Healthy Diet

Mar says: mmmm
Mar says: broccoli
Mar says: that's what I'm eating for my afternoon snack
Mar says: how healthy is that?
Mikie says: not healthy at all.
Mikie says: you need to balance your diet with some twix.
Mar says: :P
Mar says: well I don't have any twix ;) 
Mar says: just broccoli
Mikie says: I've got more twix here than you should ever eat ;)
Mar says: I almost bought one of those 120-piece bags of candy at Costco
Mar says: and succeeded in stopping myself
Mar says: thanks a lot
Mar says: now my broccoli isn't so appetizing
Mar says: you've got me thinking about chocolate instead of how healthy my broccoli is for me
Mikie says: yes I'm evil ;)

You threw off my groove, man!

Or at least that’s what I’m saying until the next time I go.

I went in today to get my usual, when I hear these words I just don’t understand:

“We’re out of steak.”

What? Did he just say they’re out of steak? What good is Café Rio without steak? Oh my groove was so thrown off. I stumbled, stammered, and said “ok” when he offered grilled chicken instead. What? I don’t even like the grilled chicken at Café Rio that much. It’s not like grilled chicken at teriyaki grill or hibachi san. But at a loss I agreed and had a grilled chicken salad.

I thought to myself as I walked out the door “oh well, what I REALLY love is the tortilla with cheese melted on it. At least they weren’t out of those.” (Yeah, how would they stay in business without tortillas?)

So I got back to the office and sat down to eat with Melissa and Mar when I realized, I hadn’t stopped on my way out of Café Rio to get a fork and stuff. Gah! That’s when I realized just how off my groove the lack of steak had thrown me. I was relegated to those wimpy forks in the company kitchen area— those things are too bendy and weak to even break apart that yummy tortilla, so I ended up tearing pieces off with my fingers.

Oh man. I’m not looking forward to the rest of the day without my groove.

NintenDogs!!!

So monday Mike received the nintendo DS game called Nintendogs in the mail. I was intrigued, and to make a long story short, he later purchased a copy at Shopko for me for my birthday. There are three different versions with different breeds of dogs, i got the chihuahua version with my dog (Shep), a yorkshire terrier. The point of the game is to practically raise and train your puppy. You enter dog shows to earn money, and use that money to buy food, toys, or even another puppy. Anyway, this game is just amazing, you should have seen me and mike in the basement last night training our dogs and letting our dogs play together. I have become obsessed with this game, I take my DS to work to play with my dog and feed it. You really can't forget about it or your dog will starve, just ask Mike after having left it alone for one day.

Pumpkin Taffies and Candy Corns

So, Mike, Melissa, and I had a funny lunchtime conversation. We talk about food a lot (maybe it's because we're at lunch, or maybe it's because Mike and I finally broke Melissa down to having an interest in the good and bad side of dieting and being food-conscious). Here are some snippets from our conversation today.

"I was so determined to be good today, then I ate York cookies for breakfast!" --Melissa

And this is a shortened version of our funniest conversation:
Melissa: "The only Halloween candy I can't stop eating once I start are those pumpkin mallowcremes."
Mar: "Ewwww! For me it's candy corns."
Mike: "Those are the same things!"
Mar: "Oh...yeah, huh."
Mar: "And I also love pumpkin face taffy."
Mike: "I love those! Why are they so good? And where can I get them?"
Mar: "I haven't found them yet this year, but Macey's has them in their regular candy all year. They're white with little black stripes on the sides."
Mike: "But they're not the same without the pumpkin faces!"

Happy Be-lated birthday Shawn!

So, yesterday was Shawn's birthday. He's 19 (and yeah he has a mission call to serve in the Baltic mission).

Good times were had by (almost) all at Panda Express. I don't remember what fortunes everyone got in their fortune cookies but there were some good laughs. Here's one that shows just how mean we are to each other: Steve opens his fortune cookie and reads something along the lines of: "A photograph simply cannot convey your charm". Most of us burst out in merciless laughter, hehe.

Another quote you probably had to be there to appreciate fully:

"Man, I saw like 3 midgets last week. It was FREAKY!" --Shawn

Any other quotes? Fortunes?

Hope your birthday was good, Shawn!

Last wishes

"When I die, I want to be buried with my light saber." -- Shawn

Yes, apparently a light saber battle can randomly break out at 12:30 in the morning on a weekend. It's good that Shawn has his priorities straight!

Tastes Like Candles

Sunday dinners are always a source for entertainment at the Sloan house. Here were some of my favorite moments from yesterday.

Melting mini Crunch bars with Kate.
Kate: “Mmmm...melted crunch bars are so much better than regular ones!”
(Then I tried it, burned it, then successfully melted a portion.)
Me: But it tastes like candle!
Kate: No it doesn’t!
Me: Well, mine does!
Kate: Then you’re doing it wrong!
...
Me: Muti, don’t eat that candy bar...try a crunch bar melted over the candle!
Muti: But then it will taste like candle!
Kate: Grrrrr.

And...
Muti: Dan, who’s coming to pick you up?
Dan: What makes you think someone’s coming to pick me up?
Muti: I just heard you give directions to our house on the phone.
Dan: Did I?

And...
Well, just watching Dan and Shawn get all stoked over a fight between the Rock and some other guy on that sorry excuse for a movie, The Scorpion King. Apparently it got them stoked, because Mike reported that they later started a light-saber duel. I guess everyone needs a hobby.

