Scottish festival

So much fun so little time to document it. We went down to the Scottish festival in Payson.  Scott was really looking forward to it. Of all the festivals this is one I knew he would like.  It was very appropriately raining when we woke up covering the mountains in a beautiful misty cloud.  By the time we got the the rain had fizzled out and we were just left with a slightly cool and humid summer day.  Perfect for a Scottish festival.This festival had everything; singers, dancers, sheaf tossers, Scottish hammer throwers, stone put throwers, caber tossers, weight over the bar tossers, and pipers, pipers, and more pipers.  Being a bag pipe fan I loved it just as much as Scott did.  Surprisingly the kids enjoyed it also.  I was worried they would get bored but what kid doesn't love watching people chuck stuff, sword fighting and lots of noise?

We always love to try the traditional food.  We were looking forward to the Haggas but sadly they ran out.  I got a Scottish egg instead.  It looked a little strange but it was delicious.  They took a hard boiled eggs and molded around it with a sausage/turkey dressing concoction then lightly seared it all around on the griddle.  I 'm sure it was way out of my calorie allotment but it was super yummy.  Where else can I eat a Scottish egg? The Highland games were equally fun to watch.  The stone put and Sheaf tossers were quite impressive.  The caber tossers try as they might had a hard time succeeding.  I only saw one guy get the pole all the way over.The boys had a great time trying out the swords and beating each other up, we literally had to pry the swords out of their hands then ended up buying them each a sword to take home.  Sometimes I think the swords were more for Scott then the kids.  We couldn't find Ellie for a little bit until we looked up and saw her on stage.  Of course where else would she be.  She just had to take part in the dancing.

caber toss

stone put

this was just a really cute little girl in her Scottish garb I had to take a picture

pets

My kids are always asking for a pet but lets get serious. It will be me that ends up taking care of it. I just have too much on my plate right now to add one more thing that needs taking care of. So these are the kind of pets I like the best.

We have this snake that lives in our yard. He’s just a little garden snake so we let him hang around. He usually shows up when I am mowing the lawn. This one particular day he jumped out of the grass to startle me (his favorite game) So I called the kids over to come get him so I wouldn’t chop him up with the mower. They scooped him up and put him in a bucket to play with him for the day. I like the kind that we can play with then let go when were done. Usually just for the day then its mandatory that they be released into the wild.
When we lived in California it was always lizards. Another pet they love to corral is snails. I personally have no good feelings for snails. They wreak havoc in my gardens. The kids went out and gathered about 30 snails and put them in a bucket in the garage unbeknownst to me. We went out for the day and came back that night to find my garage and the bucket covered in snails. I was not happy. They had about 60 seconds to get them out or I was going to crush them.
On the other hand if it gets their pet craving taken care of I guess I could be okay with the snails.

fruit leather

What to do with all my apricots? When I left for Yellowstone they were just about ready, when I returned they were all over the ground.  They sure ripened quickly. I harvested all the rest off the tree and put them in a tote until I could decided what to do with them. I wanted to make this an old fashioned canning frolic but the soft fruit was not going to wait for everyone's schedules so I handled it myself with a little help from Scott (I know I was surprised too.) He just came into the kitchen and started working, what a sweet heart. 

 My family doesn't really care for apricot jam so I thought I would try fruit leather.  It turns out it is very easy to make it just takes forever.  

1. remove the stones2. chop up the fruit.  Mine were so ripe I just pulled them apart in smaller pieces
3. put in a pot with 1 cup of water per 4 cups of fruit and cook it down.  I used medium to high heat
4. stir occasionally and smash with a potato masher.
5. add sugar to taste one tablespoon at a time.  In one pot I had 8 cups of fruit and only added 3 tablespoons of sugar
6. blend in a food processor and then pour in a rimmed cookie sheet lined with microwave safe cling wrap
7. Put in a 140-170 degree oven and wait.
This is the longest step.  I put mine in over night and they still took half the next day before they were done.
Super easy.  My sweet mom called me the next day and told me to check my front porch because the DI fairy brought me something.
She found 2 food dehydrators for $5.  Thanks mom I already used them to dry my dill and I will definitely be using them when I do my grapes

