Shannon Yellow

Congratulations Shannon and Michael!

I'm still here

Just a quick note to let you know I'm still alive.  Blogger is just at the bottom of my pile and my pile feels so big right now.   I don't know when I'll get back, I'm not tech-fast it takes me a while to get pictures transferred to the computer etc.   I hope soon though.  This week is PTA Convention followed by a concert at The Tabernacle with my women's choir We Also Sing as part of a choir festival on Temple Square.  Our part is on Friday at 6:00 if anyone cares to mosey over.   Cross your fingers for me that I'm only experiencing heightened allergies and not catching my son's cold so I can still sing. 

Rusty Cake Skills

I was asked to decorate a cake for a church party tonight.  As usual I decided to do more than was necessary.  But, I thought it would be a good chance to practice my decorating skills which I have really let go the last few years.   I used Marshmallow Fondant.  It's a little harder to work with, but tastes so much better.  Since I knew it would take a little while I divided it up into a few hours a day, some days more hours.  Since I only had 1 6in pan and 2 9in. pans it took hours just to bake all the layers.  I made Chocolate (baked 6 layers, 3 on the cake, 1 to experiment with and two for later use. The recipe just makes a lot.) one day. Yellow (3 6in layers) another day. I made the fondants on one day. Another for frostings and fillings and one to decorate. The yellow I filled with Lemon curd and vanilla buttercream.  The chocolate is filled with ganache and vanilla cream.  I messed up on the vanilla cream but left it, it still tastes good, just a bit lumpy.  shh. 

This is the kitchen just after decorating.  it looked at least this bad all those separate days.

The MMF is a little stretchier so I had problems with the ribbon pulling as I put it on.  I tried twice.  The bow started pulling the Choc. MMF so it cracked a bit above that.  The ganache dots were a little too pointy and of course I wish it wasn't so lumpy. The bow got a bit cracky as well but dried better than my past experience. But overall, from a distance it looks alright.


Update:
I was able to bring one slice from each cake home.  The family was happy. 

View from theTable

Today I woke up to snow.

I was expecting it, but not like this. 

A lot of our snow storms in this area tend to be in high wind.

That makes for a lot of high drifts but not so much left on the ground.

Yesterday and last night were windy so I expected more of that,

but, to my surprise the wind stopped in the night.

I miss the calm lightly falling snow that can be so peaceful.

Thankfully I had it all to myself this morning while I shoveled a path to the bus stop.

I knew it wasn't done snowing but I shoveled anyway for my kids and the few others that cross our path

and past the neighbors to the street.

When I finished there was another half inch on the ground.

It's snowing harder now, faster and bigger clumps.
already there is another 2 inches plus accumulated.

I measured it with my trusty ruler. 

The snow on the little table on the back porch is already past 7 inches.

But for a little while I had the pre-light soft and serene snow,

perfect, and all to myself.



Update:  What a Difference a (half) Day Makes.

the above picture was taken about 7:30 - 8:00 am.
I measured the snow on top of the little table at over 9 in.  
The picture below was taken at 1:30 pm.

The New Table

I've been wanting to do something like this for a while, but it takes me a long time to get around to things. I love it. It has been well received and everyone likes exploring the map and learning new places and names, my daughter has already gone through one page of brain teasers. It's not fancy but it's fun and educational. I plan on switching out art and brain teasers but the map will stay.

Christmas Birthday Cupcakes

First, Never, Ever, have a baby on Christmas day.  That's my advise and I'm sticking to it.  First of all it involves calling your sister early Christmas morning and begging her to drive through a blizzard to pick up your other kids and take them home for the day without their getting to open more than one present they picked to bring with them.  On the bright side I got to watch White Christmas during the birth.  But on the down side age 7(in 4 days) was a Premie and that meant he got to stay in NICU for 3 weeks and I got to make daily trips and have Nazi nurses make sure I was waking up every two hours to pump 'liquid gold,' as they put it.  I did not sleep for at least 4 months (time that baby actually got off all oxygen and monitor tubes)  And also by Premie, I mean still larger than most full term babys currently being born in my neighborhood.  The premie nurse that came by every month was awwed at her first ever baby that was over 30lbs before a year old.  My son(s) wore size 6 diapers by 1 1/2 years and the neighbor boys age 3 are still in size 3.    It's hard to find a rear facing car seat for over 20 lbs.      Ok, off topic a bit.  I tend to get bitter about my boys birthdays.  If only one was a month earlier and the other a month later.

