Redstone Safari

Kaleb's friend, Ethan, invited Kaleb and I to go hiking with he and his dad for his birthday activity. We went to the Redstone Dunes in Lake Mead National Recreation Area (NRA). (36°14'32.29"N, 114°30'57.01"W). I put my new Garmin GPS watch to good use.

The Redstone Dunes are petrified sand dunes that have eroded differentially to create some spectacular caves, holes, pockets, youngster labyrinths, and other neat formations. Along the journey, I saw many rock formations that resembled animals and other creatures. Follow along our safari and see if you can pick out the animals we saw by viewing the photo album below. Feel free to leave comments on the photos of what you think we saw on our safari!

Redstone Safari

Note that there is a map that goes with the photos showing the approximate locations of these formations. If you decide to go on safari yourself, let me know and I'll send you the exact path of our travels (1.4 miles) since you'll have to be mildly adventurous and get off the beaten path and explore a little to see the rare and exotic species we located. Better yet, if you're serious about a mini-safari, let us know and we'll plan a customized adventure the whole family (both of our families) will enjoy...compliments of your adventure guide, Kaleb, who can guarantee that these critters will not be roaming too far from where we found them!

Bread Baking Adventure

Today I decided to return to an old tradition. For several years I baked all the bread our family ate. So there were no trips to the store for their sad excuse for bread. I love homemade bread, but haven't felt that I have the time to make it myself, until today. So Karter and I set out to make bread which was an interesting task with Karter in tow. All was going well till Karter managed to fling vital wheat gluten all over the counter with a majority of it ending up in the fruit bowl. Then there was the honey incident. To a 3 year old it seems logical that more honey will only make it taste better so he added a little extra and decided to shake the measuring cup rapidly to get the honey to come out which left little sticky lines all over my counter tops. All in all, it was a huge success. We have 4 lovely loaves of bread and had our own little lunch treat of fresh whole wheat bread with butter and honey.

The recipe we used is pretty easy and I got it from my sister-in-law who is a bread making goddess. She's an amazing baker! Thanks so much Becki for the recipe! So I'll share with you. If you're adventurous enough to try out the recipe just remember to unplug the wheat grinder when you go to open in up, especially if you have a little button happy child in the kitchen with you. It's amazing how little it takes to make a full blown flour cloud. Happy baking!

Whole Wheat Bread

7 cups warm water
3 TBS. lecithin (liquid)
2 TBS. yeast
1/3 cup honey
2 TBS. dough enhancer
2 TBS. salt
1/4 cup vital wheat gluten flour
16 - 18 cups flour

Measure all the ingredients except the flour into mixing bowl. Put in 7 cups flour and mix on medium speed until all is mixed. Add remaining flour until the mixture cleans the side of the bowl and dough doesn't stick to your fingers. Set mixer to knead. Most mixers take 5-8 minutes to develop the gluten. Put into five eight inch greased loaf pans. Let rise until double in size. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

There's a blog in my throat!

Technology is my friend! Is everybody you know blogging yet? It is a great way to keep up with family, friends, and the latest news. But with so many people blogging these days, it seems daunting to keep up with everyone now. It's hard having so many friends, I know! You have so many blogs bookmarked, you have to set aside precious time to visit each one only to feel disappointed to find that most the blogs you follow have nothing new posted! Sound familiar?

If you haven't heard about Google Reader, it can help! All blogs have "feeds" that allow Google Reader (for one) to receive new posts as they happen. Here's an excellent 1 minute YouTube video by CommonCraft explaining what Google Reader is in plain english: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSPZ2Uu_X3Y

Just login to your Google account, go to Google Reader, click Add a Subscription, paste in the URL of the blog, and away you go. Now when it's time to catch up on my blogs, I log into Google Reader and let the new posts come to me. I can organize them, filter them, and Reader will keep track of which one's I have and haven't read. It's easy, saves me time, and best of all, I don't have to listen to everyone's annoying playlist songs as I catch up. I mean, how many time should I have to hear Rascal Flats in a day anyway?

Give it a try and let me know if you have any questions...

Holiday Project

By popular demand, here's a closer look at the igloo.

Christmas in Colorado

When we left Vegas to drive to Colorado, there was still plenty of snow on the ground 3 days after the storm. The drive was long and uneventful. We were glad to arrive at Grandpa and Gramdma's house to find even more snow waiting for us to enjoy. When I say "enjoy," that also means plenty of shoveling and plowing. It has snowed on and off since we arrived.

Colorado Christmas 2008

And along with the beauty comes a fair share of fun and games including sledding, snowball fights, making graham cracker houses, way too much good food, movies, and never enough sleep! Kalvan even got ambitious and made an igloo in the front yard.

Of course we had our traditional Christmas Eve nativity reading as we celebrate the birth and life of our Savior. This year we had enough cousins to act it out the nativity as well. Christmas came and went with more snow and even more presents. Santa Clause was very good to us this year. How greatful we are for good kids! We hope that everyone has been blessed this Christmas and this year as we look forward to 2009. We miss and love all of our family and friends we couldn't be with and wish the best always.

Click the photo album link above to see some of our photos so far.

Things I thought I'd never say while living in Vegas...

1. I need a snow shovel.

2. The kids have a snow day.

3. Our neighbor is stuck in the middle of the street.

4. We had to dig the car out.

5. We can't go to the store because the streets are too icy.

6. Our neighbor boy is stranded at school due to the weather.

7. It's snowy and bright out.

8. I'm concerned about some of our pipes freezing.

9. Our chase tree is being pinned to the ground by the snow.

10. The weather forcast says to expect 5 to 10 inches of snow on the valley floor.

I thought I'd seen the amazing part of this storm when the snow started sticking at 2:30, but by 4:00 we had around 3 inches and snow was still falling. As far and I know everyone around us has

made it safely home and their cars are in their garages after we shoveled their driveways with shovels that weren't made for snow. Karter even took a few rides down our driveway on our little "tube" that we use in the pool. It's been a really fun day and the kids are excited about the first "snow day" in Clark County School District history since the 60's. The main problem they're facing is that no one budgeted for snowplows. Seriously, why would they?

2:30 Update

And More Snow.