More Alphabet Dinners

With 30 days in a month and 26 letters in the alphabet, I thought we could get through all the letters in a month.  Maybe a month and a half.  Here it is Two months later and just a little past half way. 



I - Ice Cream - We had this for desert with our fresh peach pie.

J- Jello

K- Kale -I made a Olive Garden copy-cat soup.  The one with the potatoes and sausage.  I can never remember the name of it, but it is my favorite.

L - Lemonade


M- Mashed Potatoes -I was going to have sauteed Mushrooms, but I didn't make it to the store.  I did get them about a week later, because yes Mashed is an adjective describing the potatoes which starts with a P!  We do have Milk almost everyday, so I guess we could count that too.

N- Noodles - I think in the form of spaghetti, but I can't remember now.

O- Olives - We ate these at a party.  I was going to also go out and get some Onion Rings or a Onion Blossom, but it hasn't happened yet.

P- Peas in our Tuna Casserole

Q- Crab Quiche - I couldn't think of an ingredient that started with a Q.  Quiche was actually the only thing edible that I could think of for Q.  I don't know where to get any Quail. 

R- Rice -I think I served this with my home canned sweet and sour sauce.

More Bear Lake Pictures

  When I first wrote about our trip to Bear Lake I only had the pictures off of my camera and they were almost exclusively the day at the beach.   I finally went though Thomas' camera, who had some of the campground as well.

Our Site

The kids made a "fence" with the tent stakes.  They had a lot of fun.

Breakfast and a little mischief 

And those pesky squirrels.  Did I mention that one of them ran of with half of Isabelle's abandoned breakfast?  I know that I told about them terrorizing the food box and my chocolate bar!

 I had forgotten until I went through the pictures that we had a flock of wild turkeys run through camp.  I didn't even know there was such a think still as wild turkeys.  At first there was just one, then I saw another and another.  I think there was seven or eight all together.  Thomas chased after them with his camera.  He got some pretty good shots, but they were on their way somewhere and didn't stop to pose.

 Once we were dressed for the beach, everyone was excited to get in the car.

This was how I made lunch at the beach.  Most of our stuff was being stored in the back of the van, so we had it all with us, except the plates. Amazingly only one of the pieces of bread fell on the ground. 







Isabelle is still talking about the trip and asking when we are going to go to the lake again.  I told we probably could next summer. 

Time Zips By

I can't believe that it is really fall already.  We have already done two weeks of school, and we started late.  On a normal year, we would be three weeks into school.  Despite that summer isn't quite over on my blog because I have things we did that I still need to write about! I am going to try and get those up here soon.  In the mean time, this is why I haven't had the time.

 It started with going to Bear Lake the week before I had to go back to work.  Because I wasn't used to working, I came home exhausted and didn't want to do anything.  Most of the camping supplies had gotten put away, but not everything.  I had no desire to clean.  The little energy I did have after completing the necessities went to taking care of fruit.  Part of why I don't like being a teacher is that school starts right when all of the produce comes on.  I am exhausted from working and come home to piles of rotting fruit.  We actually got quite a bit of fruit off of our peach tree.  This was our first real harvest.  Last year was our first fruit and we got a grand total of three peaches.  This year we had at least half a bushel. Pretty good for a little tree.  At the end of that first week of work (which was mostly meetings, we didn't have students yet,)  we left to go to Rendezvous.  I wasn't as ready to go as I wanted to be and then it took us three hours to do the hour and a half drive. It was almost 9:00 by the time we got there.   I will do a whole post on Rendezvous with all the exciting details.  We left Sunday afternoon.  Part of the problem with going to Rendezvous is that Thomas' Uncle Bob always come then.  I think this was the first year I have gotten Thomas to go with me since we were married.  (Why was it easier to get him to come when we were dating?) Part of why we came home Sunday instead of Monday was so that he could go visit Bob.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to go or not.  Thomas' mom had been working and was tired, so she wasn't going to stay very long.  We opted to ride with her.  Somehow when we are there we always get sucked into staying longer than we mean to.  As much as I enjoy pinocle, I didn't want to play it until midnight.  OK, it was only about 10:00, but I was trying to get into our new school routine.  Thomas really didn't get home until after midnight.  Monday was Labor Day.  I was going to can my tomatoes, but I decided that they were green enough, and there were enough close to ripe still outside, but not quite ready, that I could wait until the weekend.  The majority of the peaches did have to be done that day.  Isabelle wanted a pie and a fancy candle lit dinner.  We told here we would do it the next day.  We did get everything ready though.  My sister Jennae wanted to do something, and we were supposed to go to Thomas's grandma's for a BBQ.  I really didn't want to go since Tuesday was the first day of school.  I was glad when it got canceled/postponed until Sunday.  We ended up buying fried chicken, making a quick salad and taking it down to Barnes Park.  It was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed visiting.  My parents stopped in on thier way home; they were still pulling the trailer and everything.  My brother also came with his daughter.  Tristan loved the ducks.  We had some rolls that he kept wanting to go feed them.   In the evening we just relaxed and tried to prepare mentally for school to start.

