Mafia Marathon

We went up to my ward camp out this weekend (Friday night). We got away a little late so it was dark by the time we got there (tradition I think! Uggg)

The Felix’s, & Betz were soooo good to us, fed us well and helped us put up our tents when we got there. We had some delicious Dutch-oven yuuuuuuuummy food (nothing loved-up there!) After a few games we settled into what would be a two day “Mafia-marathon”
We did get a little cold at night; Meagan and Sydney had to re-bundle in the night I woke up to "Jera, Jera - Is she still in here? I dont know - Jera..?" - Poor girls, I guess they were a little chilly.
We got up the next day to yummy breakfast burritos just to give us fuel for more Mafia.
(you’d think by all the mafia we played I’d be better- but I still couldn’t talk my way out of dying three times tonight! Joel- I need more lessons!)
We were able to take Kali with us camping and Paige and Brooke came over today to play. I love all their cute faces! We have so much fun – Thank you all for sharing your wonderful children with us! What a fun weekend!
I guess I am off for my first full week on the ‘trail’ – should be fun! Funny that I went camping on my last weekend before going to the extreme – I am glad that I went plush style! Cami even blew up an air mattress for me! Thanks Cam!!
Thanks for the fun y'all!

"Loved-up"

You know, among friend it’s always fun to give each other a hard time now and then.
Cami sometimes likes to do that to me about the fact that for the most part I don’t like to share a lot of things that have to do with bodily fluids – Like cups, forks, Air space that contains sneeze particles – you know stuff like that.

I wasn’t even always like this. I used to share food and air space with anyone. I think this happened sometime during the Robert era. He definitely had germ issues and it has stuck! Maybe this will be more therapy that I thought for myself! - Therefore- the following:

I learned a new term this week “loved-up” is a trail word .. in the fictitious trail dictionary it might read something like: Loved-up: A Term used to describe the process of food preparation wherein lieu of cutting, chopping, or dicing the food is put into a trail-walker or young walkers mouth and masticated to in turn be spewed back out into the camping cup to be cooked then eaten at a later time with the rest of the cooked ingredients. Such as: The dried tomatoes were loved-up while preparing the lasagna.

So, this is not a process that I am the most excited about… The other walkers think it’s pretty funny and already like to give me a hard time about it. Tuesday on the trail Ramsey said to me – “hey Jera, would you love this up for me?” while handing me a clove of garlic. I gave him my best and most sincere “ Are you kidding me right now?” face, and the words came with it. He continued “ Aw, come on you can do it” - I told him no, but thanks anyway. Then he went back to Dawn- “Hey Dawn, Will you love this up for me?” She said Sure! And within seconds the garlic was ready for our rice.
I told them they could definitely skip putting it in mine, that I won’t love-up my own food yet, let alone am I ready for someone else’s lovin’. – All this protest while they scooped “my” share onto my rice uggggggggggg. I was struggling with that.

In a few minutes, the rice was ready. I asked Jonathan if he wanted to “share my rice”? He said yes! Awesome. Needless to say I gave him the generous sized top portion before I mixed in the loved up garlic –so I escaped garlic loven’ this time..
Something tells me I might not make it out of this without some loving up at some point -
It’s pretty common on the trail to love-it up then share whatever is in the cooking process among trail walkers. After Dawn had finished – Ramsey said “ Thanks! I NEVER love up garlic!” haha – Dawn smelled like garlic for two days I am sure.

Anasazi

So, I have been wanting to check out this Anasazi thing for a while. I know that I have been really interested in it and ‘drawn’ to it.. I have felt like it is an important piece of the ‘Happiness Clinic’.
I just completed the first week of training and I have to say I am more excited than ever to move forward with this!

As I sat in this place and watched the sun set I knew this is right where I needed to be :-)

I went in Monday morning and it felt like I had known all the trainees in my group already for years! That is so rare for me with a whole group like that! There was such a comfortable feeling there – As I went through the next few days in the wilderness of Tonto National Forrest with just the essentials –
The clothes on my back
Oats, rice and a few other nutritional food items
Water, puncho and sleeping bag
I was so excited that this whole program is based on the bare basics – Physical and emotional pureness. It’s amazing what you can feel out there for extended periods of time with no distractions.
We had an awesome experience talking with a couple of the young walkers who were going home while we were there – they truly had been transformed while they were ‘on the trail’.
There are no elusions that this is a program to ‘fix’ any one or anything though that is often the perceived result. The mission statement is to turn the hearts of the children and the parents to each other so they can weather the wilderness of life together.
I am so excited for what comes next and worried because I am such a wimp in the cold!
I need to get some WARM gear!
In the meantime I am continuing to train and learn the ‘lingo’ of the trail, and cultivate new friendships- this is going to be a fun chapter!

Wake boarding! - sup' with the pics?

On Friday Kerry took a big group of us wake boarding at Canyon lake. Despite getting away a little late is was a blast!
The weather is getting cooler and it was perfect up there! I guess Cami took a video of me riding, so I don’t have pic’s of me on the board- but we got some other ones-
It was blast, Thank you all! - Lets go again!

Oh, and after, thanks to Shannon we ate at the “coolest” restaurant. Jessica – what did Guy's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives say about it? It was good is all I know. Bring on the Portobello delight with sweet potatoe fries mmmm- And fun conversation – Joel , can you please always come with great dinner conversation like that? What are your top three choices of ways to die? – Shark attack (by a great white) I’ll never hear that and not think of you!

update-

I just tasted the caramel in the process of beginning to clean up.. it's GooD!! it works!!!!!
(maybe it would work even better without burning the pan?)

Sunday night treat?

So- I kind of forget that I have a blog most days…

Cami and I were hanging out tonight and we were talking to Paul and Kerry and decided that we wanted to make sopapillas’s.

I thought it would be fun and it sounded yummy anyway… So Cami told me that she had yeast and since it was 6pm – I figured there would be time to make them… Yum, Sunday night treat.
Then I found a recipe on line that didn’t require any yeast (I learned the scorched milk trick) so I was excited to try it out! We were out of milk so Cassidy brought some over for us (Thanks Cass!) - So off I went to experiment with the recipe and my sopapilla skills J

Then Paul said how great they tasted with Caramel, so I though I could make that too. I heard once how to make it with condensed milk by just boiling the can in water.

So the caramel was started and the sopapillas mixed and oil was heated –
In goes the first clump of dough… it turned brown in 2 seconds and I pulled it out. It was a little brick on the outside and dough on the inside… well a few minor adjustments to the temperature and the thickness of the dough and I have to say they turned out better than I thought after the first dough went in! They were actually pretty yummy.
We tried cinnamon and sugar, honey (that was old) whoever said honey lasts forever.. um false.
And just good ‘ol butter mmmmm.
We also fried up some store bought tortilla dough that Cami had – those kind of made thin chips. They were all pretty good though.
But 1.5 hrs later the ‘caramel’ still was not done. So, I thought I would just let it keep going.
Kerry and Cami kept complaining that their eyes were burning and we figured it was from the oil. ???
In the mean-time I got busy looking for some incriminating photos on my camera for them to mock, when something was definitely not smelling right.
I went to check on the caramel and the water had completely boiled out and I burned yet ANOTHER pan! (I go through more pan’s than anyone ought to admit to!) - seriously I forget about boiling eggs, pasta, whatever… tonight just happened to be caramel.
I was so excited that our house might smell like something other than onions for two days, ( anticipating a baked yummy small of sopapilla’s! But now we just get burned caramel pan smell. And stinging eyes.
Gosh nothing like fun Sunday treats- Come on over, we’ll share!