Ginger's Chocolate

You've waited for years......now, here it is! You can now buy our delicious, homemade chocolates!!  Enjoy

Ginger's Chocolate

Race Results

2nd Annual Halloween 5K Results                       
                       
Bib     Name               Age M/F  Time  Place   Division
1    Peggy Crawford    29    F      31.51    4        F
2    jared Orr                18    M    22.59    2         M 18+
3    Leah Wetzel           19    F     33.16    5         F
4    Jessica Draney       18    F     24.19    1         F
5    Natalee Taylor        25    F    28.29    3          F
6    Courtney Packard   26    F    26.28    2         F
7    Amber Nicholl       26    F     37.34    7         F
8    Heidi Eisert            22    F     34.48    6         F
9    Larry Shaw            43    M    27.01    3         M 18+
10    Tyler Martin        24    M    33.51    5          M 18+
11    Kellean My         32    F      DNF                 F
12    Jeremy Starkz     17    M     24.51    2         M 10-17
13    ryker Shaw         13    M     27.58    4         M 10-17
14    Nathan Gerdes    13    M    26.19    3         M 10-17
15    Parker Hisbee     12    M     27.59    5        M 10-17
16    Josh Ward           15    M    22.48    1         M 10-17
17    Justin Packard     28    M    19.41    1         M 18+
18    Kyle Redfearn     25    M    27.37    4        M 18+

Toby Came Home!

TOBY JAY REDD came home from his mission in Maceio, Brazil! 

 
We were bummed to be missing out on all the excitement, so at the spur of the moment, we decided we would drive up to Seattle to be with family!


It worked out perfectly that Christine had had her baby 2 days earlier and we would be driving right past her house! So we got to stop and visit the beautiful Smith family for a little bit!

Jack is such a great big brother! And sweet little Fisher is the most adorable thing ever! 

Finally, after driving all through the night..and a lot of the day..we made it home!! We had only told Toby that we were coming so Keith and Cindy were pretty surprised! It was awesome!!


On Saturday, morning we all went to the temple together for the first time!! It was such an awesome experience, but we definitely missed Tyson, who was busy winning father of the year. 

 Later, we all went out to eat to celebrate Toby!

 On Sunday, Toby gave the best Homecoming talk anyone has ever heard! He was such a great missionary, and is such a great man; we are so glad he's home now!

As a bonus, we got to spend a couple short hours with Tyson and the girls!
We love our cute, little nieces soo much!!

All in all, a great weekend! Well worth the 30 hours of driving!

Behind the scenes...

So it turns out I didn't actually take very many pictures of all the work that went into the remodel.....probably because I was too busy just doing it all!

But here are a few pics..

It doesn't look like a lot, and actually, the painting itself was super easy! Nothing compared to when we painted our kitchen!  Here's what was hard: taking apart our table and chairs, taking all the pictures and glass out of all the frames, then putting about 8 coats of paint on everything to turn it from black to white! I decided somewhere near the end that our ugly Walmart table was really not worth the trouble! Then getting the frames on the wall....my goodness, that was a project! Luckily, Tyler remembered his mom's method to completing a similar project, so we cut newspaper out to match all the frames and poked holes in the paper right where the nail would have to go, and put those up on the wall first.  It actually worked really well!
All in all, it was definitely worth the time because I love coming down the stairs to see our beautiful "beach house"!

Shout outs:
Alyssa and Kyle came over and helped a lot! Kyle was actually the one who had to do all the taking apart of the table and chairs..Thanks guys!
And a big shout out to my poor, sweet husband! He was probably quite overwhelmed when it went from "it'd be fun to add some color to our house" to actually painting within 24 hours.  Nor, I'm sure, did he expect that we'd have to match the rest of our belongings to the wall, and that I wouldn't rest until it was done! But he helped so much and was so supportive! I love that about him! He always lets me do what he knows I would do anyways!

My New and Improved Living Room

TAA- DAAH!!!

Details

My very own handy work.
Both the pillow and the wall art were so easy to make!!

The *Dining* Room

Tomorrow, I'll show you some of the work that went into it :)

4 Year Anniversary

It's almost the 4 Year Anniversary of our first date, so we thought it would be a good occasion to do a fancy photo shoot!

Enjoy!  

If you like them, check out DASH Photography! 

RUSH Triathlon

SWIM 1 MILE...

BIKE 24 MILES...

RUN 6 MILES...

FINISH!

All in a day's work.

Smoothie Recipes

Lately, I've been getting a few requests for smoothie recipes, so here are some delicious creations I've come up with. Also, here is a link to another post with recipes.

(All recipes are for about 2-3 servings. Just add ingredients in the order they are listed, and blend!)

Tropical Smoothie 1.0

(In Hawaii this summer, I started off every morning with a version of this smoothie!)

1 fresh papaya

2 fresh mangoes

2 frozen banana chunks*

about 1/4 - 1/2 cup coconut water

about 1/4 cup Passion Orange Guava juice (or pineapple juice, or any other exotic-type fruit juice)

4-6 ice cubes (depending on how thick you like it)

*With the frozen banana chunks, I usually peel the banana, then break it into about 3 or 4 chunks that I freeze in a big ziplock and that's what I use in my smoothies.

Tropical Smoothie 2.0

1 fresh papaya

3-4 cups watermelon

1 chunk frozen banana

a little less than 1/4 cup Greek yogurt (or plain yogurt, or vanilla yogurt)

ice

coconut water (opt)

Tropical Smoothie 3.0

2 fresh mango

about 3/4 cup fresh pineapple

2-3 frozen banana chunks

about 1/4 cup coconut water

ice

The great thing about these smoothies is that you can mix and match the different fruits! There are countless combinations and I could never write out all the different mixtures!

Cran-Raspberry Smoothie

1/2 cup frozen raspberries

1-2 frozen banana chunks

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup water

about 4 Tablespoons frozen cranberry juice concentrate

ice

dash of Flax seed and chia seed (opt)

I like to make this one kinda runny so it's just a cold, light, slushy-type of drink. Or, add some ice cream and you have a milkshake!

Banana Smoothie

1 - 1 1/2 cup milk

1 fresh banana

1 frozen banana chunk

about 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

a few drops yellow food coloring

2-4 ice cubes

Add a couple scoops of Nesquik, and you have a Chocolate Banana Smoothie!

Watermelon Lime Smoothie (My favorite on a hot summer day!)

4 cups watermelon

juice from 1 - 2 limes (depending on how tart you want it)

1/2 tsp lime zest

a couple Tablespoons milk

1-2 tsp honey

ice

Remember, it's all about creativity, and adding whatever you like, or have in your freezer at the moment! And I apologize for my lack on specificity with measurements, but it's really just up to you whether you like them thicker or more runny, sweeter or creamier, etc.

Happy blending!!

lastly...WHITE Oahu