Happy Halloween!

Hey guys! I hope you're all doing well. Congratulations to Christine and baby Claire. I'm happy to hear about the Firths too. I just moved back to DC last week and I am so glad to be here, other than it is freezing cold! I wish I had something really exciting to tell you all, but I don't really. Oh, Jeff (my boyfriend) will be doing Washington Seminar (an internship program through BYU) next semester from Jan.-May. Yay! I can't wait. I have so many things planned for us once he gets here. As for now, I am back working regular hours, which is a relief. That's about it. Have a spooky Halloween! :)
p.s. We need to encourage all of the rest of our friends to post on here so I have more to be entertained with while I work!

Hello everyone! It's been so fun reading all of your posts....it took me this long to figure out how to post one myself. I'll give everyone a quick update on the Firthies......we are both graduated and working up at Primary Childrens. It's stressful, but great! We were both able to take care of those conjoined twins that were separated last month. I have not been working much lately becuase I have mono....not fun. Anyway, life is good. Ash is moving out and leaving me all by myself. We won't be connected at the hip anymore! The love life is interesting.....isn't dating always that way? Since we are the few single friends left, you'll actually still get updates on that. :) I'm still dating that boy I've been dating for a year now, but no marriage yet. Ash ws dating his best friend, but that ended. Now she's dating like crazy and I have to approve all of them! (She doesn't know I'm writing this)
Hope everyone's doing great and has a great Halloween! Hope to see everyone soon! Congrats to all the pregnant ones, new moms, birthday girls, and friends with new houses.

Love the Firthies!!

Great Pumpkin Cake

I made this cake yesterday for a former roommate get together. You can find the recipe on www.kraftfoods.com. It is probably one of the easiest recipes ever!! Looking at it from this angle, it doesn't look the greatest (since you can see the icing that dripped to the base of the cake holder--oops!) but from the side, it looks fabulous!! And it looks more orange in real life (it seems maybe the camera didn't do so well, I don't know). Anyway, it was super easy and I got LOTS of compliments on it! Not only did my old roomies think so, but even their husbands or bf's! Also, I was walking over to the girl's apt. where we had dinner and on my way over this random girl said, what a cute cake! Then she said, did you make it? Ha, like I am some gourmet! Anyway, if you want lots of compliments and a yummy cake, try it! All you use is a cake mix!! You can use any kind you want and then you just put a cream cheese frosting on top and the stem in the middle is an ice cream cone. Right now this cake is the featured cake when you go to the website--it's the one right there on the web page.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Buttermilk Syrup Recipe

For those of you who know me really well, you know that I love pancakes! And breakfast foods in general. Well Justin came home from work last weekend and said he had the best syrup on his french toast for breakfast there last Saturday (he works at a school for troubled adolescents and they have a cafeteria) and that we should try it. I am never opposed to trying new recipes, especially when it may involve a yummy breakfast food. So this morning I tried it and it was REALLY good! I thought I would share the recipe with anyone else who is a huge lover of pancakes, french toast, and anything else you may think of to put syrup on!!

Buttermilk Syrup Recipe

1/2 c. butter
2 c. buttermilk
5 c. sugar (I know it's a lot, that's why it's so good!)
1/4 c. corn syrup

Combine all ingredients into a large pot and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer 5-10 minutes.

Add:

2 T. vanilla
2 T. baking soda

Wisk until it triples in size. Serve with french toast, pancakes, etc.

*I halfed the recipe since there are just two of us and there was still plenty left over (I thought it would be too difficult to third it or I would have tried that!!)

**Also, if you don't have buttermilk laying around (which I never do) here's a substitute: mix 1 T. lemon juice (yes, I do have that laying around!) with one cup of regular milk, stir, and let sit at least 5 minutes.

It will look all white and frothy when it's done (but it's supposed to!). Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Whitney

Whitney! Happy Birthday to you! I hope you have a great day today and that you have some fun plans for the weekend!! Have a good one!

Love, Nicole

I lost my phone!!!

So, I am a genius, and left my phone outside of the meteorology building where somebody else picked it up. Now I have no phone numbers! If you guys could email me your number when you have time, it would be good to get everyone's number again.

my email address is nanhosen@gmail.com

Things are going well. I am pretty overwhelmed with school and work. All I know is that I cannot wait to be finished!! I think that I will probably go to grad school in hydrology once I graduate, but I am for sure taking a year off to work. I have a job with the National Weather Service, so it will be go to be able to go to work, come home, and not worry about the 18 tests that I have that week.

I hope everything is going well for everybody. Whitney, happy birthday in a few days!!!!

I've got a GOOD one!

