Our Fall Break 2014: The Highlights

 Our Fall Break this year was a little bit of this and a little bit of that...nothing super new or revelatory (with one exception that I'll get to shortly). We managed to stay busy, and I managed to keep the kids mostly amused throughout their break from school. Here are some of the highlights.

This year, General Conference weekend kicked off our Fall Break. For my non-Mormon friends, General Conference is the twice-yearly broadcast from Salt Lake City, in which the leaders of our church deliver several talks on a variety of spiritual topics. In years past, we would have friends over to watch some of the conference sessions on our television. We'd cook a big breakfast for everyone, we'd have activities for the kids...a good time would be had by all. As our kids are growing older, we are more often watching General Conference with only our family, so as to minimize distractions and increase reverence. Hopefully, our girls will gradually come to understand that each General Conference is not a chore to be endured, but an opportunity to hear the words of living prophets and receive inspired counsel for our own lives.

We often have a hard time catching all the Saturday sessions, since other activities are happening at the same time...like our twice-yearly community-wide yard sale! Before the General Conference session started, I was able to sneak out and buy a few early Christmas presents for the girls (including clothes, toys, a few old Wii games, and even a nice kids' bike for Aurora!). After that, I returned home for the remainder of the broadcasts...and for a yummy breakfast casserole Nathan had made.

It was my turn to cook on Sunday morning, when Nathan took Lorelai to our meetinghouse. We've decided that as each of our daughters turns eight years old, they will go to the church building with Nathan to watch the Sunday morning broadcast, dressed in their Sunday best. Hopefully that will be a good reminder for them that General Conference is still a "church" meeting, even if it is broadcast from far away. Having two fewer people in the house makes for a slightly more mellow viewing experience; I was able to make cinnamon rolls for everyone...

...and practice my "girl" skills by braiding Celeste & Aurora's hair.

 

The braiding forced Celeste & Aurora to hold still and listen while the president of the church, Thomas S. Monson, was speaking. Hmmm...perhaps this will be a tactic I always use in the future! The braids turned out okay, too.

All in all, it was a wonderful General Conference weekend. Maybe it's because my kids are getting more manageable, but I was able to listen to and appreciate way more of the talks than usual. It gave me a much-needed spiritual boost.

Much of the rest of our week involved shopping for one thing or another. This year, I'd sworn I wouldn't buy the girl's Halloween costumes; instead, I'd make them myself. So of course, all of them decided they wanted to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle characters. Yeesh. This meant a lot of running from store to store, buying up little bits & pieces of what would eventually become their homemade ninja costumes. On one hand, I got to visit Hobby Lobby for the first time...yay! On the other, I probably ended up spending about as much money on costume-making supplies as I did on buying pre-made costumes last year. Sigh. Oh well; at least I'd have a fun project for the next few weeks! I'll talk more about the costumes in a later post.

The girls and I also had a few more mundane errands; we bought some new clothes and shoes; we took a trip to CostCo, the bank and the tire store, and other such exciting stuff. We fed the missionaries dinner one night, and we took Lorelai for her yearly physical. Oh, what fun! I did manage to take the girls to Pump It Up, the inflatable jumping castle party place, but it wasn't the best experience. The kids all tired out quickly, and a couple of their friends who'd come along got hurt bumping into some other kids. Sadly, it seemed the kids were the most excited about staying home and watching television. I hope I am not raising a bunch of TV addicts!

Oh yeah, I also taught a few piano lessons throughout the week, and I finally got my salsa canned for the year!

This year, we didn't have time to go to Apple Annie's to get fresh-picked tomatoes & peppers; I had to buy them from the grocery store. The salsa turned out fine, but I suspect it won't have the strong, distinctive flavor that my salsa has when we use the fresh-picked ingredients. Hopefully next year we can make it a priority to go to Apple Annie's; it was a trip we all missed taking this year! But at least now I have something to put on top of my tortilla chips & burritos for the next several months. If anyone is interested in trying out my salsa recipe, you can find it here.

Despite its modest beginning, Fall Break ended with a bang on Friday October 10th! To start things off, we met up with Nathan downtown, where he got off early from work. Then we all went together to get lunch at Tucson Meet Yourself, the cultural festival that takes place downtown every fall.

We have been to Tucson Meet Yourself for three years running now, and it is always lots of fun! We love to try out the obscure cuisine that is scattered throughout the festival. This year, we tried some Iranian chicken skewers & rice as a warm-up dish.

 

We did have a few "repeat purchases" of last year; the girls were obsessed with the steamed Chinese buns stuffed with barbecue pork, so they each had two of those...

Nathan and I tried to get a little more adventurous with our meals; I had a Bosnian gyro-style sausage sandwich...

 

...while Nathan went to the Filipino booth and got a huge (and cheap!) plate of rice & meat; it was seriously delicious!

Then, since the day was hot, we decided to buy a couple of aguas frescas on the way back to the car, to wash it all down.

