Free Chocolate Friday

I don't know how many of you have heard of this, but it is awesome. Mars sends you a coupon in the mail for free chocolate. Every Friday you can sign up and get another. I got a free candy bar this last week from this, and signed up again today.

Mars Chocolate Relief Act. Sign up here to score your free bar of chocolate coupon. (Remember you can sign up for 4 people in your household if they each have different email addresses!)

Do you think we have enough?

I have planted strawberries from neighbors the last 2 years, and this year we are finally reaping the benefits. We have strawberries this year! I have been picking on average a bowl a day for the last few weeks, although I don't make it out everyday. We went about a week without picking, and look what we got. And there are still more that need picking! The good news is my boys are pretty good at eating a lot of strawberries. And any extras I can freeze until I'm ready to make some freezer jam.


The other night we were feeling like making some good old homemade ice cream. I went and bought the ingredients and we made some Rocky Road Ice Cream. It was sooo good. But of course after the fact I added up the costs and decided it would have been a lot cheaper to buy it already made. But that takes the fun out of it, right? Here's the recipe if you're looking for a good one.


Rocky Road Ice Cream (From Allrecipes.com)

PREP TIME 5 Min
COOK TIME 5 Min
READY IN 1 Hr
Original recipe yield 2 quarts

INGREDIENTS
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup light cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup miniature marshmallows

DIRECTIONS
In a medium saucepan over low heat, cook and stir condensed milk and cocoa until smooth and slightly thickened, 5 minutes. Remove from heat , and allow to cool slightly. Stir in heavy cream, light cream, and vanilla. Refrigerate until cold.
Pour mixture into the canister of an ice cream maker, and freeze according to manufacturer's directions. Stir in nuts and marshmallows halfway through the freezing process.

Arches National Park

We had an awesome camping trip this last weekend. We originally planned on going to Capitol Reef, but the weather forcast was rain and about 65 for a high. So we started looking at our options. I called the State Park Reservation line to see if Goblin Valley had any openings, which they didn't. The person on the phone suggested we try Green River State Park, which was not to far from there. She said it was a great site by the river, and that people loved to go there for the outdoor recreation. The campgrounds also had grass, which sounded kind of nice. So I went ahead and reserved a spot, since there were only 3 left. We haven't really just gone out camping on our own. We both camped as kids with our families, but we weren't the ones in charge of finding a site. We weren't really sure how easy it would be to find other camping sites, so this sounded like a good idea. As we neared the spot our campground should be, we were in the middle of a town. And there was the "State Park." It consisted of a poorly kept lawn where the "campsites" were - all squished together - and then a golf course. It was near the river, but not anything we could let the boys play in or near. I just felt sick. That was not what I imagined for camping. I didn't mind the idea of some grass - but to be in the middle of a town, instead of some sort of natural surroundings - that didn't go over so good. We ate a quick lunch at our campsite, and then headed off to hopefully find something else. We decided to head toward Moab and Arches, which was about an hour away. Knowing the Arches campgrounds were full, we still headed there first to see if they had any help in directing us. Luckily they did. They had an awesome sheet with a list of BLM campsites that were just a few miles away. We found the BEST campsite at Hal Campground- I was so excited. There was plenty of space for the boys to play right in our campsite, there was some shade for our tent, and we had plenty of trees and space between us and other campers, rather than 10 feet of open grass like at Green River State Park. I still can't believe they called that a State Park. Anyway, I was so excited to have found this new place. I couldn't stop saying how excited I was to have found exactly what we had in mind when we think of camping - and can I say, I love camping! We lost out on the money we paid for the other site, but honestly it was worth it. If only I knew we wouldn't have a hard time finding a site I wouldn't have tried to reserve anything. I had looked online trying to find a map of campgrounds, and there just wasn't much I could find, so I was nervous to just go without any plan. For the future, we will know we will find something.

We had a blast! We found lots of lizards. Dylan was excited to find a cactus in our campground. We had an awesome view right at our campground. The first eight pictures were all taken at our campsite. To get to the river we had to walk through the campground next to us, but that was fine by me. With little kids, its good to not be too close - especially knowing my boys.

We had lots of fun in Arches, although we never did do any of the bigger hikes. We weren't familiar enough with it to plan ahead and know what we wanted to do for sure. We also weren't totally sure how our kids would do, since we haven't been out hiking this year. Ethan wasn't a huge fan of riding in the backpack at first, and Devon said it wasn't a lot of fun carrying him around - since he is two, that does add some decent weight. We will have to return in a few years and get some of those good hikes in.

We also had some fun at Sandy Beach, which was a few miles down the river from us. I packed some swimsuits for everyone, just in case, but when we headed out to play one hot afternoon, we didn't have anything too specific in mind. At least the towels had never been unpacked from the car, so we had something to help the boys dry off with. Ethan was pretty funny about the sand and refused to let us take his shoes off. We tried, but had to put them right back on. He did at least eventually go play with his brothers.

Camping is awesome! I can't wait till we go again. Of course we may not make it out again this summer because of other things planned this summer, and also that as time goes by camping probably won't be too comfortable for me. But next summer, I am hoping to get a bunch of camping in.

