Quick Camping is Better Than No Camping

In the spirit of trying to make time for fun, Devin and I decided it was time to go camping. Devin has gone camping with the scouts several times this summer, but this weekend it was my turn. We didn't have a lot of time so we went up to Hope Campground, which is very close to Squaw Peak. We are so grateful to live less than 30 minutes away from so many great places to go camping. It is amazing that after only 30 minutes of driving you don't even feel like you are in the city anymore it is great.

So we made some fantastic tinfoil dinners, packed our camping stuff and headed up the canyon as soon as Devin got home from work. We found a nice quite camping spot....until the group of 15+ guys showed up. But they ended up being the quite group compared to the 4 adults and their dog. How is it possible that 4 adults can be ten times as noise as 15 guys showing off their manhood in the woods?

Needless to say, we had a great time. Devin and Mahon had fun reliving their childhood by chopping up some nearby trees. We enjoyed a great campfire. We ate really good food. Let me tell you I felt pretty good showing the Baldwin boys a trick or two when it comes to making really good tinfoil dinners. Devin and Mahon had fun climbing on the big rock in our campground. We had fun sleeping in my really cool tent. And I finally got to watch the sunset at Squaw Peak with a REALLY cute boy, but don't worry, Mahon was their to chaperone.

There were only a few "sad" parts to our camping fun. As with all experiences in life there are lessons to learn so that things might go even better next time.
1. Don't forget the camping chairs.
2. Don't forget the marshmallows.
3. Don't forget the hand-wipe things for quick clean up.
4. Before going camping again we need to get a double air mattress or pad, two singles just doesn't work as well.
5. Try to have a little more time. We left at 6pm Friday night and we had to be back in Orem by 9am. It would have been more fun if we didn't have to wake up, pack up, and get down the mountain as fast as we could Saturday morning.

Anyway, that is our camping adventure. Anyone who wants to go camping please give us a call. We would like to go more often. We are thinking that UEA break might be a fun time to do some more extensive camping. Though Labor Day weekend might be fun too. We are also trying to expand our horizons to different places to go camping. So if anyone has any suggestions for favorite camping spots, please share.

Weekly Favorites

There are three things that always seem to bring me happiness and joy. Good music, good books and good food. Before we go any farther I need to clearly state that these by far are not the only sources of happiness in life, they just happen to be ones that frequently make me smile. And so, I've decided to add a new section to the Baldwin Family Blog. Drum roll please...... Now presenting... This week's favorites, in no particular order.

Music This weeks favorite for music goes to Colbie Caillat. Her very first CD came out last Tuesday. Every once and a while you hear a song and you instantly love it. That is how I discovered Colbie Caillat. You might have hear one of her songs entitled Bubbly. It's great. With the amazing power of iTunes I was able to listen to some of her other songs. As I listen to her songs, she reminded me of a female version of Jack Johnson. Fun, bubbly, laid back, summer-time music. It takes talent to come up with one good song. The true mark of an artist, in my mind, is someone who can come up with a whole CD worth of good songs. Her whole CD Coco is great from start to finish. So listen to it, ENJOY!!!

Book Let's be honest. There is only one book that the whole world is reading right now, or should be reading (other than the Book of Mormon of course :) ), Harry Potter. Unlike my sister who can read the whole book start to finish in one day AND take care of three screaming boys before 6pm, I'm still not done reading it yet. I've decided that Harry Potter gives us all a chance to be charitable towards other people. One way is that you can share your book with others. That's one of the reasons why I'm adding to our blog right now. The deal is that I get to read the book during the day and Devin gets to read the book at night. OH...and I'm at the good part and I'm just dying to know what is going to happen. Yup folks, that's what true love is all about, sharing your Harry Potter book with someone else when you are at the really good part. The nice thought is that I should finish tomorrow. But I can still be charitable and not spoil the ending.

Food There are things that I am not very good at, but I'd like to be better. One of those things is cooking. I think I was absent the day they handed out cooking skills, or at least confidence with cooking. This summer I have been striving to overcome my lack of skill and confidence in the cooking world. It's a good thing Devin loves me no matter what comes out of the oven. I am happy to report that I've had quite a bit of success. Who'd of thought that if you follow a recipe it would turn out so well. Yes, it's quite shocking! So this week's cooking success comes from one of my favorite cook books 101 Things to do With A Slow Cooker. It is called Chicken Tortilla Soup. I would give it a "Way Easy" on the recipe difficulty scale. Throw uncooked chicken in, crushed tomatoes, enchilada sauce, onions, chilies, garlic, chicken broth, corn, carrots, water and eight hours later you have some great soup. If you'd like more details on the recipe feel free to contact me. I don't know with copy right stuff if I can post the recipe on the net, but call or e-mail and I'll give you all the details. It's really yummy soup!

