A barbecue for grandma

August 15, 2012

Aaron's grandma is in town from England and we held a family barbecue at our house just for her. Jess and her boys were also in town for the joyous occasion.

The night before and morning of I spent making a cake for Mama. It's her birthday a bit later this month but having everyone together would be a nice time to celebrate.

I made this DELICIOUS Strawberry Lemon Coconut Cake. It turned out divine and was the first time I had requests for more but it had already been devoured. The lemon butter cream frosting is a little time consuming as you heat it on a stove over boiling water and then whip the egg whites for about 10 minutes to get it into a meringue constancy. Well worth it though.

A couple tricks i've learned when making cakes is to first cut a circle of cardboard the size of the prepared cake. (I used a diaper box as seen in the picture below). Place the cake on the cardboard and then prepare it. It helps keep the cake sturdy and allows me to decorate my cake on my lazy susan. As seen above, I can then easily transfer the decorated cake onto my serving tray with no problems.

Another tip is when cutting cake and dealing with layers. I have come across this fabulous little tool (its hard to see but is in the top right picture below). You set it to the height you want and it cuts perfectly through the cake. No crumb mess and perfectly level. Brilliant! 
When working with layers with preserves, put the preserves on first and then in order to put on the frosting without making a huge mess, simply put frosting into a frosting bag and pipe on the cake in a circular motion (seen below) 

For dinner I was grilling bbq chicken, made a cucumber dip (cucumbers courtesy of my mom's garden), cut fruit and then headed out to my own garden to see what was available. I ended up coming in with fresh corn, red potatoes, carrots and zucchini. I find great joy in the blessings and accomplishments of having a garden. This was one of those days.

I made honey roasted potatoes and grilled my zucchini with seasonings. 

Picture time of course!

Grandma had never met her great grandchildren Rachael, Lucas and Joseph until this trip.

The cousins had so much fun playing together

 Early Happy Birthday Celebrations!

 August 1, 2012

Day trip first spent at Bridal Veil Falls. It was a lot hotter then anticipated that day so this part of our day was cut short. It was overwhelmingly hot and there were a lot of people. The kids still enjoyed splashing around in the freezing cold water.

From there we drove out to a beachy part of Utah Lake. I had never been here before and enjoyed it so much we will surely go back again. The clouds rolled in soon after we arrived which made the rest of the evening perfect.

To our surprise it was very very shallow a long ways out. You can see the distance the kids were  from the pictures below. It was exciting for them to be able to walk way out into the water before it even hit their bellies.

 No one wanted to leave when it was time, that's how you know it was a fun day! The kids ask me nearly every day when we can go back!

Canning Apricots

This year I decided to try something new. I got a 20 pound box of fresh local apricots, for a really great price, and decided to make some jam.

I had my handy helpers Rachael and Steph. Rachael was a pro at opening the apricots and pulling the pit out. Steph was my fabulous chopper.

 Joseph was on taste check until he fell asleep :)

20 pounds of apricots ended up being way more then I had anticipated. It took me two days to complete everything. I made 4 batches of apricot jam and then apricot pineapple jam (my favorite), also canned a few fresh apricots, dried a batch and then froze a batch with my food saver. Yum! So worth all the hard work!

It's been a long time...

Sunday July 29, 2012

A planned dinner with my grandma turned into a surprise visit from all of my dad's side of the family. Sometimes the unplanned events turn out to be the best.

My dad's brother Jeff was in town and in effort to get everyone together (it's been a long time for us) I invited everyone down to our house for dessert last minute.

All the cousins (accept for one - Aaron is on his mission)

It pains me to admit that I am the oldest of all of them and am 8+ years older then most all of them. Yes and also the shortest... But they sure are cute :)

It is so nice having a yard big enough for large group to enjoy. The weather was beautiful!

Lots of yummy desserts and family pictures of course!

My grandma with her children (my dad, aunt & uncles)

Individual Families

This would be the perfect picture accept for we are missing Joseph, he was already in bed for the night.

As the sun set it created this beauty all around us. What a magnificent evening spent catching up with some great people!