Work, work, work

Saturday we almost finished a project we started last year. We needed space for a vegetable garden, and some fruit trees. So we picked what we thought we be the best section of our yard for it, and took up the aspen trees, grass, and ground cover, and in its place planted 3 trees and put in two 4x12 planter beds, complete with some heavy duty trellises we can grow even watermelons and squash on. We put in drip lines for it all. Then came Rex, and he ripped up all the drip lines, and broke two of the trees completely in half. This year we replaced the drip lines, replaced one tree - I need to find a third, but haven't yet. Then yesterday we finally got some landscape fabric down and put wood chips over it. We also made a few little paths with some rock we had. It looks so much better, and I am so excited our project is so close to being done. In the next year or two we for sure want to put a small 3-4 foot fend around it, and then put flowers around the outside to make it all look nice, but we are loving this look for now.

Catching Up

I have been a bad blogger, missing all sorts of fun things in my family's life, so here is a rundown of what we did in May and April:

Ethan and his cousin Nate have become great buddies as my sister Rachel and I have been doing babysitting swaps since we both have been going to the doctor frequently (she's due with a little girl in August). These two are fun to watch as they play in their 2-year-old way. Ethan likes to pick what they are doing, and he likes it when Nate follows him. They like to run from one room to the next in my house. Ethan leading, and then waiting to see if Nate follows. In the picture with the rocks, Ethan sat down, and waited for Nate, got a rock for the two of them. Then Ethan would put the rock on the step above or below him, wait for Nate to do the same, and then he would switch. These two are really funny the way they play together. If I were to ever have twins, I hope their personalities go together as well as these two boys. They aren't mischievous, and they share pretty well. When they aren't together, it is a common thing to hear Ethan asking for Nate.

I took Jayden and Ethan to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens to see the tulip festival. I have been wanting a pass to Thanksgiving Point for the last 2 years, and I finally splurged and bought one. The boys enjoyed the garden for the most part, but of course they love the Dinosaur Museum so much more. We've only had our pass about a month, and we have been to the museum around 4 or 5 times! I figure, even if we can only stay an hour, its so close and gives us something fun and free (in a sense) to do.

Dylan is loving that there are bugs outside. He spends hours outside almost every single day looking for bugs. He loves to find roly-polies and puts them in his jar. He also has a few grasshoppers, ants, and worms in there - I just don't know if anything is actually alive anymore. And to my dismay, he has insisted he wants to try to collect spiders - so he has what he calls his spider jar. I don't know if has caught anything yet. I told him it better not ever come in my house or the garage. He is such a fun little boy.

Dylan also just finished Kindergarten. He has learned so much and especially loved the last few months as his class did units on animals and bugs. I got to go with him to the Zoo when they did their field trip. I took my camera with me, and when we passed the tiger cage it was right there - like 6 feet from us. I grabbed my camera, and found that my batteries were dead. I was bummed. But we sure had fun watching that tiger pace back and forth with just a wood fence, and then the strong metal fence between us.

Jayden finished his first year of preschool. He loves his teacher Miss Suzee, who does preschool in her home, and he will have her again next year. His only disappointment is that he doesn't get to be in Kindergarten yet. Jayden was lucky and had a bunch of kids from the neighborhood in his class. His best friend Zane was one of them. They had a cute Mother's Day program for the Moms. For the Christmas Program, I forgot my video camera, so this time I made sure to charge up the batteries and take it along. About a minute into the first song my tape ran out, and I didn't bring any extras. I guess at least I got a minute! I did take this still picture as well. Jayden is in blue, 4th from the right, and Zane is in blue, 3rd from the left.

I am loving spring, and as we come into summer. We spend tons of time outside. One of my favorite parts - and I think one of the boys - is that they can eat lunches outside. Its a lot less messy for my floor, and it gets them playing. The only downside is that sometimes the playing starts before they finish lunch. The favorite spot for a while was sitting on a push toy at the bench on our deck. We just recently bought a patio table and chairs, which is starting to become the preferred place to sit, but they still love it on the push cars, too.

Random funny things going on:

Yesterday at church Jayden was looking at the ward map that was passed out, and asked "Mom, where is heaven?" If you think about that, when you consider we were sitting at church together as a family, you could get kind of deep about that.

Ethan is on a kick of having something small in his hands to carry around the house and when we go places. We have two tiny plastic dogs, one fluorescent pink and the the other fluorescent orange that we have had since Dylan was two. I don't know how we haven't lost them by now, but they were a favorite of Dylan's and now they have gone many places in Ethan's hands. If you look at the first picture of the tulip festival, you may notice the pink one in Ethan's hands. Another favorite of his are bouncy balls.

Dylan just informed me the other day that his hands are robots. He curls them kind of like claws. One hand has the pointer finger for a head, and the other hand the middle finger is the head. One is good and one is bad. I can't remember which was which, but it would be funny if the middle finger one was the bad one. That kid has the greatest imagination!

Dylan also was telling me last night as we talked before bed how when we make bad choices its like a shark eats up all the good ones we've done. I'm not quite sure what he meant by that, but I think he's got the right idea.