Cereal + Banana Yogurt

Such an exciting combo!

My 4th of July Journal

Thursday, July 1st:
Arrive in Wyoming with my fam and sister Sue.
Good food.
Games.
Bed by 4:30 am.



Friday, July 2nd:
Saw the rest of the Utah fam arrive midday.

Games.

Dusk.

First order of business- Fireworks. I come from a family of pyros. Maybe that's why they ended up in a state that sells the best and scariest fireworks you can find? Luckily, to make it even better, my sister and her fam live just barely out of city limits- this means that even the fireworks that may be illegal to light, are legal to light at their house.

Daddy and cookie protecting the baby.

This is Milo. Milo is old. Milo is deaf. Milo comes alive these days but once a year. That day is the 4th of July. He is so cute and funny to watch. He gets as close as possible to them and barks his old man bark in delight. Then he barks at the neighbor's fireworks.
Dog pyro.

Must be a particularly loud firework judging from everyone's reactions (especially the babies). I include my reaction. I may look blase about it, but I suspect I am being momma bear checking to make sure the cub is protected adequately by papa bear.
(Zero in on this picture (click it). Allison (the baby on the right) looks terrified for her life! (Yet so cute). She grew to love them.)

The pyros running for cover

This is the original pyro--- Too cool to run? Unflappable? Too old? You decide.

Later that night...............

2nd order of business: Upholding the tradition of seeing the next Twilight movie with the fam. Happy to report it is MUCH better then the others. Hooray for that! We were left wondering however why the guy with the individually wrapped Sun Chips stayed home. We missed you dude. Ah well, maybe we'll catch you next time at Breaking Dawn. And who gave the theater permission to fix that really loud generator so it was whisper quiet?

When I got home I was greeted with the cutest sight I have
seen in a long time...

Ok, seriously-- how cute is my little family?

When I said "movie with the fam" that did not include Rob. He wouldn't touch this movie with a ten foot movie ticket.

Good food. Games.

Bed by 4 am.

Saturday, July 3rd:
Up early: White water rafting. Map of our route painted on the sidewalk. Pugh Waves was spotted.

Scout is helpfully pointing that out.

Let us all forget that I walked onto the bus with my helmet on backwards saying, (loudly) "these helmets are really uncomfortable".

Here is a pic of my boat and crew.
Look at Matt. (click it for full effect)

Boat and crew #2.

As you can see, the scenery wasn't pretty at all.

This wasn't my boat.
I think that one might have got them wet.

This was a serious blast. Thanks to Amy and Scott for orchestrating it. Thanks again to Amy for watching my girls and sacrificing hitting the rapids (for a second time in 3 weeks).

Thermopolis after wards for lunch and bridge swinging.

Our attempt at recreating this pic taken about 6 years earlier in the same spot:

Except this time we weren't all rivery nasty.

6 of my 7 siblings together. Missed Ben this trip. We'll just have to all get together again.
Darn it.

My Bean.

Back in one piece. Some went fishing.

Rob caught the catch of the day:I'm not being sarcastic here. He is the only one that got a bite.
Way to go babe!

Off to the local fireworks show. You might think a local fireworks show in a small town in Wyoming with homemade fireworks done by a dentist (by trade) sounds laughable. Not so. The is one of the most spectacular fireworks shows I have ever seen. This guy makes some seriously cool fireworks set to music. Never mind the ash rain shower.
Just one person from the group got a burn mark on her clothes.
Just one with hot ash in her eye.
Wyoming and fireworks: awesome combo.


Good food.

Games.

Bed by 3 am or so (come on! We'd had a big day).

Sunday, July 4th:

We all turned into baby birds. Except for Amy. She be mama bird.

Meep meep meep meep

Games.

Rob leaves for Utah. I stay with the kids to leave on Wed with Matt and B.

Church.

Games:

See The Kids Were All Wright for an explanation of this game. You will thank me later at your next party.


Good food.
Matt.

Star gazing. Dave brought his awesome telescope and set it up.
Venus: check.
Saturn: check (it really does have rings!).
Star clusters: check.
Jupiter and 3 of it's moons: check.
Saw Jupiter's lines: check.



Amazing.

Thanks Dave.

Telescope.
And Alex doing what?

Games.

Hoses.

Bed by............ I don't even want to know. We did see dawn and heard the birds chirping though.

