St. George

     Our trip to St. George started in Red Cliffs.  It's always fun for Corey and I to take our kids places we went when we were first dating.  The kids were troopers and had a lot of fun hiking and playing in the water.  I'd forgotten about the natural water slides...beautiful!

      The rest of the weekend was spent hiking, exploring and playing with the other "Larrabee" family.  Jared and Kathy and their girls.  These pictures were taken at the Lava tubes in Snow Canyon.  A great place to explore. 

 

This picture turned out a little fuzzy, but was the only one I got inside looking out...really beautiful.  

     Thanks Jar & Kathy for such a fun weekend!!  We're so happy we get to spend time with you!

What happened??!

                        "Bwecken fwowed a fire twuck at my head" ...pretty much sums it up!

Happy Halloweeeeeeeeeen!!

      Our Halloween Celebration started on Monday with pumpkin carving.  We had two pumpkin plants come up voluntarily in our yard this year.  We got about 15 small pie pumpkins and one carver.  We live in an old farming community with a lot of great, retired neighbors who love to garden so we always end up with pumpkins for Halloween without going farther than around the block.  The big boys pumpkins totally mirror their costumes.  Avery got the one carving pumpkin we grew ourselves and so she got talked into carving an "L" in it by her brothers.  I love how she's totally posing for her pic. 

      For Halloween this year the kids were all pretty easy and chose their own costumes.  Tate was a vampire, Breck was a "scawey montser." Corey donned his old fire gear to be festive, along with one of the kids fire helmets (they don't let you take those when you leave the fire dept.).  Avery was a princess.  Keaton made good use of the neck brace he got earlier in the year and was a crazy scooter-er.  McKay was Calvin of Calvin and Hobbs...pretty fun & creative.  Happy Halloween!!

Cheese Blintzes with Blueberry Sauce

     Every once in a while I'm particularly excited about a new recipe, so excited in fact that I must post it.  At the beginning of this year Corey and I escaped to the Grande America Hotel for an anniversary getaway.  At the buffet breakfast I discovered blintzes...yum.  I searched for a recipe and just recently tried it myself.  It's a bit involved, but worth it on a cold, slow Saturday morning.  Enjoy!

Cheese Blintzes with Blueberry Sauce (original recipe from food.com)

Blueberry Sauce

2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Blintzes

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
5 eggs
2/3 cup milk
shortening
1 lb small curd cottage cheese
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
sour cream

Directions:

Make sauce: Wash and crush berries.
Mix in sugar thru salt and 1¼ cups water and put in saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil 1 minute.
Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
Chill.
Make blintzes: Combine flour and salt, add 1 cup water and mix until smooth.
Add 4 eggs and beat well.
Add milk and mix to a thin batter.
Heat a small amount of shortening in a 6" skillet.
Pour in ¼ cup batter and cook slowly until pancake is lightly browned on bottom and set on top.  
Turn out with browned side up.
Repeat, making about 18 pancakes.
Using a hand mixer, blend cheese through vanilla with remaining egg.  
Put a spoonful of cheese mixture in center of each pancake, fold in ends and roll up.
Brown in a small amount of hot shortening.  
Serve topped with a dollop of sour cream with cold blueberry sauce over the top.

Goofy-ness

     Yeah, we know how to have fun at our house.

Ode to Our Beloved Tree

      How could you not love a tree with a heart-shaped hole in it??  Why I get attached to trees is beyond me, actually it's my Mom's fault...she does it too.  Anyways, this is our great maple tree in our yard.  It was a big, beautiful tree when we moved in.  It's full branches dropped their bright yellow leaves and we loved playing in them and taking pictures of my little boys in them.   Last year a woodpecker made her home in our tree and laid eggs there.  We loved checking up on the eggs and then the baby woodpeckers. Then the tree slowly died branch by branch until they all became brown. 
     Corey and the boys did the job and did a good job at it too.  We're now in the market for a new tree to become attached to, to be planted next spring. If you have any suggestions for awesome shade trees let us know!!

The Value of a "BIG CHECK"

      Okay, brag alert here.  As y'all know I'm very proud of this man that I'm married to and he's pretty much had the biking season of his life so if you mind me gushing over him skip this post and wait a few days and I'll gush over my kids.
     Haven't you always wanted to win a big check??  Wouldn't that just be the coolest?  Well this summer Corey won three big checks.  Now the funny thing is that the "big checks" weren't even worth a whole ton of money, alright one was greater than one-hundred, but the other two were for sixty-dollars.  About what it cost to register for the race, but none of that mattered to Corey, he got a big check.  As you can see right here he's very happy about this.  After this picture he took his big check inside and placed it on top of my refrigerator for about two weeks.  It was lovely.   But I was okay with it because who wouldn't have been excited? 
     Congrats on your big check wins this year babe!! 

Here is our friend Kevin winning his first "big check."  Way to go Kev!!












      Corey's last big check win of the season.   And if you'd like to view Corey's collection of big checks you can find them secretly moved from my fridge to his biking shed....yeah, he really does have a biking shed.