The Two-in-One Vacation

Three years ago, my sister's husband Louie decided to start a tradition. Every summer there's a family reunion, camping style, with his family and my sister's family combined. Now that our kids are getting to the age where they are so much fun to travel with (I did not enjoy dealing with babies, diapers, and toddler naps while vacationing) we've also been wanting to go camping with just our little brood. So we decided to go up to the family reunion campsite a few days early and have some time with just us. We combined the drive, set up, and most expenses into one week-long vacation. It was awesome!!

Course, the downside to camping in the Arizona mountains in July is the monsoons. But as Louie rightly pointed out, if you go in June you have fire restrictions. Since I've camped with fire restrictions, I'll take monsoons any day.

The first thing we did when we got there was set up the canopy (thanks Nylene and Chris!!). Good thing, too, cuz that's when it started to rain.

Wait. Did I say "rain"? I meant POUR. Rather than being stuck for who knows how long, Brian ran out to get the suburban and drove right up next to the canopy to "rescue" us. Here's my boys huddled in the back seat:


See the big drops on Christopher's jacket? That was after being in the rain for approximately 1.5 seconds. Other than my worry that it would rain too long and we'd end up sleeping in the car, it was fun. I love monsoons.

We were camped near Ashurst Lake (maybe a mile or so away?) and decided to go for a drive to check it out (Wendy and Louie picked the spot ahead of time, and Brian and I had never been here before). Here's the view out the windshield:



Turns out this is grazing territory and there are lots of cows around. They were seeking shelter from the rain too:


Eventually the rain stopped and we were able to set up camp. The run off was good, so there wasn't any mud to contend with. This was on Tuesday. The weather after that was perfect, and we didn't see rain again until Saturday. It didn't rain as long or as hard, but afterwards we were given this pretty sight:

Nice. The view from our campsite wasn't bad either:

Since I don't have things together enough to keep my photo albums up-to-date, I'm indulging once again in too many pics. :)

I love this cute little double camping chair:

The tiger fabric is actually furry. It's so cute. I had to prove I'm not too big to sit in it too:

Chris actually prefers the storage basket in-between the big double chairs:

Too funny. I wonder if he'll still be able to do this next year?

Our first full day there (Wednesday), Brian took the boys fishing at the lake. First he taught them how to get the pole ready:

My contribution was reading my book and taking pictures from afar:

They didn't catch anything, but had fun anyway.

Yet again, we saw lots of cows at the lake, crossing the road in front of the car ahead of us:

Right outside our window:

A couple of mornings, we woke to the sound of mooing as the cows grazed right past our campsite:

Friday through Monday was the family reunion. Here are various pics of us hanging out:

One day while I was just sitting around with everyone, minding my own business, I look over and this is what I see:

Um, you're supposed to go behind the tree, Chris.

There were lots of kids here, and one day they spent hours shooting their arrows into the trees, trying to get them stuck so they could try to get them back down again.

I didn't really get why this game was so fun, but it kept everybody happy. As long as there's no blood, no need to worry, I say.


This is a fun game I'd never seen before, called Ladder Ball:

You either have the red balls or the blue balls. There are two balls connected by a string, and you have to toss them to the opposite ladder, trying to wrap them around the colored bars. The blue bar is worth 3 points, red is worth 2, and yellow is worth 1. It's a pretty fun game.

The kids also played a game called Washers, I think, but I don't know how it works cuz I never played it. They had fun though:

Louie is a musician, and has taught Wendy's children how to play. Ryan is learning the guitar (he's pretty good too) and Trevor is learning drums.

I have a few more posts about this trip coming up (of course) but wanted to put all the general stuff in one spot. As for the drive home, I have just one thing to say. We wanted to stop in Payson and feed the kids dinner. This good ol' Arizona city did not disappoint!

Now that's what I'm talking about. (If you missed the McDonald's Madness post from our Texas trip, feel free to amuse yourself by reading it here.)

Holy Week Beginneth!!!

Shortly before our camping trip, I realized school was right around the corner. This set me into a mild panic. We've been very busy this summer, which is pretty unusual for us. I'm a big, big believer in summer being restful. We don't do lessons. We don't do a lot of activities. We don't do anything. I expect a lot from my kids during the school year, so summer is our chance to just chill. This is their chance to fill their time with imaginative play. I loved summers as a kid, and my kids do too.

Well, we had two big vacations this year, but that wasn't really what made it so busy. More than anything, we had a hundred little things coming along here and there which basically made for one busy week right after another. It's mostly been fun stuff, but when I realized how soon school was going to start, I knew I didn't feel rested. I definitely wasn't ready for school to begin. At all.

So I looked at the calendar and saw that our last scheduled activity was our San Diego trip with Kimmy and Daniel (which, grrr, we had to cancel thanks to our ginormous A/C repair bill - I still feel like throwing a pouting fit over that one every time I think about it). That left two free weeks before school started.

So I made an executive decision. Those weeks would be sacred. Holy. Absolutely, positively NO activities would be scheduled during those weeks. We'd sleep in, hang out, chill, and do whatever we felt like doing at the moment we felt like doing it. I wrote it on the calendar and everything.

