Flaming Gorge

Have you heard of Flaming Gorge? It's an area about three and a half hours east of here. The scenery reminds me of Southern Utah (especially the reddish rocks) but it has a character all its own, too. We love to take little trips like this (we didn't even stay overnight). It's amazing how you can go just a few hours away and feel like you're in a whole different world! And this was a beautiful drive with lots of interesting things to see on the way,

such as this peaceful mountain reservoir

and this enormous wind farm.

The views are so dramatic from all angles!

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Flaming Gorge and Silver Lake

We enjoyed a beautiful day at Silver Lake with Philip and Allison and Grandma last week!

California Nelsons

The most exciting part was when we saw a moose! He was just off of the trail, so we tried to move past him very quietly!

Daisy and Benjamin

We also took a daytrip to Flaming Gorge last weekend. I've never been to that part of Utah before, and it's beautiful! We took a tour of the dam, had a campfire, and played in the reservoir. Such a beautiful day!

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Three years old, Catch, Smoke

Happy Birthday Girl

Tiny people playing catch

Lots of smoke in the air these days. Sam's always trying to photograph it for his lecture slides.

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Temporary penguin

Some recent Malachi cuteness:

(As I was putting ponytails in Daisy's hair): "It's good to do that, Mommy, because if you didn't, someone might see Daisy and say to themselves, 'Huh, that girl doesn't look very pretty; she doesn't have any ponytails!'"

(On a day he was wearing red shorts and a red shirt): "Do you think someone might think I'm just a red person with no clothes on?"

(Talking about the dangers of open-toed sandals, and why they might be prohibited at school): "And also, when you wear open-face shoes . . . well, I know there aren't usually porcupines around, but what if there was one and it poked your toes?"

An emperor penguin= "a temporary penguin"

"I'm going to write this down in minerals" (when he was writing something out with numerals)

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S'mores bars

This is a recipe my sister-in-law made for the family Christmas party. It was awesome, and I asked her for the recipe back in January (I know because I wrote it down on the back of an envelope, with a January postmark. Elementary, my dear Watson!) but I didn't get around to making it until now! Seb requested these bars for his birthday, which provided the motivation to buy marshmallow creme (which had been the sticking point for me earlier). (Sticking point! Ha!)

I had to use 5 of the big IKEA chocolate bars for the chocolate layer, which pained me somewhat (because I like to just EAT those!) but it was worth it. These are delectable. BETTER than s'mores, in my opinion, because the graham cookie crust is softer and chewier and more delicious than a real graham cracker, and the chocolate layer has just the right soft-but-biteable consistency (the kind you rarely achieve in an actual s'more). I'm debating whether it would be more proper to call them just "s'more bars", but no; I think the original treat is "s'mores," and then you add a "bars" to it.

Well. Use Hershey's chocolate if you wish, of course, but you really can't beat the IKEA bars. And I like to toast the whole pan under the broiler for a minute when they're done, if the marshmallow layer didn't get browned enough. These are the perfect late-summer treat to eat outside on August nights and pretend you're camping, when you don't want the bother of real camping. Yum!

S'mores Bars

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Cecret Lake Wildflowers

We went up Little Cottonwood Canyon last weekend to see the wildflowers. I had read that they were really spectacular up in the Albion Basin at the end of July/beginning of August, but I was afraid that because I was looking forward to it so much, maybe I'd end up being disappointed. Luckily, I wasn't---the flowers more than lived up to my hopes, and we couldn't have asked for a lovelier day. (Although I could, maybe, have asked for a better baby backpack---ours is not really made for hiking. I'd like to get a new one. But I shouldn't complain; Sam's the one that carried our picnic food, which was probably heavier and definitely less cute.) It was sunny and beautiful as we hiked up, and then some light cloud cover moved over as we had our picnic up at the top. Just as we drove home, there were a few light sprinkles of rain. It was beautiful.

We did the Cecret Lake hike, which was great for everyone---even Daisy made it up on her own two feet. There were a few steep switchbacks at the end, but nothing too bad. It's a great trail, going through beautiful flower-filled meadows all the way up. We had our trusty wildflower book and identified everything we saw.

Our picnic spot. Can you see tiny Sam and the children?

When she was finally freed from the backpack, Junie got very dirty, and kept trying to dip rocks into the apple dip. She only succeeded a few times.

Elephanthead! Our favorite flower.

Cecret Lake

Sebby has a paper plate under his shirt. Just in case you were wondering.

Sebby scurried around finding rocks until he had a rainbow of colors

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Summer randomness

I love this Abey-boy.  So does the rest of the family. He is getting so big! Last time we went to IKEA, he was too tall to go into the playroom! They let him in for one last time, but it was a strangely sad feeling for me. I can't believe he's gotten so big. It's true though, he's less of a "playground" kind of guy now, and more of a "toss a frisbee or a football" kind of guy. I remember when my nephew made that transition. It seemed like such a faraway time for my own kids, but now it's here. How odd!

My friend gave us this huge box of blueberries they picked fresh in Oregon. They were huge, juicy, and wonderful. I've never had blueberries fresh-picked before, and they almost tasted like a different fruit. SO good!

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