I love Camping...

I have to say that this has been a good week. On Friday Brittany, Clay, Eden and I went up to Tanner's Flat to go camping. When I got up there around 3pm to reserve the spot there were still plenty of openings, they first gave me campsite number 27 and we went and checked it out and it seemed pretty nice. I went back to pay but when I did that they said that they made a mistake and that particular site wasn't available as a walk in. So they gave us campsite 31 which was awesome. Lots of rocks and boulders and the firepit was right next to some rocks so that it would block the wind...if there was wind. At this particular campground they told us that as of a few days before there was still two feet of snow on the ground, they had to bring in snow blowers to remove most of it. I had left Clay there at the campground and went back home to pick up Brittany and Eden. When we made it back out to the campground Clay already set up our tents and had the fire going. It was fantastic! Brittany and Clay made hotdogs and Eden brought the s'mores, lots of great food. Once it got dark we got into Brittany and Clay's tent and played some Phase 10...which I lost, until the last hand which we said would take it all...and I won that one. Woo-Hoo! It was getting late and we were getting tired so we went back to our tent and tried to sleep. I had on a t-shirt, a sweatshirt and a snow jacket, jeans, pajama bottoms and two pairs of socks and I was still freezing...I think I slept for about a total of 20 minutes that night, I was just trying to stay warm, which eventually happened but the whole night I was singing songs in my head trying to put myself to sleep but obviously that didn't happen. When it was finally light outside we got up and Clay already had the fire up and going and he didn't even use one match...he was pretty impressed with himself...I was impressed as well. We had cinnamon rolls and muffins and orange juice and mandarin oranges for breakfast...maybe a little bit too much starch but it was good. We figured it was much later than it was and decided to take things down and get ready to go and then on the way out we saw what time it was...only 9:30. It was a lot of fun though and we look forward to the next camping trip, I think we are going to try Moab and this time we will reserve a spot and be more prepared, plus there shouldn't be snow on the ground there. The rest of Saturday was spent sleeping and showering and trying to get rid of the campfire smell from our clothes and blankets.

On Sunday I woke up early and made myself some cornmeal pancakes...mmm and they were good but not as good as Dad's. I wonder if it might have been the oil that I used because all I had was vegetable oil so maybe that's what was different...plus cooking those in a pan isn't exactly the easiest thing, I really need to get a griddle. During church I was trying to think of something to make for dinner...I know I shouldn't have thought about it then but I was getting hungry. We have stuff to make chicken roll ups and mashed potatoes and corn and all that good stuff but when we were in Relief Society one of Eden's visiting teachers asked us to come over for dinner so we were happy to oblige. I said that I'd bring cookies and figured that they would be something fast and easy but I didn't want to take the time to actually dish them out so I decided to make chewy bar instead. It started off great and then it came time to add a few of the dry ingredients and then I saw a snag in my plan. It called for baking powder and I had was baking soda. I went online to research what I could substitute and it said that baking powder is essentially baking soda, cream of tartar and cornstarch...and again all I had was baking soda so that's what I used albeit not as much as it called for. I was surprised they actually turned out pretty well and were a big hit at dinner. We then made our way home and decided to watch a Bollywood movie. Eden had one called Dil Chahta Hai, it was pretty entertaining and a little confusing but all around it was pretty good.

And Monday was pretty much spent reading and relaxing. There wasn't a whole lot that could be done outside since it was pouring outside and come to find out that there was a leak in our laundry room, nothing too serious but still it was enough where I noticed it. I put a pan down there to see how much it would collect and it stopped shortly after that. I've been reading a book called "Daniel Deronda" by George Elliot lately and it's pretty good but it's really long and the first one hundred pages or so are hard to get into but it's starting to pick up now. I look forward to seeing the movie though, it's only $10 at Amazon so maybe I'll make a purchase sometime in the near future. Well I think that is all I have for now, this coming Sunday I have to teach the temple prep class so I've got to prepare for that. I hope that everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend and I'll talk to you all later...