Monday and Tuesday the 5th and 6th:

A Haze of good food, games, hoses, naps, Pixies rock band, Mexican Cokes, fireworks, I believe Amy had to leave us to pick up the kids from the movies during a game and played it on the phone as to not miss a thing. Haha. I LOVE MY FAMILY!!

Wednesday, July 7th:

Yummy sandwiches at yummy Riverton restaurant (for 2nd time that trip... Same sandwich.)
Driving home with Matt and B.
Modest Mouse.
The Moth Podcast.
Little America.
Pixies.
Worst jerky ever.

Home to My Favorite.


Reality. Ah man! Where's mamma bird?





Meep meep meep


Pride and Prejudice.

Pixies.

Matt.

Caving

Matt and B drove me home from our Wyoming 4th of July trip (details of that coming in a later post- my goal is tonight). They had a couple of concerts to attend in Utah, so we all arrived on Wed and they stayed until Saturday. We had a lot of fun, including on Sat morning, we got up "early" and decided to hike to the Timpanogos Caves. I hadn't been since I was fairly young and Matt had never been, neither had B, plus Matt was thinking a little exercise and being away from people sounded nice (they'd had enough of people after the free Modest Mouse concert they had attended). It's also very close to my house, so we made a plan of it. In that first pic you can see that Scout was the navigator and had the map. I was really proud of her- she hiked the whole way except for one brief piggyback ride from B when we were close to the top. (She was a baby mountain goat if you were wondering). It's a mile and a half up to the top of the caves and it is a fairly steep hike! Not made any easier with a baby strapped to your back I tell you, but it sure was beautiful the whole time.

Here is one scenic view:

Here are Matt and Elles at the top

Me and Elles

Scout enjoying a snack while waiting for our tour to begin

Peering over the edge

Here's Elles inside the cave
(it is 45 degrees inside the caves year round! It felt WONDERFUL after that hot hike)

This picture makes me laugh!
Elles has like a Sherlock Holmes look on her face.
Or maybe it's blue steel.....

The Bean and Paw Prints Glitter Stars on the way down

B heroically took Elles for the way down and Elle didn't quite make it.

We had a great little outing and all were very glad we did it. The caves really are impressive and really worth seeing. We found out that there is a room in the caves that makes Timp Cave not only a National Park, but a National Monument. It is a room that has these cave growths that are only found in a couple places in the whole world (and only a couple are found when they are indeed found), but at Timp Cave there is a huge room of them. No one knows how they are formed and why they are so incredibly rare and why the heck Timp Cave has a whole room of them. They resemble Stalactites, but they grow squiggly instead of straight. Anyway, that was the feature that impressed me the most. I was also impressed that I live 3 miles from a National Monument. I never knew that (or thought about that).

Matt and B pretty much left directly after we got home. B text me that night with "Matt just said "the days are long when you get up at 9". I told her that she could tell him that was an especially long one. A three hour hike followed by a 6 hour car ride. Eesh.
Good times!





I had to add the pics that Matt took because they are so good*

(*much better then mine)



Look at Elles peeking behind my back!!
Priceless.

my award winning chocolate cake

I entered my city's baking contest during "Cedar Hills Days" about 2 weeks ago and ended up winning 3rd place for my cake. This was kind of a surprise-- to be honest I was expecting my cookies would be the one to place (if I placed at all). The cake is kind of a work in progress, (I don't have it exactly where I want it yet), I didn't start the cake until 11 the night before, so it was very close to being scrapped all together, also- I couldn't find hazelnuts anywhere and I thought they would be very important to a "Hazelnut Cake". I ended up baking it anyway and simply calling it "chocolate cake". Here is the cake and the cookies:The cake looked embarrassing to tell you the truth- it was a little slanted (which happens to me when I put them together at 2 in the morning). Also, the decor left a lot to be desired (especially for someone that has been decorating cakes for a while as I have). Anyway, I entered it even with all my misgivings.
The cookies turned out great. They were exactly how I wanted them. I did get comments from a few of the people that did the taste test that told me that my cookies were their favorite- so perhaps I was in the running for the peoples choice award there. Who knows. Whatever. I was excited to win 3rd place, especially when I opened my envelope on the way home and found an itunes gift card (and Skittles)

YAY!

