Big Weekend

What a weekend!!! 20 hours of driving and I am beat!! Spencer's youngest brother, Ryan, is going on a mission and we drove to Lewiston for his farewell this weekend. The girls did amazingly well on the road. When we got into Logan at about 10:45 pm, Avary informed us that she was all done and wanted to go home.

Spencer's parents asked me to do Ryan's mission cake, as I did one for Spencer's other younger brother Ricky. It turned out really good. Especially considering I didn't have my special spatula for spreading the frosting.

The flavor was cherry chocolate and it was gone by the evening. Spencer's sister Addie, saw to that. She sure liked the cake and so did all the kids. It was the only way I could get Avary and CJ to eat dinner that night. They had so much to do this weekend with their cousins, that they didn't have time to eat.

We stopped by Sunday evening to see Grandma and Grandpa Great. The girls LOVED their dog, Chico. I did too, and I think I might have convinced Spencer into allowing me to get one one day. (One down one to go, my mom!!)





Chico was so excited to have people to play with. He is 9 months old and after about 10-15 minutes of running around with the girls, he was beat, but the girls loved him and he loved the girls.

On the way home, we stopped in Salt Lake to see some family. When we were going through Bountiful, we came across probably one of the funniest cars I have ever seen. As we got closer we realized what it was.

Spencer started to joke and started to talk about how it needed eyes and antennae. Then we passed it. Guess what.......

....it had EYES!!! Spencer and I were laughing so hard, that we stayed right next to the car so that we could just get pictures! The biggest shock was when we passed it and we saw who was driving it. Can you guess???


A MAN!!! This guy with a big bushy beard. It made it all the more funny!!! Thank you who ever you are for making us laugh so early in the morn!!!

When we got to Salt Lake, we visited with Great Aunt Sy and got a tour of her incredibly AMAZING yard. I've seen that yard and house go through change after change and I think that this is by far my favorite. We also got to visit with Great Uncle Keith and Great Aunt Reida and our other Grandma Great.

Before we headed out on the open road, we stopped to pay our respects to my two cousins who have passed away. We hadn't been back since Levi's, the most recent, funeral and we wanted to stop by and take a moment.

Levi was such an adventurer. He visited all 7 continents during the last 3 years of his life, on one passport. He was 27. What an achievement from such a young man. It makes me think that nothing should hold me back and to live my life to the fullest.


His brother, Zach, was also that way. He was everybody's friend. He was an example to everyone that he came in contact with. Zach was my age. We were born 3 months, to the day, apart. He passed away when I was a senior in High School.


I sure miss these guys, they were two in a million.

Sabotage

So, I'm pretty sure that everyone knows that my mom and I are trying to loose weight. Well. . . . this week hasn't been the easiest week for us and I will tell you why.

I am back in school now and I have all cooking classes. In Garde Manger this week we made dips and chips and crackers and spreads to go with those crackers (yes, I know it is a run on sentence, I did that on purpose). Very tough, especially with guacamole sitting and staring at you telling you to eat it.

Anyway, along with Garde Manger, I also have Into to Pastries, my weakness. Last week we made pie, which was OK because I'm not a huge pie eater. THIS week we made Cheesecake. OH BOY!!! To top it off, we also made tarts. Double "OH BOY!!!". The cheesecakes had multiple sauces to use with them, such as Dark Chocolate Syrup, Raspberry Gelee (raspberries and gelatin), Fruit Coulis (pureed fruit), Caramel Sauce, and, my personal favorite, Creme Anglaise (sort of a melted vanilla bean ice cream, but much better!!).

We got to make our own cheesecakes with what ever we had in the kitchen. I chose Raspberry with chocolate crumb crust and Coconut with chocolate crumb crust. Today we got to plate one and I chose to plate the Coconut Cheesecake.

The sauces are the Dark Chocolate and the Creme Anglaise. OH. . . . .MY. . . . . .GOSH!!! It was so YUMMY!! The sauces totally made this cheesecake fab! It was Spencer's favorite. I personally liked them both, but if I had to choose one, it would most likely be the Raspberry.

We made the cheesecakes Wednesday. Today, we had to make a Fruit Tart, a Chocolate Truffle Tart, and a Lemon Curd Tart. IS THERE NO END TO THE MADNESS!!!

So, in short, today I brought home 2 cheesecakes, 3 sauces, a fruit tart, a lemon curd mini tart, and a chocolate truffle mini tart. Needless to say, we had company over for dessert tonight. I love the fact that Spencer's cousin lives 2 minutes away from us. I sent ALL the left overs home with them tonight. I think this might become an every Thursday kind of thing. That's OK though, because I really enjoy having them over.

Back to School

Well, school has officially started. I have classes Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday all day, Thursday and Friday mornings. The classes that I am in are Garde Manger (Cold food such as sandwiches, salads, and we will be making our own sausages), Intro to Pastries, and Intro to Baking. The summer went by entirely TOO fast. The Chef that was to teach my Garde Manger class had to take a leave and so the replacement for this quarter is the same instructor for my Into to Pastries class. We see an awful lot of each other and I'm not sure if it is going to be a good thing, but we will see.

