Rex is Old(er)!

What a busy week the middle of February turns out to be for us.....

Of course, our biggest event was Rex's birthday on the 12th. After going to storytime with the girls and running some errands, we made a trip to Blackfoot to see Rex at work and to take him some presents and some cookies. The girls had picked out something at the dollar store to give him (ceramic horse and puppy to "help" him paint) and we had made sugar cookies the day before. Later that night, we made him Linguini and Clam Sauce (his favorite thing to eat in the whole entire world.... see the recipe below. He would lick the pan if I would let him) and we had cake and ice cream. We hope he had a great day!

Linguini and Clam Sauce

• 4 green onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 C chopped parsley
• 1 can minced clams
• 1/2 C clam juice (I actually just use the juice from the clams themselves)
• 1/2 C cooking wine (if you are opposed to cooking with wine, use 1/4 C lemon juice instead)
• sprinkle of crushed red pepper
• small container of shredded Parmesan cheese
• linguini noodle

Cover the bottom of a frying pan with olive oil and on medium heat add the onions and garlic to cook until the onions are a light color. Add the clam juice, parsley and red peppers. Start the noodles. After 5 minutes, add the wine and boil for 3 minutes. Add the clams and let cook for 5 minutes before slowly stirring in the shredded Parmesan cheese. Serve over top of noodles. Great with Texas toast and salad. (I always double the sauce ingredients so we have more of the topping on our noodles.)

There is a warehouse in Idaho Falls that sells great soup for really cheap and my Mom and I wanted some for our food storage. So, we went there and let me tell you, that was enough of an adventure to last me for the rest of the year. I was sure we were going to get arrested for trespassing. You go to their warehouse and there is no readily available office (much less a front door), so you go in through their shipping docks, through all this equipment and supplies, up some rickety old stairs and finally come to some kind of office. All of the office staff looks at you funny when you walk in as if to say "how did you know we were up here?" Seriously good soup though, even if I ever do get arrested for trespassing to get it.

I watched a couple of movies this week- Iron Man and Dark Knight. (Yes, I know they have been out for awhile. I am way behind on movie watching.) I really liked them both, especially Christian Bale, er, I mean Dark Knight..... :)

Our Valentines Day was nice and relaxing. Rex made me breakfast and gave me a box of chocolate candy. Yummy! On Sunday was my sister's birthday and so we went to Rexburg for her cake and ice cream. (A delicious ice cream cake by the way!)

In honor of Rex's birthday and Valentines Day, my favorite's list this week is :

Things I admire about Rex:

• His integrity- Rex his very honest in all of his doings. His work, his personal life, his church callings all benefit from his honesty. He strives to do right with other people. He does the best in all that he can do and puts in an honest days work.
  
• His work ethic- Rex is a very hard worker. He not only works full time at Bingham Memorial Hospital in the marketing department doing a heck of a lot of stuff there, but he then comes home and works for at least a couple of hours for his own clients for his own company, ADvantageous Design. Not only that, but he is the ward clerk and the building scheduler, is a husband and father, and helps many, many people in our family and in our ward with computer problems.
  
• Charitable- Rex is always concerned about other people. He is always thinking of ways to help other people.
• Funny- Rex is funny. Many of you may not know this but he really has a sense of humor. He makes up funny songs and keeps us laughing frequently.

We love you!