It didn't take long for various things/people/activities to want to invade Holy Week. (Yes, I know it's two weeks, but "Holy Weeks" just sounds weird.) Some of these things were important, or things I wanted to do. But I had to remind myself, these weeks will be over soon enough, and we really need the break. Everything else is just going to have to wait.

So I've been keeping my calendar clear. Today's the first day. It's sooooo nice to know I have two weeks in front of me with nothing to do. I'm really hoping it's enough, because ready or not, school starts August 11. I'm hoping we'll be there with bells on.

Dutch Oven Apple Cobbler

I still haven't had a chance to blog about our vacation yet, but this is something I can put up right now. I learned how to make this from my mother-in-law Kathy, and it's become a camping MUST in my book ever since. It's easy and super delicious. (Thanks for letting us borrow your dutch oven, Kathy!) This can be made in a regular oven too, at 350 degrees. I've never made it that way though, so I don't know how long it's supposed to bake.


Dutch Oven Cobbler

2 cans apple pie filling (or fruit variety of your choice)
1 box yellow cake mix
1 stick butter/margarine

First, get ready to use your oven by getting 20 or so charcoal briquets and forming them into a little pile on the ground where you plan to bake your cobbler. Douse with lighter fluid and light. Let this burn while you prepare your cobbler.

Spread the pie filling on the bottom of your dutch oven. Pour dry cake mix on top. Cut the stick of butter into small pieces and randomly drop on top. It'll look something like this:

(We used dutch oven parchment paper lining for the first time on this trip, and it worked out nicely.)

Once your coals are no longer flaming and turning white, you can use a little shovel (or whatever) to get them arranged. We put about 14 on the bottom, pretty evenly spread out. Then put six on the top, around the edge. Like this:



Like I said, this was my first time doing this, so I could have gotten the coal placement wrong. But it turned out just fine, so I'm not sure how much it matters. Lift the lid every 15 minutes or so to check it. If the middle is boiling and done but the edges aren't (or vice versa) you can just rearrange your coals to put the heat where you want it. Honestly, I think it's hard to screw this up.

This took around 30-40 minutes to bake (but I didn't have a watch on, so I'm just guestimating) and I let it cool for awhile before serving.

We had about a million kids at our campsite when I made this for the second time (and took the pictures) and totally forgot to take a picture of the finished product. I found this pic online:



This is more brown than I cook mine (and, you know, more blurry) but you get the idea. Yum, yum, yummy!

Memories

I'm doing this thanks to Amy. Since I'm just barely back from vacation and don't have time to blog about that yet, this looked like a quick and easy post. Here are the directions:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Book Blurb: The Chosen

This is definitely a literary book, so if that's not your thing you may not like this book. But if that is your thing, check this one out because it's brilliant. I love the writing, I love the characters, I love the story. I'm also fascinated by different religions, so I liked the learning about the background of Hasidic Judaism.

As an aside, the author is an Hasidic Jew who pretty much went against his religion by writing books at all. The main character in My Name is Asher Lev (another great book by Potok) is also an Hasidic Jew who is an artist and struggling with what that means within the confines of his upbringing. I loved that one too, but I'm highlighting The Chosen because I thought it was even better. I'm also wanting to read Davita's Harp by this author. Has anyone read it?

Here's a blurb for The Chosen:

Few stories offer more warmth, wisdom, or generosity than this tale of two boys, their fathers, their friendship, and the chaotic times in which they live. Though on the surface it explores religious faith--the intellectually committed as well as the passionately observant--the struggles addressed in The Chosen are familiar to families of all faiths and in all nations.
In 1940s Brooklyn, New York, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders together. Despite their differences (Reuven is a Modern Orthodox Jew with an intellectual, Zionist father; Danny is the brilliant son and rightful heir to a Hasidic rebbe), the young men form a deep, if unlikely, friendship. Together they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, the crisis of faith engendered when Holocaust stories begin to emerge in the U.S., loss, love, and the journey to adulthood. The intellectual and spiritual clashes between fathers, between each son and his own father, and between the two young men, provide a unique backdrop for this exploration of fathers, sons, faith, loyalty, and, ultimately, the power of love.

The Last Roll of Film

Here's a little medley of pictures from my last roll of film (these are all several months old, but since it normally takes me a couple of years to get around to developing film, this ain't so bad!). The pictures aren't great, but the memories for me are - so away we go!

Ben making a basket.

Ben's coaches were excellent about making sure everyone on the team got a chance to do everything from throwing the ball in to running it up court to trying to score. As a result, Ben had a great time, made baskets nearly every game, and increased his confidence in sports. It was awesome. :)

John protecting the goal.

This is John's favorite position in soccer, and can I just say that he made the most awesome save during their last game? An opposing player kicked the ball hard and John took it straight to the gut. He caught that thing without even stepping back (you could hear it too, ouch!). He kicked it out and 30 seconds later another player kicked it in hard and John caught it again the same way. And he still isn't afraid of the ball! I don't know where he gets it from, cuz I would have been whining on the sidelines over far less if it had been me. He's my little sports guy, that's for sure. I should probably try to give him more opportunities to play, but I've been bad about that. Maybe now that he's growing older...