I just have to brag for a minute about my wonderful husband! Yesterday Justin picked me up from work and on my seat was this beautiful flower arrangement! He asked me if I remembered what day it was. I had to think for a minute, but luckily I remembered that it was the day of our first date two years ago! And he remembered, I couldn't believe it! He bought food and made me dinner too! Anyway, I just thought I would share! Aren't the flowers gorgeous?!

Home Update

Happy LATE Birthday Nicole and Kathryn! I love birthday's and I hope both of your's was perfect. Needless to say, Jake and I found a house that we really liked. But, it was technically already under contract. But the sales rep told us they didn't think it was going to go through... long story short, it did and we didn't get the house. Oh well! We will for sure be in a house by April. We just extended our lease at our apartment, so we've got another 6 months in this place. Nan, 600 sq. ft is reason alone to pack your bags and move over that big hill. You'd LOVE denver, i went to Ft. Collins a few weeks ago and you should definitley look at grad schools here. I would love it if you were here! Anyway, happy late birthday guys!!! Love you all!
Whit

Hello all! Happy late Birthday to Nicole and Kathryn! Congrats on getting old. Just kidding. I just got back from a road trip to San Diego, for the Utah Sand Diego St. game. It was such a fun weekend. If you want to see something funny go to www.alumni.utah.edu/muss/
Whit, i hope the house thing goes okay. That is very exciting!
Love you all! Have a great conference weekend.
Cami

Happy Birthday to Nicole!!

Thanks Nicole!

I hope you had a wonderful day! I have a feeling that 23 will be a great year. I can't believe it's been 5 or 6 years since our surprise party we had together. Hope the circus was fun and it was great talking to you today!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Happy Birthday Kathryn!! 23 today! You are so old! :)! I hope that you have a fabulous day today and that you don't get overworked if you have to be at work! Make sure to have fun and get some fun things! By the way, you need to check out Google because they have a birthday cupcake. They are eight years old today! But just pretend like they knew it was your birthday!! Wishing you all the best today and for this weekend when you will be in town! love, Nicole (your twin sister!)

Sick of work...

I just want to say hi because I miss everyone at home now! I just worked in Washington DC for 3 weeks and then my company shipped me off to Palo Alto, CA to work here for 6 weeks. It has been good to see friends from last summer and the weather is amazing, but I am working 60-70 hrs/wk. I'm going crazy and I've decided that I'm definitely not a workaholic type (and I envy those of you who are not working full-time). So all of you that are thinking you're sick of working so much just be glad it's hopefully not overtaking your life! I'll be really glad in 3 weeks when life is back to normal. So, other than that, life is good. I'm flying home to Utah this weekend for a visit and I can't wait. Yay!

Buying our First Home

Hey all! I just found out some exciting news yesterday. Jake and I are going to buy our first home! As most of you already know, Jake is doing commercial real estate out here so he knows a lot of the right people. Anyway, yesterday he had a lunch meeting with a guy that works for a huge home builder out here. He was told that the company is way under their projected sales for the year and are offering almost 100K off the house and huge incentives! We went and looked at some yesterday and I actually liked some of them.
The only catch is that the company's fiscal year ends Sept 30th, so you have to close the deal before then! We are possibly looking and buying a house in under 10 days!!! Kind of crazy, but exciting at the same time. I kind of feel like we should be on one of those "flip this house" shows or something.
So that's the best I've got to post for right now... I'll let you guys know if the deal goes through and we end up with a house!

Drew is oh so big!!

Guys I have some good news Drew rolled over he is growing so fast!!! He actually rolled over a couple of weeks ago but well this is the first chance I have had to sit down at the computer. I can't believe how quick time flies!!! That is about all the excitment in my life right now, drew all the time. I love it! I am actually helping my sister at work this week so I guess I better go start class. Yahoo!
I hope everyone is great!

Yummy recipe

Hey everyone I have a recipe to share finally! This was one that a girl made for me after I had the baby so it is either really good or I just thought it was because I was tired and didn't have to make it myself.

Tater tot bake
1 bag tater tots (divided)
1 lb hamburger (or however much you like)
1 onion diced
1 can evaporated milk
1 can cream of mushroom soup
oodles of cheese

brown hamburger with onion
mix milk and cream of mushroom
add hamburger to the mix
put one layer of tots on bottom of pan
pour hamburger and soupy stuff over the tots
put the rest of the tots on top
Bake at 350* for 40 mins in the last 10 min add as much cheese as you want

Oh and I think that it would be good with added veggies too just play around.

Finally!!!