So, once again I do not recommend having a Christmas baby.  It means that for a little while all the stress of preparing for Christmas changes to Stress about Birthday and Parties.  Luckily, he doesn't seem to mind and thinks it's kind of cool and doesn't hold the getting Christmas presents for birthday thing against us yet, which he totally doesn't, he gets separate presents but you know...  So today is his birthday party.  I decided he was just too jumpy and excited to wait until after Christmas and he needed a diversion.  

He had designed a birthday cake, pretty detailed, just too hard for me to pull off this time of year.  Or maybe I should say, this year.

I asked him why he wanted Merry Christmas on his cake instead of Happy Birthday. He doesn't really separate the two.

This is what I decided on. He wanted the little Christmas symbols on them somehow. He put the stars on, after breaking the first snowflake side thing.

Aly, I used your frosting, yum. I was surprised that it held up so well.

Now we will just wait and see how the party goes this afternoon.

Gingerbread Houses 2010

Every year our favorite tradition is making gingerbread houses.  We have been doing an every other year one big one or one each little ones.  In some ways the little ones are easier, some ways not.  There is a lot more cutting out and baking, but they hold together easier and no fights about how to decorate.

This year we made the houses into our Christmas train village.  They are not proportional to the train but so what.

Age14's is hilarious.  It's like a boarded up house with graffiti. On one part it says Coal for X-mas! The door is boarded up and  there are ginger-body parts strewn all over.  Somehow mine is the only one with out something in the chimney. 

Fun times.

The Geese

One of my favorite things about living where I do is the wildlife.  I don't see as much as when I first moved here but I still get a lift out of seeing the herd of Prong horns or in this case a large flock of geese.  This isn't exactly out the "table window"  but you can see this particular field out the window, just not so close up enough to spot the geese.

All I had with me was my phone and thus not a very nice picture, but I know what's in the picture anyways.  This isn't the whole flock, just what fit in the view.   I think the geese do a sort of every-other-year thing.  last year I hardly saw them but the year before I saw them almost every morning on my way to school.  I'm sure the carpool kids got tired of me pointing them out.  

I'm going to have to remember to bring my husbands camera in the car as it will be the only way to get a decent picture but with my not so mad camera skills I'm sure it wouldn't matter if I had just stuck with the camera on my phone. 

This morning as I passed by they were all in the sky.    It's been a while since I've seen a fox or a ground squirrel and even the sand pipers seem to be driven out by the other birds now.  I rarely hear a meadowlark anymore or see a magpie and I have to go for a long walk to see jack rabbits.   As the development in the area grows these will be all driven out as well.  So I continue to hold on to my glimpses of prong horn and geese and the ibises and occasional pelicans.   It lifts my days a little and helps bring me down to earth.

On the other hand my neighbor encourages the big flock of whatever those black birds are, they scramble on my roof when the sun hits it in the morning and of course poop all over it as well (He even snow plowed his back yard paths to all the bird feeders).  I wish I could appreciate them as much but I just don't.  except when they all pick up and fly in those amazing cloud patterns, but you don't see that around the houses so much, just in the fields. 

Costumes

Now I remember why I don't make Halloween costumes very often.    It takes too much time.

Age10 has been wanting to be a Snow Queen for years, ever since her friend was one some time back.  This year I finally undertook it.  Wrong year to do that, what with the church play I was in and helping to direct, the time that took and the time to make costumes for it etc. and the Primary program I was in charge of last week as well, things were just very busy and I had no time for extra stuff.   Anyway I loved making it for her. 

I had no pattern just went off of my vision, but I wasn't able to really make it work so well.  It still turned out ok though.  She ended up calling herself a Snow Princess instead.   It's Dark blue crush velvet with sparkly white 'satin' and snow flakes around the blue skirt.   White crush velvet cloak with hood.   It has a massive hem so she can wear it for years to come!

