Black Island Farms

Our field trip for October was going to Black Island Farms. We went there three years ago, but haven't been back for a while. Not much had changed. It was still fun. I think it made the girls even more excited to get our farm. I kept showing them all the great things we can do. I don't know if we want to turn ours into an "agri-tourism" business like Black Island has, but it's an option! Of course, we enjoyed a tractor ride out to the field to choose a pumpkin; then there was feeding the donkeys, lamas, and goats; sliding down the haystack slides a bazillion times; riding the cow train, which had a short technical difficulty, but they got it running again; playing in the corn box; swinging, etc. For once, the girls were actually excited to hang out with our group. They're usually begging to go off by ourselves, but this time they were anxious to keep up with our teacher and did NOT want to be left alone. Sorry for all my collages lately, but I just have too many pictures I want to include and I find this the least overbearing way of displaying them.



And while I have your attention, I'm going to make another plug. If you count going to the adult session of stake conference (which I don't, but the girls do), then Brandon and I have had two dates in the last week. Whoa! Last night we got to go to a screening of "Waiting for Superman." It's a documentary about the mess our educational system is in. I'm finding these documentaries quite enjoyable, and have realized that I don't like being ignorant. I used to. It was quite comfortable, but lately I feel that there is too much for me to do to sit around and live my life just like everyone else.

Here's one more quick story before I sign off: The girls were sitting in the living room today doing their work while I was in the basement for a minute, when I heard screams and running. I knew that could only mean one thing -- a spider. They came running to tell me how huge this spider was. Then Sophie got up the courage for just a second to run back upstairs and when she came back she said, "I got some stuff to survive with -- Math, to make ourselves intelligent." Moral of the story: when creating your emergency preparedness plan don't forget the intelligence. I guess a math book won't hurt.

Birthday, Ghosts & Corn

First of all, I need to thank everyone who made my birthday a special day. It was pretty quiet, being a Sunday and all but we had home teachers and visiting teachers come. The home teachers were just making their monthly rounds, the visiting teachers actually knew it was my birthday and stopped by to see me. They had actually brought me something a month ago, thinking my birthday was Sep. 10th but that's ok. Two presents never hurt! Jason and Eli also surprised us with a visit. He seems to always know when we're about to serve cheesecake. This was not the first time he showed up unannounced just as it was about to come out of the fridge. So, thanks to all for the phone calls, cards, and gifts! Now I need to go find some time to do some reading.


I also had my book club this week, but let me back up a couple days. Every year about this time a little "ghost" comes creeping through the neighborhood delivering goodies to our porch. We are then asked to do the same to 3 other homes. So, I decided to whip up a batch of cookies that we could use to deliver to 3 houses and I could also take some to my book club. Then I put the girls in charge of getting them delivered while I was gone. After I got home Brandon showed me the pictures on the camera he had taken of them. Apparently they thought they needed to camouflage themselves to deliver the goodies. I don't know why Sophie looks like she's about to attack, though.


Our latest conquest in becoming self-sufficient was to make cornmeal. The corn we grew in our garden this year didn't turn out too great. So, we just let it get old, dried the kernels, and then milled them. We got to enjoy some cornbread for dinner the other night. Have you heard of "farm to table" dinners that are catching on these days? Well, this is our "garden to table" dinner.

Lastly, we received some good news today. Sophie's expander is working! So she doesn't have to turn it anymore -- except one turn per week to keep it from collapsing. She was pretty excited when she got the news. We don't have to go back for a whole month!

Conference Weekend

A few days ago Chloe emailed me asking if I would do a photo shoot of her and Sophie with their friends. I thought that was such a cute idea, and rather sad I didn't come up with it myself. So, after getting the go-ahead from their friend's mother we scheduled to go do it during the Priesthood session of conference. Chloe picked this fun park, appropriately named Nicholls Park, in Fruit Heights. It's always so crowded there, but we worked around it. I decided to haul my video camera along as well and see if I could make a movie out of it. You'll get to see the video I put together, but I just have to say that it's much easier having someone else run the video camera while I take pictures. Too bad my videographer was in the pictures.

Then right after we got back from the photo shoot the girls had a campout with Brandon in the backyard. They had the tent all set up and ready to go. They started a fire and I joined them for a bit, while they roasted marshmallows. Marshmallows are on my list of non-food items, but somehow Brandon got talked into buying some for them. This morning we ate breakfast outside, which Brandon cooked on his camping stove, and Chloe asked me to take some photos for her to scrapbook. I'm borrowing them for my "scrapbook."




We spent the day watching the rest of conference, and now it is time to get out of the house! I'm going for a walk....