting more.

Saturday:

The weekend continued with me getting to bed kind of early and getting up at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday morning to go on my weekly ride with Kristina. We had a little less time this week but got in 33 miles and met 3 new friends on the trail who will also be riding the LLRH in a few weeks. One girl told us her 77 year old Grandma will be riding one of the legs of the race, which is awesome. I want to still be doing power rides when I'm 77.

After the ride, we got a call from John's family who wanted us to come see Prince Caspian with them to celebrate Michelle's adoption! Michelle is now officially and legally my sister-in-law, which makes me so happy!

Prince Caspian was actually a really good movie! I enjoyed it a lot, as I was raised on the Chronicles of Narnia. Honestly, I've read all the books about 35 times each. Prince Caspian was a lot better looking than I imagined him. Here's how I grew up picturing Caspian (compliments of the Narnia illustrators):

And here's how the 2008 Prince Caspian looks:

Quite an improvement! Bring on the Dawn Treader...

After the movie, my own personal prince John took me to dinner at Harvest Restaurant, and then we went over and spent a couple of hours strolling through the gardens at Thanksgiving Point. I have to share some of my favorite photos I shot while we were there:

Sunday:

Went to church, of course, which was great. It was fun to see Ty and Emily there, looking very tall and stylish. After church, I did what makes every Sunday amazing--I took a 2 1/2 hour nap, with the windows open and the birds chirping. Let me tell you, there is nothing better!

We had dinner with my pop and then Brad and Kristina came over for Chicken Parmesan, corn on the cob, grilled zucchini and marzipan brownies. You can't beat sharing good food with great friends. Cameron, their 2-year old, belted out his version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" in return for more brownies and next to Michael Johns, that was my favorite rendition of the Queen classic I have ever heard.

After dinner, a bunch of friends from the neighborhood stopped by and we chilled with them until WAY past my bed time, but it was worth losing the sleep. We finally rolled into bed at about 11:15, and felt rested, accomplished, happy, well-fed and ready to face the work week. Only 4 more days until the next weekend...

38 Miles!!!

Today for our Saturday ride, I'm thrilled to announce that Kristina and I rode 38 miles!!!! This is us back at the car after we finished. We're pretty proud of ourselves, but still a little scared, since we have to ride 103.8 in just four weeks from today. Yikes.

Today's ride was an eventful one though. A few highlights included:

• Passing some sort of Medieval Club or Wizarding Club holding some sort of overnight campground convention or tournament. They had on full wizarding garb (or Medieval garb, it was hard to tell). Every time we passed Kristina would say, in her best British accent, something like "Harry Potter!"
  
• I narrowly missed being hit by a clump of sod from some Thanksgiving Point golfer teeing off above us. Looks like somebody might need a higher tee...
  
• I also narrowly missed running over a snake on the trail. John was jealous.
  
• We realized today that a lot of people in cars are not very nice to bikers. I think that everyone who drives a car should be required to ride a bike on the road, just to see how bikers feel. Cars are way bigger and can be scary, so please be nice to the bikers you see out there! One of them might be me :)
  

Speaking of bike safety and awareness, take the following Awareness Test and see how you do!


Let me know how you did!

We did get in a couple of extra runs earlier this week and were joined by Lisa, who is amazing. Little Red Riding Hood will be Lisa's fourth century, and she finished her last one in just 6 hours!! Here's some fun shots from a beautiful mid week ride:

Me and Kristina getting ready to ride

Kristina and Lisa--love these girls! They make the long rides way fun :)

Girl's Night -- April

Girl's Night was over 2 weeks ago and I'm just barely getting around to posting the photo. What a slacker I am. Again, we were missing 2 people this time and it seems like forever since everyone has been there simultaneously. Hopefully in May everyone will make it! Please notice that our picture is not blurry finally. This is the first time in a while because the last two servers have taken bad photos. This time we got a girl server who had her own girl's nights and understood the importance of a good photo to remember the night by. That made all the difference and our photo turned out great.

June's Girl's Night is something we're looking forward too. We are braving the crowd at The Cheesecake Factory, but only after pedicures at Sanctuary Day Spa which is right around the corner from the restaurant. By then, the LLRH century will be over and we will hopefully be celebrating our success at finishing 103.8 miles. Either that or we will be drowning our failures in some serious Ghirardelli's dark chocolate mousse cheesecake.

The Tiniest Stalker and the Lure of Potato Bugs

We have a stalker. She's 9 years old and she's relentless. For the purposes of this blog, I will call her Betty (the names have been changed to protect the underage deviants). Betty lives two houses down from us and she has been stalking us for roughly 2 years and counting. We have something that she wants, and she can't seem to find it anywhere else. She wants our potato bugs. Here's the story...

So in the summer about two years ago, Betty was in our Sunday School class at church. We had just met her and were slowly getting to know her. A short time later, I decided to hire someone to lay some sod down in our front yard where some shrubbery had previously been. If you've laid sod before, you know it can get a little pricey. After shelling out a good amount of cash, I looked out the window to bask in the glory of our new lawn, when what should I see but Betty outside on our front lawn and she had been busy. She had ripped up the sod and was digging in the dirt like a puppy in search of a bone. Frantic, and seeing my money for the sod trickle down the drain, I ran outside to confront the sod-ruiner.

Me: Betty! What are you doing?

Betty: (no answer, just the dear in the headlights look)

Me: Seriously, what are you doing? I just barely had this sod laid an hour ago.