Isabelle was so excited for school to start.  She had been asking about it all summer.  The first day, they didn't have class, but they did have a parent meeting.  I of course couldn't go because I was doing my own first day of school.  I made arrangements to meet her teacher the Friday before.  She seemed really nice, and I think that Isabelle will like her.  Thomas took her to the meeting and was in charge of both the kids that day.  That evening as promised, we had a "fancy dinner." Mostly it was like an other dinner, except we dressed up the table and we had peach pie for desert.


Wednesday was her first day. Thomas dropped her off.  The two grandma's slit baby-sitting. When we asked her about it, she said she like school, but she didn't learn anything.  I kind of think she thought she would learn to read that first day.



When I got home from school, we headed up to Snowbasin for my cousin's wedding.  It was at the Needles lodge at the top of mountain.  You had to ride the gondola up.  We had to go just for the experience.  It was pretty amazing.  It makes me want to see it in winter, but I don't think I am a good enough skier to handle Snowbasin. 

View of the Valley

The bathrooms were supper nice.  The counters were marble,

and the toilets were gold plaited

In the Gondola

 
Thursday was supposed to be book club, and I was supposed to be in charge.  We ended up postponing it a week because most people had to go to back to school night.  I was relieved because I didn't know how I was going to get a dessert made and the house clean in time.   Friday I got the tomatoes pureed.  That made things easier on Saturday.  Thomas was supposed to help me make salsa, but he ended up having to work because another employee quit. The think about canning, is that it isn't nearly as hard as you think it is going to be.  It is however time consuming.  I had to cut up the peppers, let the stuff cook, boil the water for the canner, turn everything off and run to the store to buy lids, wait for everything to get back up to temperature, cook, then clean it all up.  It was about 5:00 by the time I was finished.  Of course a lot of that time was waiting.  I do love when the canning is finished.  The bottles look so pretty sitting there.  It gives me a thrill to hear each one pop.  We still need to do applesauce, which may or may not be all I do this year.

