Feliz Cumpleanos!

On Elise's birthday we told her we would take her out to eat where ever she wanted to go. However, Samantha had some friends in a play at the middle school and told Elise that her "gift" to her would be to take her "back stage" to meet the cast. Elise opted for the play instead of dinner. It was actually very sweet. I think Elise felt like a cool big kid and Samantha I think enjoyed playing the big sister roll as I dropped them off at the middle school to watch the play together. Kindof like a sisters night out. It was very sweet.
So, it wasn't until this last Friday that we were able to take Elise out to El Rodeo for her birthday dinner. She was dead serious about us NOT telling the staff it was her birthday and doing the big guy with the guitar, and the singing. But... we fooled her :-) As you can see on her face she was a little reluctant to accept the happy wishes and birthday sombrero.

Frontier Days and "'Box On!"

This afternoon for fun we decided to go out to the High Desert Museum Frontier days. Can I just say... I love having an annual pass because we could just go out there for an hour and a half and I didn't feel like I had to stay to make it worth my $. The family who arrived at the same time as we did payed $32 to go to the museum today, and we were right behind them as they left! Crazy! I would NEVER let my kids leave after and hour and a half if I had payed $32!!

Anyway... they had an encampment of the Hudson Bay Company.

Here the kids are grinding the jerky with a stone in a rawhide bowl to make pemmican for this "Indian" lady. She taught us about leather and rawhide and how to make pemmican. I am tempted to have the kids do this at home but instead of fat to hold the stuff together I thought peanut butter would be fun.Samantha is using a digging rod to search for roots to eat

This is the trader and the general in the encampment and some fish and elk ribs roasting on the fire. When Sandra was here we were wondering about how and when the Indians did the beading, since the beading is so prevalent in their clothing that we see, but the beads we saw were imported. So... I asked the guy who was there and he said that before they could trade the beaver pelts for seed beads they used porcupine quills and sliced and dyed them. Wow! What a lot of work! I thought wow... I really am lazy!
Here is a trapper taking the hair off an elk hide. Earlier I had thought I smelled dog poo, but realized there were no dogs in the park and passed off the stinky smell as the lady beside me. Then as we checked out the trapper guy I smelled it again and saw Elise checking her shoes to see if she had stepped in poo. It was then that our trapper friend told us it was the elk hide (and here I had blamed in on the poor woman :-( ) P-U! I surely wouldn't want that job!
This guy showed us how to fire a musket.

Finally we got to see the river otter!

It was a beautiful day and we learned a lot. It was very interesting. Even Samantha who had poo-pooed the idea earlier said she was glad we had gone.

Back to Letterboxing!

After we were done at the museum we decided to go letterboxing. It has been so long since we have gone, I thought it was time we picked it up again. Letterboxing has taken us to so many cool places that we wouldn't have ever found other wise, and it is just plain fun!

Today's letterboxing sent us to Sawyer Park just on the north west edge of town (10 min). It was so neat there, and we never knew it existed before!

There were so many birds it was amazing. Next time we will have to take our bird guide. One of our neatest finds was this pair of geese and their 5 goslings.

Star enjoyed trying to chase after the ducks and geese. What a mess!

If you're not familiar with Letterboxing I highly suggest it. It has taken us to some cool places! Check out www.leterboxing.org

I can't take credit for "discovering" it however. My mom saw an article in the paper a few years a go and we have been having fun doing it ever since!

"'Box On!"

Pilot Butte Drive-In

We have 2 of the coolest elders in our ward right now. It doesn't hurt that one of them is CANADIAN! (Can you guess which one?)This week we took the Elders to Pilot Butte Drive In and they shared this mongo huge 18oz. burger. I have never seen such a huge burger. I really think the one on the right could have polished off the burger himself given the chance. I am always amazed by how much a missionary can eat. When you come to visit remind me to take you to Pilot Butte because they have some awesome burgers. Mmmm! Are you ready to take on the 18 ouncer?

