Our Spring Break Adventure

I'm in the middle of hitting another book deadline. My newest book will be titled 101 Things To Do With Pudding. As of Sunday I have 90 recipes entered with 7 ideas that I still have to fill in. I'm still missing 4 recipes. Any one have any great recipes calling for a box of pudding?

The rough draft is due on April 5^th. Deadlines can be all consuming. I wish I would have worked a little harder earlier, so that I wouldn't have the need to be making 3-5 recipes a day for the next week or so.

With the deadline hanging over my head, we decided to still take the kids up to Utah and Idaho for Spring Break. I knew I had at least 30 hours in the car to type in all my tried recipes and recipes that I still need to finalize. I seriously had a two inch stack of recipes that I typed into our laptop computer. It actually forced me to work on it. I couldn't procrastinate. I had to get it done.

We left to drive up to Utah on Thursday the 12^th. We drove all day to get from Marana to Pleasant Grove. We were able to get tickets to attend the Draper Utah temple open house for Friday March 13^th. I was suppose to have a book signing on Saturday, so I had scheduled to do a cooking segment on KSL's Studio 5 program on Friday to announce it. The book signing didn't get scheduled in time to get books transported, so I just did a promotion of my newest released cookbook, 101 Things To Do With Meatballs. We showed 3 easy ways to “Dress Up” meatballs. I shared the Magnificent Meatballs, Ginger Ale Meatballs, and Maple Meatballs recipes. We showed how to make the maple meatballs on air and talked everyone through the easiness of the 2 other finished recipes. The meatballs were a hit. The crew and anchors devoured all 3 recipes! They were a huge hit.

After the show, we packed up and picked up our friend, Tina Stephens, who we had not seen for 6 years. She went with us to my mom's condo where we met up with my aunt Kathy and uncle Bob who were visiting from Illinois. We all headed over to my aunt's hotel in Provo to go swimming. My brother, Derek, met us there to swim with the kids. After swimming, we had pizza at my mom and dad's place. Then, Derek, Valerie, my mom, Tina, and our family headed up to Draper for the open house.

We try to take our kids to as many open houses as we can. They have been to the Nauvoo Illinois, California Redlands, Rexburg Idaho, and now Draper Utah temple open houses. Our kids love the temple. And I am amazed at what they remember from the other open houses. They love the mirrors in the sealing rooms! The whole way up and back, the kids pointed out the temples that dot the landscape in Utah and Idaho-St. George, Provo, Mt. Timpanogus, Draper, Jordan River, Salt Lake, Bountiful, Idaho Falls, and Rexburg.

It was neat to go through the temple with our friend Tina. Tina has been learning more and more about our church over the last few years. She loved the temple and had some questions that she had in her mind answered while we were there. The spirit is so strong in the temple. There is so much peace there. I was grateful that Tina and our children could feel why we love to go to the temple.

On Saturday, Ivan and I hit the amazing case lot food storage sale at Maceys. We were concerned that we wouldn't have room to bring the kids home after we started trying to arrange the buckets of flour and oat and bags of sugar and rice. I wish we could have bought more. Ivan helped my mom replacing burnt out lights on vehicles and getting my brother Troy's car listed on Craigslist.

Later, we picked up Scotty Catt, our old home teacher who is going to BYU and teaching at the Missionary Training Center. We all met up with Jenny and Peggy Boshard to climb the Y. The kids were so excited to find snow along the path up to the Y. I, miraculously, made it to the top of the Y. It was quite the trek! After the hike, we all went to Cafe Rio for dinner. I wish we had Cafe Rio in Tucson!

Sunday, we slept in and went to my mom's ward at 11 a.m.. After church, we headed up Provo Canyon up past Sundance and Aspen Grove to a huge meadow of snow! We built a snow man and played in the snow. It was so much fun! We headed back down the mountain in time to have dinner with my parents and grandma.

On Monday, we took the kids to the church distribution center in Salt Lake to get Devan and Elizabeth their own scriptures. We got Spencer a small Book of Mormon with his own name on it as well. The kids were so excited to get their own scriptures. Elizabeth and Devan read their scriptures all the way up to Rexburg. The kids were happy to see there was a little snow left in Rexburg.

We got to Ivan's parents' home in time to have a great Family Home Evening with Grandma and Grandpa and Ivan's cousin Nathan's family. We had fun visit. We went over Nathan's house to see their food storage room. For those who have seen my little room, imagine one 4-5 times the size. It was pretty amazing!

