Lake Tahoe part 1

After the 4th of July, Justin and I made the trip to Tahoe to spend time with his family and to take a break from work. Justin has been working really hard with his 3 jobs now. Justin signed on with a second insurance company and it keeps him more busy. With taking on the second company it makes the trips that we take more profitable. We also had the pleasure of taking my brother Ryan with us. He needed a break from work too! We left super early and made it to the house in good timing. We may or may not have been going 100 mph in the middle of no where Nevada. *shifty eyes*
We did an inspection on the way out (Hey if it would cover part of gas money, why not!)
Sadly we could not do in inspection because the house was up a 4-wheeler trail. 

                           Do you see the trail up on the hill! Yeah no way a car can go up there

                                                Do you see the trail up there! No way!

Our path to Tahoe took us on the Extraterrestrial Highway! We had to stop (well turn around really quickly) and take a pictures

 
Item number 234970234750 checked off on our list of things to do!

Highway 375 also happens to be open range... the whole way. Come to think of it 5 hours of our trip was all open range. If you don't know what that is, it means that the cows just roam free. There are no fences, what so ever, so most likely you will see a cow sitting on the road. Since you are going at least 90-100 mph (There aren't any cops, heck there isn't even a town for several hours) you have to be super careful and always bee on the look out. We got lucky enough to see one on the road. We saw it in time and were able to slow down so we didn't hit it.

                                                                            Stupid Cow

We stopped at some random town, I can't remember the name. It was one of only two places to stop and get gas before hitting the bigger towns towards Carson. Of course when we got there, the women's bathroom was closed ( -_- ) and I was forced to use the men's. Thanks to a kind gentleman and my brother they watched the door so I could go :) There were some... uh.. fun surprises in the bathroom when I got there.

Bahahahahahahahaha! Love it! Middle of no where Nevada. Where are you going to use these?

We pulled into Tahoe in the late afternoon and crashed! We were so tired, but glad we made it!

The next day we went to the beach and just relaxed!

Oh Ryan! 

I guess he had to catch up on Cosmo

The view that we had from the beach

Ryan and I!

We had to step in the lake at least once!

The view is amazing!

There it is.. we stepped in. It wasn't as cold as I thought it was going to be :)

Justin and Ryan 

Ryan. Justin and I came back from the beach early, I was getting a little too much sun. We decided that we were going to pay dominos and texas hold 'em. Justin laughed to hard and ended up shooting orange soda out it nose! Hehe

                                                               It was an intense game!
 

                                                                   See.. I got so sun :(

                                               Hehe... Justin shot orange soda out his nose

Part two is coming up next!

The Best Key Lime Pie Recipes Ever!!

I was on pinterest and I saw a recipe for key lime cheesecake bites and it made me have a HUGE craving for key lime pie. So I ran to the store and picked up the things I didn't have and made a surprise for Justin. It was so amazing that I wanted to share the recipe with everyone!

Thank you Epicurious!! The original recipe is located here (If you want the shorter, non picture version :D )
Enjoy!

The Best Key Lime Pie!
Makes One 9" Pie
Total time: about 2 hours

Crust

1 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 8 full crackers)
1 cup honey nut cereal crumbs (I just measures like 1 1/2-1 3/4 cups of cereal)
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
7 tablespoons salted butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamon

Filling

6 large egg yolks
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condense milk
1 cup vanilla ice cream, softened
1/2 cup fresh or bottled Key Lime juice

Topping

Whipped cream, homemade or store bought

 

1) Spray a 9" pie pan liberally with non stick cooking spray

2) In a large zip lock bag place the graham crackers and cereal. Crush with a rolling pin until fine crumbs.

One arm workout later.. Crumbs! 

3) In a medium bowl mix together crumbs, brown sugar, and cardamon. Drizzle the melted butter over the crumb mixture. Blend together until the crumb mixture looks like wet sand

4) Press the crumb/butter mixture into the pre-sprayed pan making sure the crumbs are pressed up the sides. 

Tada! 

5) Because the pie will be frozen the crust does not need to be baked. Refrigerate the crust for 30 minutes.

6) While the crust is refrigerating, make the crust and preheat the oven to 350 F

7) If you are not using bottled Key Lime juice, get ready to start juicing! I used about 20 Key Limes to make 1/2 a cup of juice 

I used a strainer to catch the seeds and membrane 

20 minutes later! 

And 20 limes later! 

8) Using a stand mixer with the whisk attachment or hand beaters, I guess would work, whisk the 6 egg yolks for 1 minute. 

Before the whip

After the whip!

9) Add the can of condensed milk to the whipped eggs and whisk until light, pale, and aerated

Added milk

 After the whipping

10) Add the soften ice cream and whisk until blended.

