Eliza's Zoo and Lots of Monkeys

Eliza decided to have a zoo party for her 5th birthday back in June. We only do friend's parties every other year, so I try to make them special and memorable. She has a lot of friends, so it was pretty crazy. I think we ended up with 18 kids, plus my own. But I loved the Zoo theme. It was fun to and easy to work with.

For the invitations, I used die-cuts from the library. The general idea came from my mom, and I just fine-tuned it because of what I die-cuts I had available to me.


Many kids came dressed as zoo animals. When they arrived, they made animal masks out of paper plates and paint, etc. They got animal tattoos. Then we played a bunch of animal games. We played "chase the tail", had a flamingo standing contest, a monkey bar race and a snake slither.

After games, we enjoyed otter pops and cupcakes and free playtime at the park. The biggest downside to the party was the lack of water. The drinking fountain was broken and we didn't bring any water. But the kids survived and I think they even had fun.

Vanilla Cake with Strawberry Cream Frosting

I just found this post half-written. I thought I lost these pictures, with the rest of mine on my computer a few months ago. Woohoo! This is a great summer cake. I have only made it once, but my sister makes it often now and even brought it camping. It is scrumptiously delicious.


This cake was so delicious and beautiful and fun to make. I got the recipe from Bon Appetit, May 2009. They don't always have the recipes online and this one is not, so you should be grateful I am sharing it.

Vanilla Cake with Strawberry Cream Frosting

Frosting
2 8-ounce packages cream cheese
1 c butter
4 c powdered sugar
1/2 c strawberry jam
3/4 c heavy whipping cream

Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and butter in large bowl until smooth. Beat in sugar then jam. Beat cream in medium bowl until peaks form. Fold in whipped cream into frosting. Cover, chill until firm enough to spread, about 2 hours.

Cake
3 c cake flour (I've read you can use 7/8 part all purpose flour and 1/8 part cornstarch)
3/4 t salt
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
3 c sugar
1 c butter, room temp
7 large eggs
2 T vanilla
1 c sour cream
6 T plus 1/3 c strawberry jam (I used homemade)
2 1/4 lbs. strawberries, hulled, sliced and divided

Preheat oven to 325. Butter and flour (or use pam) two 9-inch cake pans with 2 inch high sides. Whisk flour, salt, baking powder and soda in a medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat sugar and butter in a large bowl until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating to blend after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Add sour cream, beat 30 seconds. Add flour mixture in three additions, beating to blend after each addition. Divide batter between pans.
Bake until toothpick comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Cool in pans on racks for 10 minutes. Turn out of pans and cool completely.

Assembly
Using serrated knife, cut each cake horizontally in half. Place one half, cut side up, on a cake plate. Spread 2 T jam over, then 3/4 c frosting. Top with 3/4 c sliced berries. Repeat two more times. Top with remaining cake layer, cut side down. Spread 2 c frosting over tops and sides in a thin layer to coat completely. Spread remaining frosting over tops and sides. Spoon remaining jam on cake and swirl decoratively.


I always worry about layer cakes, because mine never seem to turn out very well. This one, thanks to the help from Eliza and tips from the magazine on how to perfect layer cakes, actually turned out prettier than I had hoped for. There was no picture in the magazine for me to work from, but I just followed the instructions and wa-la!

What I liked about this dessert is everything, but specifically I loved-

• The moist pound cake with simple vanilla flavor, lots of eggs and butter equal delicious cake.
• The frosting. It was full of strawberry flavor and had a nice fluffy texture, thanks to the whipped cream folded in.
• The fresh strawberries in each layer added some extra strawberry yumminess and a wonderful bite.
• It was beautiful and the tips really helped me make my first successful layer cake.

Sorry about the poor pictures. I took most of them at my parent's house, and I don't like their lighting.

Pickles!!!

I have had a great harvest of cucumbers and tomatoes so far this year, for which I am very grateful. But I was getting kind of tired of eating cucumber and tomato salad. So, I decided I would try to make pickles, of the bread and butter variety. I am not especially fond of dill pickles, Tom doesn't like any type of pickle, and I love sweet pickles but never buy them, so i thought perfect opportunity to make sweet pickles.

My cucumbers are lemon cucumbers. They look very different from your standard cucumber, but taste very similar. I love yellow and think they are cheerful.I searched the internet for a recipe that used ingredients I already had and came up with a fun recipe. It called for salting the cucumbers, chilling them, rinsing them, making a vinegar-sugar-spice syrup, boiling the cukes and canning them. Click here for the original recipe.


