Look for the Silver Linings

Last weekend we had some setbacks but we triumphed and still had a rockin good time. I have been Suzy Homemaker lately. I was on my second round of my plum harvest looking forward to more plum jelly, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. This represents about 2 gallons of juice cooked out of my little plums. This doesn't taste good just the way it is. I had transferred it into a juice pitcher and left it on the counter to cool, not thinking anyone who lived here would touch it. They know better than to taste something without asking what it is first. I have too many things in transition to just sample food in my kitchen. The kids have learned by trial and yuck! to ask first. However, last Friday night we had most of the kids on the street over for a bonfire and cinnamon rolls and there was much activity in the house. The little girls were eating in the kitchen with Sarah, when the four year old decided some pretty red juice would go well with here cinnamon roll. Unfortuately, she decided to pour for everyone. Let's just say she missed the cup the first time. And got some in the second time. By the time I came back in, it looked like someone had thrown water balloons full of plum juice all over my kitchen. It was awesome! All the little girls exclaimed, "that juice is yucky!". After getting it cleaned up I was relieved to see that they had only spilled 1/3 of the juice. I carefully put it in the fridge to deal with later and went off to party.

Nick and Andrea showed up shortly after the plum juice fiasco and were staying the night so we could go to the Hot Air Balloon festival up Ogden canyon first thing the next morning. We have been planning and looking forward to this for some time. We were going to take breakfast with us and watch the sunrise over the mountains and see the balloons lift off. It was going to be ethereal and beautiful. After deciding who would sleep where we went to bed with much anticipation for the following morning. At 4:45am Alan and I got up to start raising the dead for our day of "fun" and noticed it was raining outside. Sadly, our ballon launch dreams were dashed. Ever the adventurers, we all decided to go anyway because it might not be raining on the mountain. As we all got our things together, I was in the kitchen packing up our breakfast and getting some help from others. The watermelon needed to be retrieved from the fridge but it was in the back. I asked for some help getting it out and guess what was in front of it in the fridge? Yes, the plum juice. It wasn't moved out of the way of the watermelon enough and the juice spilled out onto the floor-all but maybe 2 cups of it. The pitcher landed on Leanne's recently broken toe sending her into a vortex of pain. I am sure it felt awful. We all stared at it for a moment and then started the clean up, again. My floor has never been mopped so much. We pulled out the fridge and cleaned out the inside. Many towels were needed to soak up the sticky stuff and finally we got it all cleaned. And behind and under my fridge are nice and clean too. I decided to dump out the remaining juice, it was not meant to be.
The drive up was beautiful and rainy. We saw water gushing out of the mountains from the rain run off and the river that parallels the road was full too. The location of the lift-off was in Eden and it looked like Eden. The rain only made the hills greener and the cool weather was nice after hot days down in the valley.

The vendors and carnival games were on hold because of the weather and so we decided to eat our breakfast out of the back of the care and enjoy the journey. This is Wolf Mountain Ski Resort and you can see where the runs are when there is snow.

Hurray for hatchbacks! We ate our cinnamon rolls and watermelon out of the back and got some great looks from other tourists looking to salvage their own plans for fun. It ended up being a beautiful day. After returning home we decided to go to the movies and then headed down to Salt Lake to visit with Bob and Mary. They were having a get together for Lane and his family who were visiting from New York for the week. As always, it is fun to see family and eat. We parted ways with Nick and Andrea and headed back north to attend the Dinosaur Park's free evening for Jacob. He has been looking forward to this forever! It is an outdoor park that has life size statues of dinosaurs and dinosaurs built into slides and swings for the younger kids. We were so exhausted by then we couldn't wait to get home and just go to bed.
There was a steak house near the dino park and the smell was more than our empty stomachs could bear. We decided to check it out. It looked like an old mine and had lots of miner/cowboy stuff everywhere. I picked up a menu and about fell over. Just about everything on the menu was $20 to $40 a plate! I am not sure if I had lots of money I could pay that for a steak. Ever the cheapskate, I recommended we buy our own steaks from the grocery store and BBQ at home. The vote was unanamous. We found some yummy steaks and had a lovely BBQ out back. It is so fun eating outside. The weather has been amazing here (mid 80's) and we are not looking forward to the snowfall. We try to spend as much time as possible outside in a desperate attempt to hold off our pending hybernation.