And here is my Age 6, Iron  Man, luckily he didn't mind not having home made and probably liked store bought better.  I didn't get him with his mask on though.  Age14 went as a ninja but I never got a picture, he was more last minute.  I wish I had gotten a picture of him and his friends though.

Monster Pie

Last night I made my Chicken Pot Pie.    What I ended up with was a scary halloween version.

This is the pie when it came out of the oven.  All nice and normal looking.

This is what it looked like inside.   Aaaaaggghhh!!

Scary looking.

This is why it happened.  Remember my Carrots? 

It made a very lovely purple colored broth.  And I thought it nice how the potatoes really 

soked up the color as well.

I was very pleased that everyone ate it, without really complaining or grossing out.  I thought it was quite fun.  I even had company for dinner.

Triple Layer Devil Dog Cake

This is one of my favorite cakes to make.  This time it was for my son's Birthday party.

 

He doesn't look too excited about it does he?  Actually I just caught him at a bad moment I guess.  This was his first Teenager party.  It was quite fun to have all his friends over.  Very good bunch of kids.  

He told me me he wanted a cake with a bunch of layers.  He mentioned Ice cream cake, but I didn't have the time to fuss nor the freezer space to store such a tall order.    His cake taste is improving.  We don't do parties every year at our house, but usually every other year.   For his last birthday party he was very into Cryptids.  His favorite being the Yeti.    And he wanted a Yeti cake complete with snow mountains.  This may not be your idea of the Abominable Snowman but I looked it up, let me tell you, the actual Yeti is reddish brown in color, not white.

Let's refresh our memories. 

I'm glad he picked a more grown up cake this year.  

The cake itself is just chocolate.  You can use whatever you like,  My favorite recipe takes quite a lot of time but for this I didn't have that time and used a doctored cake mix.  Gasp!  yup.  It was actually an old White Cake mix that I added cocoa, pudding, and sour cream too.  That was the mix that needed to be used because it was out of date.     The filling is a layer of Chocolate ganache and a Layer of Stabilized Whipped cream. So simple and yet sooo good.  Careful when cutting because it needs to be refrigerated (for the cream) which makes the ganache hard and thus hard to cut.  

Crop circles - On my Watermelon?

 Today I finally went out to pick some long overdue to be picked watermelons.    We haven't been able to keep up with all the canteloupe that all got ripe at the same time so the watermelons had to wait.  Pretty much anything left in the garden has just gone to seed or whatever.  Serrano's anyone?    

Anyway, this is what we found on a couple of the melons we brought in.   Perfect target circles.

 I couldn't get a good picture of this one, no matter what I tried.

My son droped this one on the way in the house.  

The only information I could find was from the Extension at Purdue:


"Target Cluster (watermelon)

This disorder is marked by very striking target-like patterns that occur on the watermelon rind surface. The target spots appear in distinct clusters and can be as large as 1 inch in diameter (Figure 81). The target rings have a corky texture and are slightly raised (1/16 inch) from the fruit surface. No decay was associated with symptomatic fruit. Several attempts at identifying pathogenic bacteria or viruses were not successful. Fruit with the target cluster apparently occur very infrequently. Incidence and distribution in affected fields suggest that it was not responsible for any economic consequences.
http://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/BP/BP-44.html"


See?  Aliens.

While I'm at it, I picked one of the few purple carrots that actually grew this year. 

View from the table

It's been a while since I have tried (since I have no real skillz in the area) to take a nice picture out the side window by my table.  This was a very nice morning. What brought me to the window was the sounds of the Marching Band at the nearby high school wafting across the fields.  I went to the window to let in the sound of the drums and some fresh air.

If you could see down on the field just to the left of the photo you would also be able to see a herd of prong horn who are enjoying a nice breakfast of hay.  Or at least they like to lie in the cool hay.  When they do you almost can't see them, especially when it's tall.  I can't see them from my window because of the house behind mine, but when I drove by 20 min. later they were there.  It's been one of their favorite fields this summer.

Here are a few of the prong horns in a view looking back towards my neighborhood.   My neighbor happened to post some pictures the same day as I, so I borrowed one from her.  