Pie

So, Shawn has requested banana cream pie with his birthday dinner, it appears. Marianne and Melissa were talking about pie recipies and stuff today and I recalled the last time I ate banana cream pie, which was probably on the 4th of July at little famlily barbeque. Mom had made a couple of strawberry pies, and at Steve's request had also made a banana cream pie.

It turns out that back in the day I used to go to Frontier Pies with Jeff and Ty all the time, and our favorite I think was banana cream with strawberries. So I thought, hey-- banana cream pie, strawberry pie... if I just mix them together it's like ultimate strawberry banana cream pie, right?

So we're sitting there eating and mom let us know that we (the boys) had better eat it so it didn't go to waste. Oh, no problem, I assure you. I went for another piece of banana cream pie and hey-- at this point I couldn't eat JUST strawberry pie or JUST banana cream pie. So I went for another piece of strawberry pie and just plopped it, upside-down, on top of my banana cream pie. Melissa and Melanie's eyes just went WIDE with amazement. "You're eating 4 freakin pieces of pie?!" I think even the boys were impressed. I was legendary for a day or 2 as word spread of my amazing feat.

Looking back, 4 pieces of pie is a lot of pie, but at the time I thought it was a very minor feat. Dan said I inspired him to go for another piece and thus polish off the banana cream pie. What can I say? You never know what kind of example you're setting. Man, I'm looking forward to that pie on Sunday night for Shawn's birthday. Though who knows how well it will mix with whatever pie ends up there with it, hehe....

Zoned

Man, I hate it when mom and dad are gone. I have to keep track of everybody! Okay, not really, but - I hadn't seen Dan in three days, until last night when he came home and made a malt. What if he was dead on the street somewhere? Anyhow, I don't know what everyone's schedules are yet, and since Steve has such a crazy work schedule, I thought he worked at 10 last night, but he hadn't come upstairs; so I went downstairs and into his room, turned the light on, and woke him up:
Mel: "Steve?"
Steve: "MMPPFF?"
M: "Aren't you working tonight?"
S: " 'Time is it?"
M: "After 9:30. Don't you work at 10?"
S: "No, I'm back at the Sandy store - I don't work until 11."
M: "Oh."

Silence.

I totally zoned out - I stared at him for a minute before he says, "Uh, how about turning my light back out?"

Sorry, Steve. Still trying to get used to things!

Can you tell me how to get...

Since funny moments occur randomly when Mike, Melissa, and I all eat lunch together (which is more seldom than it used to be these days), I thought I'd follow up last Wednesday's funny Melissa-moment with a new one.

We were in an intense discussion about the TV show Lost, when Melissa said something to the effect that, "This isn't really related, but I was watching Sesame Street the other day."

Can you imagine the looks she got? Then she proceeded to describe a scene of Wayne Brady dancing with the monsters, and how she was laughing so hard and called out to her roommate, "I haven't watched Sesame Street in forever, but man...is it funny!"

Should I also mention Melissa was also wearing a bright yellow shirt? Big Bird inspiration, maybe? :)

Snuggles

Sweet. Darth (Mike) keeps trying to get us to post to a blog, and I've been sadly delinquent. This should make it easier.

So one of my favorite Shawny-quotes was when Mel, Mike, Shawn and I were in St. George (Star Wars marathon trip...woohoo!). Shawn was half-asleep, and Mike was teasing him.

Mike: "Hey Shawny, wanna snuggle?"

Shawn (waving him away): "Nah, I'm good."

Oh, boy...we did not let him forget that.

On another note, Shawn just decided that he wants teryaki chicken for his birthday dinner, and banana cream pie with banana slices. Um, Melissa...how are your banana-cream-pie-making skills? :)

It was when I ate them last night!

So Marianne, Melissa and I are at lunch today. Melissa brought me a few York cookies to try, since she loves them and I had asked her about them. She mentioned at some point that yesterday had been "bad food day" for her. (You know, the kind where you eat stuff you shouldn't, or at least more than you should).

As I get through with my lunch and start eating the cookies, I'm talking about how good they are when Marianne tells me that one cookie has 75 calories. (It used to always be Marianne telling us how many calories were in a given food item-- "do you KNOW how many CALORIES are in that?!" Hehe... now we've all become calorie counting pooches, and food and nutrition is a regular topic of discussion at lunch).

So on the topic of "bad" food, Melissa describes these bite-sized ice cream snacks called Dibs-- little balls of ice cream dipped in chocolate or whatever.

Melissa: Yeah, there are 380 calories in 26 pieces.

Mikie: 26 pieces is one serving?! That sounds like a lot to me.

Melissa: It WAS a lot when I ate them last night!

Haha, oh man we just started rolling, Mar had tears in her eyes, she was laughing so hard.

Oh man. I should really add google ads to this site with all the shameless advertising I'm already doing.

Sloan Family Mayhem

Ever say something that turned out to be really funny, or hear someone else say something classic that you want to remember?

Well, as a family we love quoting... when we watch a movie for the first time we're listening for the quotable lines and then start working on memorizing so that we can quote them back whenever an opportunity arises.

Sometimes the quotes originate from funny conversations instead of movies. We had one today and I thought "man, we just need a blog to keep track of great quotes like this." So here it is (the blog, I mean).

What better to keep for posterity than a quote journal? Hehe...