Zion

Three cheers for fall break!  Hip hip hooray!  Hip hip hooray!  Hip hip HOORAY!  Last weekend I did not have school on Thursday or Friday, so I went with my parents, my brother Michael, wife Jessica, and baby Asher, and my uncle David to Zion National Park.  My brother Adam met us there from St. George with his friend Brittany and her son.  Poor Spencer had to stay home and work.  Don't feel too sorry for him though.  The previous weekend he went camping with his buddies for the elk hunt.  But I did miss him a lot.

Michael made a great video compilation of our trip.


Untitled from Michael Jolley on Vimeo.


I took tons of pictures.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Kids Say...

...the darndest things!  Here's a conversation that happened at school a few days ago.

One of my students said, “So, you’re just a mom who comes in and teaches us stuff.” I said no, I wasn’t a mom, I was a teacher. He said, “Yes you are a mom, I saw it.” I was confused about what he meant, then he explained by pointing at my purse by my desk. “You have a purse, so you’re a mom.” Trying not to laugh, I said, yes I had a purse, but that didn’t mean I was a mom. He looked at me for a minute, then said, “So you’re a gramma then.”

And then yesterday a girl in my class wrote the following story:

Translation:  "I know a teacher that teached students.  The students were happy that they were at school."

Too cute.

Head in the clouds?

We live about 1000 feet above the valley, and today on the way home I got to drive through the clouds.  It was nice. 

The end.

Food, Glorious FOOD!

Aww, summer.  I love you so.  But alas, you have come to a sudden end.  Okay, so summer doesn't officially end until later this month, but the start of each school year cuts all my summer spare time down to nothing.  Hence the lack of blogging these last few weeks.

I really had fun this summer.  There always seemed to be something to keep me busy, which is nice.  I also had lots of time to work on my cooking skills.  Many new recipes were tried these last couple of months, and most turned out to be quite tasty! 

The main reason for my new cooking adventures is probably the produce co-op we've been participating in.  We get a good mix of fruits and veggies that we wouldn't normally try.  I love it!

Eggplant parmesan - yum!  Who knew eggplant could be so delicious?

Pluot cake.  (Pluots are a plum/apricot hybrid)

Okay, these pluots sat in our fridge for over a week, until finally I found a recipe to use them in.  Then, as I started preparing the pluots to go in the cake, I realized how tasty they are fresh.  For a minute I worried that I would be ruining them by putting them all in a cake, but the end result was great.

Thanks to my family, I've also done some major bottling lately.  I worked with some of my extended family to bottle 35 jars of pickles at my uncle's house ...

...and my parents, brother and sister-in-law all bottled between 35-40 jars of salsa at our house.

During the big salsa canning party, I whipped up a batch of fresh salsa to enjoy with lunch.

Oh, and Michael and Spencer were a LOT of help that day too, as you can see.

Michael found some FIFA demo for PS3, and apparently it was tons of fun.  I tried to play a game or two with them, but didn't really catch the fever I guess.

Unfortunately, I've fallen back into a bit of a cooking rut now that school has started up again.  It just seems easier after a long day of work to come home and revert back to a quick and easy recipe that I've made a bunch of times before.  Like tonight, it was just chicken and mashed potatoes.  We have some corn on the cob from Spencer's parents which would have gone really well with tonight's dinner, but did I cook them? No.  Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

Baby Shower

I threw a baby shower for my cousin Sarah yesterday.    I went to Zurcher's earlier in the week to find some goodies for the party.  Every time I walk into that wonderful store I think, "if I had tons of spare time and loads of extra money, I think I would host parties all the time!"  If you have never been in that store and you're a girl, you should go.  Just be sure to leave the men at home.  Spencer would be bored out of his mind in about 2 minutes.

Lately I've been really bad at taking pictures, so here are the only shots I have from the shower.  During the shower I didn't even think about pulling out the camera, so these shots were taken right after everyone had left.

Reunion

We drove up to Idaho for a family reunion a couple weekends ago.  My brother Michael, his wife Jessica, and baby rode with us.

Michael had been throwing up earlier that morning and still didn't feel very well.


The reunion was held in Swan Valley at the Pine Basin Lodge.

It's a beautiful area, and we had a lot of fun visiting with family that we hadn't seen in many years.

Here are a few random photos from the trip.  I took barely any photos.  Oh well!

"Fill 'er up!"

driving along the Snake River

view from the lodge (behind me) at our tent after taking it down

AMAZING

Spencer and I took the dog for a walk last night, just in time for this aMaZiNg sunset!  The whole sky, from west to east, was spectacular.

When we finished our walk, Jack and I sat in the backyard watching the colors spill across the sky.