Matthew Enters the Scene

Hey, this is Matthew. The oldest child and one of the main forces in this family. ( Although me and my mother would probably argue about what kind of force.) I am so exited to finally be able to put posts on this ridiculously, errr, remarkably and uniquely named blog. But, I am fully prepared to make up for the name.

First I would like to make it known how proud I am of my parents taking that giant technological step and joining Facebook. Cellphones and Facebook! What next!?

Next I would like to make it known that this year was my first Stake Dance, which will actually not be the subject of this post. The only reason I am actually putting up a post and not telling all you faithful followers what I have been doing this year, is because I have just been informed if there is no subject there will be no post by myself. And I certainly would not want to deprive you of that pleasure. The subject is actually the Klondike me and Nathan went on this year.

Me and Nathan ( I know it's not proper grammar!) got up to Camp Glenwood at about 4:00pm on the first Friday in February, and me and Nathan, 'scuse me, Nathan and I started on our snowcaves. I got the biggest drift, but unfortunately, it was right in front of a 200ft long sledding hill. Lets just say the cave didn't work out. Nathan's did though. Well, after a while, me and Nathan decided to try the sledding hill. On the way up a 13-14 year old with his little brother passed us going really fast. About halfway down, they veered of and hit a pine tree hard. The poor little guy had been in front, so he got the worst of it. He was screaming all the way back to the first aid station. The next day we participated in the Klondike race. And, defying all odds, got second place in orienteering. Everybody was out of it on the ride home. Well, everybody had a great time, but I'm not sure I will be going next year!

Takin' the Plunge...

We have been meaning to get up to the mountains forever. We finally made plans to spend a couple of days up at the cabin and we found out that one of the bridges on the way was going to be under construction starting the second day. We decided we would make a day trip of it. We did and had a great time! The weather was gorgeous and we had the place to ourselves. We visited with Uncle Wayne, went swimming, fishing, and hiking. Here are some photos...

Harvest Time

Monday night we went out to the garden to do some weeding and harvest some tomatoes. John immediately sampled some of the dirt and seemed to quite enjoy it. He also discovered cherry tomatoes and ate several (that's my boy).


Julia found the flowers (for her hair).


And here's the whole family (minus the photographer).

A New Way to Canoe

Did you know that you don't have to pack up and take the kids to the lake for them to have a good time with the canoe? The subdivisions around here have areas that are made to catch the extra rainwater so the streets won't flood. So after a good amount of precipitation fell on Thursday and Friday, the drainage areas were full. The kids had a great idea to take the canoe down and paddle it around. So James, Nathan, Daniel, Stephen, Julia and Samuel (Matthew was at scout camp and John was napping) put the canoe on the piano dolly and pushed it down the street. It was quite a sight!




They had a great time paddling around and around. We had a few people stop and laugh at us and someone that we didn't even know stopped and took a picture. The kids have probably landed on someone's blog that we don't even know!!
Don't think that it was all just canoeing. They all came home dripping wet but really enjoyed their time in the water. I missed this part, but James says that at one time all of the kids, himself and the dog were in the canoe at one time! I wish I'd gotten a picture of that! Fun times at the Aydelotte house!

Adventures in cooking with food storage

I've been inspired by our friend Bob to write on our blog for the very first time. I can't make any promises after this entry, but who knows what may happen!
I've been really putting forth some effort to make good food with our food storage. It started with our wheat. In the past when making wheat bread, it has turned out yummy but very crumbly. That makes for good toast but not so good sandwiches for lunch. So for the last several years, I've stuck with a good white bread recipe. No complaints from my family.:) But I'm always on the lookout for a good wheat bread recipe. I've been following a "cooking with food storage" blog and she posted a recipe that she makes that sounded incredible. So I thought I would give it a try. A few of the ingredients were a little strange but I dove in with the hopes of making a bread that my whole family would eat. What's a little vinegar, or a cup of potato flakes? Low and behold, it turned out awesome! And you can't even taste the vinegar! And as for sandwiches, the bread is perfect for that, too.
But I didn't stop there. As we were drypack canning with our ward, one of the ladies there brought chocolate chip cookies made with white beans. Kind of weird, right? But they were really good! So I came home with the recipe and tried it. The first batch wasn't what I wanted. So I let the kids eat as many as they wanted, which they promptly did with no complaints! The next batch I made with oat flour instead of whole wheat. YUM! Now I don't have to feel bad about eating cookies for breakfast, right?:)
So on to different things. My children eat refried beans like they grow on trees, or something like that. So we thought it would be good to try the homemade kind. My first try was on Friday and even though I thought they were slightly burned, James, Matthew and Nathan loved them! 2nd try - today I added more water (in hopes of not burning them), then blended them for a short time. I became a little carried away with the salt, but other than that, they were good. I cooked 3 cups of dried beans and they are nearly gone! (It helped that it was fast Sunday and several of the kids were really hungry after church!)
What is next, you might ask? I'm not quite sure. I have a couple of very picky eaters. I'm trying to figure out how I can "hide" some of this good stuff in the foods they will eat. But I'm sure I'll come up with something soon. Until then, I'll continue to work on the spices in the refried beans. Wish me luck!!

Fifteen years and counting...

Thursday Nancy and I began celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary. Our MO is to celebrate events for several days and spend too much money. We started later Thursday evening because we had to take Daniel and Stephen to the pine wood derby races. We went to Olive Garden that night. They messed up my order, so we ended getting mine for free. Nancy let it slip that it was our anniversary and they gave us a free celebration cake which was yummy. We were happy Brent and JeNeale stopped by after we got home to wish us happy anniversary.

Friday I took the day off work so that we could go out shop or whatever. We ended up buying the kids a bunch of books and very little for ourselves, but we had a good time. We went to Panda Express for lunch; it was Nancy's first time. By the time we got home in the early evening we were beat so we just stayed home. We had a great time!

Why don't YOU have a laser, Woody?

Nancy and I are up with Julia and her ear ache. The ibuprofen wore off before the pain did so she is very miserable. Others in the family have stomach aches and head aches. We just tried the the warm olive oil treatment, but we are having a hard time getting an accurate report of its effects. Our parenting practices include letting sick kids watch movies to take their minds off of the misery. We just finished "The Little Mermaid" and have started in on "Toy Story"-thus the title of this blog post.

Its been way too long since we have written. Some of the things we should have written about but didn't include:

Christmas
Our switch to high speed internet
Stephen's birthday and baptism
The anniversary of our engagement
John's birthday

Well, we are a work in progress.

I have added a sweet picture of Julia with Valentine's messages for me and Nancy.