Kents Lake, Utah

For our family vacation this year, we wanted to go camping! After having several different plans, we finally decided to camp in my Dad's old stomping grounds in the mountains above Beaver, Utah. The first thing we did when we got to Beaver was stop at the pawn shop for Dave and my Dad to get Utah fishing licences. Brighton had fun getting out of his car seat and looking out the window!

After the fishing licences were acquired and a few forgotten items were purchased at the little grocery store (how could I forget the all-important hot dogs!?!) we headed up the canyon. It took us only about 30 minutes to reach Kents Lake. As soon as we arrived, the kids went exploring. Elijah came back after a few minutes already covered in mud! :)

We got The Best camping spot EVER! The campground was a mix of camping spots; a few out in the open, a bunch in the trees. Our spot felt like we were in the mountains, on the lake all by ourselves! To the left was this HUGE open meadow where the little girls had fun walking around a bit in while the 3 older kids went a bit further.

Right in front of us was the lake!! There were several little trails down to it and the grasses growing all over were so green and lush!

Behind us was more meadow and trees...it was just perfect!

Here is a view of our set-up from the bathroom area. Isn't perfect!?! We had a HUGE tent, my parents a smaller one and then we eventually set up 2 more tents as play tents for the kids.

As soon as the tents were set up, Dave helped the kids to start fishing. Technically, the older 3 had already caught a fish or two in a stream they found behind the meadow by our camping spot. They used a net to catch the fish, however, which we found out the next day, is a very big no-no. Those fish they caught the first night, though, tasted the best (or so I hear...)

Sweet Fiona enjoying some fishing time!

Our set-up inside the tent was perfect! I had packed all of our clothes into plastic storage drawers so it would be easier to find everyone's clothes and keep them organized (a packing strategy I observed in the back of someones van years ago while in a Wal-Mart parking lot). The folding table worked GREAT for holding the drawers and left plenty of room underneath for bags of dirty clothes (which filled very quickly!) The door to the tent was a swinging door! Made camping in a tent so much nicer!!

Dave and I bought an inflatable bed on legs for this camping trip. It was so great to be up off the floor, but the bed was sooooooooooo noisy!! Every time you move even the tinest bit, it sounds like you are walking and rolling over a zillion noisy, squeaky balloons! And I HATED my sleeping bag! It zips up the middle, not the side and it made it VERY hard to stay zipped up with the baby in there with me! (The pack-n-play was for naps.) The little girls slept on that air mattress at the foot of our bed and the 3 oldest kids slept on camping mats on the other side of that little dividing curtain next to the pack-n-play. We had so much space!! I really dislike tent camping (there were several times when I thought for sure a bear was in our camp and was going to rip into our tent at any moment, not to mention how hard it is to sleep when the slightest breeze through your tent sounds like Gail force winds!) and we were hoping to purchase a used pop-up before this trip, but if you have to tent camp, this is the tent to do it in! The ceiling as a domed ceiling with a built-in light that reached 8 feet high!

Every time I glanced at the lake, there was some amazingly beautiful sky going on! There were lots of clouds and little storms passing here and there that just made for gorgeous skies!

My Dad fly fished every spare moment he got...which added up to a LOT of moments. :) I tried to get lots of good shots of him, but think the above picture is my favorite!

Here's Fiona bringing back a "legal" fish they caught on the stream. I never went over to the stream, but apparently it was teaming with fish!

Here is a fish Sebastian caught from the kayak. After the first night of fish eating, no one was as enthusiastic about eating the little guys. They still tried all the fish, but they didn't really get eaten up.

The guys out kayaking. There is one kayak to each side of the tree. We just found another used, tandem Old Town kayak right before our trip which bumped us up to 3 tandem kayaks -probably all the kayaks we will ever need. Kayaking is SO MUCH FUN!

Here are Scarlett and Haven on one of the trails to the bathroom (which was actually a pretty nice bathroom as far as vault toilets go!) They were such cute, sweet little campers and had so much fun!

Here's a picture that Scarlett took of my Mom, me and Haven. :)

The last morning we were there, Sebastian caught just one more fish!

For our last night, my sister drove down with her kids to camp with us. I am so glad they did! We had a lot of fun sitting around the fire and chatting. The next morning I was able to squeeze a few more pictures out of my dead-battery camera as everyone was sitting around the morning fire waiting for our big breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon to finish cooking.

