Grandma's Birthday

For my Grandma's birthday we all went and had dinner at Buca di Beppo to celebrate. We had such a fun time. We all sat around a large round table with a massive "industrious-susan" in the middle. (Mom said that it shouldn't be called a lazy susan, but an industrious susan instead. For those of you who don't know, my Mom's name is Susan.) It was crazy with all of us crammed in a room, but we loved being all together.

Mmmm...Fettucine Alfredo.



There was a bust of the pope in the center of our table. In fact, our whole room was decorated in pope memorabilia. Maybe they were trying to tell us something?


Uncle Mikey with baby Teagan. So sweet!

Chocolate gelato for dessert. What more could you ask for??

Happy Birthday Grandma!!

More 24th of July fun

When Christopher's little league team won their league championship, all of the players received tickets to a Salt Lake Bee's game. We went on the 24th and stayed for the fireworks show afterwards. Christopher was excited to meet Bumble, their mascot, and get his autograph.

Pioneer Day

Bountiful celebrates Pioneer Day every year with a carnival, parade, and fireworks the day before all of the Salt Lake activities. Most of the groups and floats that are in the Bountiful parade, are also in the Salt Lake parade. We took the kids to the carnival where the boys quickly used their tickets for popcorn, snocones, and the fishing booth to get prizes. Katrina saved hers and rode on the ferris wheel while the boys cried!


Here we are sitting along the parade route. Notice our spot in the shade! Jim goes down every year at 5:45 am to get these seats for us. He is so awesome!!



Yes, we live in Hicksville! They even had square dancers that were announcing over their intercom that they wanted more 40-somethings to join their group. No thanks! I don't think those puffy skirts are modest enough! LOL!

All of the kids took bags for the candy and prizes that were being thrown. Jim's job was to stand up and yell "over here, over here" so that the kids got plenty. He does a great job. We came home with bags of candy, a t-shirt, a rain coat, several frisbees, and key chains. So fun!


What a great day! We love living here.

So Sassy!!

You know how it is when you go shopping with girlfriends and you always buy something that you wouldn't normally buy? Well, that's what happened with my new sassy red shoes. Doesn't every little girl want a pair of red shoes just like Dorothy had in the Wizard of Oz. I think we imagine that they too might have magical powers. (Jim likes them, so they must!) I paired them today with a white top, black skirt, and the Amy Butler bag I finally finished sewing. So Sassy!!

Terrors and Delights

Summer time brings out opposing emotions in me. For instance, I love summer produce! Fresh raspberries and apricots, yum!


Then there's the flip side, deer that eat anything they want, whether I wanted to eat it or not! These two young bucks came in to our yard three times in one day. The first time was in the morning and I scared them away by yelling at them from the window. Apparently they didn't think I was much of a threat, because the second time was around lunch and I had to run out and bang pans at them. The third time was after it was dark and we could see them lurking out there. Jim went out and yelled at them. I feel sorry for them, and yet, totally annoyed!!

Camping fun!

We just got back from a wonderful "stay-cation". We went up Logan Canyon and camped in a beautiful campground called Woodcamp right next to the Logan River. We had such a good time being together and just getting away from it all.

Anyone who knows me well, knows I love food! Our first camp food experiment was homemade ice cream. We stopped by Gossner Foods in Logan on our way up. They specialize in milk products that are stored in shelf stable packages. (They look like juice boxes.) We bought some milk, whipping cream, half & half, cheese spread, and of course, squeaky cheese. For the ice cream, I found a recipe that calls for 1/2 c. half & half, 1 Tbsp. sugar, 1/4 tsp. vanilla mixed together in a sandwich size ziploc bag. Put inside a gallon size ziploc with ice and ice cream salt. Rock back and forth for 10 minutes and voila! Ice cream!!

The second experiment was dutch oven Rhodes rolls. I brought up frozen dough that had thawed mostly by the afternoon. I put them in a 12" dutch oven with some cooking spray, put the lid on, and set it in the sun to rise. It didn't take long! 9 coals on the bottom and 15 coals on top. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Warm rolls! YUM!