We made some really good salads this week. I made this wild rice salad that a Chef at the school came back for thirds on. He REALLY liked my wild rice salad. It always makes me feel good when the Chefs come back for more on things that I make, it boosts my confidence.

This week in Pastries, we made pie. I have NEVER made a pie from scratch before. I am not a fan of pie crust and therefor usually bye the graham cracker crusts and then put pudding in it or something. It was a completely new experience for me. I made three pies at school today. I made a lemon meringue pie that I don't think turned out (I don't know because I didn't taste it because I HATE lemon meringue pie), a chocolate banana cream pie (VERY tasty), and an apple raspberry pie (tart but tasty). For never making pie before I think I did pretty well. I even liked the crust I made, a miracle in and of itself because I hate pie crust. I haven't had Intro to Baking yet, that is tomorrow and this is the first week of school, but I think I will enjoy it. These are pictures of my apple pie.


It actually looks homemade!! I was getting pretty flustered making these pies today though. My flaky crust turned out to be a little too dry, but the Chef got it to go into the pan alright, it just seemed to melt in my mouth when I ate it. The apple raspberry mixture was a little "confusing" because the raspberries kept weeping and I didn't know how much thickener I would need to keep it from running all over. It turned out really good, like I said tart but tasty. Spencer even liked it a little (he doesn't like apple pie at all). The apples were still a little crunchy and the sauce, I think, was a great consistency. I think ice cream would totally complete it though, and for the men in my family, NO SHARP CHEDDAR!!!!! (Especially moldy, Dad.)

Bakers

Today the girls, Spencer, and I made cookies. Our Relief Society President lost her baby this last week, she was 24 weeks, and we wanted to make some cookies to take to her as a "pick-me-up".
The girls call themselves bakers "just like mommy" they say. It is really cute. Anyway, they had a lot of fun as you can see. They each rolled out their own dough with their own little rollers, cut their own cookies, and put them on their own cookie sheets. They loved it!



After dinner, they frosted and decorated their own cookies. It was fun to watch them, although CJ was more interesting in just eating the frosting. She only got 3 cookies decorated because she ate the rest of her frosting.



Avary got frosting on all her cookies, decorated them so carefully, and then dug in. She got a little upset when I took her plate of cookies to put them in the fridge. I only let them have 3 because it was an hour before bedtime.



It is fun to have such good helpers in the kitchen. They also love to help me make their chocolate chip Mickey Mouse pancakes in the morning. It is fun to watch them because they make all the motions I do, in the air, like flipping the pancake over and loading it with chocolate chips. I think I have some future bakers on my hands.

Happy 4th of July!!

We had a really fun 4th of July. We hope everybody else did, too. (Although, I do believe I missed my brother Regan's "pyrotechnics" show this year.) Anyway, we were invited to go to Georgetown with Spencer's cousin and we had a lot of fun. They had a really cute parade. Georgetown is such a tiny place. It reminds me of Mt. Pleasant in that respect and it also reminds me of Park City, because it is literally sandwiched between two mountains. I loved it!! They had so many wonderful, little stores. I found the only place I know of in Colorado that makes the homemade salt water taffy, which made my sister quite happy, and the same place makes the BEST pistachio ice cream I have ever tasted, yes better than Baskin Robbins. I, of course, had to call my mom to tell her about it, seeing how it is her favorite ice cream.

A lady and her husband were making balloon animals for kids. I was blown away with how elaborate her hat was. We asked her how long it took her and she told us 5 hours. Can you believe it!!?? She was very dedicated in getting that hat done. This is a picture of her.



The parade was really fun. It started with this guy on this bicycle. It was really interesting watching him get on this thing. He would have to get a running start and then jump on the pedals while landing on the seat at the same time.



They had some really awesome classic cars in the parade. I got pictures of all of them, but there are way too many to post. This two person bike rode past us that I thought was really fun. Spencer and I thought we should have one.



Then the bikers drove past. This one in particular I could see my mother on along with her sister, Sy, or even Sy and her husband Ron. I love this bike, I thought it was "the bomb".



The kids loved the parade. They hit the jackpot with all the candy that was being thrown. They loved to go pick it up. This is the only picture I could get of them "scrounging" for candy because they were entirely too fast for me and the camera.



I had them put all the candy in my lap and about halfway through the parade, the candy was falling out of my lap. I finally had to block it with my arms and even then it started to spill over.

Towards the end of the parade the fire trucks started down the road. It was so funny because in the middle of these HUGE fire trucks there was this old man driving his lawn mower. It really made us laugh.

After the parade we went to the town BBQ. It was alright, entirely too expensive for our taste. Next time we won't get food at the BBQ and maybe just bring a picnic.

I could've stayed in that town all day. It was so "old fashioned", I loved it. I can't wait to go back!!