Utah Jazz's Ian Clark

Ian Clark a player for the Utah Jazz (Basketball team) came to town to talk with the kiddos and do a small skills camp. My kiddos were super excited, despite us never really paying attention to basketball.  He came and spoke to the kids about the importance of school and working hard.  We love all the back up we can get! They did a small skills camp with the kids and gave out shirts and autographs. Such a fun day!

They numbered off the kids for teams, somehow my two ended up on the same team. They played a few competitive games where the losers had to do pushups... They won once, and I am sure enjoyed the break from pushups.

To homeschool or not to homeschool....

Let me start by saying, I have never had a problem with the education my kids were getting in public, regular school. We choose to homeschool this year out of convenience for our family's new changes. If you would of asked me a year or two ago if I was going to homeschool, I would of probably had some kind of response that equaled.... ummm NO! My kids have had amazing teachers and have done pretty great in school.

last year 2013-2014  K & 4th 

So with traveling and moving frequently it made sense for us to homeschool, and therefore not pull the boys in and out of schools frequently. We started a several weeks ago, and I was prepared for it to be a challenge. Going into this I was thinking Trenton (the 2 year old) would be my biggest challenge. He is one of those into everything, kind of kids. So trying to teach them and keep up with him, without him causing constant distraction, all while in a 38 foot camper would be a challenge. My plan for combatting this would be one- utilizing nap time, and second- doing school at parks and other places outside. Nap time school has worked well for Brayden. He is able to get his school work done quickly and pretty much finish in that amount of time. For Matthew, he requires more time and help with 5th grade work that we are unable to get it done during nap time. As for the park,  have a mentioned Wyoming is WINDY. When I say windy I don't mean a breeze blowing by, I mean like wind throwing your stuff across the yard, or blowing out your propane grill multiple times, while you are trying to cook dinner. (more on that later-sore subject). So the park isn't really an option.  I have also been warned it often snows here in September... yes, September, which is in like a month...AHHHHH. So the thought of not being able to go to the park or get out and about (which we do daily) is kind of terrifying me.  So with the prospect of Matt being able to be here for an extended time and much discussion, we have decided to go ahead and enroll the boys in school here. I am def not giving up on homeschool all together. If our journey leads us to leaving here sooner than expected we will jump right in. But, I would hate to get into the dead of winter here, be stir crazy and then decide to enroll them. The thought of enrolling them in the middle of the year sounds pretty sucky, and I think would put them at a disadvantage.

For the record- homeschooling is tough stuff. It is not easy to be the teacher all day and not be able to be fun mom, doing fun stuff. So I def tip my hat (if I wore one), or applaud the moms and dads out there that do it.

Carbon County Fair

I don't think we have ever been to a legit fair. This little town we are in has their own. The Carbon County Fair and Rodeo was going on all week.

The boys got to pet and see up close a bunch of different animals. My pics are blurry I think because they were moving so fast.

We went back one night for the Rodeo, which was so much fun. The boys and I had never been to one before so it was quite the experience. 

After seeing the Rodeo and "real cowboys" the boys have really gotten into this "Wyoming style". They insisted on getting boots. When returning one day for "kids day" they jumped out of the van and started rubbing dirt and rocks all over their clothes.... When asked why, "because that is how the cowboys looked, all dirty!" boys......

Later in the week we went back for the demolition derby. Again we enjoyed it, although not sure if it was the time of day or what, but Trenton sitting still was quite the challenge.

The boys were beyond thrilled to take some pics together as we left.

Pinterest ...

Who doesn't love pinterest? It has become one of my favorite resources for everything from recipes to crafts or even organization. I have tried tons of recipes off of pinterest over the past couple of years. While some have been horrible flops, some have turned out really good. So I thought it would be a good idea to pass on my passes and flops, so maybe you don't have to have the same flop as I did.

When I had Trenton a bunch of the women from church made me meals and brought them to me. Someone brought me Strawberry Pretzel Salad. And it was amazing! I am bringing dessert to a dinner with another family and thought I would give this a go. I found a recipe on Pinterest here ... Strawberry Pretzel Salad. Super simple recipe, even easy enough to make in a camper!

This is how mine started, before the layering.... I forgot to take a finished product pic... so here is her's from the website in the link.

I made this Honey Garlic Crockpot Chicken a few weeks ago. While I think it turned out correct, it wasn't a favorite in our house. I will most likely not be making this again. 

I tried a recipe for chicken tacos. (Cant find the pin). Super easy....

Chicken Tacos

one packet of taco seasoning

one jar salsa

6 boneless skinless chicken breasts

Place all ingredients in slow cooker on low 8 hours or high 4 hours, shred chicken and prepare tacos.

And lastly, 

Crockpot Quinoa Stuffed Peppers. 

I followed the recipe pretty much exactly, except: I used ground turkey. (I can't remember the last time I even bought ground beef). Also I only used one cup of quinoa (uncooked). I had a ton of extra of the mixture after filling the peppers, yummy for lunch.  Turned out good, but in the directions it said put 2 cups of water in the bottom of the crockpot. I'm going to skip that part next time, it was way to wet.

Living in a travel trailer has me loving slow cooker meals, actually I have always loved slow cooker meals. So if you have a favorite slow cooker meal I'd love to hear it!

Camping take 2

With the less than perfect execution of our last camping attempt, we knew we had to make a second go of it.  Bought a new tent, packed up, and headed out on a friday night, after Matt got off of work. We headed back to Seminoe State Park. The last weekend we came it was pretty busy, this weekend there were only two other campsite occupied. I was a little worried I had missed some bad weather coming or something. But nope, we had great weather.

The new tent is a quick set up tent. The poles are attached and it takes about 2 min to put it up.....AMAZING!! Plus these tent companies have gotten really smart. The directions are sewn into the bag, aka you can't lose them, genius!

I must admit,  the first time I had lists, and menus and everything I could think of. This time we kind of just winged it. The result, I forgot a lot of things. Plastic spoons were the ONLY utensils I brought. So I had to cook and eat with plastic spoons.... I also had this great plan to make peach cobbler with one of those simple recipes (peaches, cake mix, sprite). That didn't work out so good, since the cake mix was left on the counter at home. Everything worked out fine though, but next time I will revert back to my lists.

The boys did some fishing.....

Matt even caught his first Rainbow Trout, or maybe its just a Trout.... Well I don't know, but he was pretty excited about it. Something about it fought really hard! (fishing isn't my thing ;))

Matthew did some Kayaking. That boy loves to kayak.

And we sat around a fire. The boys attempted to start one with a stone and axe, didn't work out so good.

Fun night. The plan is to head a few hours away for our next camping trip.