Holi - Festival of Colors

"In India, Holi announces the arrival of spring and the passing of winter. The festival breathes an atmosphere of social merriment. People bury their hatchets with a warm embrace and throw their worries to the wind. Every nook and corner presents a colorful sight. Young and old alike are covered with colors (red, green, yellow, blue, black and silver). People in small groups are seen singing, dancing and throwing colors on each other." - Festival of Colors USA


This past weekend, our Signs of Love team decided to attend the annual Festival of colors in Spanish Fork, Utah. This has been something I have always wanted to go to but have never really had the chance, so you could imagine how excited I was! Travis, my brother and I all got plain white shirts and wrote positive sayings as well as #signsoflove on them. I thought writing it on my back was an awesome idea, until I realized I was going to be wearing a backpack the whole time...Haha. We decided to meet up with Carly and Sierra at Mickey D's for some breakfast before our adventure! As soon as we walked in, we had people asking us what we were doing in all white shirts with sayings. One person even asked if we were going to a rally. After we finished our breakfast, we headed out. Spanish fork is about an hour away from Salt Lake. As we got closer, we noticed that even the big signs on the freeway said, "Festival Traffic take exit 254." From that alone,I knew it was going to be busy!

When we arrived, we didnt really know where to go, so we just followed traffic. They had a bunch of indivuals charging for parking on their own land, since it was in farm country, Very smart idea! Luckily, the lot we decided to park in was run by Boy Scouts, so the money went towards their troop. Once we got out of the car, we were ready to go! The temple was located about a mile away from all the parking, so we jumped in with the crowd of white and proceeded to walk to the temple. Along the side of the road, there were locals selling water, candy, food, and even bandanas. One group even was selling the colored cornstarch, which is a no no. They will confiscate it at the gate if they see it,

I was under the impression that the color throwing was every hour. So, I guess in my mind I didn't think about people just throwing it randomly. Man, was I wrong! As soon as we walked in, we saw people covered in color! Then, I got my first hit with pink dust! It was on! At first, I was a little timid about throwing dust at people, because you never know how they will react...Everyone there was in such high spirits and happy, that feeling quickly disappeared. I was thanking people for throwing dust on me. Travis had a Free Hugs shirt and hugged well over 100 people. He even had a line at one point! 

One thing I thought was cool, was the fact that there was a llama farm! They also had a peacock farm as well. I work at a zoo that had free roaming peacocks so I am used to it, BUT they had soooo many, I couldn't believe it! They even had an Albino Peacock....that's just awesome!

Another awesome thing was the temple. I never expected it to be as old and amazing as it was, People were lined up on the second floor, throwing powder onto the crowd below. Even the walls were covered in colored hand prints.

Just on the opposite side of temple, was hoards of people lining from the steps all the way down the hill to the stage. When it was time for the group color throw, we didn't even bother getting stuck deep into the crowd. The color throw was amazing. They had the crowd count down from ten and as soon as you hit 1, you were surrounded by clouds of color falling down on you. Then faster than you know, the colors mix together, and it's just dark grey clouds above you, then poof! Gone..

We then just proceeded to walk around and throw dust at people. Especially targeting the color virgins in all white! Before we knew it, it was 2 o'clock! We had been there for 4 hours and had no idea!!! At that point, we all decided it was time to go home. Especially because around that time actual lines started forming to get into the festival. When we got there at 10, there were no lines. Lucky huh?!  

By the time we got home we were all ready for a shower and a nap! I hadn't even realized how sun burnt I got until I got home and showered haha.

The exhaustion from the day and the heat set in, and we were lazy bums for the rest of the night. Let's just say that night of sleep was AMAZING! I definitely want to go back next year! No doubts about that. If you have never been, I recommend you at least go once in your life! You wont regret it!

Holy Shiitake!!!

 

I had just gotten home from work and Travis said he wanted pizza for dinner. We first were going to go to California Pizza Kitchen because we had a coupon he had gotten a couple days before. I took a look at it and it was expired! We were given an expired coupon! Rude!... Anyway, we started naming off different pizza places and realized that we still hadn't been to the new one located in SugarHouse called Mellow Mushroom.
(1080 East 2100 South, next to Wasatch Pub).