Sunday we went up to Huntsville to grandma Toombs.  It was fun, but again we got home later than I would have liked.  Partly because of everything we had going on we were pretty unsuccessful at getting or bedtime routine established.  The second week of school should have gone better, but it didn't really.  By Monday, Tristan had gotten a cold.  It made him kind of crabby.  I am not sure if it is related or not, but he also wouldn't go to bed.  At least he wouldn't go to sleep.  I would take him to bed, tuck him in, and kiss him good-night.  He would smile at me and lay there snuggling his blanket like he was going to go to bed.  Almost as soon as the door was shut however, I could hear him get up and start playing.  It was really cute listening to him talk to himself, but he did it until after ten, three nights in a row.  Thursday was the book club that had gotten postponed from the previous week.  Since it was our fist meeting of the year, we had to discuss our summer book and pick new ones.  The September meeting always takes longer than the others.   (Again I am planning on doing a separate post.  I haven't written about books in a while, and there are a couple I've been meaning to.) Thomas took the kids up to his mom's, and it was almost ten by the time they got home.   On top of all that I could feel myself getting Tristan's cold.  It wasn't bad, and I thought it would be mild.  Halfway through school on Friday however, it hit hard.  I was blowing my nose constantly, sneezing, and generally being miserable.   We were supposed to go clothes shopping, but we spent the evening laying low.  I haven't done much today either.  I am waiting for Thomas to get home from work, and then I will attempt the shopping.   I would really like it if things could be not so crazy for a while.  It is no wonder I can't believe it has been two weeks already. 


A note about pictures:  Apparenly some of the ones I was going to post here are not downloaded yet.  Our Tuesday night dinner and the first day of school are still on the camera along with Rendezvous.  There are also some posts that don't have pictures yet that did get downloaded and hopefully will be added soon  like Lagoon, bowling, and more bear lake. 

Alphabet Meals (A-H)

My daughter is starting kindergarten, which she is supper excited about.  It is all she has talked about all summer.  I still can't believe that my baby is going to kindergarten.  I hope that she loves it.  I thought it would be fun to do something in honor of of that.  So what I came up with was alphabet meals.  I haven't done one every night; you have to have leftover sometimes, but most days have had a meal which was sponsored by a different letter.  This is what we have had so far.

A - Chicken Bacon Artichoke Pizza  (from Papa Murphy's -I had never had it before, and it was really good) 

B - Chicken and Broccoli Casserole

C- Chicken Chalupas (sp?)- for leftovers we added Cauliflower which I didn't have the sauce for the first night.

D - Donuts - I couldn't think of anything mealish.  We ate these on our way to Bear Lake.

E - Eggs - We had Egg muffins for breakfast and then for dinner in our potato salad.

F- French Fries - It was supposed to be fish, but it was the day we got home and I got lazy

G - Mashed potatoes with Gravy - side of Green Beans

H - Hotdogs  - again, the ham quiche I had planned was just too much bother (plus some people don't like it)  (Haggis was also suggested, but I didn't know if I could stomach that)

That is as far as we have gotten so far, but it has been a lot of fun.  We do have a few problem letters coming up like V and X.  I have tried to have the alphabet letter be an ingredient in the meal rather than then name of the meal.  I will let you know who the rest of the alphabet goes.

Squirrels, Sandcastles, and Splashes

Bear Lake

 

One More Trip

I was feeling a little bit sad about summer coming to an end.  So many people keep saying how excited they are for Fall, but I don't want to let go of Summer.  I didn't really feel like we had had a real vacation.  I love family reunions, but they don't really count as a vacation.  I wanted to do something with just our family, and Isabelle wanted to go camping again.  I started thinking about Bear Lake and was surprised that there were camp grounds open.  I think that it helped that we wanted until the 21st of August to go.  Several school districts in the area have already started.  There were a lot of open spots at the campground, and lots of space at the beach.

Heading Out

We had to wait until after the kids dentist appointment to leave.  Isabelle was a little panicked about going, but she did fairly well.  She apparently wouldn't bite down and they were unable to do x-rays.  She also didn't open as wide as the hygienist would have liked, but she did a good job and didn't have any cavities.  Tristan fought the whole time.  This was his first visit.  I was curious to see what the dentist would say about him.  He didn't get any teeth until he was 14 months.  He is still missing two of his bottom teeth; ones that most kids at about 6 months.  He said not to worry unless they still haven't come in by March at his next appointment.  I think he is just slow on his teeth.    It didn't matter that we had to wait for the dentist appointment because we weren't done packing until after twelve anyway.  I also had to stop at the store and buy a swimsuit.  I got an awesome deal at a store here in town called Hapori, that I didn't even know existed until a couple of days before.  Both of the kids were so excited to go they got in the van and hung out way before we were done packing.  Finally we headed out.  I like that Bear Lake is only two hours away.  It is closer than a lot of other places I like to go.  (For example, I wish Yellowstone were a couple of hours closer!)

