I Hiked Around a Lake and Made (inedible) Vegan Cookies ;)

 Well, this post is a bit out of order, but I think you'll be able to figure it all out.  Let's start with Sunday afternoon.  After church, we headed up to Soda Lake so the 8 year old could gather some reeds for a school project.  (More on that in a minute).  Soda Lake has the perfect weeds for this, and of course you can't say we're going to the lake, and not have my husband throw in a fishing pole...

 So while the eight year old gathered his reeds, and my husband fished, I loaded the other two into the double stroller.

 (The baby was less than thrilled to be awakened from his nap in the carseat, only to be stuck in a stroller.  In fact, they were both asleep, but they settled into the ride soon enough.  They like going for rides in the stroller.)

 I decided while the guys were busy, that I would walk all the way around the lake.

 It twists and curves so that you really can't get the whole lake into one picture.

 It's not our most scenic lake, as there are no trees around it at all (well I guess there are a couple, right near where we parked, but nothing that is big enough to produce useful shade.  Thankfully it was breezy and a very nice temperature).  I say it's not scenic, but it does have a beautiful mountain view.

It has a beautiful view of Fremont Peak.

 Anyway, I made it all the way around in an hour and twenty minutes.  We measured it afterward.  It's exactly 4 miles.  And it's all hills and sandy roads, which made it a challenge with the stroller.  Oh, and then there were the two cattle guards I had to cross.  I had to pull the stroller backwards over them, and in the process, dropped my phone into the bottom of the first one, but didn't realize it until I had gone half a mile.  We picked it up when we went to measure the distance with the Excursion.

 We're still having beautiful sunsets and sunrises.  This was Monday night, after a big rain storm earlier in the day.

 So peaceful!  I actually took this walk all by myself!  (Don't laugh.  That rarely happens :)  No, wait.  This walk was with my three year old.  Tuesday night I got to walk by myself because I went to an emergency preparedness talk at the library.  Every day, I also walk with the daycare kids in the six-seated stroller. 

 I've been doing a lot of reading lately.  This was a fun book.  More pictures than anything.  It's about a group of women who restore old campers and have get-togethers all across the country.

 I loved the pictures.  And some of the recipes looked tasty too, but I forgot to copy them down before returning the book.  Guess I'll just have to borrow it again ... hmm... or I could use that as an excuse for needing to go to the library alone again ;)

 I just finished this one as well.  Vanquishing the Void by David Harper is the sequel to his life story, which started with Wager the Wild Land - which I read right before this.  This is the paraplegic man who lives in town and occasionally teaches up at Red Cliff Bible Camp.  He'll be teaching there later this month at Science Camp, which my eight year old will be attending.

 Then I picked up this Vegan Cookies cookbook, thinking I could adapt the recipes for the baby.  Remember, he is allergic to eggs, dairy, wheat and nuts.  Our oldest son is a vegan, so I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and send him a care package since he's currently deployed.  I gotta tell you there are a lot of odd ingredients in this type of cookbook, and the only recipe that I thought I could do without a trip to the store was the one for Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.  Sounds good though, right?

 Looked good too.  Problem was, I didn't have flax seed.  So I figured no big deal.  The substitutions section said just to use starch - about half as much as the flax seed called for in the recipe.  Apparently they didn't mean corn starch.  Hmm.  Still learning.

 (Not sure you can read this. Maybe by clicking on the picture, it will get bigger.)  Problem number two was that the baby can't have wheat flour.  No problem.  I had some tapioca flour.  The package said it was a good substitute for baking purposes because it crisps up nicely.  Good.  I'll use that.  It had the consistency of corn starch though, so I wasn't sure how that would translate considering the flour in the recipe was supposed to be sifted.

 The recipe told me to drop spoonfuls of dough on the parchment paper lined tray (which again I didn't have, so I used waxed paper).  It said the cookies needed to be pressed down in the middle because they don't spread....

 Um... yeah....   Mine spread.  And they wouldn't come off the waxed paper.  And they don't hold together.  So the baby will get granola basically, and the 21 year old will go without.  Sorry!  I tried :P

 Anyway, now my dining room has been taken over by weeds and string, and one very determined eight year old.

 If we're lucky, he'll end up with something close to this... and ancient Egyptian reed boat.  But I'd say we're a good 3 hours or more away from that :/  And we have our first session of SPARKS and AWANAs tonight.  We decided to try to make that really fly this year.  Our only other helper has decided she won't have time, so for awhile it was just the two of us.  Thankfully we have another volunteer now, so we should be able to manage.  My husband and I got the crazy idea to start running the bus to pick up and drop off kids for AWANA clubs, and then we thought we might be able to get them to come to Sunday School too.  and then we figured if they were going to come to Sunday School, we ought to start a children's church for them too.  So yeah.  We're doing all of that now.  I think it will be a lot of fun though... until one of us has to miss a service...  Not thinking about that yet....