June 2018. Hallelujah, Summer's here!!

I love, love, LOVE summer.

Not just for the weather, although that's pretty awesome, too. I think I love it more for the sense of freedom .... from the school year timetable and demands. And maybe by August, I'll be ready for a schedule again. But for now -- bring on all the classic summertime fun!!

Which, .... apparently for us, starts out with a little summertime work, as we went out one morning at the beginning of June, [before it got hot] and planted our corn:

Emma asked me if it was worth it, for the corn-on-the-cob later.

Um ..... yes!! Absolutely!!

Interestingly, ... as I write this, the corn is now up, but so are the weeds. Ugh!!

As part of summer, Emma wanted to repeat our "17 Adventures" (Also HERE), from last summer. Hey, I guess it was a hit, right? Of course, she slid right into the trap I was trying to avoid: making into 18 Adventures this year, because it's now 2018. But, since her 18th Adventure on the list is "Advance to 4th Grade" -- I can live with that.

We got started right away, again with the library's Summer Reading Program Kick-Off Day:

We went early, because she also had a birthday party to attend. As a result, she didn't have to wait long for the activities. She did love the giant bubbles. 

We did have to wait outside for a few minutes, for them to open the doors.

She wanted to do the Virtual Reality upstairs ... there was almost no wait for that.

But she chose the same program as she'd done last year. I was kinda hoping she'd do a different one.

Months ago, Shelly (Todd's sister) let us know that this June was Alexus' high school graduation, and she wanted EVERYONE to come. While we couldn't round up the entire family, we did take Emma and make the trip south to Winnemucca, Nevada. We also brought Grandpa and Grandma Huffaker with us, since we were all heading to the same destination and it made it easier for them to not have to drive it.

On the way there, we stopped in a tiny little place in nowhere, Nevada, called, Orovada... it's not even really a town, but it was a needed bathroom break with a convenience store. There we found some fun bottled sodas in flavors that you just don't see everywhere:

Todd and I split that huckleberry one ...

Other flavors we picked up:

The point of the trip was to see this girl walk and get her diploma!

(She looks so much like Shelly!!)

(I had to steal that last shot from a phone screenshot.)

The day we were to leave, we packed up and checked out of our hotel. It was a little odd to pull out onto the street (the main drag, mind you!), and see absolutely NO traffic. Anywhere. In either direction. I mean, it was weird. A little bit eerie.

Then as we drove, we started seeing people lined up on the sidewalks with lawn chairs.
You guessed it! We were right on the route for that day's parade! Whoops!!

It's not a big town, and it was not a big or long parade, so we pulled around a couple of blocks, and then parked at the barricade for the 20 minutes or so that it took for the parade to pass by.

Turns out, that weekend was the annual Basque Festival in Winnemucca!

I was a little late on the video for the dancing, so I only caught the last part:

Who knew, right?!

On the way back home, we broke up the trip by staying overnight in Boise. It gave us an excuse to visit with Alyssa and Andrew, at least for a few hours!

Alyssa treated us to dessert that night from a place called, "Nothing Bundt Cakes".

It was fun to share a few bites from each of the different flavors: White Chocolate Raspberry, Lemon Raspberry, Confetti, and Carrot Cake. They were all very good, and very moist! Yum!!

I'm not prepared to say whether one of those flavors was the inspiration for my own baking adventure, ... but I can say this:
After 2 or 3 fresh batches of jam with this year's raspberries, I wanted to try something different. So here was my first attempt experimenting with a Lemon Raspberry Quick Bread (a recipe I kind of adapted from a different favorite quick bread).

I'm showing you the first attempt, because the second time through was a fail. I'm also not prepared to admit that I may have inadvertently "helped" it fail (read: FALL) as I was trying to hurry it out of the pan so I could finally go to bed! Annnnnd ...... the third time (different recipe) was also a fail. What the what??? There's got to be a good version of this, that tastes nice and lemony, and doesn't fall apart, and doesn't FALL, period, ..... and doesn't stick to the pan with a vengeance and tear the bread apart in efforts to remove it from the pan ......

At any rate, this experiment definitely deserves further investigation, and we've still got some raspberries on, so why not?! Mmmmmmm!!

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We had a warm Friday evening, so Emma and I slept out on the trampoline .... which is all fun, until the birds wake you up at 4:10 in the morning!!

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And finally, this year, we'll be hosting another Duerden Family Reunion at our house!! (I'm super pumped to have my family coming!) We have all the Siblings coming, and any of the next two generations who come will be bonus extras!

First, I do have a surprise activity in mind for my siblings, that I know they will really enjoy. I'm kind of  excited about that one, and ready to burst with that little fun secret!! Shhhh!!!

Anyway, as Todd & I were thinking about the upcoming reunion weekend and also about the LAST Duerden Family Reunion (we took them to visit Dworshak Dam), we wondered if they'd be interested in seeing another dam. So, to that end, and before offering it to the siblings, we decided it would be worth it to revisit the dam, because it's been years since we've been there to see it ourselves.

So one afternoon, we took a dam trip!