Diorama

This is the diorama my daughter made for a book report over a year ago.   It was one of my favorite books when I was younger (you know, out of like a thousand favorites) and I helped her and thought she did such a good job.  We found it cleaning her room the other day and although I would like to keep it I know that is not reality and took a picture before we dumped it.    

Neighborhood Iron Chef - Orange Delight Pie.

My neighborhood has a tradition of an Iron Chef competition.  About 50+ women divide up into about 8 teams and are given 1 hour to come up with a main dish and a dessert given a secret ingredient.  I believe it was H.O.'s brain child and I would like to congratulate her on it's 4th year of success even though she hasn't been in charge since about 2 years? ago.   Those in charge this year did a fine job.  Although I don't think the word got spread around as much and few people maybe didn't hear of it.  But that was due to a recent change in the leadership and hopefully next year that will get better.

This year the secret ingredient was Orange Juice.  Wow, the things that all the ladies in the competition came up with were fantastic.  I was on a wonderful team hosted by D.Y. and including S.R., R.B., C.L., J.S., and me.  Thankfully D.Y. had a large enough kitchen that we weren't crowded to death.    My team trusted me and went with the orange chicken I have already posted in my blog.  S.R. came up with the initial idea for the Orange pie we made and everyone contributed a bit to it.  We made two pies So I will try to remember the ingredients for just one.  Anyway we won 2nd place!  I won second place last year as well, with just two of us on my team.  Just saying.  I had a great time and got to know a few ladies a bit better.  Thanks you guys for a great night!

I think we all agreed after the smorgasbord that the pie ended up a little two sweet.  I am putting this recipe as I remember it with a slight adjustment that we sort of talked about as we ate everyone's wonderful concoctions.    I think it could still be improved upon but with an hour you don't have a lot of time to mess around. 

Orange Delight pie.

1 graham cracker crust
1 8oz pkg cream cheese
4 Tbs orange juice
1 teas orange zest
1/4-1/2 cup powdered sugar (to taste)
1 small pkg vanilla pudding, made according to package directions for pie (less milk)
1 cup whipping cream, whipped, add powdered sugar if you like it sweeter.

Beat the cream cheese until smooth, add sugar, oj and zest.  Add more sugar and/or orange juice if desired to taste.  Fold in 1/2 of the whipped cream.   Scoop into prepared pie shell.  Layer pudding on top of cream cheese.  Top with remaining whipped cream.  Garnish with orange slices.

I'll update with pictures if and when I get them.  J.S. the lady who had the camera, and more skills in that dept. than me, is due in two weeks with her third child.  I'm impressed she gets done all the things she does but if nothing happens for a while I totally understand.

Grandma's cookbook.

I acquired one of my grandmother's cookbooks not too long ago.  I don't know if she had a lot or if she used it a lot.  It is rather worn but that could be from storage etc.  I imagine my grandmother as cooking by experience mostly.  I did not know her well, I have only two memories of her.  She died when I was around 9.  I do not know how my mother got it (paternal grandmother) but she did somehow and I picked it out of the box of goodies she was offering along with a pair of gaudy costume earrings my daughter wanted, a cloth napkin, and a nicnak souvenir plate from USSR that perhaps one of my uncles picked up while on duty somewhere?   Anyways, This is Meals, Tested, Tasted, and Approved (Favorite Recipes and Menus From Our Kitchens to Yours) by Good Housekeeping,  copyright 1930, fifth edition 1932. 

The thing that is great about this cookbook is it actually has not very many recipes but is filled with helpful guides on everything from weight management to feeding infants and children, quick meals (which incorporates the paragraph "The last half-hour before serving.." seeing as how my quick meals take only 30 min. I am exhausted) and how to conduct formal and informal breakfast, luncheon, and dinner or "The Etiquette of Service"  This is my favorite part.

You will have to click on the images to be able to fully see and read.

