Not So Flat Wheat Bread

Finally I am getting there. I have had so much trouble with making whole wheat bread that turns out flat. It's so sad. 

The last batch of bread I made, none of them became flat. I was so happy. Most of them kept a nice dome shape. I am so thrilled that I'm making progress with something I've had trouble with for years.

Now this is with this particular recipe so who knows how it will work with other whole wheat recipes but I'm just so happy about it I wanted to share.

 

This is bread that my pickiest eater loves so that makes it even better when it turns out.

Water Me! Water Me! Water Me! Whee!

June 23 was National Hydration Day. We did some gardening, including watering plants, and I made sure to drink plenty of water that day.

I missed getting a picture of Lucky helping out that evening but here's a picture of Jet helping the day before.

 

June 23 was also Detroit Style Pizza Day. We didn't have any pepperoni so we ended up with BBQ chicken but I like how the crust turned out.

Dinosaur Date

June 22 was National Kissing Day. What a great day for going on a date (yes, there was kissing). 

Jeremy got up that morning and made us a "raptor's nest" for breakfast (hashbrowns, hard boiled eggs, some hidden sausages).

He got me a Jurassic Park tshirt (yippee).

Do you see where this is headed?

We went out to see the last Jurassic World movie. My opinion of it (don't worry- no spoilers):

We'd been preparing by watching all the other Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies for a few weeks leading up to this. I tried to gather some of Jet's dinosaurs while watching the movies since I am convinced his dinosaurs are based on the Jurassic Park/World dinosaurs. Dilophosaurus has neck frills, velociraptor has blue running down its back. You see?

Here's me watching the T. rex attack in the first Jurassic Park movie with Jet's T. rex.

This is Jet and me with apatosaurus while I watched the first Jurassic World movie.

It was a nice date and I loved it. Dinosaurs and my husband. Two great things.

Solstice Selfies

June 21 was the Summer Solstice. Jeremy happened to pick the longest day of the year to invite me to go out after dark to look for common poorwills. 

That meant the kids stayed up way too late while we were gone. 

We didn't see any poorwills, though we did hear several, but we took a lot of selfies for National Selfie Day.

Productivity

June 20 was World Productivity Day.

The kids and I had "dishes and laundry boot camp," where I taught them about efficiency in doing those chores. Jr. Jr. got into it and would ask questions or make comments, "with all due respect, ma'am." Awesome.

Lucky and Jr. also got into it by having to do pushups and things like that for insubordination. Heh heh.

During dinner we watched the Studio C sketch, "The Best Book for 24 hours of Productivity." All 18 minutes of the YouTube video of it (the sketch on the TV episode is much shorter). Funny.

Father's Day 2022

Father's Day was on June 19.

Kids made Dad breakfast in bed. 

The Primary sang, "Daddy's Homecoming," in Sacrament Meeting. Jet heard the music and started singing along with the introduction before the Primary kids started singing. Lucky was rocking out to the music while singing with the other kids on the stand.  

Some information about Jeremy was shared in a game in Primary. "Mystery Dad." Lucky got to share about his dad breaking a world record.

Jet got a picture of his family drawn by a nursery worker at church. Jeremy got a cinnamon roll after church from the Relief Society.

While Jeremy took a nap the kids and I made dinner for him. The kids each wrote a note finishing, "My dad is special because..." Sweet children. I stapled the five together so Jeremy was able to see them at dinner. 

The kids also decorated paper cups with messages and pictures for Father's Day dinner.

Jr.: What? You told us to put sharpies on the cups.

 

We used Lucky's lanterns he made us to add to the special dinner atmosphere.

Then the kids took turns passing my phone around under the table to text Jeremy digital Father's Day cards throughout dinner.

Nichole also made a comic on the computer. If you give Nichole a medium...

He enjoyed all of the food and notes he got for Father's Day. I'm glad we were able to make it a good one for him since he's the best.

Jeremy and I each called our dads to wish them Happy Father's Day as well. They're also the best.

Late Night Owling Trip

One of my birding friends invited me to go on a late night owling trip with her and some others. Of course I said yes.

We saw a couple flammulated owls, lifer for me (I did a toned down lifer dance this time- see my posts from April 2 and May 12 this year), and heard a bunch. Every time we stopped, we heard 1-3 flammies calling.

I couldn't get the greatest pictures but they are so cute and little. We also saw a whole bunch of moths (and felt a few in our hair and faces) which is what those owls like to eat.

We also saw elk, heard a male elk bugling, saw a snowshoe hair, and saw the moon shining through the trees. We also heard a common poorwill but it never got in sight for us (also small birds).

It was a great late night trip and I thank my friend for inviting me.

 

P.S. I have now seen 10 different species of owl in the wild in Utah. Whoa.

World Tapas Day 2022

June 16 was World Tapas Day. What are tapas? I asked that same question when I saw that this was one of the holidays.

Tapas are Spanish appetizers. It's become common to put several together or make adaptations to make a meal out of tapas. So that's what we did to celebrate.

Since June 16 was also Fresh Veggies Day, we had lettuce on the side. The food was a hit and I ended up making the tomato bread again a few days later.

It was also World Sea Turtle Day so I took a picture of Nichole wearing her sea turtle shirt.

Prehistoric Creatures Day

Everybody say, "Dinosaurs."

Last Wednesday we headed to Dinosaur Island at Ashton Gardens at Thanksgiving Point. "Escape to Dinosaur Island." 

We've been planning this for months since we knew they were going to have dinosaurs all over the gardens (it turns out they were animatronic dinosaurs). We were especially excited to bring our dinosaur loving youngest child. 

That face says it all.

 

It was awesome. We loved it. It was fun to guess the dinosaurs we could see in the distance before we reached the informational signs. Some we got right, some we didn't.

Pachycephalosaurus I recognized since that was my brother's favorite dinosaur growing up. He was so into dinosaurs when we were kids. Being around my own children right now reminds me of that. They've all kind of gotten into it with Jet.

I guessed Edmontosaurus for these dinosaurs up ahead. As we got closer and saw the informational sign and the "nest" with hatchlings, both Nichole and Jr. said, "Of course, because Maiasaura means 'good mother'." Told you they've gotten into it.

 

Jet recognized several dinosaurs. Not surprised. We brought along some of his toy dinosaurs as well. Triceratops, Brachiosaurus, and T. rex.

I love this picture that Jr. Jr. got. It totally reminds me of the first Jurassic Park movie. "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."

Look, it's my favorite dinosaur, stegosaurus.

We even got to see a stegosaurus plate fossil and Jr. Jr. got into a nice discussion with the lady holding the plate and talking to us. She was impressed that our family already knew so much.

As June 15 was Nature Photography Day, we photographed not just dinosaurs (check out this picture of Lucky hiding behind flowers to get pictures of a Utahraptor- nature photography, tee hee).

We also photographed flowers and birds, especially a Cooper's hawk.

 

And Lucky got pictures of the nearby windmills for Global Wind Day.

There was lots of smiling for Smile Power Day. I love dinosaurs! They make me smile. So does my family.

Dinosaur Island was awesome!

Later that day, Jeremy and I watched The Meg to celebrate National Megalodon Day. My mom recommended the movie to us and when she found out we were going to watch it to celebrate the holiday, she watched it, too, in her own home. So fun. Definitely need to suspend your disbelief with that movie and understand that it's so predictable but it was not nearly as gory as Jaws so that's something.

I love how it worked out to watch a movie about a prehistoric shark on the same day we went to see prehistoric creatures at Thanksgiving Point.