After breakfast, I took my sister and mom and all the girls out kayaking! It was so great! I wish my camera hadn't died so I could get a picture of sweety pie Brighton in his cute life vest and sitting in his booster seat in front of me in the kayak! He wasn't sure how fun it was to not be able to crawl around, but liked having water patted on his arm. :)

The guys stayed behind while we kayaked and started to break down camp and take down tents and stuff. Then we switched and the guys got one last kayaking trip around the lake in while the ladies stayed behind and packed stuff up. It took us almost 5 hours to finally finish packing up everything and loading the kayaks back on top of the Suburban and everything. UGH! That is my least favorite part of camping! And what I look forward to most about some day owning a pop-up or trailer.

Our camping trip was so much fun! We stayed for 4 days and 3 nights and very thoroughly smelled of camp fire for days! We were all so happy to get back to my sister's house (almost a 3 hour drive) and take showers!

Poor, neglected blog!

Wow... I have really neglected Ye Ol' Blog lately! We have been a bit busy since Dave got back from China (almost the same day as my last post), so I guess I will use that as an excuse! We gave Dave a few days to readjust to the time change (like 18 hours) and then we were off to Utah to visit family and go camping in the mountains above Beaver, Utah. While in Utah, we got to see some family we haven't seen in too long awhile. We visited Dave's Grandpa and the kids got to meet him and hang out. Fiona, above climbing a tree, is forever climbing anything and everything she can! There were lots of fun things to climb at the park in front of Great Grandpa's house!

Sebastian, the only one of our kids who had met their Great Grandpa before (when he was 1) was very grateful and happy to see him. He gave him lots of hugs. :) He is a sweet boy.

Great Grandpa, the smart guy he is, had snacks ready and waiting for our busy crew! Everyone took a break from playing for a few minutes to enjoy them (well, Fiona climbed while enjoying them...)

We also got to see Aunt Shan and her sweet kids, but I forgot to take any pictures!!! :(

One of our favorite things to do in Utah Valley is to go to Thanksgiving Point and their dino museum...it is one of the best we have ever been to! Here is Dave and the oldest 5, almost being eaten by an ancient shark. Close call!

Here is Dave and the 5 oldest running, very wisely, from a t-rex! I'm so happy we escaped in one piece! :)

I love visiting Utah. We have some great family there, and that is always fun, but I also just have really fond memories there. My sister has lived in that area since I was about 10 and I visited her and her growing family quite often. The mountains there are really stunning, they have a Sizzler (my fav. place to eat out!), lots of places with scones and special sauce (no, not to eat together...), a chapel and a Temple almost every direction you look and I just like being there. :)

Life can now resume as normal; a food storage tale of happiness.

We are used to using almost all 100% whole wheat in our house. But a few months ago when I ran out of wheat to grind, I didn't buy any more....until today! Life has just not been the same without wheat. I haven't cooked as much and we haven't been eating as healthy in general. For me, doing something proactive like grinding my own wheat flour and using it in almost everything I make helps me to be more proactive in other areas of my life and inspires me to eat healthier in general. After years and years of grinding my own wheat, the past few months without it as just not been the same.

In the past, we ordered 25 pound bags of organic wheat from Whole Foods at about $20 a bag...that is NOT cheap. This time around I decided to care less about the organic aspect and went to our church's Home Storage Center (see www.providentliving.org for more info on home storage and where the nearest Home Storage Center is to you) and bought 25 pound bags for $5.80!! What a great deal! I only have enough storage buckets for about 75 pounds of wheat. This fall I am going to do a big beef up of our home food storage and buy another 100 pounds or so of wheat, 100 pounds of oats, 100 pounds of beans and assorted canned foods that we use on a regular basis as well as salt, spices, oil and other cooking needs.

A family's food storage is about having a store of food to be used and rotated and there for you when you need it; a lay-off or a natural disaster for example. Only store the foods you and your family will and do use in your everyday lives. Only acquire your store of food as you can afford it. For most people, that means buying a few extra items each time you go the store, and hopefully sale items. We use this method, and then a few times a year (usually coinciding with tax return season, etc) we stock up a bit more fully. We buy flats of canned goods and bags of dry goods that we store in food grade 5 gallon buckets with tight fitting lids.

Our food storage is very helpful to us. I usually have all the regular ingredients on hand that I need for every day cooking and baking. During months when our food budget might be a bit tighter than usual due to some unexpected expense, we can use our food storage for most of our needs and supplement with fresh fruits and veggies on sale at the store. I have had friends who had suddenly lost jobs and used their food storage almost exclusively for 4-8 months! You could use it completely exclusively if you had canned fruits and veggies and stored dry milk.

When you are just starting out, aim for reaching a 3-month supply of food, water and other neccesities. Then work ip to a 6-month supply. Ideally, you work your store of food up to about a years supply. We have not ever reached that (maybe 6-8 months), but that is one of our goals for the year.