renewed

before

after

before

after

before

When I bought my kitchen table set I absolutely loved it.  Years of use and abuse had brought me to not really adoring my once wonderful table.  I decided that now was a good time to give it a face lift.  The chairs lets face it were disgusting after countless spills and who knows what seeping into the fabric they have seen better days.
I went with my sister to the most random store NPS were I found this faux leather for just $4 a yard.  Way better than the one I was looking at JoAnn's for $20 a yard.  I unscrewed the seats cut the new fabric and with a little tuck here and a fold there and about 1000 staples my chairs look like new.  Next step was my table.  My good ol' table had a terrible sag in the middle from too many children climbing on it, not to mention it was scratched and scuffed beyond recognition.  I hauled it in the garage where I stripped it, sanded it, and sanded it some more.  I then applied the stain.  The first stain I chose was way too red so I had to do the stripping and sanding process all over again.  This time with the right color I stained, sanded and lacquered and lacquered some more.  I felt with all the abuse this table gets I needed to give it extra coats. The hardest thing to fix was probably the sag.  I had to remove the skirt to fix the separation then I took off the leaf guides and screwed them in a new position.
Now it looks beautiful.  I gave fallen in love with my table again all for around $30.

after

final product

recap

So to recap Yellowstone we had a great time.  We were exhausted (hiking 10 miles a day with little kids can do that to you) We were filthy.  We did take a shower on one day.  One night the boys were so dirty we didn't want to let them in the RV and jokingly bet them they couldn't sleep outside.  They made a bet with Scott that they could sleep on top of the RV all night.  In exchange he would take them out to a movie.  I was surprised that they actually made it all night.  We hosed them off the next morning we just couldn't take the filth anymore.  Coincidentally Paul was the dirtiest kid. 

We came back with a couple of stories.  Not the kind I was hoping for but they are still memorable.  We saw some of the most beautiful sights, and a bonus we didn't run out of food. (I was a little worried about that with the extra 2 people I hadn't originally planned for). A huge bonus the kids didn't fight. (I'm not counting the little squabbles that were quickly extinguished with the promise of work to those who did fight.)

 It turned out to be a really great vacation.

old faithful

We happened to hit Old Faithful at the perfect time.  We pulled up and walked out to find a good spot to witness this miracle.  We only had to wait 5 minutes until it started.  It was just a lot of steam at first then a little bit of water shooting up, then the enormous shaft of water reaching over 100 feet in the air.  It was quite an awesome sight.  As soon as Old Faithful subsided we headed off to see what other natural wonders were around.  All I can say is that we hit it at the right time.  It seemed like every geyser that actually goes off did while we were there, one right after another and we got to see them all.  Did we time it perfect or what?

The walk was very pretty with the river winding in and out and all around.

Brennen was our best camper.  He didn't complain even once, he sis everything he was told (I know I was shocked too) And he was seriously interested in everything we saw.  Even if we saw 50 just like it he wanted to know all about what he was looking at.  He needed to know the name of every little geyser, how it worked and what interesting facts came with it. He also wanted me to take a picture of everything.  He would say "hey mom, hey mom come here picture this." I was quite impressed with him and his desire to be in the know with where he was at.  Paul and William were more of your typical boys pointing out things like animal poop and bugs.  Paul stopped at one spot for longer than 30 seconds, when I came to see what caught his attention I found a dragon fly.  Apparently it was the coolest dragon fly he ever saw. (boys are so simple aren't they?)

 After we walked around the whole park we had to check out the lodge.  Inside was really cool.  It resembled a huge tree house, one you would build if your were a grown up.  The kids wanted to climb up to the top but were disappointed when they found out they could only go to the 3rd floor.

 

lodge

mystic pools

As we pulled up to the mystic pools a storm was rolling in. It was cool to see the storm rolling in as the air got colder and the clouds more sinister. The steam effect was magnified 10 times from the difference in the air.  As we walked along the path the steam from the pools was so warm and the air was cold it was like getting in a hot tub in the winter.  It is both nice and cool all at the same time.  We would walk through a thick cloud of mist feeling ahhhhh then a breeze would come and take the mist away and it turned into an ohhh sensation.  Making you welcoming the smelly steam with its warmth.  The only down side was all that mist meant making you very wet so when you stepped out your were freezing.  This place was probably one of my favorites.  The turquoise water, the orange bacteria mats, the warm steam, and the open skies, and it had a beautiful river running right beside it, so pretty.