Many of the recipes I was finding used "pickling lime" to help make the pickles crispy. Next time, I may try it, but I was happy with the crispness of my pickles just using kosher salt (I didn't have pickling salt, but the recipe said subbing kosher salt is fine). I didn't use all the spices the recipe called for because I didn't have them all. I did use cloves, allspice, mustard seed, red pepper flakes, cinnamon, and then I threw in pickling spice to make up for the ones I was missing. I one and halved the original recipe and got 5 pints.

I am excited that I finally made pickles and may even make another batch with my next big harvest.

Bryce Canyon

I never wrote a race report for the Bryce Canyon Half Marathon because it sucked. I had a a horrible race and was very disappointed. Luckily, we still had a very fun trip and enjoyed spending time with two of my sisters and their kids and my parents.

Some of the highlights from our little trip include:

• Lots of junk food, including home made English toffee fudge from a candy shop in Tropic and homemade ice cream we made ourselves with a ball you throw around.
• The Bear Fiddling Festival in Cannonville which included fun fiddling from 80 year olds and 12 year olds, hot dogs, dutch oven potatoes, and home made root beer.
• Shopping the clearance sale at True Value Hardware in Tropic and happening upon the Jazz Bear.
• Participating in the Bryce Half with many of our good friends. I think there were at least a dozen of my closest friends who also did the race. It was so fun to see them all. Too bad they all stayed at the KOA in Cannonville and we stayed at Ruby's Inn. Maybe next year I can convince them to stay at Ruby's.
• The drive home on Sunday. We took the scenic route and made a few detours. We stopped for picnic lunch in great forest near Panguitch Lake.
• We also drove to the top of Brianhead Peak and saw the Civilian Conservation Corp hut built in the 30s up close. We always see it from a ditance when we ski at Brianhead but have never gotten to go inside. The peak also offered spectacular views in every direction all the way to Arizona and Nevada.

Walk as a Witness

Porter Rockwell Family, minus papa Porter, big sis Larue (Caiti) and Little P.

This year our ward decided to do a Pioneer Trek for our youth conference. We have never done one before, but luckily we had awesome coordinators and the whole thing got put together in two months.

We were on a tight budget, but were able to borrow handcarts from a nearby ward.

We were lucky to have a guy in our ward who owns a bunch of land in the mountains that let us use it for the trek.

We have awesome youth who pulled and pushed those carts on empty stomachs, over steep rocky mountains, through hot summer days, all without complaint.

River Crossing

I really think this trek was "meant" to be.

I am so glad that Tom and I got to be a Mama Anne and Papa Porter to the awesomest group of kids out there. We had 6 kids and flour sack baby, a handacart piled high with bedding and clothes. We had meager rations of food that lasted (we even had leftovers) and tasted delicious. These kids ate vegetable stew (water, veggies, salt and pepper) and thought it was the best stuff on earth.Our Camp

They were awesome at rationing their food so we had the most divine breakfast on the last day: light and fluffy flapjacks, banana "jam", and brown sugar. We were fortunate to find an egg in the chicken we killed so it made the flapjacks awesome. We also got a little buttermilk and butter from fresh cream.

It was an emotional experience to watch these kids struggle to push and pull the handcart up the steep, rocky mountains and not be able to help them. I wanted to. We did get to help in one extra hard section. I think that made the trek extra awesome, because it taught the youth that they can conquer whatever challenges they are faced with, but if the going gets really tough, there will be help available to them.


The women's pull was so awesome and so hard. We had 15 exhausted girls pushing two carts up the steepest section of the trek. The young men and leaders walked beside them in silence. Many of the young men moved rocks or brought water. It is bringing tears to my eyes just thinking about it. These girls probably never worked so hard in their lives, but they did it. They were able to get these carts up all on their own.

Overall, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

Pre-Independence Day Ride

Tom and I rode 80 miles on July 3. It was super hot, super hard, and super fun. I didn't have a whole lot of energy so Tom had to pull most of the way.

But we got to ride through the coolest National Park in the world, I discovered Coke is awesome for energy and refreshment at mile 60, and I got to be with my favorite person in the world.

Happy Independence Day!

2nd Annual Pioneer Day 5K

Hurricane Valley Pioneer Day 5K

Fun Run and Walk

Sponsored by the Hurricane and Hurricane West Stakes and

Hurricane Runners’ Club (hurricanerunners.blogspot.com)

Pioneer children walked, and walked, and walked, and RAN!

Friday, July 24th, 6:30 AM

Hurricane City Park - 200 N Main

Fun for all ages and abilities!

Registration fee:
2 non-perishable food items to donate to
Dixie Care and Share

Pre-register at Classic Sports or with
Elizabeth Dansie at 58 W 1125 N
or I can email you a form, just send me an email at edansie@gmail.com

Day of race registration from 5:45 to 6:15 AM.


Contact Elizabeth Dansie with any questions at 635-4486 or edansie@gmail.com.