Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery

In Focus: National Geographic Greatest Portraits, an exhibition consisting of 56 striking color and black-and-white photographs, is on display at the Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery on SUU's campus. I walked through the gallery and loved it. One of the highlights was Steve McCurry's image of the green-eyed Afghan girl. Below is the original picture on the left and then on the right is the same woman, 17 years later.

Time has certanly taken out some of the fire from those eyes. Very interesting. To see more of Steve McCurry's work, visit his website: http://www.stevemccurry.com/main.php. I quite enjoyed it.

I'm off

I leave today for a recruiting trip for work and I'll be gone for 10 days. I haven't been away from Andy for that long since we've been married. I haven't even left and I already miss him.

What a weekend

We went to a cabin with friends Friday night.

Matt cooking us breakfast

We walked up to Strawberry Point

To see this.

Then we hiked up to Cascade Falls

And Andy...

and Matt thought they needed to climb inside the falls, which freaked Trish and I out.

Then we got home just in time

to go to dinner with these lovely friends from Salt Lake.

We made chicken tortilla soup and jalapeno poppers for dinner on Sunday.

It was a great weekend.

Green Chili Cheeseburgers

We made these last week and I wanted to share. We bought a big can of whole green chilies and grilled some of them alongside our burgers. They were tasty. Now, we are trying to come up with other recipes to finish off the whole green chilies we have left. Chili Rellenos?

Andy's mission president and his wife (President and Sister Rees) got called to be temple president and matron in the Bismark North Dakota Temple. They are such great people and absolutely adore Andy. We went up to Salt Lake this past weekend to hear them speak in church and.... (drum roll) Kenneth Cope sang in the sacrament meeting! It was pretty special.

Happy Birthday Amber!!

Doug Bingham Family Reunion 2008

Amber is my younger sister who is always up for challenges. She took on managing the construction of a $2.5 million home this past summer and did it with style! She never ceases to amaze me with her ambition and ability. She is so fun to be around and motivates me with her energy for life and positive attitude.

Amber has been in a card group for a couple of years. I have been envious of this card group for a couple of years. I almost wanted to move to Bear Lake to join it. But, I have successfully started my own card group in Cedar City under Amber's tutelage. She has already taught me some advanced card-making techniques ;). I hope someday we can get together and make cards! Amber is a great example and a great sister. Happy Birthday!

Our First Card Group

I started a card group and hosted the first one at my house. The theme was birthday cards. These are the cards I made:


There are the name tents I made for each member:

This is the food I served - mozzarella balls, grape tomatoes, and basil drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar:

And this is humus and pita chips:

We did a "make and take" project - clipboards. We glued the paper to the board, fit it to the edges, and then used Mod-Podge to seal it. They turned out so cute! I got the idea from Amber. This is Keri and Andrea working on their clipboards:

And this is everyone with the finished product. Aren't they so cute? (The girls AND the clipboards). I love how they are all so unique but turned out so great.

It was fun. Can't wait until next month!

Conference

I really loved conference this weekend. The world can cause concern and worry and I loved listening to such a powerful and comforting message encouraging us to be positive and have a good attitude. I really needed to hear that because I inherited the worry bug from my mother!

Chocolate Chip Goodness

I have a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I have been using since college. And in combination with air bake cookie sheets, it has never failed me. But, I went to The Repressed Pastry Chef's Blog and found a link to The New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies and I tried them last night. Just for kicks. I even cheated on the recipe and didn't use hoity toity cake flour or chocolate disks and I didn't even chill them overnight. But wow. Wow. They were DELECTABLE. I think I'm switching recipes for good now. The next time you need (or want) to make chocolate chip cookies, you should try this recipe. Major yum.

Happy Birthday Matt!

Happy Birthday Matt Funderburk!! Matt is Andy's younger brother who lives in Arizona and we don't get to see him as much as we'd like. Matt is super cool - he's into music, plays in a band, and dj's at a club. In addition to that, he is interning at ASU this semester and is trying to get into dental school. He is pretty much fighting off all the ladies.