Here I am in the paper with the other winners:

I've had some interest about getting the recipe from some people- so why not? Here it is:

Hazelnut Chocolate Cake

(this is my sister's "Deep Dark Chocolate Cake" recipe. Thanks Amy!- You can call it award winning now (you don't have to tell them that it won (3rd place) in a small baking contest in a small town)

2 c. sugar
1 3/4 c. flour
3/4 c. unsweetened cocoa
1 - 1/2 t. baking soda
1 - 1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
2 eggs
1 c. milk
1/2 c. vegetable oil
2 t. vanilla extract
1 c. boiling water


In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients, add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Beat on medium for 2 minutes. Remove from mixer. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour into 2 9-inch round or a 9 X 13 greased and floured pan. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes for rounds, or 35-40 for 9X13. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes before removing.

Nutella frosting

(this is the work in progress -Amy's cake is excellent- no need
to do a thing with it but bake it and eat it. The frosting started as a recipe I found that had hot fudge in it. I wrote it down because I thought that would be good for an ice cream cake or a cake served with ice cream. I quickly decided to sub the hot fudge with Nutella and the rest is history- I've never made it with the hot fudge). I've tweaked it here and there in addition to the Nutella, but not too much yet- I think it needs something or another before I decide it is exactly what I am looking for.) But this is pretty darn good for now:

1/2 c. butter
1/4 c. shortning
1/3 c. cocoa powder
2 c. powdered sugar
2 T. evaporated milk
1 c. Nutella
1 t. vanilla

Cream butter and shortening. Sift the powder's together and add them with the milk, one tablespoon at a time. Add Nutella and vanilla.

So, frost the cake and here are things I would do to make it yummier and fancy (or you can make it as is and just call it "chocolate cake").

1. I put the rest of the Nutella in a pastry bag (you need 8 oz. for the frosting and it comes in 13 oz. jars). For the contest, I just did a big swirl with it in the middle of the cake (around the bottom is just the frosting in a piping bag).

2. Put about eight or 12 generous dots of Nutella around the cake and put a whole hazlenut in the middle of the dot (that was my master plan before it was thwarted by a lack of hazlenuts in my area).

3. A nice touch might be putting a fancy European hazelnut chocolate in the center such as a Ferrero Rocher.

4. I also thought about crushing hazelnuts in a bag and then putting them along the sides of the cake - kind of like some people do with walnuts and carrot cake.

It all depends on your tastes and how much you like Hazelnuts I guess. I thought adding the straight Nutella was a very yummy, rich addition- so I recommend giving that a go.

My Ipod had a Final Destination moment yesterday....

My Ipod Shuffle (featured here), seems to be telling me that the movie Final Destination isn't that far from reality. If you haven't seen the movie, let me explain it's basic premise (I have never seen the whole thing, but caught about 45 minutes of it on cable once). Basically, before some trip, a kid has a vision of him and his friends getting in a plane crash, so he tells them not to board the plane. Surprise surprise the plane does crash and he saved all their lives (I think some didn't heed his word and died). The "universe" found a way to course correct itself and have what was to be, be. For the rest of the movie, one by one, everyone that was saved from the plane crash dies in freaky ways. I have a nagging feeling there is another movie or something that focuses on "course correction" and is the same kind of idea but for the life of me I can't think what it might be. If anyone out there knows, please let me know!
So anyway, my ipod had been missing for a whole day and I was just kind of halfheartedly searching here and there for it, knowing it would turn up somewhere (it always does). What I didn't think of, was that Scout had spilled a drink on the cookie blanket the day before, and I had scooped it up and thrown it in the washer, but not washed it. I was waiting one day for my official "laundry day", so it just sat in the machine. You may think that I saved it from the wash, but it found it's way in there again and that is my final destination story. Nope. I threw some towels on top of the blanket and started it up. While transferring the contents into the dryer, I heard a *clink* and I just knew. I looked and sure enough there was "neil", earphones and all. I put the buds in my ears and turned it on and silence. I thought, well- Rob's first shuffle survived an entire winter under an iceburg and is still (far as I know) going strong at Sue's house. So, I plugged ol' neil up to the computer and he popped up on my itunes! All the stuff still showed up on it too. I was dubious about the earphones, but after I let the ipod charge up for about 15 minutes, I plugged them in and besides being a little crackily, they worked! I rejoiced and shared the ordeal with Rob and we marveled at the endurance of Ipod shuffles and I happily enjoyed Neil as I prepared our Memorial Day hamburgers. The crackling even went away after a short amount of time.
After dinner, Scout and Lola needed a park romp- so I got out the wagon put the kids in it and got Lola leashed up and we went to the park. I ran around with Lowes (she was particularly naughty) and I had to chase her quite a bit and I SWEAR I noticed at one point that I still had Neil clipped to my shirt (this is very common- I will unhook the earphones, but the ipod stays clipped to the bottom of my shirt until I remember to remove it and put it somewhere safe. When I got back from the park, fed Elles, and had Scout in bed, I noticed Neil was gone. I looked around the couch and decided that it must be at the park, so I went back and back tracked and couldn't find it anywhere. I went back inside and Rob took Lola, and searched for me for a while (I was kind of having a bad day and he took pity on me). He looked and then I went out again and searched again. No Neil in sight. So, I had quite a roller coaster ride yesterday concerning my shuffle. I couldn't believe my luck that I didn't dry it (Rob's got dried once and that is an ipod kiss of death), also I couldn't believe it could survive an entire wash cycle! I was so happy and thankful it worked I thought about it all day! and then- bam! Cruelly lost at the park. I suppose it's fate was sealed when I woke up that morning and since it was miraculously saved from it's fate- the universe had to do something.

