Adventuring {Bird Refugees}

We had a Saturday (June 17th) with nothing planned and decided instead of sitting around at home all day, we'd try something new.  I had been wanting to go explore at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge for a while, and had recently seen something about cool little explorer packs you can check out at the visitor's center (Cal was super excited to try out the binoculars and bug net), so we headed North to Brigham City for our outing. We got there a few minutes before opening time, so we decided to do the driving tour first and then swing back for the visitor's center and boardwalk.  Callie was sooooo bored in the car.  Ha.  And I vaguely remember being bored, too, as a child on this same drive.  (Must be a rite of passage or something.)  But I was having a great time watching for all kinds of birds out the windows as we drove.  Luckily there were a couple of big overlook towers that we stopped at for the kids to run up and down on.  It was extra lucky we pit stopped at them, because when we got back to the visitor's center we noticed that the gate was still closed, even though it was long past opening time by now.  Turns out they had "unforseen staffing problems" and the building was closed for the day.  Bummer!  We made the most of our time in the Brigham City area by stopping at a park to slide on the slides and then heading to Maddox for lunch (note to self: stick with the cheeseburgers!).  We'll be back again!  (And maybe we'll get a few more bird pictures next time.)

Birthday Bowling and BBQ Bonanza

Our third annual Birthday Bowling and BBQ Bonanza was held on Saturday, June 10th.  Everyone (that would be the Elwood grandparents, Mugs, the Olsens, the Herzogs, the Wihongis, the Farrers, Swaze, and Steve Nance and his two girls) met up at Weber State's Wildcat Lanes for an hour of bowling.  When we were thoroughly bowled out, we commuted back to Eden for a delectable feast of burgers, hot dogs, and salads and sides to load up two tables (these folks really came through on the potluck portion!).  We had baked beans, pasta salad, jello salad, potato salad, tots and fries, cherry fluff salad, sweet and spicy cucumber slices, grapes, plus all the fixin's for the meat.  Whew! 

bonus video!

"all by herself"

Callie and Gregg got to open a few presents, which was the highlight of the night for the four-year-old.  Her aunts and uncles and grandparents and friends sure know what she loves: stickers, paints, coloring books, crayons, paper dolls (in sticker form), another magazine subscription, Aggie clothes, books, and . . . Swedish Fish (that may have been her favorite gift of the evening)!  

Then it was time for cakes!  Yes, plural.  Two birthdays being celebrated means two cakes to eat (plus we had a crowd to feed).  Gregg chose a cheesecake, as per his traditional request the past few years.  This time he came up with the idea and I did my best to execute: graham cracker crust, regular cheesecake with a strawberry freezer jam swirl, topped with a layer of nutella and finished off with fresh strawberries in a strawberry glaze.  (Yeah, it was rich!)  Callie's was a rather lopsided four layer cake (because she's four) of chocolate and vanilla with pink buttercream frosting in between and all around, topped with multi-colored sprinkles (done by the birthday girl herself).  I think one side of the cake sort of collapsed under the weight of the thing, so by the time it was served it was the leaning tower of cakedom.  And the frosting job was "rustic" in not a very pretty way.  But Callie loved it and she's the one who matters here.  (And, it did taste good, if I say so myself.)

Behind the scenes: this is what the swirl part looked
like when the cheesecake came out of the oven
and before I covered it with nutella.  I was bummed
it didn't swirl very deep into the cake, so when
we cut into it, it wasn't really visible.

This is what happens when your vanilla cake
sinks like crazy in the middle, but your
  chocolate cake domes when it's baked.  Puzzle time!

I couldn't have made this sort of pattern if I had tried, I'm afraid!
(And I don't know if I'll make that vanilla cake ever again - but the
chocolate was a big winner, I think.)

It's a fun tradition that will live on as long as Callie still thinks its cool to celebrate her birthday with her dad.  (I hope it's forever.)