From the moment you hit the front doors with peace sign door handles, you just know its a total hippy restaurant. --------->

First, let me give you a brief history lesson.

1974-  Mellow Mushroom originally opened its doors in Atlanta, Georgia.





1976- It had become so popular, the Spring Street Mellow had to cut a hole in the wall and attached a school bus to the building for additional seating

1982  - First 'friendchise" was born and the world becomes a little more Mellow one Mushroom at a time!


2011- Jumping forward 29 years, the Bake Bus hit the road, serving fresh hot pizza on wheels!



Now back to 2015 , we were amazed by the decor inside. Peace signs were on the back of every chair, little innuendos were hidden everywhere, even the bar was shaped like a mushroom!

From doing a little research, I learned that each mellow mushroom is not like the other. They are all unique in their  own ways. 

Now to the menu! First I started off with 2 different draft beers from Moab & Park City, Ut. They were pretty delicious. Perfect way to start off my meal right?

On to the appetizers, which are called Munchies. ;) One of the items is listed as Magic Mushroom Soup. We decided we didn't want to be space cadets, so we went with the Spinach Artichoke dip. Sooo good!The rest of the menu includes everything from pizza, calzones, salads to even hoagies.

We then ordered a 16" pizza to share between Travis and I. We often have issues deciding on the same thing when we go out to eat. Lucky for us, they allow you to do half and half! So, I got a Buffalo Chicken which includes mozzarella cheese, grilled Buffalo chicken, caramelized onions, Applewood smoked bacon with a swirl of Buffalo sauce. accompanied  by blue cheese dip. It had the right proportions of everything on it, so it wasn't to spicy but still had a kick to it! Travis' half was the House Special which consist of Red sauce base with mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, sausage, ground beef, ham, Applewood smoked bacon, mushrooms, black olives, Roma tomatoes, green peppers and onions & topped with extra mozzarella. My brother Jeff got his own and did a half and half as well. I believe his was the Holy Shiitake Pie which has an olive oil and garlic base, Shiitake, button and Portobello mushrooms, caramelized onions, mozzarella and MontAmoré cheeses. Drizzled with garlic aioli and black truffle oil.

It definitely tasted as good as it looked, which was amazing! I couldn't get over how tasty their crust was. Never in my life have I been absolutely in love with the crust of a pizza. The texture is purely divine and it tastes wonderful. There is NO crust avoiding at Mellow Mushroom. Even people who discard the crust will eat THIS crust. I have been dying to make a pizza from scratch at home and thought this crust would be perfect if I knew how to recreate it. Lucky for me while doing my research for this blog entry, I found a Copy Cat Recipe!!!! So Travis, we are trying this!!!

All in all, the vibe in this place was amazing! Our waitress was amazing and very laid back. Even the staff that was not scheduled for our portion of the restaurant were so helpful and nice!

Another thing I loved was their take out boxes. Not only does it have the cool mushroom dude on it, it also is one of the greenest pizza box in the country It has a negative carbon footprint & is made from 100% recycled material. Their brown napkins and paper cups are also made from rapidly renewable resources. And even the printing is printed with environmentally friendly soy ink. If that's not good karma, I don't know what is! This place is highly highly recommended to everyone and their mothers! GO TO MELLOW MUSHROOM NOWWWWW!   

Just look for the pink neon sign in sugar house. 

The End :D

Wine & Signs of Love

   

This weekend was a great way to end February & begin March!

Feb. 28th

First we begin with a Wine & Cheese Party! We have wanted to do this for years now but it has never actually happened. First we started out with everyone bringing a wine and a cheese to
match. 


We tried our best to match them correctly but as the night went on, we decided to test everything out.

   1st -  We began with a Moscato and a Sweet Cheddar imported from Ireland.

This definatly ended up being the favorite of the night and the one we all kept going back to. A Moscato is a soothing and sweet  tasting wine. The cheddar is a rich and tangy flavor, with a hint of sweetness. The pairing was phenomenal!

 

2nd -  We moved onto a  2006 French Bordeaux wine paired with Havarti Cheese (my favorite cheese). A Bordeaux is a red wine that consists of charcoal, espresso roast, blackberries, blueberries, and a hint of wood. Harvarti cheese is  a very creamy cheese that as it softens becomes creamier and more detectible. Normally Havarti goes well with fruits as well as Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, light-bodied Pinot Noir wine but we decided it would taste good with this wine and it did! 

