What a weekend!

Griff had a week long work trip and got home Friday night. While getting gas at Costco on the way home he had the brilliant idea to bring me a dozen red roses! This is the first time ever! I am not quite sure how he got that idea, but I'm not complaining. I got my new Nikon D600 (full frame!) this week, so it was so fun to get to use it for this!

 Then on Saturday morning about 25 young women and several leaders met at our chapel at 4:50 am to walk the 13.5 miles to the Denver Temple. They got there by about 10:30 or so. I was pretty impressed that they had their own half marathon. It was quite the experience for all involved!

After we left the temple with Ashlyn we drove 1.5 hours down to the Peaceful Valley Scout Camp to see if there was any chance to get Aaron to his soccer game by 1:00. We got there about 12:30. They told us he was somewhere among about 2000 scouts running around in a 2 mile radius and we couldn't take our car in. It took about 30 seconds to abandon that plan and turn around and head out on a different adventure. So we found the local grocery store and got some food from the deli and headed for our favorite adventure park, Whispering Pines Park, for lunch. We discovered Whispering Pines Park during our first fall break here, about 4 years ago. Fall break here is 2 weeks in October and by the end of the first week I knew we couldn't just keep hanging around the house. We took off on an adventure armed with a Fall scavenger hunt paper which I had printed off the internet. Enter Whispering Pines Park. It takes almost 30 mins. to drive there, so that feels pretty adventurous all on its own. When you get there there is a line of pine trees in a gully. Whenever the wind picks up it sounds like there is rushing water somewhere nearby. It is pretty cool. However, the sound alone is hardly worth the 30 min. drive. It also boasts enough pine cones to fill several grocery sacks (great for fall crafts) and a pretty cool playground. Even though there are closer places with playgrounds just as cool (probably way cooler), it has become a fun tradition. As we drove up I heard Cyerra call from the back, "Oh, this place! I LOVE this place!" That alone made the whole trip worth it!

Then today we got to go to a special stake meeting with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was amazing. There were several speakers that took up the first hour.  They chose three people during the meeting to bear their testimonies, including the mayor of Parker, David Casiano. He is not a member of the church, however he gave a powerful testimony of the good work that our church does and the influence that it has on our town, state, and country. He spoke quite powerfully and I was amazed to hear such a testimony of our church from someone who hasn't made any commitment to join with us. Then we got to hear from Elder Holland. He is such a kind, witty, and loving man. He had us laughing, and crying all at the same time. What an amazing experience! I just had to sit and ponder on what a wonderful course our lives have taken. I LOVE where we live. I love the people we have the opportunity to be with and live near. I love our community, the size, the location, the climate, everything. I just have to say, after this weekend I feel incredibly blessed!

Zoo Day

 Ashlyn is only about an inch shorter than me now. Yikes!

 Check out the cool hat I crocheted for Aaron for Christmas! Go Rockies!

These are a few of the pictures that we took while at the zoo a few weeks ago... or over a month ago. Well they are on here now anyway. We had a great time at the zoo. We now have an annual family pass, so it was kind of fun to be able to pick and choose what we wanted to go and see without feeling like we had to get our money's worth and see everything no matter how cold/hot/hungry/tired... we were. It was quite liberating! Once again, I was behind the camera for all of the photos, but I really was there. I always intend to relinquish it for a few shots, but its just so much fun!

Bread

I started making bread about the time I got my kitchen aide, about 2 years ago. I took a little break during my pregnancy with Joslyn, and with no air conditioner yet, it doesn't work during the summer either.  It started out pretty good, but red whole wheat flour just has a little different taste. My friend had introduced me to white whole wheat flour a while back. I was a little skeptical at first. It sounded like and oxymoron. I did some of my own research on it though and realized it really is just as good for you as red wheat. It just tastes better. The funniest thing about it is that I actually already had a 50 lb. bad of white wheat sitting with my food storage in the basement. So last year for mother's day I got a wheat grinder and made quick work of it. It is fabulous! My kids love it and it smells so great in my house for the whole baking day. The only problem was it was about 110 calories per slice and I had been buying bread that was 45 calories per slice, but tasted gross. I am still in a very long process of losing this baby weight, so that was a problem. I had adjusted the recipe all that I could to make it taste good, but be as healthy and low calorie as possible. The slices were just so big. I hadn't found a pan that would make those thin long loaves like I was used to buying at the store. Just 9x4 pans. Finally I was at Ross the other day and I found what I was looking for. It is just a little cheap $4 bread pan, but it does the job well and now my slices come in at closer to 65 calories per slice. Perfect! Now I get 65 slices of bread out of the same recipe instead of 48. Wahoo! Now I can have my bread and eat it too! If I could just bake enough of it to freeze for the summer now!