This one is lower on the river and it has a lock (the wall-looking part on the left of the photo below) for boats and barges to pass through.

This one also has a fish ladder right there to see:

Plus there's an indoor, underwater-viewing room, so you can watch the fish swimming by. Spoiler: they don't actually jump out of the water up the fish ladder.

(And they're not all salmon, either:)

We timed our visit so we could take one of the dam tours that they offer. They supply you with hardhats -- this is Emma wearing the real thing, not just a kids' flimsy plastic one.

They don't allow photos on the tour. But I can tell you they take you inside the dam, show you a turbine, they take you up on top of the dam, and over to see the spillway. Our guide did not take us over to the lock, and I suspect part of that was because there were 4 seniors on our tour, and the distance to the lock might have been more than they would be able to walk.

Emma lucked out because she was the only kid on our tour, so she got to do things like open gates and push elevator buttons. When we finished the tour, she got a little swag bag with coloring things, stickers, and a compass-key chain.

So, after we finished the tour, we decided to drive across the dam, and take a different route back home. This is the view east from the top of the dam:

And this is a shot of the lock:

So now we just need to have the family decide if they want to go see another dam during this reunion, and if so, plan it out!

We did enjoy our afternoon at the dam, and I think we may have just turned that into one of the EIGHTEEN Adventures!

Getting Away From it All

There's a lot of truth to that statement. Although, I like to think we have some style when we go camping! We certainly wouldn't be mistaken for homeless people. We last went camping last year, for the Huffaker Family Reunion. You may have read about it HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Todd and I decided that if we're going to make that toy-hauler purchase worth it, we need to go camping more. So when Alyssa suggested that we go camping together this summer, while she's between classes and clinicals -- we scheduled it out on the calendar.
Which is, of course, the only way you get anything to happen: plan it!!

We picked a spot part way between where we live, and where Alyssa & Andrew live, and one that had water available. (More on that in a minute!) Although we've dry-camped before, this time we didn't want to haul water with us a great distance. Let me share our camping highlights with you:

As we left home, this is one of the fields of canola that were in bloom. The bright yellow flowers are always so pretty against a blue sky on a sunny day.

This was our destination:

We camped at the Cold Springs Forest Service campground -- near the reservoir, but with trailer spots and fresh water available.

Well --- water's available when you work for it:

Yep, that's an old-style hand pump! Todd and Andrew worked hard to see that we had plenty of fresh water:

(I hope the video works!)

I will say, that water did taste really, really good. And they don't call it Cold Springs for nothing!

Andrew and Alyssa's tent was tucked into the trees for shade -- it was a great spot.

Our spot also happened to be a handicapped-accessible spot, so it had a cement pad with its picnic table and cooking stand:

It was also one of the more spacious sites, which made it really nice for two families.

At home, I walk the treadmill in the mornings, about 3 or so miles. So, it was nice to take Alyssa & Andrew's dogs out for morning walks in the mountain air.

(Yeah, tangled leashes were a thing.)
A couple of times, I took Emma with me, and we walked up to the reservoir.

For us, a big part of camping is going four-wheeling. The area around the reservoir did not disappoint -- lots of trails to ride!

(I think Andrew preferred the white ATV -- though it's not 4WD, it has a sportier ride, and it has some speed when you've got open spaces.

My typical view? The back of Todd's four-wheeler:

But other views were pretty darn awesome:

Watching storms coming in the mountains ....

 The reservoir:

(Well, part of it. It's pretty good-sized.)

Wildflowers:

I feel like my phone didn't do justice to the colors. We also rode through some wild white lilacs in bloom -- they smelled amazing!

Alyssa did our hair one day, in matching braids-and-bandana hairstyles:

I think it's been years since I've had my hair French braided! But it worked well for a trail-riding style:

After a day of riding, it's all about the camp food. We have our favorites, our go-to's, and a few new ones. Foil Dinners -- the classic -- is always our "first night out" camp dinner.

We also had chicken-bacon-ranch foil dinners on another night. (Those are seriously good with melted cheese & sour cream!)

S'mores is the number one dessert,  but that's followed closely by Dutch Oven Cobbler.

Steaming!!

It was one of Emma's favorites. I strongly suspect the spray whipping cream had something to do with that.

One breakfast was our homemade version of Egg McMuffins:

Shoot. I'm getting hungry, just looking at these pictures.

We also had an encore performance of Campfire Cones:

Part of the challenge there, is waiting.

Campfires are mesmerizing, comforting, relaxing.

It wasn't ALL perfect. Alyssa was feeling pretty sick for most of the trip. But she put on a good front, and didn't miss out on too much.

And one of those rising mountain storms -- dumped rain and hail on us:

THIS is why we have a camper. A hundred times over!!

And why we bring games. One good rainstorm + a sickie = a great excuse to play Battleship:

 More random pictures from the trip ....

(I was impressed every time the dogs walked over the cattle guard.)

While Stella seemed to only get cold at night, Buddy has even shorter hair, and he got cold easier. Keeping him covered helped:

We really had a great time -- it felt good to get out in the beautiful Idaho mountains and enjoy the great outdoors.

I want to go again!!!