Happy Birthday Daddy!!!!

Blowing out the candles. Dare I say how old he is? ;)

Brian and Chris watching the Spring Sing concert.

And the performers. (Methinks they needed haircuts.)

Very funny skit during pack meeting.

Edith read the story, but the different performers had lines they were supposed to say when they were mentioned. There was a big tree (John), a medium tree, and a baby tree. A fire (Ben - he was supposed to shake the piece of tinfoil when fire was mentioned), a babbling brook (Bro Wood got to blow bubbles in a glass of water), and Smokey the Bear (Brian got to wear a "bear skin" and Smokey hat and say in a deep voice: "Only you can prevent forest fires!"). Can't you just hear him?

The leaf race at the pack meeting (it was a nature theme). Carena's look of concentration is so cute!

John getting his awards, taped to an apple.

Chris enjoying his treat. It was "mud pie" with gummy worms. Yum!!

Recipe: Barbeque Chicken Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

This is easy, low cal, and VERY good! This ingredient list is for each sandwich:


2 slices wheat bread
3 oz chicken breast, grilled and thinly sliced*
1 Tbsp barbeque sauce
1 slice cheddar cheese
1 tsp Ranch dressing

*The chicken doesn't have to be grilled, just as long as it's cooked. This is a great recipe for using up leftover chicken.

Toss the chicken with 1/2 Tbsp of barbeque sauce and warm in microwave for 30 seconds (optional). Spread 1 slice of bread with barbecue sauce and the other with Ranch dressing. Layer sandwich with chicken and cheese (sauce and dressing go on the inside of the sandwich) and grill in nonstick pan coated with cooking spray until cheese melts and bread is golden brown.

Book Blurb: A Girl Named Zippy

A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana by Haven Kimmel. I read this a few years ago for book club, and loved it. It's a memoir, which I don't normally read, but it came highly recommended so I gave it a try. Unlike the heavier reading of books like Jane Eyre, this is a quick read and often laugh-out-loud funny. It's a great book! Once again, for the blurb I'm combining the best from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal:

It's a clich to say that a good memoir reads like a well-crafted work of fiction, but Kimmel's smooth, impeccably humorous prose evokes her childhood as vividly as any novel. Born in 1965, she grew up in Mooreland, Ind., a place that by some "mysterious and powerful mathematical principle" perpetually retains a population of 300, a place where there's no point learning the street names because it's just as easy to say, "We live at the four-way stop sign." Hers is less a formal autobiography than a collection of vignettes comprising the things a small child would remember: sick birds, a new bike, reading comics at the drugstore, the mean old lady down the street. The truths of childhood are rendered in lush yet simple prose; here's Zippy describing a friend who hates wearing girls' clothes: "Julie in a dress was like the rest of us in quicksand." Over and over, we encounter pearls of third-grade wisdom revealed in a child's assured voice: "There are a finite number of times one can safely climb the same tree in a single day"; or, regarding Jesus, "Everyone around me was flat-out in love with him, and who wouldn't be? He was good with animals, he loved his mother, and he wasn't afraid of blind people."

Nicknamed "Zippy" for her energetic interpretation of a circus monkey, she could not be bothered to speak until she was three years old, and her first words involved bargaining with her father about whether or not a baby bottle was still appropriate. Born in 1965, Zippy lived in a world filled with a loving family, peculiar neighbors, and multitudes of animals, including a chicken she loved and treated like a baby. Her story is filled with good humor, fine storytelling, and acute observations of small town life.

Dads and Donuts

This post is WAY overdue, so overdue in fact that I should have just let it go. But I like these pictures too much so I'm posting it anyway. This was from our Primary Activity Day back in early June. We invited Dads to come with their kids, and served donuts afterwards (thus the title). It was a "carnival"-style event with different booths, all with the theme "All I Needed to Know I Learned from My Dad." I was mostly busy helping with the event so I didn't get a ton of pictures, but I got a few.


The shaving booth (whipped topping and popsicle sticks):

The Plasma Car races:

The craft:

I was in charge of the paper airplane contest, and so John could fulfill one of the activities for the Faith in God Award, he was in charge of helping me. I decided the plane we'd give instructions to build would be The Dragon, because it was easy to make and flew fast and straight.

(Okay, who am I kidding? I chose it because it's called The Dragon. I mean, how cool is that?)

John helped assemble the signs with the building instructions. He also helped make this sign. I wrote the lettering, but told him he could color it in however he wanted. This is what he did, and he was so proud of it!

Unfortunately, I don't have pics of the actual contest, which was fun. It was done in a pretty laid back, come and go style, with no real winners or prizes of course, but we did keep track of the longest throw. I don't remember the distance exactly, but it seems like it was over 40 feet. Maybe longer. I can't remember. It was awesome, and John did a great job helping with the booth.

There do tend to be perks to helping with activities like this. In addition to snacking on extra donuts, we got to play around on the plasma cars after everyone else had gone home.

Yeah, it was fun. :)