Certified Thanksgiving Fried Turkey Cook

Over the last several years, I’ve been an apprentice fry cook specializing in turkeys. Gary has patiently schooled me in his ways and taught me the complex craft. Now that he has moved back to Alaska permanently, it was my turn to carefully measure oil levels using the biggest bird displacement method, calculate cook times, and wield the thermometer.

Since my family was celebrating Thanksgiving on Wednesday night, I arrived early to setup my frying station. It was time to drop in the lucky bird. (And when I say “drop in” I mean “lower very carefully and slowly to avoid being on one of those fried turkey explosion videos on YouTube” kind of drop in.)

I ended up frying four turkeys that evening, and they all turned out great.

We enjoyed hanging out with all the extended family that night and enjoying a delicious meal together and playing games.

On Thanksgiving Day, we didn’t have any plans at all which was really nice. We went to the neighborhood “Turkey Bowl” and played some football. Drew left, complaining that the big boys wouldn’t ever give him the ball (totally true, Jake use to make the same complaint). Then the weather turned and the storm started.

Once again my training came in handy. I setup a shelter out back and prepared to fry our family dinner Thanksgiving turkey no matter what the elements threw at us.

We decided to try something new with our turkey, so after thoroughly drying and preparing our turkey, we pierced it with toothpicks, and then injected melted butter deep into the meat with a syringe. It turned out delicious. The butter really added to the flavor and consistency of the turkey.

We then sat down and enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving meal together. We missed having Jake with us, and by the time he is back I will be looking to tutor an apprentice of my own.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Katelyn’s 15th Birthday

Katelyn is 15 years old!

One of the first things she wanted to do was to go get her learners permit so she could start driving.

Since it was Monday, she even got a birthday video message from Jake in El Salvador, which was a fun highlight.

Since she was already out of school, Katelyn also did little shopping with her Mom for some new dresses.

We all went to dinner as a family to Texas Roadhouse and ate way too much.

While we were there we asked Katelyn some questions. This offers a little glimpse into Katelyn’s life and fun personality at the ripe old age of 15:

Favorites:

  • Cereal: captain crunch with crunch berries
  • Homemade dinner: tri-tip or Hawaiian haystacks
  • Restaurant: Cafe Rio
  • After school activity: naps
  • Sport: basketball
  • Friend: Sophie and Halle
  • School subject: English

Finish the sentence:

  • I wish… I could get my own car. 
  • I really like to wear… Vans
  • I would describe myself as… basic. 
  • When I grow up… I want to be a dog rescuer. 
  • I love it when… there’s lots of snow
  • My favorite memory is… when we got Finn.
  • I really look up to… Grandpa Mike.
  • The best thing about me is… my ability to talk to people.
  • I want to practice… ping pong.
  • I want the world to know… who I am. 
  • My biggest thing I want to accomplish at age 15 is… to drive smooth as silk. 

Drew’s Arrow of Light

Drew received his Arrow of Light award.

As part of the ceremony, Manina got to come up and paint some symbolic markings on Drew’s face.

Drew has always been excited about scouting. Probably a lot of that comes from having an older brother who set a good example. So Drew has now completed the highest award available in Cub Scouts.

Even though Drew’s birthday isn’t until January, they still had him “cross-over” from Cub Scouts since he’s done with everything.

We talked a little about what he wants to do with Boy Scouts, but unfortunately Drew will be among the first boys to not have the full support of the church when he becomes old enough to join. No matter what happens with Drew’s future in scouting, we’re sure proud of our young man and excited to see the wonderful things he’ll do in his life.

Fall Break Encinitas Getaway

We made the most out of our fall break, driving to sunny Southern California for a few days.

We had to be out of our house for a couple days while we got our floors fixed, and Manina found us a nice little AirBnB in Encinitas for us to stay at. So, we left Finley with Claire’s friend Allie and hit the road.

Once we got to California we spent most of our time at the beach.

Specifically, we went to Del Mar beach, right between 18th and 19th streets. We went there every day we were down there. The weather was perfect. One day we were laying around on our beach towels and Megan mentioned how blue the sky was. Then we noticed that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Not a wisp, nothing. Nothing but blue as far as the eye could see.

We met up with our good friends, the Denneys, a couple times. It was fun to hang out with them and meet their newest additions (twins!).

We also found some time to shop around and eat lots of good food. Claire and Drew found an awesome little candy store and pretty much emptied their piggy banks and college savings there.

Katelyn, Megan, and I went out to an aptly-named dessert bar called Creme & Sugar and got ourselves a Cookie Monster dessert.

We spent our last evening hanging out with the entire Denney crew and went to watch the sun set into the Pacific.

Afterward we took the entire crew out to dinner to celebrate a fun fall break away.

The Denneys let us crash at their home on Saturday night and we hit the road early on Sunday to drive back home. We had a great trip and enjoyed being down in sunny Encinitas for a few days. What a great place!

