{lower} antelope canyon & horseshoe bend

This summer in Arizona I am focusing on rephrasing everything as follows:

"I love ____ about Arizona." vs "I hate everything about Arizona."

"I enjoy (participating in, seeing, going, jumping, laughing... ext.) in Arizona." vs "Why do people stay in Arizona."

Seeing as I don't think I could ever possibly endure another winter & our location is incredible... I will continue living in this place, which means reframing everything I think about it right now! A few of my recent changes in views:

Springtime in Arizona smells almost like lilacs... but they are orange blossoms, I make myself tired trying to smell so hard outside.

The weather is AMAZING. You can do ANYTHING outside.

There is SO MUCH TO DO!!!!!!! Hidden gems, things to get my evergreen state of mind rolling & happy. Moral of this story is that my goal is the find as many places & things to do this summer to love it as much as the winter!

Zach & I took a trip to Page & boy howdy! IT WAS AMAZING! we used the Dixie Ellis tour & it was incredible! We learned so much while we were there & not to mention our tour guide knew all the best spots to snap some photos. We even had time to take a walk to horseshoe bend, all I wanted to do was dive down to the water &  float around on a boat. it was also beautiful. 

homemade {pop-tarts}

Have you ever just taken a bite of something & thought, "This would be the food I would choose to have on a stranded island!" Well, it happens to be quite a bit but this one... oh man, this one was it! I found the recipe in the $10 magazine Zach reluctantly purchased for me... he was right, I could have found the same recipe on pinter, but I prefer the hard copies. These tasty little morals reminded me of the danish recipe I have previously shared.

What you'll need:

Pop-tarts 

1 3/4 C of flour

1 tablespoon of sugar

1/2 teaspoon of salt

3/4 cup butter 

1 {beaten} egg

2 tablespoons of milk

your choice of fruit preserves or jam - I used raspberry {YUM!}

Frosting 

1 C powdered sugar 

1 tablespoon of milk

splash of vanilla 

1. 2. 3. 4. ext. Mix your dry ingredients first! add in your butter slowly... should begin to look crumbly! stir in your lightly beaten egg, once mixed in begin to add your milk slowly... you may need more than 2 tablespoons {until the mixture holds together} you do not want a milky or "wet" texture... or you have added too much milk! But don't worry, sprinkle some flour in if you need!

Then! Separate your dough to 2 {even} balls. clear a clean surface and sprinkle some flour to avoid your dough from sticking... If you haven't noticed... I'm not a good follower of directions so in other recipes you will find step by step instructions on how to cut up perfect squares but Zach & I preferred to roll out all the dough & make some funky looking shapes along with these 2 "pretty" ones! Just make sure that each tart has 2 matching sides to eventually stick together!!!

Preheat your oven to 375. Find your matching pieces, one of side add approximately 1 tablespoon of your filling choice, once you have done so you can lightly smudge some milk along the edges to ensure they stick together, place the matching side on top, begin to use a fork to smoosh together the edges! use the fork to stab some holes in the tops before they take a trip into the oven to avoid an explosion of tasty jam.

BANG! You have a pop tart. JK, place these little suckers in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Once you have removed them, let them cool! Unless... you want your frosting to melt all over the place.

The icing is the most simple part. 

stir together your powdered sugar, milk & butter!!! Once the tarts are cooled, spoon that delicious frosting over them... don't make my mistake & eat it all before it ends up on the finished product!!!

PS: I made mine dairy free!!!!!!!!!!!!