5 Tracks

Check out my list of my five favorite songs right now over on The Sweater Friends blog.

Hail Campy

I don’t really know how else to sum up our ward’s Girl’s Camp except by saying I survived it. That’s all I’m really asked to do, right? The camp started off great. I came up Tuesday night after work to find the girls doing crafts before dinner. They had gotten up to our campsite (one of our leader’s parents backyard – camping on grass is heaven!) set up camp and gone on their hike without any disasters. Fabulous. We made dinner without issue and then settled in around the campfire to do smores. Just as we got the smores out of the bags, it started pouring rain leaving all of us to dash into our tents and go to bed.

Day two started off without a hitch. We got the girls up to make breakfast and then tried to figure out a plan for the day. We were supposed to have the girls go horseback riding and play at the beach at pineview. The initial plan was to split the girls up into two groups and have them rotate from riding and beaching. Because we had a few less horses than we initially thought (okay a lot) and since it was cloudy and a bit cold we knew having the girls go to the lake then horseback ride would be miserable we had to come up with a backup. We ended up keeping most of the girls at camp while the first set went riding. Then dropped off the rest of the girls with the horses and took the first group to the beach. It still was cold and windy outside when we got there and by the time the second group of girls got to the beach, it was downright miserable to back to camp we went.

We had a bit more free time to bum around camp then we started dinner to get the girls fed before our speaker for the evening, Elder Marlin Jensen came to talk to us. As usual the plan didn’t exactly happen that way so we had to delay our speaker for about an hour. By that time it was raining a bit and windy so our wonderful hosts allowed us to sit in the living room to hear our speaker. After that we went back out to have our testimony meeting. It was wonderful up until the end. The second after our last leader sat down, it started hailing like you have never seen it hail before. Most of us ran for the house or our tents. I ran for our tent but unfortunately the leader before me managed to jam the zipper while trying to get into the door. She ran around to the other side to get in but me knowing that it was stuck open 3 feet and since I was the one that would get to sleep next to the puddle, I opted to untangle it and get in the tent the shut it properly. Once all of the leaders returned to our tent, there was about 2 inches of hail up against all of our tents (including the girls’ tents). Luckily our tent was build like a tank, or so we thought until I stepped on my sleeping pad to find it was soaking. A quick look around our tent with flashlights revealed several drips from above and a bunch of puddles all over our stuff.

Once again our hosts were so kind and let the girls and some of our leaders sleep inside on the floor. I opted to sleep in my car which wasn’t so bad once I got warmed up again and somewhat dry. The next morning I got up and hoped the other leaders would agree to just taking down camp and going home (yes that meant no breakfast but seriously I just wanted a warm shower). They were okay with that plan until they realized all the food would go to waste. Somehow breakfast was made and taking down camp took a good hour and a half longer than it should have. I finally made it home by 11 Thursday and I don’t think a shower has ever felt so good. Oh Girls Camp why are you always so terrible? Why? I used to think I hated camping until I experienced it outside of Girls Camp.

On to other news, Thursday afternoon Jen came over and we made hopefully our last coworker goodbye cake for the next while. We made Patrick a chocolate/yellow marble cake with chocolate ganosh in the middle and chocolate buttercream outside. Delicious.

Saturday I went down and practiced with Jake in preparation for the Arts Festival this week. So anyone looking for a fabulous date night on Friday come see Jake and I play at the Utah Arts Festival at 5:00. Seriously you won’t be disappointed. Even the trib suggested we are one of the bands you should try and see at the festival and they have to report the truth, they’re a newspaper.

Then Saturday night Jen had a little get together at her house to give her tether ball pole a party before she removes it. I’ll miss that tether ball pole.

Also Saturday night my parents and brother came up for dinner to celebrate Father’s Day. It was really nice of them to come up to us instead of us going down to SLC.

Yesterday was a pretty relaxed day, we just bummed around the house and watched movies. Ideal.

Pillow Chewer

Where does the time go? Just yesterday I swear we were coming home from Capitol Reef. Oh well. We’ve done a lot since getting home from our trip.

Awhile ago my friend Jen and I started randomly talking about sleepovers from when we were kids. All the things we used to do, the food we would eat and the games we would play. Surprisingly enough slumber parties Utah and Ohio are very similar. After talking about them, we decided it would be a blast if we had one. Fast forward a few weekends and it was slumber party night. A couple of our other co workers Gina and Danielle came too to partake in the slumber party fun.
We started off the night with lots of pizza, candy necklaces and homemade cake batter ice cream (so good!). Played a game of Pictionary and then watched Wayne’s World. Because we’re still adults and kind of lame Gina and Danielle couldn’t stay the night but Jen did although I went to bed at midnight and she stayed up and watched Ellen without us. So much fun.

In other news our garden is doing super well. I’m so excited. We have one strawberry that will be red soon and a ton coming. I can’t wait! We also finally got the rest of the flower beds planted in our back yard so I can’t wait for those to start growing too. Even our roses are starting to bloom.