The third experiment was tin foil dinners. Those of you who went to girls camp with me know that tin foil dinners can burn and be ruined really easily but Jim really wanted to have them. I decided to make two large ones instead of five small. I used red potatoes sliced thin, thick rings of onion, cream of mushroom soup, and meatballs I made the night before and froze. Meat on the bottom, onions, potatoes, and soup on top. Double wrapped in foil and put in the coals for 40 minutes. Perfect!

The second day we roasted hot dogs over the camp fire. So good! The kids had never done that and loved it.

On our trip we went to the American West Heritage Center in Logan. It is a living museum depicting pioneer life from 1820-1920. The kids got to pet and feed farm animals, throw tomahawks, pan for gold, ride horses, and visit a wood shop where we bought this whisk. Christopher was so intrigued with it's design that he begged to buy it. It is made from the top of a Christmas tree with the top boughs bent upward to the handle. They assured us that it is the best whisk to have camping and that it makes the lightest pancakes by twirling it between your hands. We didn't bring pancake mix, but decided to try it out on our dutch oven brownies. So warm and gooey!

On Saturday we went back up to Bear Lake. It is quickly becoming one of our favorite places. It is so much like the beach. Mike, Leah, their boys, and Leah's two sisters met us up there for a day of fun in the sun. Ask Mike how long he has to wear a t-shirt for because he's as red as a lobster!! (When we were growing up, if we got sunburned, Mom would make us wear a t-shirt for a long time after that as a punishment, as if the sunburn weren't punishment enough!! LOL!)

What a wonderful three days away! We can't wait to do it again!!

Tie Dye

My Friend Camille and I do craft days with our kids once a week. This week we did tie dye t-shirts. So fun! The kids are very proud of "making" their own shirts.

Bear Lake 4th of July

This 4th of July weekend we spent at Mike and Leah's house. We drove up Thursday evening and went to dinner with them at a little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant called Floriberto's. They had the best carne asada tacos! We also had chile rellenos with fresh pico de gallo, guacamole, rice, beans, and homemade tortillas. I was loving it all!! After dinner the kids swam in their pool and then Mike, Jim and the kids lit off fireworks while Leah and I made Cool Caramel Dessert. YUM! Friday we drove up to Bear Lake on the Utah/Idaho border. That was one of the places on the kids "want to go to" list for the summer. I had no idea how large the lake was. People here talk about going to the beach at Bear Lake all the time and I always have a "what a hick, I go to the real beach" attitude about it. I was really impressed, so now I am humbled. People lined the sandy shores having BBQ's, playing volleyball, building sand castles, burying people in the sand, and riding 4 wheelers. It was amazing to kind of feel like you're at the beach a few hours from home. There were even shells the kids collected!

We came back and had a wonderful BBQ. Ribs, watermelon, corn on the cob, garlic roasted potatoes, chips, soda, and Cool Caramel for dessert. After dinner, we headed down to the park for their city's fireworks display. A military band played while the kids ran around waiting for the fireworks to begin. It was so old town America. We had a great time!!
Saturday morning Leah and I went running and when we got back Mike and Jim went to play a round of golf. While they were gone, Leah and I watched the movie P.S. I love you and cried our eyes out! After a lunch of leftover ribs, corn, and some Chinese Chicken salad we headed back home. We had such a good time and really felt like it was a vacation. Thanks Mike and Leah for entertaining us!!

Happy Birthday Allison!!

If I'm still 29, then you must be 29 too!! Thanks for being such a great friend growing up. I think we're so happy in this picture because there's two of us and three boys on this little raft. If we had gotten marooned, the odds would have definitely been in our favor!!! Happy Birthday!!

It isn't officially summer until we have a lemonade stand

Katrina and Caleb decided to have a lemonade stand today while Christopher was at Scout Camp. They were out on the street for an hour and a half and raked in about $12. Not too bad for an afternoon's work.

I spent the afternoon finishing painting my porch railings that I started yesterday. They were silver here, white and black there and rusty all over!! Now they are a lovely semi-gloss black.


Please ignore the flower beds that are in need of some serious attention! That's another day's project.

"Who"ppers

Whoppers are one of Christopher's favorite candies. The thing that's so cute is that after multiple corrections on the pronunciation of the word whopper, Christopher insists that it says "who"pper. You know, I think he's right! Why is it pronounced whopper and not "who"pper?? So now we all call them "who"ppers.