The Campground

I had looked at the state park, but I didn't know which of the three campgrounds I wanted.  Also did we really want to camp right on the beach with small children?  My brother recommended Sunrise Campground.  It is just off the highway when you come our of the canyon, but before you head down the hill.  The turn off is right before you see the lake.  It is a nice campground, and we really liked our spot.  It was very shady with a lot of tall pine trees.  We also picked it because it was near the restrooms.  Without my mom (and her trailer) there, I was a little worried about nighttime potty emergencies.  After we had set up we found that the water spigot was also next to our site.  After we got all set up we went for a walk.  The campground was only about a quarter full.  There were a lot of reservations for the weekend, but not as many for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  After the walk we made dinner.  Tacos are a pretty easy meal to make while camping.  It only took about 10 minutes to prepare.  It was fun to use all of the camping supplies I've been collecting.  Since we usually go with my mom, I often end up using her stuff.  Especially things like her stove.  I think this was about the 3rd time we've used ours in seven years.  The same for our lantern.

My two biggest complaints about the campground were bees and squirrels/chipmunks.  I think there were some of both; Thomas explained the difference.  There were a ton of bees; especially when you were eating.  They didn't bother us, but you had to keep swatting them away from the food you were eating.   The squirrels on the other hand were a real nuisance.  Because it was supposed to rain, we left most of our stuff in the van.  We left the back window open, and just got out what we needed.  I didn't really think about it, and after getting into the cooler, I left the side door open as well.  We were just sitting down to eat when I looked up and noticed a squirrel perched on top of our food bin, which he had gotten to via the side door.  I was so shocked it took me a moment to even say anything.  Then Thomas jumped up and ran over hollering at it. It of course took off.  The food bin looked OK, but the package of buns for the next night sitting in one of the car seats had suffered.  There was a giant hole in the bag and half a hotdog bun was missing.    I also later discovered claw marks on my Chocolate bar!  I was so angry.  After that we had to keep an eye out.  The next morning when certain children wouldn't eat and had abandoned their breakfast, it was carried off by small furry creatures. It was kind of cute, but appalling at the same time.

At the Lake

After dinner we drove down to town.  The lake was still high and there was no beach access in Garden City.  We drove down to Rendezvous State Park.  It is $8.00 to get in and the beach has a fair amount of greens growing in it.  We heard the Idaho State Park at the North end had better sand, so when we headed out the next day we went there.  It was only $5.00.  There wasn't very many people and we pretty much had the area we were in to ourselves.  The first order of business was building sandcastles.  There were a lot of holes and channels left by others we could improve upon.   After a couple of hours we made lunch, then headed out in Grandma's boat.  I was horrible at rowing and we ended up just pulling the kids around in it.  Tristan kept dipping his hand in the water and sucking the water off.  We told him if he kept doing it he would fall out of the boat.  We were all surprised when he actually did fall out.  He was of course wearing a life jacket and was fine, but he was not happy about it.  The fall sapped out the last of his energy and he seemed to just start fading after that.  His lids got heavier and heavier and his little chin slipped down into his life jacket and then onto the edge of the boat.  It was really cute.  He ended up sleeping that way for about a half hour.  It was shortly after this that we decided it was time to go.  Isabelle didn't want to leave.  She had so much fun.  I told her we would have to plan a trip for next year.  Maybe something that was more than just a day. 