How Long Has That Been There?

Life is filled with one fiasco after another. This week's fiasco happened to be that our dryer officially kicked the bucket, or at least the heating element gave up the ghost. Devin had lots of fun being the handy-man. As he pulled out the dryer to work on it, he also discovered about 14 years worth of dust, candy, and yes, old socks. (You know the one sock that you lose while doing the wash.) It was in all honesty pretty gross! Unfortunately, the new heating element will not be in for several days, but I'll let you all rest easy to know that there are no longer dust bunnies behind and underneath our dryer. We had lots of fun hanging up all of our clothes all over our house to dry. It was one of those times when I really wish we had a back yard so we could dry our close outside in the hot weather. Oh well. I think by now Devin's socks are dry. I don't really get it. A pair of jeans drys over night, but socks stay wet for days. There must be some sort of logical explanation. Hopefully the next time I do laundry I'll have a dryer that works.

A DINOSAUR!!!!!

Let's face it, kids will always be fascinated by dinosaurs. There is nothing like taking 6 little boys to a dinosaur museum. It only took me about 5 minutes to realize why my mother invited me to come, even though I don't have any children. 6 boys under the age of 6 means that you should have at least one adult for every two children. Thus with my mom, Marie, Marthe, and myself we were able to keep up with the boys who enjoyed running this way and that way. The Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur museum is pretty amazing! There are tons of fun things to look at and do. My nephew Mark was so excited that you could even touch some of the exhibits. Tommy on the other hand thought it would be more fun to climb on the exhibits. The boys had a great time looking at all the animals, making their own dinosaurs, playing in the erosion sand and water pit, and of course... digging for dinosaur bones. The whole time we were there it reminded me of how funny it would be if everything came to life like in Night at the Museum. Call me crazy, but this was not the type of museum where that kind of thing would be cool. I'm just not the type that would like to be face to face with a real live shark.

Photo Booth Fun

The best part of being a teacher is that you have "3 months" off for summer vacation. Before I continue I must clarify that that myth is a bunch of bologna!!!!!!! We just keep on working, but we just don't always work on school stuff AT school. And we might not get out ountilf bed ...oh...9am. (Which makes up for the insane hours what we keep during school.) So my dear sweet husband each day asks me, "So what are you going to do today?" Well, I usually have a list of 5 to 146 things that I'd like to get done. Some days are more productive than others.

But that is not the point of this little addition to our blog. We have decided that even though there might be 146 "important" things to do each day, we need to make sure to have fun, even if we have to plan it into the daily or weekly schedule. This will be great because I now should have something exciting and fun to add to our blog each week.

Therefore here is our fun thing number one...... Say hello to the Photo Booth! Devin is a computer nerd, and I love him! I love my MacBook. The MacBook comes with a fun program called the Photo Booth. No longer to you have to go to the mall and squeeze into a dirty photo booth to get fun pictures with friends. You can do it from the comfort of your own home, and FOR FREE!!!!! We should all take a moment to shout "THANK YOU MAC PEOPLE!!!!" for bringing such fun into our home. I have found that this program is a great way to send my husband pictures of myself while he is at work with the fun questions like "Do I look ok today?" You've got to love technology. So here are our pictures, well at least some of them. we had a way good time. You should try it.

Ikea Adventures

Lets's be honest, there isn't a lot of fun, exciting, new things to do in Utah. So it would make perfect sense that when the new Ikea store opened up it was quite the event! We drove up and were amazed that the parking lot was not only full, but overflowing into the surrounding fields. We were very grateful that there were parking lot boys directing the flow of traffic. It was as crazy as the parking lots at Disneyland.

We had a great time in the store. After about 2 1/2 hours we finally made our way through all of it. It was great fun! We sat in comfortable chairs and not-so-comfortable chairs. We got some really great decorating ideas and some really great decorating ideas for what a house of our nightmares would look like. We also had lots of fun playing with the toys and chairs in the kid's section. So for whatever it is worth, if you are looking for a fun free date idea, we would highly recomend wandering around Ikea. You might even find some great dollar bargins like we did.