Last weekend was also super fun for me. I got to go up to Logan/Bear Lake to hang out with my girlfriends for the entire weekend. We had an absolute blast. I seriously love those girls so much. They have all grown up to be such amazing women. They are some of the best wives and mothers I have ever seen. There was much talking, laughing, shopping, eating and an awkward moment with a weird carved tree. Here are a few pictures I stole off of Ashlee’s blog because I’m not good at taking pictures.








When I came home yesterday both my hubby and puppy told me how much they missed me. Though since Shad then showed me a pillow Dublin managed to destroy while not being watched so I’m guessing Dublin had a very fun weekend.
This week I’m off to our ward’s girl’s camp so wish me luck. I can’t be as bad as last year was, right?

The Reef

Over Memorial day weekend Shad and I headed down to Capitol Reef with our friends Jen and Jared. I'd like to think vacation explains the one real post you got last month. Really work has just been crazy. In typical vacation fashion, the rest of this post will be mostly pictures.

Here's me infront of a mountain looking really excited to be there. It's probably just the eupohira of not being at work.

 

Here's Shad and Jared looking not so excited to be infront of Chimney Rock in the park. They get a half star for effort.

 

Some pretty cactus flowers on the hike up to Hickman's Bridge. I was surprised by how many wildflowers were blooming in the park. I guess I've never been in this part of Utah in the spring time.

 

On our way up to Hickman's bridge.

 

It was just a little windy for the first few days we were there. Jen and I just figured we could pay for mircodermabrasion or go for a walk in the sand storms.

 

We were pretty lazy on this trip which isn't a good thing when Jared is with us - he's really high energy. While we were laying underneath the bridge he wandered off and scaled a few cliffs, using a dead tree to climb up at one point (not smart). Jared took this picture from the cliff just as we were starting to wonder why Jared had "been around the corner for an hour." Jen and I then made the executive decision to send Shad alone (because everyone knows when one member of your party is missing in the wilderness - you send another person alone to meet his fate at well) to track down Jared so we could hike down and go on another hike. After that we instituted the buddy system. Shad kept track of Jared and Jen and I kept track of each other.

 

Jen likes to take candid pictures of us hiking and always yells at me for waving in her pictures. I was so close to getting in a quick waving candid. Better luck next time.

 

See those holes in the rock behind us? The boys just had to see if they could climb out of them.

 

Here's Jen and I waiting for the boys to finsh attempting to get out of the holes.

 

These pictures aren't in order. After just getting them grouped into the sameish days, I was too lazy to reorder them. On our third day, we went out to Goblin Valley which was so much fun. So many people had their dogs which made me miss our puppy. Jen made friends with a Labrodoodle. She's so friendly.

 

After bumming around Goblin Valley for a few hours we decided to go hike the wild horse canyon trail just down the road.

 

Of course after hiking for a bit Jen and I found a nice ledge to take a nap on while the boys contiuned on to the end.

 

There were a few points where we had to think skinny but we all made it out okay.

 

Jen really likes to take pictures of the group where my face is really close to the camera and everyone else is a reasonable distance away...

 

 

Here I am getting yelled at for trying to wave in the picture.

 

 

Jen, Jared and Shad were all climbing the walls in Goblin Valley like little monkeys. I don't really have the upper arm strength to do those things. Jen helped by picking me up and placing me on a ledge awkwardly. I was lauging so hard I almost rolled right off.

 

 

Jared took this picture at our campsite and promptly said afterwards, "that was the worst picture ever, Jen looks like she's stripping and Allyson looks angry." So there you go. Worst picture ever.

 

On day two of our trip we went and hiked up to a lake in the mountains outside of the park. Once we got to the lake, jen and I found an ideal rock for a nap (I wasn't kidding when I said we were being lazy this trip.)

 

Shad and Jared joined us on the rock for a bit after they tried to catch trout in the stream with their bare hands. That was pretty entertaining to watch.

 

 

Then when we came home on Monday, Jen, Danielle and I made Danielle's goodbye cake. I talked her into letting us make her a Unicorn cake. I'm pretty impressed with the results, it actually looked like a unicorn.

 

Okay fine

Okay, now I think I'm ready to give you a real update.

Easter for us was pretty uneventful, which really it should be when you don't have kids, right? We listened to conference then went down and had dinner with my family.

I thought conference was wonderful as usual. I especially liked Pres. Henry B. Erying's talk called Help Them on Their Way Home. How could I not when he talked about personal progress, the calling I currently hold in our ward. As I listened to his talk, I hoped just a few of the mothers and daughters of our ward heard his message and truly understand why they should be working on their personal progress. I won't lie, it took most of my self restraint not to print it out and send it out to all of my young women's parents but I figured that might offend a few people.

Over the past few weeks Shad has also made awesome progress on the garden. He laid down ground cover and covered the paths with mulch. He ordered a bunch of top soil to fill the rest of our 18 garden boxes and he fixed two surprise "water features" that popped up when the secondary water was turned on. Now if our weather would just warm up a bit, I can actually start planting the rest of our plants. I was really hoping to get stuff in before we left for Vegas but with the chance of snow while we were gone, I didn't want to chance it.