I have put in images of the Informal Dinner.  This is what is considered a family meal or perhaps a guest or two.  Having parents who grew up during this time period, I am relatively sure that neither of their households consisted of meals like this.  My grandmother ran a farm kitchen.  No maid here. For sure.  Growing up we, as far as I was concerned, fully set the table for dinner.  Plate, spoon (big for dad), knife, fork, glass and often a napkin.  Sometimes there was a centerpiece, but for the most part that just got in the way and didn't leave space for the food.  Now my kids put a plate and a fork on the table. Period.  If they want a drink, they get up and get one.  If they need a napkin, they get up and get one, unless I have the foresight to think that what we are eating is potentially messier than normal or uses hands then I will sometimes grab a few paper towels and rip them into smaller pieces.  Frugality is the rule.  I also serve straight out of the pot.  Hot pads abound on my table.  The less dishes to wash of course.  Now if I happen to have (almost never) a fancier dinner with guests, this might get cleaned up a little.  Also I worked for catering for several years, even as a supervisor.  I set Tens of Thousands of tables.  Really.  We did banquets as large as 2000 for a ton of college students to as small as two big wigs.  I served Ambassadors and Queens and Prophets all the way to farmers and kids.  I Could set a table nice, if I Wanted to.

Look at that list of items needed just to set the table!!!!  and there are detailed instructions on how to serve set the napkins, right down to removing covers from serving dishes etc.  Everything!  Versus, of course, the Formal Dinner.    And what to do with the maid.  Take a glance at the previous section just above the title about the maids and their outfits from the formal section.

Really This is so precious.  I couldn't even begin to imagine living this way.  It's all Hollywood glamour and middle class image you see in the old movies but I doubt most of America lived that way.  Hello! 1932 depression!  Can you imagine all this during the great dust bowl where daily things were coated with a thick layer of dust?  One account I read of they would set the table with the plates upside down to keep as much dust off as they could before eating then quickly turning them over to put food on them and still getting 'salt and pepper' on it.

Still it's good to be reminded of all that properness and whatnot.  If I were to do this now, there is no way I could do the laundry and clean the house.  I would be spending half the day just setting the table.

I hope to try some of the recipes soon.  One of my favorite titles?  Main dish - Bacon and Bananas.

Adventures in Camp Cooking part 3 - Pork roast & peach cobbler.

Day 3, Another beautiful morning.  Really I can't say enough good about the nice mornings.  Although we still have to deal with the wreckage and wetness of the previous day.  I had planned on making breakfast in bags, or rather having the kids make their own just to show them some camp cooking skills.  But since the carnage of the night before we really just wanted to eat breakfast and get things going.  So, out with the cereal bowls and I ended up cooking the bacon in the pan on the stove.  I learned to make these breakfast bags from my sister when I was about 8.  She was a camp councillor at Oakcrest and YW for a few years.  She and Dian Thomas taught me everything I know.  For a quick version of the Breakfast in a bag go here.  I usually add a piece of bread with a hole in the middle to go over the yolk and get the egg on both sides for what we always called a sunshine sandwich.


After breakfast we hauled all the sleeping bags and pads out to dry.  There was still hail piles on the ground all over where there was vegetation but it was melted on just dirt areas.  It took until noon to dry the tents, waiting for the sun to totally reach them. 

After this we started up the fire so we could slow roast the pork all day.  Only problem is, It's been a while since I used a dutch oven and I forgot how much heat to put on it.  Since we couldn't dig a pit I thought we could use a little more coals but Dad thought we needed even more.  He thought since it was sitting out all day the heat would dissipate more quickly.  I put a dry rub on the pork and put it in the pot.  We piled the coals around it.

Our friends arrived fairly early and we all took a trip to the beach.  Dave took the kids out in the boat and Sean and I stayed on the beach.  He doesn't care for boats too much.  Not too far away one of the oars broke.  This is sad because my husband made this boat and oars by hand.  Not an easy thing.  But he didn't seem too upset by it, he said he just used 2x4's  for the oars, but they looked nice.   He had a tiny motor for such emergencies.  He learned this after getting stuck on Utah Lake with the sail boat when a storm came up.  That lake is nasty in a storm.   

I headed back to camp early to get lunch started.  I decided to check on the roast.  Good thing.  The sugar in the rub and the juices from the meat had completely burned into a big black sucker all over the bottom and the roasts were black!  Ugh.  Dutch oven lesson re-learned.  However, I knew it could be saved, I knocked off what sucker I could and wrapped the meat in foil to wait until later. 

