Category Archives: Camping

>Happy Birthday Dave!

>Dave took Luke and Jack camping on Thursday, and the plan was for me to meet them after work on Friday. Well, first the campsite was closed, then they could only get one night at another campsite, then they got 2 more nights in another spot, so they had to pack up and move, and then it rained and then the wind blew the rain shelter/tarp into bits. Then I got there and convinced them to go home. Good thing, since Jack threw up all day yesterday.

While Dave stayed home with the sickie, I took The One Who Can Not Keep A Secret birthday present shopping. I asked The One Who Can Not Keep A Secret what he wanted to get his dad for his birthday and he said, “A wii game, or a remote control car, or light saber, maybe…” I asked him exactly whose birthday we were shopping for and he said, “I KEEP ASKING DADDDY WHAT HE WANTS AND HE KEEPS TELLING ME I DON’T HAVE TO BUY HIM ANYTHING!” Sheesh, Ok. SO TOWCKAS and I went to Best Buy because I have been meaning to go there for the last 14 months since the light on the refridgerator starting telling me to replace the filter. I figured we could get a filter and shop for games for the wii. Long story short, we got Wii Little League, and thus began the longest 17 hours of secret keeping that TOWCKAS has had to endure since last year. Oh wait, last year he only had to keep the secret as he helped me carry the present down the hallway. So over the course of those 17 hours there were lots of,
“I can’t wait until tomorrow.”
“You want to open your present in the morning, right?”
“I can’t wait to play with your present tomorrow Daddy.” Etc.

Then, last night during dinner, Dave said, “After dinner, do you want to play Mario Cart Wii or play baseball in the front yard?”

TOWCKAS’s response? “Wii Baseball!!!!”

Fortunately Dave was walking out of the room, so when we was out of earshot I said, “Sssshhhhh! Or you don’t get to pick out any more presents!”

TOWCKAS’s response? “What!? I said, we should play baseball!”

Dave likes a pink cake with chocolate icing, so this year, instead of the pink (strawberry? cherry?) cake from the box, I made a triple layer strawberry cake with chocolate ganache icing. It was really good. The batter seemed really pink from the strawberries, but I guess I should have added food coloring too. Mmm. So good. It calls for 8 egg whites, and I used a trick I learned from the cupcake class, where you separate the yolk from the white one at a time in a little bowl and then dump the recently seperated egg into the bowl with the rest, so you don’t waste a lot of eggs by getting yolk in the main egg bowl on the 7th or 8th egg. However, I forgot to add in the last egg white , so I imagine that this cake would have turned out 1/8 again as tall if I hadn’t made that mistake.

>Smore Baking

>
Last week on our way to camp at Buffalo Creek, I said, “I wonder if I should make my own graham crackers from scratch and then make my own marshmallows and then maybe pre-melt the chocolate onto the graham crackers and have a gourmet camping dessert. Does that sound really good, or like the dumbest thing you have every heard?”

See, I had just read a recipe for graham crackers that sounded like fun to try. And I have always loved Martha’s idea of premelting the chocolate. Hmmm. Maybe, I thought, I’ll go for the happy medium and just pre-melt the chocolate on some grocery store crackers and call it good. But happy mediums are not my specialty. I can’t find the middle ground between making marshmallows from scratch on one end and eating oreos for breakfast because I forgot to pack anything else. And then Franz had to go on and on about how he was going to bake a key lime pie for the next camping trip that would be nothing short of legendary, and my old competitive baking instincts kicked in. When we got home from camping on Sunday night, there was this marshmallow recipe just staring up at me and I knew what had to be done. And it was fun. Messy, but fun. The graham crackers were a real hassle, and to my disappointment they are delicious. If they had just been sort of blah I would never feel the urge to make them again.

So, now that the hail has stopped, Iwe need to pack the car for this weekend. Right now I have pulled pork in the crock pot and spaghetti sauce on the stove, and I had planned to bake bread at the campsite until I found out that we were out of yeast. I predict our next trip will involve a hot dog wrapped in a piece of bread. Unless I find that happy medium.