In considering what to have on hand in your family's year supply, remember to include essential non-food items. We have sturdy metal shelving in our garage that I keep our food storage on, but in our crawl space I keep our non-food items. We have stores of toilet paper, paper towels, dishwasher detergent, laundry detergent, toothpaste, tooth brushes, deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, body soap, ziploc baggies, cleaning supplies and any other items that we use on a regular basis. You should also store water both to drink and to use for washing should your water supply go out for a few days or longer. It's also wise to have a camp stove (or outdoor grill) and a few extra propane tanks.

Every year, there are always sections of the country affected by power outages or water issues. Having a year supply would be the difference between possibly going hungry for a few uncomfortable days or weeks and being well fed and having the things you're used to having on hand. During an emergency, being able to cook foods your family finds comforting and being well prepared in general will make the emergency, whether it is a power outage or a job loss, much less stressful and much easier to get through!

Today, with my freshly ground wheat, I made some delicious black berry muffins. We had the black berries frozen in the freezer from a few months ago when they were on a killer sale! I use a wonderful, awesome and great all-purpose muffin recipe I learned from my friend, Jenny Hatch.

4 c whole wheat flour
2 c brown sugar
1/2 t each b. powder and b. soda
2 tsp salt
2-3 eggs
14 oz apple sauce (or other fruit sauce/puree)
1/4 oil
Bake at 350 until a tooth pick comes out clean (usually around 20 minutes, give or take)

It is a very versatile recipe; feel free to substitute some honey for the sugar, add more or less liquid depending on your preferences, add nuts and fruit (dried or fresh) or anything else you think might be yummy! They always turn out great! I usually do two batches of this recipe and add freshly ground (in the blender) flax seed meal to both and then add nuts and fruit to one batch (this would be the "adult" batch since my kids don't like to eat things with junks) and they get eaten up very quickly!

I will add a "Food storage resources" section to the right very soon, look for it!

Haven's Actual 5th Birthday!

I decided, very last minute of course, that it would be fun for Haven to have a friend's birthday party on her actual birthday. I didn't want her actual big day to be a let down since we had already celebrated it as a family, plus she really wanted a friend party! Not everyone we invited could come (it was VERY last minute!), but we are so grateful to the ones who could!! We invited older siblings and parents to hang out too. It was a fun party, thanks for coming! :)
I thought it would be fun to have a pool party in the back yard. Now that the deck is done, we can finally entertain out there! YAY! :) We had just purchased some kiddie pools to make the last few hot weeks we've had more bearable, so we just picked up a few decorations and we were in business! The party was a sort of lunch/pool party...hence the above spread of food that included home made cheese pizza, strawberries, carrots, cookies, chips and lemonade. YUM!
Our lawn is not very lawn-ish at the moment. It's way better than it was last year at this time (when we moved in, it was mostly just sand/dirt), but there are still huge patches of ground with no grass covering. I wasn't sure how we were going to have a pool party without also having mud pits (something I was NOT aiming for!) Then I spotted the foam floor blocks we had stored up in the attic. I had Sebastian crawl up there and get them all down and the other kids helped him set them up over the dirt. There were still some spots of exposed ground, but not too bad and no one made any mud holes out of them! :) The older kids had a really great time playing with water guns (and a HUGE thank you to one of the kids' Dad's for playing with them!) and the younger ones went from pool to pool to trampoline to pool again.
Before the party, Sebastian and I had talked about him giving a pet demonstration for all the kids. About an hour into it, he and Elijah went down and gathered up a few pets into containers. We had the kids all sit down and Sebastian started out with Eon, our Russian tortoise. He placed her on the deck in front of the kids and everyone got to pet her while he told a bit about Russian tortoises. Then he moved onto the remaining pets he was going to show; Packer, the Pac-man toad, Zappy the leopard gecko, and Millie the giant African millipede. The kids all huddled in close to see and pet these animals. It was fun and I think we will have the boys do pet demonstrations more often!

Here is Haven opening some presents. She got some really fun stuff! Thanks everyone! :)

Happy 5th Birthday, Haven!

Wow, a big 5 year old! Haven is growing up so fast! We celebrated her birthday a few days early, while my mom was still visiting. We had a yummy homemade cake (cake mixes have soy) that I tented purple with frosting to match. She was very excited about the pink sprinkles! :)
Haven is a really fun girl. She loves to tell funny jokes and giggle and laugh and have fun. She pulls the funniest faces, as well! She is a very helpful and loving big sister to both Scarlett and Brighton. She is very sweet and loving with Brighton and really knows how to care for him. One of her aspirations for when she is "grown-up" is to be a babysitter. :) She says she will be a very good babysitter. :) She loves to draw, color and play dress-up. She loves princess things; frilly dresses, tiaras, rings, necklaces, shoes, etc. Haven's big, dimpled smile and sweet, uncontrollable giggle are infectious! She is a bright, happy spot in our family and we are so happy to have her in our family! :)
Singing "Happy Birthday" and ready to blow out the candles!
Grandma enjoying some cake!
The gang enjoying cake!!

