Memorial Day Weekend

Joseph had to be to a pre-bid meeting for an elementary school in Imbler on the Tuesday after memorial day weekend. Imbler is not far from LaGrande so we thought it would be fun to make a trip out of it to visit family. The only problem was that we had the ward camp out that weekend as well (see previous post) so we wouldn't be able to stay as long as we'd like. I eventually decided Kilynn and I would not go because I didn't think Kilynn would be able to handle the camp out as well as a long trip in one day. Kilynn did so well on the camp out, however, that I decided last minute to go. We got home from the camp out, unloaded and aired out camping gear, and then turned around and loaded up the car with stuff for our trip. Here are some random pictures from the weekend: Too excited about her new bed. She is learning how to climb out of her crib at home too.

Aunt Ellen showed up at my parent's house and my brother Aaron started teaching her how to crack a bull whip. Aaron is very good at this and even makes his own bull whips. My little brother and several of my nephews are into it as well. I thought it was cute watching Aaron teach Aunt Ellen.

Giddyup!

All the cherry trees were in bloom. Very beautiful.

Some of us went for a walk up to my sister's house.

Gotta check out every rock! Kiley and Kilynn

Being pushed in the swing by Aunt Katie We ended up burning one of the slash piles above Katie's house and having a big wiener roast with almost all of my family that lives in the area. Kilynn had fun running down the road afterward. I have many memories of running/biking up and down this road. My Grandpa used to live in the house that my sister's family now occupies. It's about a quarter mile up the road from my parent's house.

Ward Camp Out

Our ward put on a survival/emergency prepardness themed camp out last weekend. Despite the rain, there was a great turn out of about 150 people and some great memories were made. We spent the night Friday, and Saturday morning everyone rotated around to different survival classes such as water purification, fire starting, cooking, and shelter building. Joseph was asked to teach the shelters class so of course he had to be a man about it and practice what he preached by putting together a shelter to sleep in. It's hard to see the shelter in these pictures. In fact, it was even hard to see it in real life. Joseph did bring a space blanket along. He didn't use it as a blanket though. He's had experience with that when he was fighting forest fires fires with the BLM and he said they just trap all the moisture in. Therefore, he had the idea of lining the back wall and part of the ceiling with it so it could reflect heat from the fire onto him.

This is the bed of moss he slept on. He claims he got four hours of good sleep and kept warm and dry. If that is true, then he slept better that I did. I stayed awake listening to rain beating hard on the tent and thinking about how wet and miserable he must be (the rain never took a break all night). I also worried about Kilynn all night and had to keep checking to see if she wiggled out of her sleeping bag and covers.

This is one of the young men in the ward trying out the bed during Joseph's class.

While Joseph built his shelter on Friday, I got to try out my dutch oven cooking skills. I made a beef stew with biscuit dumplings on top. I stirred around in the fire for hours getting new hot coals to pack around the dutch oven in the pit I dug for it. It was hard to determine how long I needed to do this and when it would be done, but we finally checked it after a few hours and it was still underdone! We only had a half hour before our ward fireside so we ate a little of it anyway. The potatoes weren't done but other than that it was really good. Since we were running late for the fireside, we decided to put coals on it while we were gone. Then, when we got back, it would be perfect and we would be able to finish dinner. Well when the fireside was over we came back to find it burnt to a crisp! It was sad to waste so much good food! Kilynn sat patiently in this chair while I stirred around in the fire. Every now and then the rain would come down super hard so I had to pull the tarp all the way over the chair. She was very good about it though and sat there quietly listening to the rain.

The sun broke through on rare occasion and Kilynn would crawl down from the chair and run to the nearby meadow. I almost liked the rain better because it kept Kilynn in one spot! Kilynn slept better that night than she ever sleeps in her crib. I thought she'd never wake up in the morning! After the survival classes on Saturday, they had a survival relay race. Teams had to build a shelter, then have someone get inside while Joseph poured a gallon of water on top to see if they came out dry. Then they had to run over, build a fire and roast a marshmallow, then run to the stream and purify four cups of water. They ran the four cups of water over to a cooking station and that's where I came in. I was elected to do part of the cooking and the eating for our team! We had to cook an omelet and some pancakes. I was in charge of the pancake part. I had to start a fire under this #10 can and cook the pancake on top of it. Look at that lumpy batter!

The fire was kind of pre-made by taking an empty tuna fish can, putting some tightly rolled up corrugated cardboard inside and sealing it off with perifin wax (I think). We had tin foil that we could stick over the flame to regulate the amount of heat.

I put too much batter on the first time and it made a mess, but the pancake turned out pretty good given the conditions. I may have discovered a new talent--speed eating! I surprised myself with how well I could do at this job. We had just eaten a huge lunch so nobody wanted to do this and I came in late so I was elected for the job. It's amazing how much faster you can do things if you have a crowd rooting for you. My omelet was underdone and still runny and I worried about how well the kid on our team purified the water that went into making the pancakes and the pint of lemonade I had to drink, but since this was the last part of the race, everyone was screaming at me and it really got the adrenaline going. This picture may not give a sense of speed, but everyone was in disbelief with how well I could stuff the food in my mouth. The competition was close but my team ended up winning!