Couple Orderville Trip

Ever since doing Orderville a few years ago, I have been itching to go back. Manina mentioned it has been a while since we’ve done a couples trip with friends, so we combined those ideas and started making arrangements.

I reserved a Zion NP backcountry permit for six and booked a shuttle to the trailhead from Zion Adventure Company.

We found some neighbors to join us: Mike and Penny Bergeron, and KC and Hannah Stayner. The girls were a little nervous, having never done these kinds of adventures. Penny’s greatest outdoor achievement has been hiking the Y.

We drove down on Thursday and stayed the night at the Stayner’s place. We got up early on Friday and headed into the park.

We got the backcountry permit and then walked back into Springdale to Zion Adventure Company where we had booked a shuttle.

The shuttle dropped us off at 10:30am and we started hiking down the road.

That part of the hike is a little boring. But soon we started hiking down into the canyon.

It just kept getting prettier with each mile. Towering walls with trees with changing colors.

We took lots of pictures.

At about mile 8 we started seeing a little water. Mostly just up to our ankles, but then it got a little more technical. We got to the obstacle known as the guillotine and had to repel into a pool of water.

I told everyone that was the hardest obstacle we would face and it was a lot easier from there. I was wrong.

The next several obstacles were tougher than the last time I was there. The water was higher. The logs and boulders for footholds were missing, so we got much wetter than I’d expected. I had told everyone that we would probably only get wet up to our waists. Which we did, but plenty of times.

I think some people were understandably a little bit upset when we had to swim through a couple pools. The water was very cold — 54°F.

We didn’t see any other hikers the entire time we were in Orderville canyon. It was a little unnerving, but we enjoyed the solitude and having the place all to ourselves.

Eventually, we made it out of Orderville canyon and into the Narrows. The Virgin river was flowing higher than I’ve ever seen it before.

Now we knew the reason we hadn’t encountered anyone walking upstream — it would have been near impossible with that amount of water. We encountered our first other people at 6:32pm.

We finally made it to the Temple of Sinawava at about 7:30pm and we were all pretty cooked.

I recorded our hike on GPS, which is clearly not very accurate due to bouncing all over the place due to the slots, but it gives a good idea of the timing and general route.

It was an amazing trip.

Labor Day hike: Fehr Lake Trail

We’ve done a hike on Labor Day for the last couple years. This year we found another new trailhead in the Uintas and set out to explore it.

After a little bit of research we settled on the Fehr lake trailhead for a couple reasons. It was pretty easy, short, and there were three good-sized lakes along the route.

We took our time getting to the trailhead. First, we stopped in Park City to do some shopping and eat lunch. We were in no particular hurry. We wanted all of the Labor Day campers to pack up and head home before we headed up there.

We got to the trailhead just before 3pm and started our hike.

The weather was great and the trail wasn’t too crowded. Our strategy of hiking a bit later in the day after the great camper exodus worked out nicely.

We did some fishing in each of the three lakes we came to. Fehr Lake, Shepherd Lake, and then Hoover Lake. We did see a fish jump, but that was the only fish we saw.

Our fishing was so poor that Drew got all excited about reeling in a branch that had some old line and a bonus lure. So, a least it wasn’t a total loss.

We took our sweet time at each stop, and eventually headed home. We were in no particular hurry, and poor Ellie wasn’t feeling very good. She powered through and did great.

We got back to the parking lot at 6pm and made the drive back home. It was nice to get another successful Labor Day hike in the books.

 

Young Women President

Manina is now the young women president in our ward.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the day-to-day operation of our church, let me explain. A ward is a congregation, usually about 400 people and it’s usually geographically bound. Here in Highland, it’s basically our neighborhood. Most members of our ward have a job to do to help the ward function. We call this our calling. These callings can change, and some are more work than others, but they’re all voluntary positions. Callings are not status symbols, but some are so much work that they kind of define life for a period of time. One of the “big” callings I’ve written about before was my job in the young men’s organization, where I was a counselor and scoutmaster in the young men organization.

Manina is pretty nervous about her new responsibilities, but she’s gathered a pretty good crew to help. This team will wrangle each of the classes which divvy up all the 12-18 year-old young women.

As president, Manina will help the Laurels (16-18). That’s great because she’ll get to do all the activities with Megan and her friends, which Megan is super excited about (insert giant teenage eyeroll here). Manina has asked Lacey Casper to help out as an advisor.

The Mia Maid class (14-15) has some fun leaders with Andrea Johnson (no relation) as first counselor and a yet-to-be-named advisor.

The Beehive class (12-13) got Heather Jensen as second counselor and Jessi Herbst took Manina’s old spot as advisor.

Manina’s good friend Penny Bergeron is the secretary which will be nice because she has been in the YW organization for a while and can help out with any class and she also knows all the girls pretty well.

Manina will do a great job, but this will take up a lot of time for the next couple years. She’ll have a great opportunity to strengthen her leadership skills and also learn more about how the ward functions. She’ll be in a lot of ward council meetings representing all of the young women and making sure every one of them is doing well. Good luck Manina!