3rd - Pinot Grigio paired with Gouda.Pinot Grigio is a lighter-bodied white wine that is crisp, fresh, with vibrant stone fruit and floral aromas and a touch of spice. I have never had gouda not melted on a sandwich or pizza before. so this was an experience for my taste buds. It had a smokey flavor to it, kinds of like bacon. It was good but I wasn't that huge of a fan of it, let alone the pairing with the wine.

4th  - Red Zweigelt paired with an Extra Sharp Cheddar that said to pair it with a white but hey! We don't follow rules right?! A Zweigelt is a classic Australian wine that is richly colored with a deep, bright core of spiced cherry and raspberry flavors. The cheese was crumbly and sharp and paired decently with the wine. What made more of a hit was pairing the Cheddar with apple slices! It always sounded weird to me  but I couldn't stop eating the combination!

5th - Finally we ended the night with a Strawberry wine and Cheesecake. Some of us wanted the Moscato again so we paired that with the cake instead! Everything was delicious and it was definitely a successful night!

March 1st

This was the big bang of the weekend! Our friend Carly decided it would be a fun idea to make signs of positivity and share it with the world. She simply asked on Facebook, who would join her. Within an hour, there was a community page created and an event. We told people to make signs that said anything positive such as You are loved, You are beautiful, believe in yourself and share it either out in public or to even take a picture of it and share it with #Signsoflove included in the caption. We got so many confirms for the event, we knew it was going to make an impact. First we started the day out by going to the store with post it notes with positive sayings and putting them on cars. When we were getting out of the car, we saw an opportunity we couldn't pass up. A firetruck and ambulance pulled in and went into the store. We sat and watched them take pictures of them with big smiles on their faces as well as put them on their dashboards. Feel good moment of the day! Next we went to breakfast at Over the Counter (our favorite breakfast joint). After our meal I left one on the table :)

We all decided to meet up in the Shopko parking lot in Sugar House. While we were waiting for the rest of the group to show up, we decided to go into the store and buy window paint to promote positivity on our cars!
 


We even had little helper Abby writing on the cars! Teach them positivity and love young!

Once everyone got there and decked out our vehicles. we decided to head on out to the corners of 1300 East in SugarHouse and share the love! We started out on the corner next to Taco Bell at 3:00 pm. We were all so pumped and got a lot of people giving us thumbs up and honks. Some people were even trying to take pictures of us! 

 Travis and Morgan decided to be crazy and go out in the middle of the road to the median. I knew this wasn't a great idea but boys will be boys right?!

At one point we did have Taco Bell call mall security on us because apparently we were turning away their business...so we were directed to go across the street to the side walk in front of the park. We got so much positive feed back from people, it was amazing. I can only name a handful of cars that were negative.

 

  

Once we moved across the street, we got more attention for sure! We even had a cop pull up to us. First thought? Uh oh, here we go! Luckily he was a nice cop and just said they had gotten calls saying there were protesters in the middle of the road jumping into the middle of traffic. We told him that we were out there for a minute but in no way were we jumping into the middle of the street. He asked what we were doing and just wanted to make sure we were being safe about it. We thanked him for the support and for his service. He wished us luck and went on his way! So big thanks to SLCPD for your support of our cause! With that, I think I can say we all got a little more motivation! We stood out there, waving and smiling to people with our signs until about 6:30 when it got dark. With rush hour we got so many more honks and waves as well as people taking pictures. If that's not motivation, I don't know what is! By the end of the night we were all so cold but we were in great spirits and ready to plan the next event! We even saw pictures posted online of us!

 

One of the awesome things that happened was my brother Jeff decided to make big tarp banners with white paint with positive sayings. His plan was to go out late at night the night before and hang them on the freeway overpasses.

We actually had people ask us as they were driving by if this was us as well as people that knew people we knew posting it on Facebook. I even had my boss ask me if this was us as well when I came into work. It's amazing what a simple act of kindness can do for the world! 

Positive mind, Positive Vibes, Positive Life!