 Since Tristan was napping anyway, we decided to drive back along the east side of the lake.  Neither of us had ever seen that side.  Apparently that is the deeper side of the lake.  The shoreline looked fairly similar, but there was less of it that was developed.  What was developed had more new, large, fancy houses.  The main beach, Cisco Beach, had some campgrounds, but we didn't' see anybody there.   We didn't see much sand either, just rocks.  Oh course before we headed back up to camp we had to stop and get a famous raspberry shake.

Heading Home

Back at camp we made dinner, had another walk, built a fire, then headed off to bed.  I almost forgot to mention that a certain small boy refused to sleep in his sleeping bag.  Refused to sleep at all.  He thought that bed time was really playtime, and mommy was the jungle gym.  We did get him to sleep both nights, but it was in our bed and not his.  Not very comfortable. I didn't realize how much he moves at night.  In the morning we packed up and headed home.  The biggest problem with camping at the lake, is the lack of showers.  We all needed to get home and clean up.

It was short, but it was still a good trip.  It was nice to get away and not think about the end of summer and the impending school year.  (Although not everyone is dreading it.  Isabelle yells out Kindergarten School!  every time we drive by her new school.)  Thomas loves the water, and enjoyed playing with the kids, who also appear to love the water.  I look forward to being able to go again.

Ledgefork Campfround at Smith and Morehouse Reservoir

 

It has been about three weeks since we went camping, but I just haven't had time to write about it.  Because my sister missed the family reunion and their moving date got pushed back, she wanted to go.  We decided to go two weeks after the reunion on the last week in June.  She wanted to check out Ledgefork because we had gone to Smith and Morehouse last year.  They are about two miles apart.  Smith and Morehouse is near the reservoir damn, and Ledgefork is on the other end of the reservoir.  Ledgefork has about 70 campsites, but the bridge to the one side is damaged.  Half the campground has been closed for three year.  That only leaves about 30 sites. The good thing about it is that it is first come first choose.  I don't like reserving sites on the internet, because you don't know what they are like.  Plus they charge you a ten dollar service fee.  As long as you come up the first part of the week, there is no problem getting a site.  Thursday through the week end you would want to be there first thing in the morning, although the people leaving have until one o'clock to pack up.

My dad ended up taking off work to come with us, unlike last year, when it was just the girls.  My of course came as did my sister  with four of her five kids.  Her oldest daughter and my youngest sister are in high school, and both have summer jobs.  They have been very busy this year.  Thomas couldn't come the whole time, but he and my sister Jennae came up half way through the trip. 

As we were getting ready to go I looked back at last years entry to see how long we were there, and what we did.  This year ended up being a little less structured.  We played games, but more short ones.  I think that we did more sitting around. Here are some of the highlights. 

The first day we were there, I was in charge of dinner.  I had seen directions on the internet about cooking Pizza over the first using a pizza stone.  I thought that sounded like fun.  I decided to buy the pizzas from Papa Murphy's our favorite pizza place.  The first problem we encountered was how to get the pizza off the cardboard backing sheet.  We ended up just leaving it on.  The directions were to just cook it over the fire, which was my original plan. The campground has some really nice swiveling cooking grills.  My dad thought it would be better to cook it with brickets.  So that is what we did.  In the oven you have heat all around , but outdoors you lose a lot of your heat, so I ended up covering the pizza with tinfoil.  Just after this we noticed that the pizza stone was cracked.  I think that it got heated too quickly.  At this point we ended up dumping the brickets in the fire pit, adding some wood and putting the broken stone on the grill.  It ended up a little bit crunchy in the center and a little doughy on the edges, but it was still good.  We cooked the second pizza in the oven in my mom's trailer, but it ended up more burnt than the fire cooked one.  After dinner we cooked s'mores on the leftover coals. 

We went on several walks while we were there. There was a stream nearby that we had to go visit each day.  We also had occasional walks to the outhouse.  I was close to the end of the book I was reading and read it while walking a couple of times.  Luckily the roads in the campground are paved.    I also brought my bike.  I was the only one, so we didn't go a lot, but at least once a day I would take the kids on a ride around the loop.  Tristan wanted to go anytime he noticed the bike trailer.  