On Tuesday, we spent the day with Ivan's parents. Lizzie and I went to get our hair done by my talented niece, Netti Holdaway who works at Mystic in Rexburg. Lizzie got a cute hair cut, and I got my hair cut and permed. Then, Liz and I checked out the Scrapbook store next to the hair saloon. I went to the store to pick up ingredients, so I could try 3 recipes while we were there in Rexburg. We took one of the ideas to a family dinner at Ivan's brother Sid's house in Hamer. After dinner, we went to see our nephew, Christian, receive his eagle scout award! 7 of the 9 children that Ivan's parents had were there with their families! It was so great to see everyone and to be able to take part in such an important event in one of our nephew's lives.

On Wednesday, we went up to check out the new BYU-Idaho bookstore and to sign my cookbooks there. They are always so excited when I come to sign books there. They were one of the first 2 stores to sell my self-published cake mix book when no one knew who I was. They have been one of my biggest supporters over the years! After signing books, Ivan and I headed to the cafeteria in the Manwaring Center to meet up with Aaron Van Horne who served as a missionary in Marana a little over 2 years ago. It was great to see and eat lunch with him. Then, we headed up to the Ricks Building to visit our friends who Ivan knew from his year as visiting faculty at BYU-I. It was great to see the few we were able to see.

I also finished the 2 other trial recipes while there at Ivan's mom's house on Wednesday. Around 6 p.m., we took out kids to Ivan's sister Debra's house. She watched the kids so I could go to Jamie Ashcraft's bread class. She did a great job teaching how to make bread! I learned something new from her class. If you spray your hands and counter with cooking spray, you don't have to worry about having the dough stick to your fingers! The stickiness is the part I hate about making bread. With this new trick, I'll be doing it a little more often! Ivan hung out with Nathan and his boys while we were in the class. The kids had a blast playing with their cousin Cameron while we were gone.

On Thursday morning, Ivan and I got up @ 4:40 a.m.. We wanted to be in the 6 a.m. Session at the Rexburg temple. It was neat to walk into the temple and to see so many familiar faces from Sugar City. We saw at least 6 people that we knew there at the temple. I love going to the temple where ever we are. I hope someday we can have our own temple in Tucson. I love that they swipe your temple recommends how when you go to the temple. Now, they can track who is actually using the temples. If they note lots of visits from people in the Tucson area maybe we will be able to get our own small temple someday!

After the temple, we came back and started to pack the car. Ivan and the boys went out to help grandpa knock down a fence line that he no longer needs. The boys had so much fun and I was even able to finish knocking out one of the planks! There was still some snow in the field. There was a good pile of snow the size of the 25 ton snow pile they brought into Gladden Farms at Christmas. I can't imagine how much snow they get there in a given winter. After cutting up some of the wood, we headed down to Utah to my parent's home. My dad made his specialty- Chicken and Dumplings- for dinner. Derek and his wife Valerie came over. I ran over to Maceys and picked up ingredients to make 3 more recipes. We made all three and sampled 2 of them. The third had to be frozen.

On Friday, we made a quick stop at the Quilted Bear-one of my all time favorite stores in Utah! Spencer was in desperate need of a zipper tie and they sell them for $8 there. It's a good thing that we had no extra room in the car, because there were lots of cute decorations calling my name! But, I got only what I needed and left. We headed south to meet up with Ivan's brother Ben's family to go camping at the Red Cliffs campground just north of St. George.

We loved camping when we lived in Utah, but the huge number of rattlesnakes scares me from camping in Tucson. The Red Cliffs campground has to be one of the best that I've seen. It was absolutely beautiful. The kids had so much fun climbing up the cliffs and crevasses of the mountain. Emma just wanted to go. For a 2 year old, she is quite the hiker! She has no fear and loves to explore. She had so much fun! So, did the other kids. Ben made an incredible Dutch oven Bacon Cheesy Potatoes. The kids had fun roasting hot dogs and marshmallows for Smores. It was fun to sit by the fire again!

In the morning, we had breakfast burritos, pancakes, and hot chocolate. Ben is quite the proficient outdoor chef! After breakfast we hiked the Red Cliffs trail to the water pools. It was a beautiful hike. The water level was higher than normal which added to the adventure. After the hike, we packed up and headed back to Ben and Ang's home in Hurricane. Our kids had so much fun playing with their cousins and hanging out at their house. That night we stayed up late and watched the movie, Fireproof, with Ben and Ang! What an uplifting movie! It's a must see for every married couple!

Sunday we packed up and enjoyed an amazing breakfast with Ben and Ang's family before we hit the road. We usually go to church with them and then take off, but their church didn't start until 1 p.m.. So, we started driving. I wrote this post while driving home. We stopped to grab a bite to eat in Kingman, AZ and it was 43 degrees outside at 2 p.m.. I had the kids wearing cool clothing today, so they were freezing!! We were excited to see 70 degree weather when we hit Phoenix!

So, tomorrow we are back to work. I've got 23 recipes to try this week. If you live close to us and want to sample, please let me know!!!