>What a Pleasure (Fruita Times Two)

>We camped at Highline Lake State Park this weekend again, and it was fantastic. We have a new favorite campsite, and according to two little old ladies, we are a great group of families who are a pleasure to observe. Children frolicked, bikes were ridden, food eaten, drinks dranken (wait, that doesn’t sound right, but it does sound familiar), what could be better? Well, I guess I could have brought the memory card for my camera, but you can’t have everything.

And the days of the camp host appearing with an unholstered firearm and threats of “keep it down or be kicked out” seem to be over. This camp host just wanted to talk about the thirty feral cats she has adopted from the park. (Found homes for 20, kept 10.) Okaaaaaaay. And she just threw out a, “It’s technically 3.2 alcohol in the park only, so go ahead and put that tequila in your cooler where I can’t see it.” Sigh, I guess we still got a tiny lecture, but only because she was lingering to answer any cat questions that might come up. Who knew what kind of response I’d get from, “wild cats? I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

Oh, and Jack slept 5 out of the last 7 nights from 8am to 6am. Saturday in the van, he was awake from 6am to 7:30, when the effort involved in repeatedly poking me in the eye finally tuckered him out, and we both got to sleep for another whopping half hour. Sunday, I learned my lesson and after I fed Jack at 6am I said, “I am leaving to go to the bathroom, please get Jack back to sleep before I get back.” Dave only had to be head-butted twice and poked in the eye less than five times, before he had Jack in a sleeper hold. And we all slept peacefully until 8. Especially Luke who was having a sleep-over with Scarlett in her eurovan.

Good times.

>Two Face Vs The Six Million Dollar Man

>*** Alternate Post Title: Does your face hurt? ***
*** Alternate Post Subtitle: It’s killing me! Wacka wacka Wacka ***

So Dave started off as Harvey Dent, progressed to Two Face, and is practically Col. Steve Austin less than a week later. And by that I mean his massive head/face wound seems to be almost healed. The face wound that was only visible if you looked at him from one side. Get it, two-face? And the fast healing part is like the 6 million dollar man. In case this doesn’t make sense, it’s because I am mildly delirious.

I told Dave to call his parents before I posted about his injury, and he did, but he just left a voice mail. A voice mail that probably said, “hey call me.” Not, “we don’t know exactly what happened but Megan found me on my back, passed out, snoring, and bleeding from three parts of the left side if my face. Rob tried to do mouth to mouth, which, based on the snoring was probably unnecessary, but Rob really wanted me to live, and possibly always wanted to kiss me. Megan panicked at first and then pulled it together to get me some ice, wrap me in a blanket and then put more wood on the fire. She also managed the four children in such a way that they view the whole experience as interesting and funny and not something that will scar them for life. We were camping and it was dark and we didn’t seek immediate medical attention for those reasons. I still haven’t been to the doctor because Megan hasn’t scheduled me an appt because I haven’t updated my google calendar so she doesn’t know when I am free. I am almost totally healed now except for the chunk missing from my nose. Call me back when you get a chance, love ya!”

So new information has come to light that indicates maybe Dave was just a little under the weather and that is what caused him to faint. Here is what makes me think that: The green boogers coming out of both my children’s noses, my sinus infection and general yucky feeling, and the fact that we were up all night with a feverish Jack. Luke leaning over the toilet and saying he was going to throw up on the first day of school may or may not support this theory. Anyway, I am a zombie today, but Dave is recovering nicely from his injury!

>My Son, My Son, The Younger One

>Poor Jack, in all this excitement and stress about kindergarten, there has been nary a post about Jack and his many accomplishments.

He now eats crackers:

That’s really such a short lived milestone because after one, you realize how disgusting they are.

He pulls up to standing, and as you can see, has three teeth on top:

He looks cute is his fall wardrobe:

But he hates last year’s winter wardrobe because he’s like Ralphie from A Christmas Story, combined with a turtle on it’s back:

And the biggest news is this: He said Dada. Dave was playing peekaboo with him through the car window while we waited for our carry out pizza at the start of our camping trip (we camp in style) and when Dave disappeared Jack said, “Dada!” and looked for him out the window.