I just wanted to express my joy that WE SOLD OUR TRUCK!! We have been trying to sell it since what, March or April I think? Anyway, it has felt like forever that we have been trying and nothing had happened. Yesterday we sold it to a cute little family (they have two little boys-5 and four months) so we felt very good about it.

I also had to post because I don't like getting onto the blog site and seeing the picture that Karen posted!! Ha ha! Go Cougars :)

how this works

Okay...so maybe I should explain how this all works huh?! I didn't really think about that, but I would agree that it's a bit confusing. I wish there was a link on our website that said "Create a Post". That would be fabulous! But, in order to create a post you have to log in to the main website at www.blogger.com. There should be a link at the top where you enter your user name and password then you will come to a page where you can create a new blog or you can click on this "Friend's Updates" blog and it will take you to our friends blog. To create a post click on the Posting tab and on the Create tab. Then you can type away. To add a picutre there is a tool bar at the top that says Font, bold, italic, etc. There is a little picture after the ABC check and that is how you post a picture. Click on that and then browse your documents to add a picture. That should work. Once you are done you just click on Publish Post and your post is now on the website. Hopefully my instructions are clear! If you are still confused totally email me because I would love to be reading about everyone's lives! :) I hope everyone is doing fabulous! Love you all, Karen

Ohh...I know the BYU/Utah game is quite awhile away...but I still get a crack out of this picture when I see it! I really don't have hard feelings for BYU...but since I went to the U I have to cheer for them all the time! :)

pictures

ok, so I guess I don't know how to post pictures up here.... any suggestions?

Wow!

Hey everyone! Let me first start off by saying that I thought I was pretty good with computers until Karen started this blog thing. Ha ha! Needless to say it's taken me a good while to figure out how to post on this thing! Haha, that's pretty funny if you think about it.
Anyway, it sounds like everyone is doing great. Christine is having a baby, Kati had a baby, Kathryn is a world traveler and living in DC. This is great. I am living in Denver, and I am really starting to love it here. For those of you who have never been here, it's nothing like you would expect it to be. I thought it was going to be a lot like salt lake, you know a Mountain city. But... it's not! People think that we are so close to the mountains here, but in reality we're like a hour from the foothills and two to the closest ski resort. The weather is different too, it rains about every afternoon.
/Users/whitneyhawkins/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2006/Roll 29/CIMG0743.JPG /Users/whitneyhawkins/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2006/Roll 29/CIMG0704.JPGI finally graduated from Utah State, it was great! I finished my last semester online, which I don't recommend, but hey... I did it! But now I am working in an Oral Surgeon's office which has NOTHING to do with journalism or broadcasting in the slightest, but it helps pay the bills.
I feel like I should be sharing stories about cool trips we've been on, but well... We haven't been on any. We may go to Italy next year to visit our two friends that just moved there, but that's really the only thing on the agenda! Well I love you all, have a splendid day!
Whit

Babysitting...

**First of all, if anyone thinks that I post too much, I'm sorry and let me know! I'm not trying to bore you all with my life stories, but right now I have a few minutes, so I thought I'd tell you about my fun babysitting experience!

For those of you who do not know, my job is currently as a personal and administrative assistant for a man here at my company. Currently he is in New York with his wife to celebrate their 15th Wedding Anniversary. He and his wife asked Justin and I to watch their four kids for three nights.

In order to save yourself some time, I'll just tell you about my experience yesterday. First of all I wasn't paying attention, so I left work later than I should've to get to their house because I had to take the girls to art and dance lessons. I got to the home, walked in the door, and the alarm went off. By that time, I should've been at the home for the art lessons for Sidsie (she's the oldest). I finally got all the kids in the van and got Sidsie to her art class at 4:30. Then I drove over to the dance place and dropped off the 4 yr. old, Vienna. Then we drove back to art, played outside for a little while, picekd up Sidsie, then went back to the dance place, picked up Vienna and dropped off Sidsie. I was then told by the lady at the dance place that Vienna wasn't supposed to have come to dance because she only comes on Tuesday, but since I had left, they just let her stay. Oops! And this is how my day went!! The baby kept crying and she doesn't like strangers, so we would have to give her to her siblings and then she would be quiet. But I also think that she was teething, so that didn't make her very happy. I wasn't sure if she would go to bed for us, but luckily she did.

I won't bore anyone with more details, but I just want to say that four kids can be a hassle! I'm so glad that when we decide to have children they'll come one at a time! Hopefully next Tuesday will go better than yesterday did. Lucky for me and Justin we have the weekend off of babysitting duty! The good thing is that it has been a good experience (especially for Justin since he's never done any babysitting in his life and he now knows how to change a diaper!) and it has made us fully aware of what life would be like-to an extent-in that situation.