Camping in Provo Canyon...

We just got back this morning from a quick one-night trip to Provo Canyon where we camped and essentially did the same thing we did 2 weekends ago, except this time Sierra and Jeremy were able to come!  They actually found the campsite!  I can't tell you where it is because we aren't 100% sure it's actually legal and it's so awesome I want to keep it to ourselves ;).  It was like camping in a beautiful meadow with the river just a 30 second walk away.  Oh, and there was a random cement block conveniently in the middle of the spot.

Annie and Russ cooked bacon, pancakes, and eggs all on
this stove in the morning.  Such champs.

We tried to use our portable grill to help the cooking go faster
but all we got done was the sausage--it wasn't a stove.

I didn't take good pictures of the site, so this is the best you get. 

Craig making a fire while we made breakfast.

Mmm...delicious!

Oh yeah, and there was a snake slithering in
the grass when we lifted our tent up....nbd.

So Jeremy had to catch it.

Life Update May...

So we just left off with graduation, and now we are finally into May!  Before I go on, I don't think I've talked about my church calling yet.  So I was in the primary doing singing time, which I absolutely loved.  I was so impressed with these kids and how musical they were at such young ages!  They helped make our transition into this well-established family ward a lot easier because they were so loving and friendly to me every Sunday :).  Unfortunately, I was released from the Primary about a month ago and my new calling is the Ward Music Chair.  

Basically, what I do now is try to find musical numbers for sacrament meeting every Sunday and get families or groups together and ready to perform.  There are lots of other responsibilities that go along with it like just trying to build up the culture of music in our ward, which I'm excited about, but I sure miss my primary kids.  I sort of cry inside every time I pass the primary room on my way to Relief Society and hear them singing the songs I taught them.  (I just realized I never posted about primary officially, which is sad, but I'm sure I'll be back there at some point in my life, so don't worry...)  But Mother's Day this year helped change my feeling about my calling a little bit.  

The primary kids always perform a Mother's Day song and they were as cute as ever, but I also wanted some young women to perform "Consider the Lilies of the Field"--which I actually wrote about two years ago here--what can I say?  I love this song!  I have always loved this piece and I thought it was appropriate for Mother's Day because it's all about the most perfect example of love from our Savior that we should all be trying to emulate.  Getting the young women to practice with me was more difficult than I thought it would be--their lives are so busy!  But they were very dedicated, and they were excited about getting the harmonies right.  It turned out beautifully and I really felt the Spirit when they were singing.  I was so proud of them and it made me excited about seeing more music in this ward.  

This last weekend we camped up in American Fork Canyon with Annie and Russ.  It was a long, cold, rather miserable trip, but it was still fun.  Lucky Dave has a fantastic tent that kept us warm and dry during the torrential downpour.  We stayed just long enough to do tinfoil dinners one night, and a breakfast casserole in the dutch oven the next morning.  Then we were outta there!  Dave and I got to go fishing the first night for about an hour while we were waiting for the rain to stop and I caught a fish!  But then we didn't really get to go again so it was kind of lame.  Hopefully we can make it up there again sometime soon when the weather forecast isn't predicting a storm...lesson learned--don't plan a camping trip hoping the weather report is wrong!  

You can see just a tiny bit of my fish!!  It was a beautiful rainbow trout!

The breakfast casserole was delicious!

Awesome tent with amazing rain fly.

This is what our campsite was sitting on.  The river!

Happy to be by the fire under the EZ-up and out of the rain...none of us died of carbon Monoxide poisoning luckily.

So I think that sums up May for us.  Maybe I'll be more diligent about posting from here on out.  If not, just know it's because we are finally cracking down and finishing the last of our Thank You cards for our wedding (I know...so late!).  So I guess I'll be back when the thank you's are done :)

S'Mores!

So...the title of this blog auto-corrected to "Sores!" which #1, is gross, and #2 reminded me of the street name Sores and Boils Alley--anyone catch the reference? ;)

Anyway, I promise my life consists of more important things than new windshield wipers and s'mores, but I just can't bring myself to catch the blogging world up to the detailed happenings of my life right now.  I promise that some day in the near future, I will provide an explanation for my ridiculously long absence from writing ;).  Unfortunately for you...today is not that day.  Today you get to read about the college version of s'mores!  (I put exclamation points to hopefully get you excited about a less-than-exciting topic...it's a rhetorical strategy, don't worry about it.)

So a few weeks ago, Annie, Russ, Dave, and I went down to Moab to camp and climb some rocks and things (nbd), and we bought an excessive amount of marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers for s'mores.  You have to have s'mores if you're going to have a fire, right?  And believe me, we were going to have a fire in 12 degree weather...So once the trip ended (don't worry, I'll write a full blog about the trip itself sometime...it was full of exciting adventures and slight mishaps), I ended up taking the left-over s'more ingredients and storing them in my apartment.  This was a bad idea.

For about 3 weeks now I have pretty much had a s'more at least 3 times a week.  "How?", you may ask, realizing that it's completely ridiculous to assume I have a full-fledged campfire every time I want a s'more.

Electric stoves!!

 

I must admit I'm guilty of hating on these old electric stoves when I'm trying to cook something carefully and can't control the temperature nearly as well as a gas-stove could, but for s'mores, they're amazing!  They work just as well as coals--without the smoky taste!

I don't know why I've enjoyed these s'mores so much...whether it's because they remind me of camping--something I love to do, despite popular belief--or simply because their chocolatey-marshmallowy goodness is the epitome of comfort food, but I've been really grateful for these little s'more moments I get to have after long days at work and school the past couple weeks :)