And at dinner tonight he made something that vaguely resembled the sign for “more”. He hasn’t been too keen on learning the signs because he has found that screaming at the top of his lungs is an easier and very effective way to get more food.

>One More Post About Camping

>I never finished my camping post, but I didn’t need to because it was summed up so well here. But I did want to share one funny story. The first night of camping, Jack was on day 5 of sleeping all the way or mostly through the night. I was a little worried about setbacks, but our sleeping arrangements worked out perfectly to keep the stretch going. Luke slept upstairs and the rest of us slept downstairs, but Dave slept in between Jack and I, which prevented me from sleep feeding him. I am sure I would have assumed that Jack was hungry when he started crying at 3 am, when in fact he was just cold. Dave and Jack just snuggled up and we all went back to sleep. But why was he cold? Well, I guess at some point earlier in the night he was hot, so he took off his pajamas. He woke up dressed like this:

And this is how I found his pjs in the morning:

I have a Baby Houdini on my hands.

Everyone slept so well that Luke even had a sleep over on Saturday night:

Good morning everyone!

>Eurovan Camping Ettiquette 101

>Always, always take off your shoes before you get in the van – otherwise the van could get dirty.

>Silver Medal Dutch Oven Peach Cobbler

We came in second place in the dessert contest, which considering the competition, is something to be proud of. We lost to gingersnaps topped with homemade ice cream – all made at the camp site. Other entries were a delicious apple crisp, chocolate fondue, dirt cake, and slices of watermelon. Only when camping with Boulderites do you meet children who vote for watermelon in a dessert contest with the above choices. Of course, I am married to someone who regularly requests a birthday watermelon.

So many funny pictures and stories to share, but for now, I’ll just share the peach cobbler recipe for anyone who may be camping soon!

We took this recipe from epicurious and this cooking method from Byron’s Dutch Oven page and combined them to make this:

Silver Medal Dutch Oven Peach Cobbler
Preheat the charcoal.

6 large peaches, cut into thin wedges
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

For biscuit topping
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup water

Mix the dry ingredients in a ziplock bag – slice pieces of butter in and squish it around. Add the water and squish it around some more. Slice the peaches, squeeze half a lemon onto the pile of peaches. Coat the inside of the dutch over with some butter. Toss in the peaches, and brown sugar and stir. Take a spoon and glob the dough on top. Cover.

Bake with 10-12 briquettes bottom and 18-20 briquettes top, and turn the lid a quarter way around every 10 minutes or so until the top is browned and it looks done.

So good. Enjoy, but don’t expect to beat someone in a cooking contest when that someone serves chocolate fondue as a dessert appetizer!

>Camping Competition

>We’ll be camping this weekend with some competitive people. The two contests we are going to enter are the dessert making contest and the most delicious alcoholic beverage contest. Hopefully the mountain biking will be the least competitive thing I do all weekend. For the drink contest, we’ll be entering the drink of the summer. And as for the dessert, well, that is top secret for now.

Incidentally, people have been arriving on the Pear of Panties post through various means, including googling “camping panties” and “white panties for 5 year olds”. The people looking for information about children’s underwear should really look elsewhere.

And in case you are wondering, I changed the pink background to white because I was always annoyed when the pink appeared a second after the rest of the page.

>Yellow Pine

>I have finally uploaded camping pictures! Last weekend we went to Yellow Pine Campground, which is in Wyoming between Laramie and Cheyenne.

The mountain biking was exactly what I like, which is to say, the scenery was pretty and interesting, and there were some challenging uphills, but I wasn’t afraid for my life at any point in time. But it was cold and extremely wet. I did my best to avoid widening any trails, and but I also didn’t want to fall over in puddles that were knee deep. I think maybe a little later in the year it would be dryer and warmer? We had fun anyway. But I am so mad that I forgot to take a picture of the Happy Jack sign!

Gosh, the weather has been so nice, but I am starting to see clouds!