After this we had lunch, PB sandwiches.  We put the tents back together and guess what?  Just in time for it to rain again.  This time was not so bad though.  We went back into the tent for more card games.  It stopped and I went out to deal with the pork.  I cut off the outside and the inside was super tender and tasty!  I put it in a pan for later.  I decided since we didn't do the cobbler the night before than I would do it now.  I figured it would still be warm for dessert if I did it first.  I had put ingredients into bags so I had to do was add eggs and mush it in the baggie.  Since I was using bottled peaches I left out some sugar thinking they would already be too sweet, but I like my cobbler on the less sweet side anyway, usually getting some sweetness from the ice cream.  But there would be no ice cream tonight.

Then the neighbor and I put together the rest of our dinners while D took all the kids fishing.   I put potatoes in foil and started the fire up again.  Two hours later the fishers were back and the potatoes were perfect!  The cobbler was also perfect, but, sadly I opened the lid just as the wind picked up and they got nicely salt and peppered from the blowing ashes.  Seriously it was perfect looking until then.  It could have been sweeter.

For dinner I added a bit of water to the pork and simmered for a bit.  It turned out great

We ended with more smores and some late card games.  I had promised my son we could play one of his favorites but by the time we started it was freezing!!! so we huddled around the lantern on the table trying to hurry the game and stay warm.  Another cold night on the hard ground.  But by now I was more tired and slept better.

Adventures in Camp Cooking part 2

Note: I posted this once and half of it disappeared so this version isn't nearly as glamorous.

Day two.  Beautiful morning.  It was actually warmer to get out of the tent than to stay in.  The sun warmed up quickly.   Because of the new camp chef I was able to easily boil some water for those that wanted hot chocolate to help the warming up.  Before it was always a hassle to start the fire first and by the time it got nice then you needed to start breakfast and by then you didn't care about hot chocolate.  But everyone loved it this time.  Breakfast was scrambled eggs and hash browns and OJ and/or milk.  It was so nice to not cook over the fire and singe all the hairs off my knuckles or burn one side of the pan.

After breakfast we went on a hike.  This is where the day gets interesting.  Half way up the trail age6 trips and from there on its whine and pout.  We tried lots of things to get him happy again but he was set against it.  age 13 of course can't stand to walk with the rest of us and always takes off ahead but usually stays within sight since that is what he was supposed to be doing.  He waits for us at varying intervals.  Finally 6 can't resist the lure of the great walking stick find that 10 and I have been playing up for him.  He resumes contented.

We reach a harder, rock slide area and 13 is no where to be found.  Dad yells for him and gets no answer.  He decides we should wait there and takes off.  This is where I am thankful that he is a trail runner.  We wait and he comes back having run for about 10-15 min without sight of 13. Surely with him running he would have caught up to 13 by now.  Horses pass us and they say they will look out.  Now we start to worry.  there are steep drop-offs and, luckily we didn't know at the time, but at this same spot the next day our friend who came up to meet us saw a bear while he was doing his trail running.  We decide that I will take the kids back down (I was disappointed in not reaching our designated end.)  They cry and 6 keeps saying he doesn't think he will ever see 13 again.  It's hard to believe that with all the hurt and teasing he still loves his brother.  Dad will start running up the trail again and if a designated time comes and I don't see him, we will contact the ranger.  It's already been almost an hour.  I try and keep the younger ones entertained on the way back, telling myself that 13 is not as stupid as he acts sometimes.   The horses come back down and didn't see him. We stop and find 'Perfect pine cone Land'  and almost at the end, stop to play in the small waterfall stream area.  Brrrr, but it feels so good.   Just as we get back to camp and wash up, Dad and 13 come right behind us.   Yeah.  all is well.........

We have Pita pockets filled with a combination of your choice, ham, cheddar, provolone, lettuce, cucumber, celery, carrots.   I pick the last 5 ingredients minus the carrots and it is sooo good!  Sorry, no pictures.   Just after we clean up it starts raining.  We wait under the mess tent.  Remember I said this turned out to be a blessing.  Until it slowed enough to grab the fun bag out of the car and dash to the tent.  13 took time for himself in the other tent reading.  We spend the next hour in the tent playing cards and having the occasional cookie.  Age 10 falls in love with the new card game, which I've actually had for years.   The rain stops and Dad and I can't keep our eyes open anymore.  I send 10 and 6 out to play with a badminton set while we try to nap.  It doesn't really work so well for me.  After 30min. I get out to survey the scene and soak up some sun.  We all go out on the boat for a little fishing,  It doesn't last too long.  We feel a drop or two and head in.

