I ran into this tutorial showing how to make a Mini S’mores Grill. Probably not the most efficient or best way to make S’mores, but it sure is cute!

Cori finally had her baby on July 17th!! They named him Taylor James (his middle name was named after our late grandfather). He’s SO ADORABLE and so tiny! He weighed in at only 5 lbs and 3 ounces and she was full term too! He’s so cute that I could stare at him for hours!! I LOVE holding him! Now that I’m currently unemployed I’ll probably be visiting Taylor almost everyday…if Cori lets me. lol. The past two days I’ve been at the hospital with Cori and Sun basically all day. It helps that I’m only 5 min away from the hospital. Today’s the day that they finally get to go home! Yay! Unfortunately that adds 20 mins to my commute for me to see Taylor now, but it’s well worth the time and money!

I stumbled upon these really cute pincushions that Betz White creates. I REALLY, REALLY want one, but is a little pricey since I don’t even need a pincushion. They are handcrafted and made out of felt (left over sweaters). She has a cute site and blog. She was even on Martha Stewart showing how to make her cute little “cup o’ joe pincushions”. She is extremely talented as you can tell in her blog. I think she has a couple of books out as well showing how to make some of her awesome creations; one of them is called Warm Fuzzies - 30 Sweet Felted Projects. I’ve seen some people try to make these, and they definitely aren’t as cute as hers - so I’m definitely not gonna try to make it myself. I’m too lazy to make one and I’m too cheap to buy one…sucks for me. =(

Jeh and I are in Denver this week for his work. I figure since I have time off and this might be my only chance to travel with him on a work trip that I’d tag along. As we were flying in, we noticed that the land around here is VERY flat. Of course as we were driving to Boulder, CO last night to meet up with his co-workers for dinner, we found that it is definitely not flat. It is SO beautiful here. The scenery is absolutely breathtaking. With the mountains all around you, plus the crazy weather that gives beautiful clouds with sun rays shining through, it’s just gorgeous–stuff you only see in photographs and paintings. Of course I live in Seattle, so I’m not used to that type of scenery.

The weather here is kind of crazy. During the day it is bright and sunny and in the mid to high 80’s. As 6pm rolls around, so does the clouds and winds. Last night on the way back from Boulder (a 50 min scenic drive back to our hotel in Highlands Ranch), there was an awesome thunderstorm–TONS of lightening everywhere. I agree with Jeh; who needs fireworks? Lightening is so much more exciting and beautiful than fireworks to me. Too bad lightening is so unpredictable.

I tried a new chocolate cupcake recipe last weekend since the last one I made wasn’t a hit. People said the flavor of the Devil Food’s Cupcake was good, but was just a little chewy because it was slightly overcooked. So I tried this Chocolate cupcake recipe (using the first chocolate buttercream frosting). I halved the recipe since I was only making mini cupcakes, but yielded about 36 mini cupcakes. Which is fine since I didn’t need to make that much for the trial run. Anyway, I brought them to work and it was a hit. Everyone loved it. The Devil Food’s cupcake recipe was definitely more rich and chocolaty than sweet. The second recipe was more…milk chocolaty I guess. Definitely a really good chocolate flavor with the Chocolate buttercream frosting from the Devil Food’s cupcake recipe. I will definitely be making these for the baby shower in two weeks.

I’m torn. I’ve been so excited and pumped for SE’s XPERIA X1 phone to come out in Mid-September, but I’ve just been shown videos of Google’s Android (an open and free mobile platform). HERE’s a quick rundown of what it is, keep in mind that this is sorta an old article (Times Online, Nov. ‘07). HTC is making one of the first phones to run Android and is going to be called “Dream”. Of course, we’ll have to wait till the end of this year before this phone is released. Some features that’s been leaked is that the HTC Dream phone will have a 3″x5″ touchscreen and will have a qwerty keypad underneath the touchscreen and will either swivel out or slide out. Sounds interesting. I can’t wait till photos of the real thing gets released/leaked!!! HERE is a link to a BBC Video of a prototype of phone running Android (article written Feb. ‘08), of course no one knows what the final product will look like.