(sorry the pics aren't so hot, we took them on our cell phone)

Matsiko Children's Choir

The radio stalker strikes again! Yes, I called into the radio station and got us 2nd row reserved seating to the Matsiko Children's choir concert. This was the sign on my chair reserving my seat. I was so happy as we walked into the filling First Baptist Church chapel, past a few people from church and my physical therapist, to the front of the church for our premier seating. :-)

The Matsiko Choir is a children's choir basically comprised of orphaned children from Uganda. They are part of the International Children's Network and are travelling the western US for a year raising funds for their organization which places a strong emphasis on educating the youth of underprivileged countries. You can read about their cause here.

The children were, of course beautiful, and their singing was very touching. They have a video presentation about one of the children in the choir and about the state of orphaned children in Uganda that is heart wrenching. It was a wonderful experience and I hope the kids will remember some of the things they saw and heard. We are so incredibly blessed to live in a safe and clean environment where access to education is so readily available. I find it hard to imagine the lives some children are forced to lead.

See when they will be in your area here. They are travelling all over the western states, and the concert is FREE!! It would be well worth your time to attend. And if your lucky maybe the DJ you listen to attends the church where they are holding the performance and you too may be able to call in for premier seating :D

Fun Earth Day Desserts

Oreo Sand & Dirt Cups
Digging for worms with a spoon??? No problem, because these worms are gummies buried in pudding and cookie crumb dirt. Yum!
2 cups cold milk
1 package (4-serving size) JELL-O Chocolate Flavor Instant Pudding & Pie Filling
1 tub (8 ounces) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed
15 OREO Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, finely crushed, divided
10 paper or plastic cups (6 to 7 ounces) or dessert dishes
10 worm-shaped chewy fruit snacks
Prepare 1 package each (4-serving size) JELL-O Vanilla Instant Pudding and JELL-O Chocolate Instant Pudding separately, with 2 cups each cold milk, as directed on packages. Let stand 5 minutes.
Gently stir 1/2 cup of Cool Whip Whipped Topping into each bowl of pudding. Finely crush 20 Oreo Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, then sprinkle 1 tablespoon into bottom of 8 (6-ounce) dessert cups. Top each with 1/4 cup vanilla pudding, 1 tablespoon cookie crumbs and 1/4 cup chocolate pudding. Sprinkle evenly with remaining cookie crumbs. Refrigerate at least 1 hour or until ready to serve.
Insert 2 gummy worms into each dessert cup just before serving. Makes 8 Oreo Sand and Dirt Cups.

Easy JELL-O Terrarium
To create your own edible terrarium, layer crumbled Oreo® dirt and sand cookie crumbs then plant with candy leaves and trees. With a world this delicious, go ahead and dig in.
Prepare 2 packages (4-serving size each) JELL-O Berry Blue Flavor Gelatin as directed on package. Pour into large glass bowl. Refrigerate until set: about 1 1/2 hours.
Top JELL-O Gelatin with a layer each of finely crushed Oreo Cookies, and Nilla Wafers and some coarsely crushed Nutterbutter cookies to resemble a terrarium. Top with Cool Whip for snow. Plant a few candy “trees” and “leaves” as desired. Makes 10–12 servings.

By the light of the silvery moon

Last month I asked our friends to go with us on a moonlight snowshoe trip offered by a local excursion company at $55 bucks a piece. She thought that was pretty pricey and thought we should go by ourselves. So Saturday night for $6 each (actually I was free- thanks Brittany for letting us borrow your snow shoes and your husband :D) we strapped on a pair of snow shoes and went to the snow park to snow shoe by the light of the full moon. It was really cool! We went up on the x-country ski trail and came back down the snow shoe trail. As the moon was rising above the trees all of a sudden it seemed like someone had turned on a light behind us. Very cool. It was a beautiful night too. Definitely something we will be doing again. Probably not this year though as the snow will be gone soon and as it was it was pretty icy tonight. We will put it on next years "To Do" list for sure. Thanks to Emily too for saving us a cool $100!

The Victor's, me and Ryan