We bought a watermelon drink and a mango drink. Both were incredibly fresh-tasting and delicious. It was the perfect way to cap off our meal!

After this came the most exciting, daring (for us) part of our Fall Break; we were going camping! By ourselves! We'd already been camping once this year (at Lake Patagonia); we'd also gone up to socialize during the ward camp-out, but chickened out and went home early. At that time, we'd promised the girls that yes, we would do one more overnight camp-out sometime this year. Now it was time to make good on that promise, in whatever way we could.

Before going to Tucson Meet Yourself, I'd spent the whole morning (and much of the evening before) packing up our stuff and getting the car loaded. Nathan had bought a bunch of yummy meat from a local Hispanic food store, and some nice friends lent us a camp stove. Our initial plan was to drive up Madera Canyon and get into one of the limited campsites there. No such luck! Every site was filled once we reached the campground. The girls (and myself) were discouraged, but Nathan had an idea; we would go find a campsite somewhere else nearby.

Several years ago, Nathan had camped with a friend in Gardner Canyon, a location on the east side of the Santa Rita Mountains. Getting there required another hour of driving, much of it on an unpaved dirt road. It was very loud, dusty and bumpy, and at one point, I ran over a six-foot rattlesnake that was stretched clear across the road. It was quite the adventure. The kids were skeptical, but Nathan appeared to know where we were going.

In the end, we didn't drive too far up the canyon. We found an empty campground and gratefully nabbed it. However, this was the most primitive campsite our family had ever used before! There was no water (thankfully we brought a lot of water with us), no picnic table, and no restrooms! Nathan was okay with this (of course), but the girls were mortified. They would have to pee where?!?!

Behold! The pee tree

It was pretty difficult to convince all the girls to use the "pee tree" at first, but eventually they all managed it. It is probably the thing they will remember the most about camping here. They didn't enjoy it much, but I suspect it will make a good story to tell their friends about in the future.

Despite the lack of amenities, it was a quiet, peaceful campground. We got the tent up without too much trouble, and the girls and I took a short walk along the dry riverbed located a short distance from our campsite.

One minus to finding a campsite "on the fly" the way we did is that we didn't have time to investigate for any nearby hiking trails. We were only able to do this short walk, and that was pretty much it! Hopefully next time we go as a family, we'll be a little better prepared for what awaits us. But the girls and I did get to see a deer dart along our path (it ran away quickly, because we were being too noisy, of course). And I found this random knife that some hunter probably left behind long ago:

At least our dinner was fantastic! Nathan grilled the marinated carne asada, and we ate it with tortillas, pico de gallo, and homemade spiced refried beans. So delicious! We all ate until we were filled.

 

 

 

And I even managed to cook some apple crisp in our campfire; it also turned out very nicely!

After putting the kids to bed, Nathan and I sat by our fire's dying embers and talked with each other for a while, admiring the stars. Unfortunately, much of our conversation turned towards both of us feeling lonely and isolated these days. Some of those feelings come from friends moving away, or from us drifting apart from our other friends for one reason or another. The huge influx of new members of our LDS ward has left us feeling a little out of touch and "old." Another cause for our feelings of isolation is likely our growing family; raising our kids has sucked away much of our free time and we don't socialize as much as we used to. Both Nathan and I are in a "transitional" phase of our lives, when we are re-orienting ourselves and filling new roles we don't always feel comfortable with yet.

Our feelings that night were probably exacerbated by our quiet, isolated location (even though another family eventually set up camp at the adjoining campground). There's nothing like sitting out under a deep, black, starry sky to make one feel somewhat insignificant. However, despite our somewhat downer conversation, I found it a peaceful, spiritually calming experience. I love looking at the stars, and I realized that before that trip, I hadn't done it for quite a while! In retrospect, it was probably nice for our family to have a little "alone time," since Nathan's dad would pass away in less than a week's time and our family's schedule would be turned upside down for the rest of the month.

After crawling into the tent, we had a (mostly) warm night of sleep. For some reason, Lorelai had to get up and "visit the pee tree" several times, poor thing...she is usually very good at sleeping through the night! However, we all survived and made it to the morning, where another warm fire and delicious meal awaited us!

 

Nathan was really great at doing all the cooking on this camping trip. He is not often an enthusiastic camper, but he was a great help this time around and he seemed to really enjoy his role as cook and tent-pitcher.

We didn't stay too long the following morning, since there wasn't a whole lot to do at the campsite, but the girls and I did go take a short walk along the nearby road:

Our clean-up didn't take too long, and before long we were on our way home. Even though we got home by mid-morning, we crashed hard and stayedat home for the majority of that Saturday. Yes, we are wimps when it comes to camping! However, we still felt pretty proud of ourselves. This was the first time our family had camped completely on our own, without another family to "bail us out" when we encountered a setback. We survived, ate well, and had a pretty good time together. Even though it wasn't the longest camping trip, I still call it a win! It was a satisfying way to end our Fall Break.