Great Grandma (little grandma's) house

July 25, 2012

We had scheduled day to go up to my grandma's house with the kids for a nice afternoon visit. It was a beautiful day and we had such great fun. Eating lunch, chatting, playing games with the kids and swimming in the pool.
It was so much fun to see my own kids get excited about playing on the same exercise bike and with the same games that I did when I was their age.

Josh is getting really good in the water and likes to swim under the water while holding his breath as long as he can. Rachael likes to splash and play on the sides where she still has full control of what goes on around her and Joseph is my water baby. He loves everything about the water.

After swimming before we headed home they really enjoyed some green jello grandma made for them (I never make jello).

Thanks for a great day Grandma!

A trip to the Movie Theater

July 23, 2012

Just after the shooting that occurred in a Colorado Theater I had planned to take Josh and Rachael to see Ice Age 4. It's always a hard thing to not think about these terrible things that happened a few days before.

It's one of those things that we have to move past and try not to let it consume our thoughts, otherwise we will reach the point where we are afraid to even leave our houses. My biggest fear is have I taught my kids enough. Would they be prepared in a situation to hopefully react in the best way possible.

Josh saw me watching the news about the horrific event and started asking many many questions. He was concerned and couldn't understand why something like that would happen. We sat down and talked about it for awhile and also talked about what we would do in a situation like that. It's heartbreaking.

So in order to 'move on' and face any fears I still held our movie date. We really had a great time and enjoyed the movie. We nearly had the theater to ourselves and afterwards the kids danced near the front to the ending music.

I then let them play in the fountain outside before heading home.

Olympic Park

 July 20th, 2012

One very warm afternoon we loaded up the bike trailer and set out on our bikes. Just me and the kids...(I love these type of last minute adventures)
 We rode 3 miles to Olympic Park. Josh did great, he really surprised me. I had to actually stop and walk my bike up a big hill and he rode right up. But I do have a bike that is locked into a higher gear and was trying to pull over 60 pounds...

 There with just enough time to enjoy the playground and enjoy some snacks before a large storm rolled in. 

 The 3 mile ride back was actually quite enjoyable. At this point it was overcast, a bit breezy and much cooler. Also a bit more to look at as the animals came out to say hi.

After the storm passed and Aaron got home from work we spent an enjoyable evening outside. We enjoyed watching many many pelicans fly over our house. 

Herriman Lake & Saratoga Fire

June 22, 2012

A trip to Herriman lake with some of the best of friends!

Everyone had their time in the water including Joseph. It was a little freezing at first but so nice to cool off.

Snorkeling, buried in sand, building sand castles and eating lunch on the beach. What a fun day.

While at the beach, back at home the Saratoga fire was burning strong. We went to the beach hoping to get out of the smoke. The winds picked up at the beach and blew to smoke right into us up on the mountain. Below are pictures of the smoke and fire from our home. 

Roll Making & Scott's Birthday

Sunday is our usual family gathering day. June 24th happened to be my brother's birthday and my assignment was to bring rolls. 


Rachael helped me make fresh homemade rolls before church. She thoroughly enjoyed 'painting' butter onto the rolls.

Shaylee had purchased a delicious Cold Stone Cake and pipped on the wording herself. 

You can never go wrong with food, family and yummy cake :) Happy Birthday Scott!

Tracy Aviary & Liberty Park

Since buying our Pass of All Passes this year for only $10.00 we have tried to get as much use from them as possible. It's been well worth it!

June 25, 2012

A trip to Liberty Park for lunch at our same particular spot and like always, lots of very friendly birds and the usual momma duck with her babies.

The seagulls decided to get a little too friendly with Aaron and started fighting right next to him.

After lunch we headed over to the Tracy Aviary. It was such a hot day that we only spent as much time in the sun as was bearable. 

Before heading home we let the kids cool off in the splash park & streams there. They had a blast, I think it was their favorite part.

Quick stop at the London Market to pick up some yummy treats before our drive home. Yum!
Then once arriving home I prepared a cake and dinner for a good friend and her family. Happy Birthday Mary Kate! We had an evening full of yummy food and fun games!