Mark

I found these pictures taken by our dear friend Johny from Switzerland. He came to visit us in 2005 and we had a wonderful trip to Lake Powell. He loved taking pictures (over 1,000) of our trip. I am just getting around to enlarging some of them and looking at them more closely. I really like this one of Mark at his office.

This one is in the Escalante where I first saw the "Magic". It was breathtaking and one of my favorite times at the Lake. I have seen it a few times since but never like this.

Kamut Bread

When Shelly and Karen came to visit last month, my Aunt LoRane sent a bag of grain I had never heard of. I finally made some bread with Kamut today. I used her recipe which calls for grain mix, white wheat, brown rice and kamut all ground up into flour. I thought her recipe looked good when I read it but decided to double it. Oh boy, that was a mistake. I had so much dough, the Bosch could hardly knead it. The dough was a little slack (wet). Now that I seem to read bread recipe books a lot, I have learned new lingo. Anyway I was nervous to add more flour since my machine was at its max. I filled up my 6 bread pans, 3 little bread pans and made fried scones for Mark and Patrick. We liked the scones and I gave a loaf of bread to my neighbor to test. I like the flavor and it is a little lighter than my regular wheat bread recipe. I will try it again and not double the recipe. I will also take a picture of the next loaves. Thanks, Aunt LoRane!!! It is so much fun to get new recipes and talk with others about their successes with bread making.

I had an afternoon and night to myself yesterday since Mark and Patrick went on the Ward Fathers and Sons camping trip. I drove to Park City and looked in all the shops and then had sushi for dinner. Dining alone reminded me of my working days back in Salt Lake before Daniel was born. I would eat lunch out by myself and I loved it. I spent some time in Dolly's Book Store while eating a carmel apple from Rocky Mountain Chocolate. I found the King Arthur Flour cookbook and I have been reading it all day. I am all excited to try some of their recipes. They had a very good website and blog with lots of really good recipes (kingarthurflour.com/blog). I drove to Deer Valley for the Utah Symphony concert and it was wonderful. Outdoors sitting on the bunny hill enjoying the music and the setting was just what I needed. It rained for a few minutes but a lady near me loaned me her umbrella. Sometimes I need some time alone to regenerate and this was perfect.

Getaway Weekend

On Friday we drove to Cedar City with friends to attend the Utah Shakespearean Festival. We stayed at a big, beautiful cabin in the mountains above Cedar. There were 11 of us and we have a great time together. We saw The Secret Garden (the musical version) the first afternoon. It is one of my favorites and I love the music especially "Hold On". I have the whole play memorized, so I really enjoyed it. Then we had dinner at the Garden House and went to the night play of Henry V. It was three hours long but wonderful. I did have a hard time sitting that long, but it was worth it. The famous "Band of Brothers" speech is in this one. The actors are amazing. I need to read it now that I am home. Every year I make new goals to read more Shakespeare and then I forget. We drove up the canyon and then stayed up until about 2:00 talking and laughing with the group. We got up and had a very leisurely and abundant breakfast. We barely made it to the 2:00 play of Foxfire. It was wonderful also. It is about an older woman needing to leave her homestead and her dead husband to move in with her son who needed her. We drove back to the cabin and ate more delicious food and then told embarrassing moments, played games and put together a puzzle and drove back to Draper. We have such great friends. I love being with them and eating and seeing the plays. Mark on the other hand said that is his last year! I will miss him next year but I won't miss the festival.

Fun with Alta

We had a wonderful time in DC visiting Daniel, Shalane and Alta. We went to the Smithsonian and Chesapeake Bay. We had so much fun playing with Alta and eating well with Daniel and Shalane. I already miss them and I have been home a few hours.