ADVENTURING!

Adventuring... that's the word I am going to use to describe my life right now. I've been keeping very busy thanks to many hobbies I have picked up. Though I've been going to bed late and tired most nights I have been enjoying everything I've been doing.

Here's how it all started:

Two weeks ago our family went to Idaho to go visit family, friends and for Paul to go fishing. While we were there we decided to pick some apples from the BYU-Idaho orchard so we could make apple sauce since we wouldn't be able to get any apples from Paul's parents this year. We had a pretty fun time picking and tasting a few apples. When our basket got full we went to go weigh it and pay for the apples, which was 50 cent a pound, and we were at 35 pounds! Holy cow that was a lot, but we looked up on google how many quarts that might make and it said roughly 12 so we decided to get 5 more pounds to make it an easy even 20 dollars to pay. The rest of the time we spent going to the city fair, visiting with family and friends. We had a wonderful time being back in Idaho. 

We got home pretty late on Sunday because we like to travel while Sawyer is asleep so the next day I was so tired I didn't really feel like getting started on the applesauce. Then on tuesday I started the craziness that is making and canning applesauce! The first time we did this we had a lot of help and I have to say that it is definitely not a one man job, you need a family of 9 kids to do this kind of work! Also, I need to say that I am so grateful that my in-laws were kind enough to let us borrow their Victorio Strainer! That machine seriously makes life easier, no need to peel and core apples it does that for you! Though it was very tedious work cutting all 40 pounds of apples into quarters, cooking them down in a pot with some water and then hand cranking them through that machine.

 As soon as I got started and got the first full bowl full with just one and a half batches of apples I had done I started to worry about how much it was going to make! After making all the applesauce and the bottling started we found that we had made 20 quarts of applesauce! Oh man, the internet failed us this time, 40 pounds was a little too much! However, its great food storage and we have a need for it with our babies so we aren't complaining! (Also hoping to do a future blog post on food storage so stay tuned!) That night we started the long task of sealing the cans. Sealing the cans wasn't that hard to do the directions I found on this site were very clear and easy to follow but how long it takes is what killed me. We started it way too late and had to stay up past 1 to make sure everything was done with the first batch. Thats also the other thing that makes it take so long is the fact that you can seal only 7 at a time in the water bath canner we were using.  

Well the next day I remembered I had a bag of plums I had gotten from my mom I decided to make some jam with it! Well talk about some more crazy adventuring in my life! I have never made jam in my life! So after cutting all the fruit it took quite a bit of researching to learn how to make some good low sugar jam made with clear jel. After a while I finally found a blog that gave some good information about how to use clear jel with making jams found here, which it took me quite a while to find this site let me tell you most people use pectin! After getting that all done I think finally on Thursday I had finished it all! That night I had said to Paul "I am so relieved that all that canning is finally done with!" and he looked at me kind of funny and asked me why. Well, though I loved doing it and it was great feeling getting so much done, I really wanted to get back to sewing! So if you haven't seen on Facebook or don't follow me on Instagram you probably haven't seen the little projects I've been doing for this little baby girl.  I seriously have started an obsession with sewing clothes for her, it has taken over my mind. Not only has it taken over my mind but also my dining room table! I don't know the last time it was clean but I guess I have kind of claimed it as my "work space". I'm not a professional by no means but I have been improving tremendously and the things I have made I think are pretty cute, even more cute than the things at stores because I would actually wear them!  I wish I was more professional with all these things though, so I could post DIY's and pattern's but sadly I am still just trying to figure things out for myself! Lastly I made  plum fruit leather, having another bag of plums from my mom, and man oh man it was good! Hopefully I can get a post for that recipe for you all soon! 

We Went on Vacation... What?

This little vacation of ours was definitely overdue but came at just the right time. Paul and I had been wanting to have a little getaway for a long time now but never seemed to have the money, babysitter available or time. So it was nice when we decided to hurry and jump on the opportunity to go and spend some one on one time together. Before we left, Paul was working pretty much all day long stressed about deadlines and getting things done. I, on the other hand, was stressed trying to keep up with our house, meals and Sawyer. We were having a pretty rough time trying not to get at each other and take out our stress on each other. We were pretty much having arguments and little fights (don't judge we are nowhere near perfect) almost everyday for a week before we left!

Well the morning we left, when my mom came and we got in the car to drive away all the tension started to go away between us. There really is something that makes relationships better about getting to spend that one on one time that just makes you remember again why you love your spouse and why you wanted to be with them in the first place. Paul and I since having Sawyer, and quite honestly since we first got married, weren't very good at keeping up regular dates. Though I don't want to blame it completely on this fact, I do feel that the lack of personal time together on dates and still trying to court each other has caused some tension in our marriage. It's so hard to think of dates, what to do and where to go especially after having a baby. I wished we had tried harder to have that habit before Sawyer came so that we would be more willing to do it when he was here but after he came dates honestly disappeared. I think we had gone on a total of 3 dates without Sawyer after he was born. Yea, not good. In all seriousness, when we had our getaway I felt like when we were first dating again, just it being only us doing things together. I wanted to hold hands, kiss more, show my affection and talk sweetly to him. I felt excited to be do something with him and more willing to have patience though things he does still might bug me. Personal time together in a marriage is a marriage saver, don't waste the time you have and don't make excuses, GO OUT WITH YOUR SPOUSE!

