Super Saturday

Nothing beats going out to eat on a Saturday night. The place we went, On the Border, has old cars and sculptures all around the rest, so we had to do a photo shop with the kids.

Can you see Anna and Andrew?

We also had quite the summer thunderstorm with hail and a tornado even touched down 10 miles out of town.

Fantastic Friday - Rainy Day Fun

It has been raining pretty much all this week. We are hoping it will warm up soon as we are all getting a bit stir crazy.

Fortunately, every morning this week we have had my cousin Angie's girls over to play. It has been fun for Anna and Andrew to have some playmates while we are here.

The girls found some gold star stickers and decided to put them all on their faces. They were being pretty silly.



While the girls were busy being silly, Andrew was content to play with legos.



Enjoying rice krispie treats and some fruit punch.

Hopefully, the rain will end and we can play outside all next week. But if it continues, any ideas of some things we can do inside for some really silly kids?

Thursday Thoughts - Mountain Men

Casper back in the day was a fort. I have many memories (good and bad) of visiting Ft. Casper and learning about frontier life.

My mom took Anna today to Ft. Casper where they were doing a presentation about mountain men and tall tales. According to my mom it was a pretty dry lecture, but Anna seemed to enjoy it and wants to go back next week when they talk about pioneers and make homemade butter.

Workout Wednesday - High Intensity Interval Training

High intensity interval training (HIIT) is one of my favorite ways to do cardio. Basically it involves short periods of maximum exercise followed by rest/recovery periods. It has been shown to improve performance and burn more fat than traditional cardio sessions. You can do this interval training on any machine at the gym or running outside.

Here is a sample HIIT session:

1. Run for 2 minutes at a level from 3 to 5

2. Run for 1 minute at a level of 6

3. Run for 1 minute at a level of 7

4. Run for 1 minute at a level of 8

5. Run for 1 minute at a level of 9

6. Repeat numbers 2 through 5, 3 more times

7. Run for 1 minute at a level of 10

8. Cool down for 2 minutes

Taste of Tuesday - Zucchini Cookies

We tried a new zucchini cookie recipe today. Here is a link to the recipe - cookies. We didn't have any granola, so we replaced it with a 1/2 cup rice krispies and 1/2 cup corn flakes.

Here are the reviews:

Andrew gave the cookies 4 stars.



Jason also gave the cookies 4 stars.



Anna gave the cookies 3.5 stars.



Janet gave the cookies 3.5 stars. She thought they had too many chocolate chips. I agree, I think if I make these again I would use half the amount of chocolate chips.



Danny gave the cookies 3 stars - he is a tough critic. I wonder if he would have had a different opinion if I wouldn't have told him zucchini was in the cookies.



Too young to try the cookies, but happy just to be included.

Monday Miracles - No Rain

A fun thing my parents do at various times throughout the summer is family home evening in the park. They invite the ward and barbecue and have families bring a salad or dessert. They also set up a volleyball court and play kings court. It is always a lot of fun.

It has been cold and rainy the last couple of days, so we were worried we would have to cancel today as it was raining around lunch. Luckily, the rain stopped long enough to have family home evening at the park tonight.

I took some pictures, but forgot to put the memory card in and we couldn't find a USB cable that was compatible, so I will have to post pictures when we go back to Provo.

Spiritual Sunday

Another great thing about living in Utah is that the public libraries have LDS books. We have been checking out lately some older LDS illustrated scripture books. Anna and Andrew absolutely love them.

Today was Stake Conference in Casper. One of the speakers spoke about a Senior couple that put in their mission papers. They basically requested that they go to a specific country since they spoke the language. They were shocked when they got called to serve in Florida. At first they were really upset, but after praying about it they also felt they should go to Florida.

Their first morning in Florida they met a young woman with two young children. They asked if they could tell her about the church and she told them to come back at night when her husband was home. Imagine their shock when they came back that evening and their estranged son answered the door. They had not seen their son in several years, did not know he lived in Florida, and did not even know he was married or had children. They were able to repair the relationship and today things are great.

The speaker went on to say how the Lord knows what is best for us. This is so true in my own life. There have been several times when at first I have not understood why something is happening, but then I see the Lord's hand and I am grateful for His divine guidance.