He also enjoyed helping grandpa.  Both kids seemed to enjoy being there a lot.  After the family reunion Isabelle said, "That wasn't camping.  I want to go mountain camping!"  Lucky for us this qualified for mountain camping.  She loved the stream. They also like going across the log bridge on the edge of camp.  It was over a dry stream bed.  It was really dry and dusty, and they spent quite a bit of time just getting dirty. 

Thursday when everyone was there we decided to go over to the damn since several people hadn't been there last year, and I never made it over to see the spillway.   We spent a little time playing near the water, where we ate our lunch we had packed.  They we walked over to the spillway.  Last year, it was a raging river.  This year it was dry.    Paul complained about walking, but we made him anyway. 

Everyone enjoyed the day.  It was a nice walk. 

Isabelle's main question of course is, "When can we going camping again?"

Family Reunion at Mount Pleasant

  
It was a Taylor year for the family reunion.  Aunt Lucy's family were in charge.  They own some property down in Mount Pleasant and were able to use the group site for the reunion.  We have the Taylor reunion every two years.  This is my grandmother's family.  She had eight siblings in her family, so there are a lot of people who come.  It isn't as many as it could be because not everybody comes.  It seems like it is often the same people who do come though.  I enjoy the reunions, because I get to connect with some of my favorite people.  It is sad though to see some of  older family members aging and getting frail.  My grandma came, but my grandpa didn't make it.  He just wanted to stay at home.  There were also a lot of younger people that I had no idea who they are.  You figure though that this reunion has my grandparents and siblings as the first generation, my mom and her cousins as the second, Me as third generation, my kids the fourth generation, and a couple of the families are close to a fifth generation. Not many people know their second cousins the way we do.  My niece became best friends with a girl who is her third cousin.  How cool is that. 

The reunion was supposed to be what my sister was waiting for to move.  Her original plan was to stay for the reunion and then more the Monday after.  My nephew Paul ended up having to have surgery (I will do a post about that soon.)   The surgery was Monday and the Reunion started Wednesday, but they said we could come up any time.  My mom ended up spending most of Monday with my sister up at Primary Children's Hospital, so nothing got packed.  The plan was to leave Tuesday afternoon.  That became Wednesday early, which ended up being Wednesday Afternoon.  I was driving separately and so was doing my own thing.  I was always planning on leaving Wednesday morning.  It still took me longer to get ready than planned as well.  It ended  up that we were both ready to pull onto the freeway at about the same time.  I had to wait a couple of minutes.  After getting on the freeway, my parents almost immediately pulled over.  Turned out they had a flat tire on their trailer.  They had to put on the spare, then stop at a Big-O to get it fixed.  I didn't wait for them.  I ended up getting there about an hour and a half before them, but I still missed the group lunch.   My biggest complaint about the reunion was that there were several things planned for the first day, that we missed out on because we weren't there first thing in the morning.  I thought the first day was mostly just going to be setting up and visiting.  We did have fun though once we got there and got everything set up.  We did spend the majority of our time sitting around visiting.   Thomas came up thursday night.  It was nice that he could come at least part of the time.  

Friday Morning they went into town for some horseback riding. Thomas took his camera.  Isabelle was not afraid of the horse at all and had a great time riding.

Grandma got to ride as well.  She took the horse for a gallop.  

Friday evening we made s'mores over my cousin Aubry's camp stove.   Saturday we just packed up and went home.   It was a lot of fun. Although Isabelle said she didn't have any fun.  She wanted to go "mountain camping."   A big field was not her idea of camping.  Also, I think there were too many people for the kids.  They were both a little cranky.    I was a little irritated that I forgot my camera.  Thomas didn't take very many people pictures  (expect the 50 pictures of the horse ride.)    I will need to get my mom's pictures.  Maybe I will post some of those when I get them.