Longhorn Cattle!

To promote a large, local rodeo event, there was a longhorn cattle drive down the streets of Colorado Springs last Friday. The term "cattle drive" invoked mental images of large amounts of cattle and lots of mooing and tail swishing. I am a rancher (or farmer) at heart, as is my mom, so we were excited to wait along the street to get a glimpse of the cattle drive. The kids eagerly watched and waited for signs of cows and cow boys.
We waited for about 15 minutes or so. We took pictures. Hung out. Chatted. Snuggled with Grandma. Wanted to climb trees but I said no. (They were smallish trees....didn't want to ruin them with my brood climbing them!) Then we spotted them coming! Well, first we spotted some policemen clearing the path of on-coming traffic, then we saw the rumps of cattle!
There were several babies, even!! :) So cute! The herd, however, was only about 20 head....much smaller than I had anticipated. They were surrounded by about 20 cowboys/cowgirls to keep the crowd and parked cars safe from those long, pointy horns. It was over almost as soon as it had started.
Even though their numbers were small and their appearance brief, we all really enjoyed seeing the annual Longhorn cattle drive downtown! Well worth it! :)
The street we were on had lots of cool little shops. One was a bike shop where a guy refurbished old bikes (I am guessing?) and fixed them up really cool and sold them. I loved the colors!! I love cruiser bikes, anyway...need to get one! :) My mom loved them too and wanted to go into the store to get a better look. Tip for those of you who may want to follow suit: don't! She quickly came out after swiftly ushering any children who wanted to follow her out. She said there were very unsavory pictures of women hanging on the walls. Not sure how that would relate to bikes...very disappointing!

Our first visit to Woodland Park

I LOVE MOUNTAINS!!!!! I love the fresh, mountain air. I love the trees and foliage. I love the smell. I love the skyline. I love the weather. I LOVE MOUNTAINS!!!
The Colorado mountains are so green and lush this year!
My mom got camera happy in the car, waiting to depart for Woodland Park. :)
We didn't have any particular destination or plan in mind. We packed a picnic lunch and extra snacks and took off! Once we got to Woodland Park, Elijah kept asking "where is the big park?"...He was thinking about the "Park" part of Woodland PARK. I told him it was not named after an enormous play ground or anything. He was bummed.
We drove around the small town, admiring the trees and some cute houses and yards before finding the city's large ball fields...and a play ground! The kids all LOVE to swing and this was Brighton's first time! He thought it was very fun and funny and giggled a lot. Have and Scarlett took turns pushing him and just thought he was too adorable in a swing! :)
Sebastian and Elijah LOVE to swing. (My mom walking in the background) They were trying to go so high they would flip over the bar. Those of you who watch Mythbusters, however, know that they would've needed a jet pack to actually propel them over...and then they would probably end up shooting off and breaking every bone in their body. Glad there were no jet packs laying around! :)

Sweet Brighton swinging!!
They had some really unique playground equipment. They had the usual play structure with slides and a little climbing wall and monkey bars, then they had this thing that Fiona is on where a kid stands on each side and they bounce...sort a teeter-totter idea. Then the blue thing in the back left was this cool thing where 4 kids each sat on a side and tried to roll a little ball into their "goal". The ball and goals were under plastic. It was pretty cool.
Ultimately, I was a bit disappointed in Woodland Park. I expected more, I guess. I expected it to be either more like Sandpoint, Idaho or more like Manitou Springs....it was neither. After we left this play ground, the kids really wanted to go back to the main park in downtown Woodland Park. It had a small pond, some picnic tables and a wood play ground. There were some seedy locals there, and not enough pretty scenery. But we had our picnic and played a little bit more before heading out. The drive their and back is a very easy one. I expected more of an incline, but it hardly seemed like we were changing elevation at all. On the way home we drove through Manitou Springs so I could show it to my mom. I LOVE this little town! It is so adorable and they have done such a good job of maintaining it's charm and appeal and character. I'm not completely writing off Woodland Park; we will go back to check out the surrounding mountains and kayak in the lakes, but the town itself doesn't hold much appeal for me. It was a fun trip, none the less, and an exciting adventure! :) Pikes Peak looks prettier from Colorado Springs, though!