But, back to our vacation story. We left early friday morning before Sawyer woke up so he wouldn't be so upset to see us leave. We were going to Saint George, where it was going to be much much warmer than Springville, Utah. We got there around 11 or so and check in time wasn't until 2 so we decided to go shopping for a few groceries so we could have snacks and stuff for our picnic and hike the next day. We didn't end up eating lunch because it was so hot and just got some popsicles instead to eat. (yea, we are so healthy on this trip). We were exhausted from the night before, someone in our neighborhood was lighting off fireworks at midnight, and so when the hotel was ready we decided to take a nap. That night we had tickets to the Tuacahn Theater for the show The Little Mermaid. We had also gotten tickets to their all you can eat Luau buffet before the show. It was a pretty good meal but the show was amazing! We got some great seats too, pretty close to the stage, half price so we were having a blast being there! However, it was pretty hot our first day there so we were pretty uncomfortable from the heat sitting in our seats. The first part wasn't bad we had gotten a water bottle to keep us cool and that was enough because their was a breeze but by intermission the breeze was gone and it was HOT. We got a frozen lemonade to help but it didn't last long. Good thing the second part wasn't very long! If there is ever a next time, which I hope there is, we will definitely be bringing fans and seat cushions FYI.

We got back to the hotel pretty late that night, so we decided that we would try and wake up at 7:30 AM and hurry and get ready to be out at 8 AM to go hiking in Snow Canyon. Surprisingly we weren't that tired (must have been the nap the day before) and were able to get out and be at Snow Canyon ready to hike at around 8:30! We were so lucky that it was overcast that day and so it made hiking so much more tolerable. Even though it was still hot, around high 80's and mid 90's throughout the hike, the shade from the clouds made it easy to be active. We had picked the hike called three ponds or hidden ponds, thinking that it was one of the easier hikes (I was 26 weeks pregnant so we wanted to take it easy) and when I got started I was thinking "if this is an easy hike I'd hate to see moderate or expert!" well we only got about halfway through when we got to a part that would have been probably a mile in sand and I told Paul there was no way I could continue doing this hike in sand, so we hiked about a total of 4 miles there and back. Even though we didn't get to the end, the hike we did do was beautiful with all the red rocks and it was up and downhill so we had a lot of gorgeous views. When we got back to the car and had cell service we looked up the hike and found out we had misread the labels and we actually were hiking a moderate level hike! We laughed and were pretty happy with ourselves that we, especially me, had made it that far! We had a picnic at some shaded tables we found and then went back to get ready to go to the temple. It was really nice that we were able to go to the Saint George Temple together since we haven't been in a couple of months and also learn a bit of the history of the temple there as well. It was beautiful inside and we enjoyed feeling the spirit there. We then decided after the temple we wanted to get dinner and then go the the movies. The only movie that we really wanted to see that looked good was How to Train Your Dragon 2. Well we had an early dinner and then headed over to the theater to hang out and get our tickets early. We were there over an hour early for the 7:30 showing and it was sold out! We couldn't believe it we looked for any other places playing it that might be close and none in town, so we decided to drive all the way to Cedar City and see it playing at 9 their because we didn't have anything else planned for that day. We ended up being the only people there, which we thought was pretty funny because it was so popular in the city just 40 minutes away. The movie was great, better than we had hoped and glad we decided to make the trip instead of watching something we weren't interested in or trying to figure out what else we could do. 

The next day, our last full day, was sunday. We decided to go to the church across from the temple and after sacrament go to the visitors center to check things out. We talked to a sister missionary there for a while and found out that she speaks French and that they always try to have Sister missionary at the visitors center that speaks french or german because they have so many tour buses of people who speak that language come buy and want to see what the temple is all about. I thought that was pretty cool. After that we went to all of the church history sights that were around including the tabernacle, Brigham Young's Winter home, and Jacob Hamblin's home.  It was interesting to learn more about where the city got its name from and also a little bit of the history of the first settlers in the area. We then finished the night off at Texas Road House (the only place baby girl wanted to eat :P) and just relaxed at the pool and hotel room the rest of the night.

It was a very fun getaway, which we were so grateful to be able to go on! (Thanks family and especially mom for watching Sawyer even though you had back pain!) We loved every moment of it, but we did miss our little man and couldn't wait to see him again. Going on a vacation was seriously the best thing for us because we finally felt like going home and being a family again!