11) While the mixer is going on medium speed, slowly add the lime juice and whisk until everything is completely mixed

Finished filling

12) Pour the filling into the prepared crust and bake for 12 minutes or until the center is just set. 

13) Transfer to a wire cooling rack and cool completely. Once cool, freeze for at least 1 hour.

Justin nor I could wait the entire hour, so I stuck it in the fridge for a few minutes and enjoyed the messy version of the pie :) If you want an actual slice, I suggest sticking it out and waiting the hour.

Finished pie! 

 It may look interesting, but it was amazing!! 

I will definitely be making this pie again... if I can find the bottled Key Lime juice at the store!

More June!

It's always fun to go out on inspections with Justin, especially when they are in remote places. Today we went out to Duck Creek Valley and let me tell you that was quit an adventure. The inspection took us out on this dirt, one-lane road.

                                               At least we had a paved road for a while!

                                                                    And it got worse and worse

                                                       And worse.. The aspens were falling?

                                                               My car is black... not after the road!

                                                                            Wow... Just Wow!

We couldn't even see out of the back

                                            Random PT Cruiser with a fake wheel on the back? 

                                 Meet the stalls at the bathroom.. Corrugated metal siding? 

Yeah.. Glad we didn't die and that the car made it back safe. A good car wash later and my car is back to normal!

First week in June!

Since I epically failed at doing the 30 day blog challenge (I blame it on it on Laziness the end of school crazies!) I decided it was time to catch everyone up on what we were doing.
Earlier in June my 22 year old cousin passed away from an accident. If you want to read about it you can check out the KSL news article here, the news article from the Reno paper here or here or his obituary here. He will be missed greatly. Justin and I headed up to Provo on the 4th for his viewing and then we left on the 8th, picked up my brother, and made the long car trip to Fallon, NV for his funeral. All three of us were grateful that we got the opportunity to go and support family and friends. Although I didn't get many pictures I did get a few.

                                                                Salt Flats... Woot... No! Boring!!

                                                                It's a tree with balls on it??

And more desert! Amazing drive.. it really was...

 Hahahaha.. We saw this Mexican restaurant while waiting at the McDonald's Drive through in Elko... It's a piece of poo??

My cousins family owns a cow far and we went and let the calves suck on our hands

 On the way home we saw some *cough cough* amazing things at the different places we stopped.

                     There was a random bench seat in the parking lot of our hotel, I made Ryan sit in in!

                                                                      Nice leg warmers??

                                       At the Asian Market in Fallon.. Yeah.. I don't know

                                                 This was in the bathroom in Wells... Thanks?

                       Nothing says truck stop like being able to buy flannel shirts and a jean vest!

                                We made it back safe and sound and really glad that we went out!

Day 5-7

Yeah.. Things get very busy around our house! Justin made it back from Arizona yesterday afternoon and got a chance to relax before he went into work this afternoon. He even was nice enough to go grocery shopping with me yesterday (Believe me.. That's huge!)  So here are days 5-7 :)


Day 5- Something you want to say to an ex

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to really learn what I wanted and did not want in a future spouse. Thank you for teaching me what it was to love and be loved. I had so amazing times with you, especially for how young we were. I am so amazed that we stayed together as long as we did. Thank you for making my time at school great!

Day 6- Your view on main stream music

Bahahaha coming from a music major! Main stream music is just how music has evolved through out time. From classical came jazz, from jazz came rock, from rock came pop... It's just how the music as evolved. To each his own, if you like listening to it... go ahead! If you don't.. the don't listen to it and don't condone those who are.  It does really bother me though when people write comments on music videos like "People who lived in the (Insert some random year of the 90's) would be so ashamed to hear this music" or "This isn't music.. real music is (Insert some random singer from a decade)"  My statement to all those people is... Classical music was once popular music too. Many composers had women throwing panties on their stages too! And I'm sure the music from your era was once the hated music because it was new and popular. Seriously.. grow up and look at the other amazing traits of main stream music.. Like to complexity of the rhythm, creating their own tuning for instruments, complex key signatures!

Rant done! :)

Day 7- 5 Pet Peeves

1) The entire public bathroom is empty and a random women has to use the stall right next to me -_-
2) People who have no idea how to use the self check out while I'm trying to get it and out. Don't bring produce there if you can't figure out how to type in the code!!
3) People who don't know how to use a 4-way stop correctly
4) People who take up the whole entire aisle, with their cart, in the grocery store
5) People who try to "beat you" while turning left and you are going straight. Yes.. I did feel like dying today so you can show your buds how amazing you are that your car is fast and can turn on the highway 10 seconds earlier. PS I have a brand new car... it's pretty fast too!