Adam-Ondi-Ahman

We're in Missouri visiting family and some of the local church sites. This is a picture taken at the Adam-Ondi-Ahman Valley viewpoint - the valley being behind us. It is a beautiful valley! We're enjoying our review of church history and having a blast playing with our Flip video camera. I'll post a video once I get a hang of the editing and such.

We love our Flip!

Boating on the Illinois River

One of the blessing of home teaching is being invited by the family you home teach to go boating. They needed an extra driver...so I graciously accepted the invitation. Mind you, I have not been wakeboarding in about 4 years so I was a bit nervous. But I summoned the power of Cyrstal Light Mango flavored Slurpees and did just fine.
I also braved the "Death Tube" and only crashed once. I think I got whiplash from the waves.

And to top it all off, we did back flips off the boat into the river. This picture is of Seth...great form.Great times at the river and I'm still sore a couple days later.

Clipping Coupons

I've always loved clipping coupons! When I sit down to read the Sunday paper I hurry through the "news" to get to the ads. I don't clip every coupon, just the coupons for things we normally buy or products that we've wanted to try. I have an envelope I keep in my purse to hold my coupons and I dutiful place the newly cut coupons into the envelope and back into my purse every Sunday. And that's where they sit, safely tucked away, until the next week when I add to the pile. More likely than not, these coupons will meet the recycling bin with expired dates of use before they ever see the bright lights of the grocery store.

Last week I made a real effort to use coupons on my shopping trip. Before I left for the store I went through the coupons pulling out the ones for item we needed. So far so good. I also pulled out some coupons for things we wanted (Ben & Jerry's ice cream) on the condition I'd use them only if the items were already on sale. With coupons and shopping list in hand it was time to hit the store. I'm not going to bore you with the particulars, so let's just say those few extra minutes of sorting through my coupons saved me a a pocketful of cash! Almost everything I bought was on sale and I had a coupon for 1/2 of the items. With them combined I was able to get $56 worth of products for $18! Yeah for sales! Yeah for clipping coupons! But most of all: Yeah for using my clipped coupons on sale items! I could get used to saving that kind of money!

If you have any ideas or tips for clipping and using coupons let me know!

Fair Time

On July 18th, we were in Kirksville, Missouri visiting Todd, Tamara, Preslee and Jonah. Fortunately we were there for the NEMO fair (Northeast Missouri Fair). There were a lot of great times to be had.

If one word can describe the type of food at the Fair...it is FRIED! They can fry about anything. Our menu was as follows:

1. Appetizer - Deep Fried Oreos

2. Deep Fried Cajun Chicken - On a Stick!

3. Funnel Cake Mountain!

Then we went to the Demolition Derby and watched cars crash into each other.
We had a great time and our stomachs are still recovering!
Thanks to Todd and Tam and all our other friends in Kirksville! We had a blast!

Scout Camp Report

Scout Camp at Camp Napowan in Wisconsin was a blast. We spent 8 days and 7 nights camping in the woods, swimming in the lake, shooting guns and bows and arrows and repelling down a 50' climbing wall.

This was my best archery score at camp...my Scouts were very impressed...or maybe it was fear that their Scoutmaster could be so accurate with a bow and arrow.

This is me repelling down the climbing wall.

This is "Bear", our climbing instructor. This is his happy look.

One of the best things about Summer Camp are the Dutch Oven Cobblers that we make. Here are 2 of our best.

Cherry, chocolate, Hershey Bar, marshmallow, graham cracker Cobbler.

Apple Cobbler with our secret ingredient. Hint-Light Purple G2 Gatorade.

A special thanks to all the Adult Leaders that came to help out...Sydney, Dan, Terry, Bryan, Greg, Peter and Bishop Holyoak.

Can't wait until next year!

"Follow me Boys!" Scout Camp 2009

Here's the "before" picture taken in front of our house as the boys and their leaders were getting ready to leave for scout camp. Shane is the Scout Master and is such a great leader and example to the young men. He loves scouting and learned all his tricks from another great scouter - his dad. Thanks for being such a great example Lonny!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

One of the things we love most about summer is having a garden. I wouldn't say that we are avid gardeners who spend hours a day digging in the dirt, but the reward of delicious home grown vegetable is motivation enough for us to water regularly and pull the occasional weed. This year we planted a couple of new things including corn, broccoli, and asparagus (which takes two years). Here's to a bountiful harvest!

Schwinn "June" Cruiser

Shane has logged over 300 miles on his road bike since he got it last month and I've been feeling a bit jealous.  I don't know if I'll ever be the road bike type, but I fell in love with this little cruiser the moment I saw it.  I've only had it a week, but I've already put it to good use riding back and forth to the library and along the bike paths near our home.  I think everyone should get a bike - it makes you feel like a kid again! 

Trek 100

Last Saturday, myself and some friends from our ward went to Waterloo, Wisconsin for the Trek 100. It is a bike ride to raise money for childhood cancer research. We decided to do the 100k / 65 mile bike ride. There were hundreds of cyclers that rode anywhere from 19 miles all the way up to the 100 mile route.

Our Team - Eddie, Chris, Steve, Matt, Patrick and Shane.

All along the route, about every 15 miles, there was a rest area to refuel with Gatorade, fruit, powerbars, sandwiches and even Famous Dave's Bar B Q chicken wings.


Eddie and I eating our cookies and chocolate milk after the ride.


Thanks for a great ride...boy are my legs sore!

Kitchen Organization

We like to cook and we collect a lot of spices for our hobby.  Unfortunately, we don't have extra cupboard space for said spices and after they'd taken up over 2 shelves I knew I needed to come up with a better alternative.  I bought little craft jars with screw on lids (the kind used to hold tiny beads), and I glued magnets to the bottom.  All of our spices are now housed on our refrigerator within easy reach of the stove. They are clearly labeled and even placed in alphabetical order.  You can buy spice jars with magnets on them for $3- $5 dollars a jar, but I made all of mine for less than $15!  And those 2 shelves that I was using for spices?  Don't worry they only sat empty long enough for me to clean them!