Off We Go!

This week is the first week that I'll be with the students at camp. I found out today where I will be stationed and which group I'll be with. Spring City, Utah is the place and I'll be with the students just coming to the program (called transition camp). So tomorrow is the day!

Our First Apartment

I love our little apartment. It has been a wonderful place for us to live during this year of school. Located only blocks away from campus, we are able to walk to school easily. Joshua has a passion for art, so we have a lovely art collection decorating our walls. Joshua also also has an eye for photography, so we also have pictures he has taken of the ruins and beaches we have visited this last year all around.

Getting Creative in the Kitchen!

Currently, I am trying to make sure we use all of our food in the fridge and cupboards and not let it go to waste. So, that means I have been getting creative. Did you know if you have no milk and no cream of whatever soup you can still make Hawaiian haystack sauce with cottage cheese? Just melt it down slowly over a low heat, add some chopped chicken, a little salt and pepper, and cornstarch to thicken it. It tasted terrific and just the same on our wild rice with pineapple and bell pepper.

We also had bought some wheat several months back that I have never ground and we were out of bread. So after fixing up the grinder and making the flour (I feel the little red hen but I actually shared), I make my first loaf of 100% whole wheat bread in our amazing bread maker. Feeling adventurous and wanting some homemade jam, I made my first batch of blueberry lime jam. We had a bag of frozen blueberries, which worked perfectly. I have never made jam before but was inspired as I watched my mother-in-law make some last summer. It has turned out wonderfully. One little confession though, our bread maker has a jam making setting, so all I had to do was put in the ingredients, press start, scrap the sides twice and take it out when it beeped. Technology! At least now, we have both fresh made jam and bread!

It's amazing what really can be made when you feel you don't have much in the fridge at home.

My internship

I have begun my social work internship at an adventure therapy program for those with behavioral issues. Thus far, it has been fun and interesting to say the least. The hours are 8 days on and 6 days off. There are several groups I work with, teen boys, teen girls, adults, and a group of youth with learning disabilities, including aspergers and high functioning autism.

Here I have several roles. One is that I am a trail guide. Each week they have various itineraries which include, hiking, backpacking, canyoneering, mountaineering, rappelling, river rafting, bouldering, rock climbing, mountain biking, and skiing to name a few. These activities provide wonderful teaching moments. The students, also have homework packets to complete, so I am also available to be there tutor, in addition to providing supervision, learning experiences to help them learn to make better choices and learn better ways of coping with life stressors.

Last week, I went camping and bouldering in down in Triassic, at the Land of a Thousand Boulders (near Price, UT). It was the first time learning to boulder and I feel like I made some amazing climbs. For those who don't know, bouldering is rock climbing but on smaller heights and without a harness. You do however have climbing shoes which provide great traction to the rock face. There are also people spotting you and a crash pad above is a rock I climbed
(a little mattress type thing) below you incase of falling.

Yes, we love Home and Garden's House Hunters show. It has inspired us to pursue our own hunt for a house...ok so that's not exactly our inspiration. It's more like low housing prices. Anyways, we think we have found the one, even though we have said that countless times already. Hopefully by tomorrow we'll know if they accept the offer, so keep your fingers crossed!

Wonders of hand sanitizer

So yesterday, I was doing some writting, put my pen down next to me, and suddenly what did I find? Ink on the couch! Then accedently, I touch another coushin with it! EEK! Two marks of pen on my couches.

Thank to the internet though, I found a solution that worked wonders. Purell hand sanitizer! I don't know if it works for all couches, because it was listed under "Pen removal from microfiber." Just a dot of sanitizer and a white cloth to blot it up...whalla, no move pen marks!

Hope someone else can find this helpful.