As a neat little twist (I don't believe I shared this on my blog before) my good old original ipod I wrote an obituary for last fall, crawled back from the grave and was my companion today. Yes, he came back to life months later when Rob decided to spontaneously plug it back in, just to see. I had Neil by then, so it's sat in my "ipod accessory basket" abandoned for months. It was kind of fun to use "old trusty" again (it's new, well deserved name) but Neil has definitely spoiled me. I love Neil, I miss Neil, I want Neil back. (No Rob, I'm not hinting- I'm just saying).

I am not fully writing Neil off, as miracles do happen when it comes to my family's ipods. So stay tuned. Good grief, I need to make a label for my ipod soap operas!

Apricot Chicken

I made this recipe I found tonight and we loved it, it was pretty easy, so I thought I would share. I didn't get a picture of it, we ate it too fast, but I was able to scrape a few leftovers to give you some idea...

• 1/2 cup apricot preserves
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sherry (I'm sure you could use chk broth)
  
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips

Original recipe included:

• 1 medium green pepper, chopped
• 1/2 cup salted cashews

But I didn't add them because I didn't have them and also I am not a big fan of bell peppers. (I did have a bag of cashews a few days ago, but they were absently left on the counter and Lola can get anything she wants from off our counter, so bye bye cashews).


I did however make my own additions:

• 1/2 cup onion, cubed into stir fry size pieces
  
• big handful of broccoli florets
• Oh, and I bagged the oil since I cooked the chicken in oil.
  

We were very pleased with both additions, so I highly recommend them

What I am going to add next time:

• cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes to taste
• maybe a little more garlic
• I am sure fresh ginger would be better (isn't it always) sadly, I didn't have any.
  

Ok, here is the procedure:

1. cut chicken into strips. Warm up the wok and add olive oil. Cook chicken in oil on high until it starts browning, then add onion and broccoli and turn wok down to medium.

2. While that is cooking, mix the rest of the ingredients into a bowl and whisk. When chicken and veggies are cooked, add sauce, turn wok down to low and let simmer a few minutes (about 5, maybe a little less).

3. Serve over rice.

I added a little more soy sauce to mine and it was yummy, Rob thought it was perfect as is. In fact, he called it "the most Chinese thing you've ever made". I try so hard to find recipes that taste like a real Chinese restaurant, and even if it is good, it falls short. Well, Rob thought this time I did it. I added my own twist to the original (as I find myself doing a lot), but this time I really felt it was called for as the original recipe cooked everything in the microwave! Cooking meat in the microwave absolutely horrifies me, but if anyone would like to try it, I would be really interested to hear how it turns out. Here are the original instructions:

1. In a large bowl, combine the first seven ingredients. Add chicken and toss to coat. Transfer to a shallow microwave-safe dish. Cover and microwave on high for 3 minutes, stirring once.
2. Add green pepper and cashews. Cover and microwave on high for 2-4 minutes or until chicken juices run clear, stirring once. Let stand for 3 minutes. Serve with rice.

I would also like to know how it tastes with cashews. I would also like to sub the broccoli with snow peas sometime, or I suppose you could do both since I really liked the broccoli in this dish. But, I will definitely be making this again- so I can keep experimenting and tweaking until I have it exactly as I'd like it. I'll let you know what's good- and anyone that tries it, I would love a little feedback as well.