Betty: (no answer, just the dear in the headlights look)

At this point I notice that Betty has one of those Costco dish detergent buckets with her.

Me: Are you looking for something?

Betty: Yes.

Me: What are you looking for?

Betty: (with a look that said "duh") Potato bugs.

Me: OK, here's the deal. I'm sure you have lots of potato bugs in your yard. I need you to not dig around in my yard, especially in the new sod. The sod is brand new and needs to rest and get used to it's new home. Please don't look for potato bugs in our yard, OK?

Betty: (no answer, just the dear in the headlights look)

Me: OK, thanks Betty.

Betty: (turns and runs home like there are a pack of wolves chasing her, bucket swinging as she goes)

The next day, I looked out the window, and there she was again! Digging in the exact same spot. I ran to the front door to confront her again, and she was gone, disappeared. Yup, she's that good. This little game of cat and mouse continued all year long, but the weird part was, this entire time we were still her Sunday School teachers. So in class, she was totally nice and very communicative with us. But the minute church let out, the game was back on. Our yard has become somewhat of a forbidden fruit for Betty. For some reason, our potato bugs are all the more desirable because she has been told to not to dig for them in our yard.

It's turned into one of the greatest forms of entertainment for me. If I drive up and see her digging in our yard, I totally lay on the horn and honk for as long and as loud as I can. She usually levitates about a foot, then takes off running with a bucket in her hand. (She has since given us the nickname "Honkers" since we always honk when we see her digging in our yard.) We actually asked her several times during Sunday School why she is obsessed with our potato bugs and what she does with all those bugs. Again, with a look that told us we were clearly out of the potato bug loop, she explained that she collects the bugs, keeps them in captivity and forces them to fight one another. Think Gladiator, but with rolly-polly bugs instead of Russell Crowe. John told her, with a straight face, that that was a good idea because potato bugs are known for their extreme aggression. We laughed for hours imagining her trying to force the bugs to fight, then the bugs rolling up in a ball, and then finally her flicking them at each other like marbles.

In the meantime, our little game continues, and we have found that Betty is increasingly stealthy and sneaky in her efforts to get into our yard. At the beginning of this year, we asked our Sunday School class, including Betty, if they had any new year's resolutions they wanted to make for 2008. Betty replied that her goal for the year was to not be seen by us so this took the game up a notch. We noticed this year that as we pulled into our driveway, Betty would be hiding behind or under cars in an effort to keep her new year's resolution.

A couple of weeks ago, we turned onto our street and saw Betty digging in our yard. I reached over from the passenger seat of the car and honked long and loud. Betty jumped a foot in the air and ran across the street to hide behind our neighbor's van. As we got out the car, this is what we saw:

I called across the street, "Hi Betty. We can totally see you." No answer, as her feet remained very still. "Betty," I said again, "I promise we can see you. You can just come out. We can see your feet." Oh how I wish I had a picture of this, but she very slowly raised one foot and stood motionless on one foot, like a flamingo. We went inside and settled into our window seat with a camera because we had a feeling we'd get some good stalker shots. We were not disappointed. These are some of my favorite photos ever and they chronicle her moves as she tries to maneuver out from behind the neighbor's van without us seeing her:


And she was off! She almost made it out without being seen nor heard (you can always tell a Milford man).

A couple of weeks ago, at about 9:45 on a Friday night, there was a knock at our door. I went to get it and there was Betty with this really mischievous look on her face. She's got a note and a plate containing two chocolate chip cookies. "These are for you," she said, before running off into the night. Here's how the note was addressed:

And here's how the inside read (our last name was crossed out and replaced with the word "honkers":

Now if that didn't make my night, I don't know what would. And so, our game continues. Just a couple of days ago, I looked out my window and saw Betty, happily digging for bugs on one of the prettiest spring days we've had in a while.

How long will this game continue? Who knows, probably until Betty outgrows her fascination with potato bugs, so we've got a few years left. One thing you might be wondering is if we ate the cookies. Answer: Of course not. Why? Because potato bugs can look an awful lot like chocolate chips.

The Ikeafication of Me

I'll start by admitting up front that I have been a very bad blogger but the fact that I acknowledge it shows that I'm on the path to recovery. I do have some very valid excuses as to why I stopped posting for a couple of weeks. Besides being insanely busy in all aspects of life, John and I also took a few days off (OK, so it turned into more like a week off) clean the carpets throughout the whole house, tear apart the home office and outfit it with a sleek new Ikeafied look. In my book, the invention of IKEA ranks up there with such things as electricity, penicillin and treadmills. Brilliant ideas, all of them. Let's do a few before and after shots:

Here is my old desk:

Sort of crazy and chaotic, and very hard to find things on my desk. We needed something more space efficient with more storage and more organizational capacity. The result? Here's my new desk:

Much better! In addition to getting new desks, we also got some sweet new shelves that make it really easy to organize all my samples and other books/supplies. I went back and forth on the etched glass door, feeling that maybe it was a little extravagant, but looking at the finished product, I'm really glad I added that.

You may be asking "What about John's desk?" Well, he got a full desk makeover as well. Here is his old desk:

Not so good for his posture, eyes, or anything else. Here's the remodeled result:

Notice the Green Goblin and X-Men statues, compliments of Sideshow Collectibles in CA. John is in heaven and loves his workspace now. And I love mine as well. It was a big job to do it all, but well worth the time investment. Thanks Ikea!