Vegas was a lot of fun. We went down Wednesday morning and went out to Lake Mead to go hiking. That was really fun until we had to turn around. It was super windy and blowing right at our faces the entire time back. We checked into our hotel and headed down for the buffet. It was pretty disappointing but after hiking in the wind we didn't want to search for food elsewhere on the strip. After dinner we went and walked to strip. Because of the wind though, nothing was working so that was kind of disappointing. The next morning we went and did some shopping along the strip (Oh H&M how I missed you!) then went back out to Lake Mead that afternoon. Because I was sore from hiking the day before, we just walked along the beach while Shad threw rocks in the lake. That night we opted to drive out to the M resort for the buffet out there. It was a little bit of a drive but so totally worth it. It was easily the best buffet I have ever had. The dessert buffet alone was worth the $20. Seriously if you are in Vegas and want a buffet, drive out there!

We drove home on Friday just in time to go out to dinner with my family for my Dad's birthday and Mother's Day since my parents will be moving my sister to California next weekend. That was good times as always and it was good to be able to see my sister again before she moves.

The rest of our weekend was pretty quiet. I cleaned the house and worked on a few projects and Shad worked in the yard.

The mass exodus out of our plant and back to Wisconsin is continuing which means that Jen and I made a cake Monday night for the latest couple moving back home. They had requested chocolate cake with ganosh. Jen and I are pretty sure they had no idea what ganosh was when they requested it, but being good friends we googled a recipe and moved forward. Not too bad if you ask me. We opted to whip part of the ganosh and use that instead of butter cream in between the layers then we also sprinkled the outside with non-whipped ganosh and crumbled Heath bars. It was delicious. On another good note, Jen and I were able to assemble this cake without any tragic cake deforming accidents. I think it can go on record as our best looking cake yet.

New post

So Shad and I have been busy as usual. We even took a quick trip to Las Vegas last week. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to share. In the mean time I'm getting a new computer at work this week (Praise the LORD!) so I've been having to back up files etc. I found this adorable video of Dublin with a balloon in our basement when he was about 4 months old. So cute. Hopefully this will help tide you over until I have Vegas pictures to share.

I can't get over how little he was! I guess at least the clumsy is still there. :)

How does your garden grow?

Fun things have been happening at the the Bracken house lately.  A few weekends ago Jen, Danielle and I got together to make another cake for our coworker Aimee that was moving to Tennessee.  She was the wonderful lady that introduced us to the marshmallow fondant and it seemed right to make her a cake to send her off.  Plus we really wanted to eat some cake.  As usual there were a few snags in the process.  Namely me managing to mess up a white cake from the box.  I don't know what happened but my 9" round cakes were about half the size of Jen's.  We pressed on and the cake ended up being a bit special but still tasted delicious.  I'll hopefully find the pictures I took of it to share next week. 

 

After making the cake, I got to take some of our young women down to the conference center for the General Young Womens Meeting.  The meeting was fantastic and our girls were pretty well behaved.  I'm not quite sure it was worth the 2 hours of driving to sit in the 90 minute meeting but I'm sure a lot of the girls loved it.  Next year I'm voting to do a PJ party at one of our houses to watch it on satellite.

 

The next week I was able to successfully install a new project at work and a successful install means my 5 days of coverage was cut into 4 days and a partial day.  It worked out nicely since Friday Jake and I had a show down in SLC scheduled.  We played at the Vertical Diner in SLC.  It's a Vegetarian and Vegan restaurant.  When Jake had initially booked it he told me it was a hippie restaurant which made me a little bit nervous but it's a really awesome place and we had a great time playing there.  I hope we get to go back soon.

 

As for Shad the majority of his spare time has been spent getting our garden ready to plant in.  Here's kind of what our garden looked like last year (after the random garbage left by the previous owners was removed).  Just look past Jake and I.

 

Notice the nothingness in that nice fenced off area in our back yard?  Yeah we did too, it was just low on our priority list for things to do with the house.  We pretty much just planted plants in the mounds of soil left by the previous owners garden boxes and called it good.  The garden last year was kind of successful.  Most of the plants grew and produced fruits and veggies.  Pretty much all of them except the ones that I wanted to grow and produce things.  We had a couple pumpkins that got off to a good start and were then consumed by mold (which we've heard of is almost impossible but whatever).  The peppers we planted didn't really get watered by the drip system so they grew maybe 5 peppers all year.  The squash (gross!), peas, beans and tomatoes (double gross), all produced a lot which was a little bittersweet since I wanted nothing to do with most of them and left that responsibility up to Shad (read: we threw away a bunch of veggies last year). 

 

This year the garden had made it up to the top of our list.  So that's where Shad has been for he past few weeks.  He's been building garden boxes (we figured out a way to make vinyl garden boxes for $25 each which is a total steal compared to paying $100 for one from the fence company).  Digging, running sprinklers and tilling soil and putting down ground cover to keep the weeds down (we have awesome secondary water which is nice but brings all sorts of weed seeds with it.)  It's pretty close to being done.  My raspberry,blackberry and strawberry plants came on Saturday which means I spent a few hours planting those in the boxes that were ready to go.  I can't wait to see if I can get some good things to grow that I will actually use when they're ready.  Wish me luck.