I just can’t decide whether I should just get the XPERIA X1, which I’ve been excited about for the longest time, or wait just a little bit longer for the “Dream” phone. My main concern about the XPERIA is that it’s running on Windows Mobile…meaning it will be laggy, which would most likely bug the crap outta me. Seeing the Android videos makes me want it instantly. Android has so much potential and it’s capable of so much that I just can’t think of a GOOD reason why I shouldn’t wait till the end of the year for it.

Here are some more links to videos and pictures from Google’s I/O Conference:
Times Online
Android Community
Apple Insider

Jeh and I saw Iron Man last weekend. It’s REALLY good! Robert Downey Jr. is so good in the movie. Jeh is a total comic encyclopedia and knows just about everything there is to know about comics. Quite handy for me when it comes to all of these comic-to-movie films rushing out lately.

We also saw Indy 4 the weekend before and it was pretty good. It has good humor, it’s witty, and the storyline was entertaining. I’ve heard a few people describe the movie as “unrealistic,” but honestly all 3 previous movies were unrealistic. I really don’t think floating spirits can make your head explode (Raiders), and I don’t think a cup has the power to drain the life out of someone (Last Crusade). In the end, I’m satisfied because I didn’t have high expectations when I walked in, but that’s not to say that it’s a horrible movie. It was quite enjoyable for me. Oh and Shia LaBeouf is pretty funny, IMO.

I tried out Wii Fit 2 days ago (and again last night). It is surprisingly a pretty good workout. Of course, I’m very out of shape. I haven’t worked out since February 2006. Anyway, they have yoga, strength training, aerobics, and balance games. They are all good. Yoga’s Tree stance is freaking HARD! I don’t think I’d be able to do that one again. Strength training is pretty good too. I love the Hula Hoop for Aerobics. The Step workout isn’t bad either. All the balance games are really fun. After two days (even after the first day), my calves, thighs, back, all around my waist, shoulders, and arms are SORE! A good sore though. Lets just see if I keep it up.

Last Saturday I felt like doing a “little” trial run before Cori and Sun’s baby shower in June to test out the recipes. I’m going to be making mini cupcakes for the party and I wanted to have 3 different flavors. Of course each recipe yielded AT LEAST 2 full 24-pan batches of mini cupcakes. 24×6=144 mini cupcakes. And that’s after I had halved the recipes… Thankfully my parents, brother and sister was able to take some leaving me still with a large amount. Again, thankfully we had some friends over Sunday which helped out greatly. 144 cupcakes is a lot, but since we’re expecting 50-60 people and these are minis (bite-size), hopefully they’ll eat a lot of them.

I made red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, vanilla cupcakes with blue vanilla buttercream frosting, and Devil’s Food cupcakes (chocolate) with chocolate buttercream frosting. I got pretty good feedback from everyone that tasted them. Next time I’ll have to reduce the amount of cream cheese frosting on the red velvet cupcakes. People said it was overwhelming. I have to figure out how to frost it with the tips that I have (so it’s still pretty) and not put as much. For 144 minis, it was pretty easy, but I had the most trouble with the chocolate cupcakes. I noticed that basically all of the cupcake recipes say that the toothpick should come out clean, rather than a few moist pieces stuck to it. Mini cupcakes should only bake for about 12-15 min. I baked my chocolate ones for 13+2+2+1=18 min. The toothpick just kept coming out with with chocolate all over it. Of course 18 min for minis is waaaay too long so it ended up being a little chewy and not as soft as the other two. Many people were able to tell it was overcooked.

The red velvet and vanilla (I didn’t have the vanilla sugar and vanilla bean, so I just doubled the vanilla extract) were a hit. It seemed like everyone liked those two. So now I just have to try another chocolate recipe, or use the same recipe and pull them out even though the toothpick doesn’t come out clean and hope it’s cooked enough. I thought I’d have pictures to post but I was in the kitchen from 2:30pm-11pm and the lighting wasn’t good enough for photos. Maybe next time.

This link was sent to me. It’s of a real animatronic WALL•E. I guess they made him to roam around the Disney parks (Disneyland and Disney World), but he was spotted in LA panhandling. SO CUTE!!!