Age 13 starts a fire for dinner.  He insists on using his magnesium fire starter.  And he actually gets it to work after about 20 minutes.  One more item forgotten.  The Hamburger Grill for the fire.  Oh well, WE HAVE THE WONDERFUL CAMP CHEF!  The fire gets very big anyway, because we have peach cobbler planned.  We decide to move the stove in under the mess tent because it's raining again.  13 heads back into his tent and the younger ones move into the mess tent with us.  For hamburgers I pre-made patties with onion and the D required Worcestershire, s/p.  It starts hailing.  Hard.  It's cold and the kids are getting wet.  So I throw on another pot of water to make them some hot chocolate.  The ground is flooding and Dad starts digging trenches with his walking stick that we had all gotten earlier.  I put on the burgers on the stove and put the kids under the table, the only dry spot anywhere.  D keeps digging trenches and bailing out water with a paper cup.  The tent across the way collapses.  I can't believe that our canopy with the bent poles is still standing.  I told you it was a blessing.  For now it's the only thing between us and the hail.  Once in a while we bang the snow off the roof. It's really building up out there. And it is really cold. Who knows how much water has gotten under our tents.  I bring the kids out to eat their burgers.  They are too cold to really want to eat much though.  D stops long enough to eat.  These burgers really turned out good.  I don't know why but they cooked perfectly, better than I have done them at home.  Luckily our camera was out of danger in the car.  Finally it stops hailing.  Remember, it's been hailing long enough to cook the hamburgers, then eat them.  the rain slows down and we call 13 out to eat and help dig around the tents.  I send the younger two in to put on long sweats.  I build the fire up again but now all thought of cobbler is gone.  It's cold and everything is wet.  We clean up dinner and spend the rest of the night huddling around the fire and trying to dry off.  I was reminded of the second time D and I met.  Our little group of neighbors huddled around the campfire in the cold rain with snow near by up near Mirror Lake trying to keep warm while I make cupcakes in the fire. Somehow our tents and bags are not too wet.   About 10:00 the stars come out and we turn in. 

To be continued.

Adventures in Camp Cooking part 1 - Pizza

Last week we went camping.  Two of the dinners I was requested by my husband what they should be.  Fine by me.  For the third meal, which was actually on our fist night I thought Pizza sounded fun.   Generally I have done all the cooking over the fire.  This year we purchased a Camp Chef and It turned out to be a great blessing.  Besides dinners I had some great breakfasts planned too.

The first afternoon we arrived it was mild and cloudy.  We set up camp and my husband decided to set up the canopy/screen tent over the picnic table.  Another Blessing.  I didn't think it would stand because the first time we ever used it, the wind was strong enough to bend two of the poles.  The next time we tried, same story.  So this time he put it up with basically 4 bent poles.  I don't know how it stayed up, but it did. 

I had planned on cooking the pizza over the fire but hubby talked me out of it, probably to try out the new stove.  I fell in love with it.  I didn't want the dough to stick to our other pan since we had forgotten to bring oil (one of several forgotten things) so I worked off 1 pan, it took a long time to get them all done, but no one complained. 

The Big Island

Another Birthday

This year my daughter wanted an island in the middle of an ocean with a palm tree and a beach chair.  

I don't get as fancy as I used to with my cakes.  I just don't have time.  She wanted chocolate which I couldn't fully cover with sand so just think of it as muddy sand or those spots on the beach where lots of dead seaweed and bugs get washed up in a bunch.

The party was decorated 'Luau' style with big blow-up palms and flowers and flamingos.  But the only pictures I got had girls in it and I didn't want to post any without their parents permission.  All the girls had leis and grass skits. 

The girls spent most of their time making shrinky dinks to put on charm braclets.  They were all very unique and cute.