Alabama Kayaking

M gathered treasures from the river.  One of our first kayak experiences 8 years ago was a river clean up with the county naturalist.

We went kayaking for the first time in Alabama and the first time in about a year.

Last year at this time we were so busy preparing the house for sale and showing it that we didn't go kayaking.

This river flows to the Tennessee river.  We thought there would be current but there wasn't much of one.

The weather was cool and sunny.  Perfect weather to wrangle everyone out on the water. 
 

Holy Week good

 

G and I got to attend a session today.  He had to ask over and over for the ASL video.  The temple worker kept whispering that there was captioning for the video.  I’m proud of G’s persistence.  I was so tempted to get up and mama bear, but he prevailed.

Singing Time Leader

 Around Halloween our Primary President asked me to cover singing time.  The Leader had had a baby and would be out for a couple of months.  When the leader moved at the end of the year I was called.  Once I had the official calling I got serious about cultivating a culture of movement and engaged singing times.  I joined the Sharla Dance facebook group.  I bought the book "To teach a child a song"  After deep diving on the methods I got 10 months planned out go teach all program songs using techniques that appeal to different intelligence.  She has the techniques spelled out in the book and the facebook group (started by fans of her methods) has great discussions and ideas.  It is a joy to prepare the materials.  Melody map, bell charts, patterns to beat sticks with a song, that we use just one Sunday.  Knowing I am just using it one week, I am able to plan exactly that much effort.  Sometimes it does take an hour to make a melody map or a couple of hours to make a bell chart.  It's fun though.  And the children are so engaged. 

Pride and Prejudice

 Our book club read a Jane Austin book, "Persuasion", my first.  I read the wiki summary so I could know what was happening before I began.  Afterward I watched 3 film adaptations.  It was fascinating.

I decided to finally read "Pride and Prejudice" and watched the Kiera Knightly version.  The BBC version had old feelings for me.  I'd first seen it as a Jr. high kid tagging along with my older sisters at their friends house.  Being 13, it seemed really long and confusing.  Over the subsequent 30 years I never did watch the whole thing contiguously.  Even after I had borrowed it from the library, it sat unwatched for a long time.  I watched it this week and really enjoyed it.  

Everyone was so young!  In previous exposures to the film I was 12, or college age.  But now, as I'm the age of the parents in the film it is so amusing.  Now, married for 24 years I watch things differently.  I see the contrast in the actors expressions.  I see the awe and joy when they marry.  It really is a masterpiece.

light and the love of God

 Today I bore my testimony to the primary about light and rainbows.  The rain does not make the colors.  The full spectrum of colors is always there.  Under special circumstances, we are able to see them.

The love of God is that way.  It is always there but sometimes we are able to see it.

Beautiful visit

 

caramels

 lP wanted me to make caramels.  The first batch was cooked at too high a temperature and wound up as toffee.  I used some of the toffee to make cookies.  I'll keep it in the cabinet to grind up for future cookie batches.

The batch I made today turned out great.  I made a half batch and cooked it at low temperature.  Half a batch is still tons of caramels.

7 oz. sweetened condensed milk (measured by dividing the can into two 1 cup jars)
1/2 c. light brown sugar because I was out of white sugar which it should have been half of.
1/8 c. corn syrup
1/4 c. salted butter
1/8 t coarse salt (I used pretzel salt because I had it)    
     cook for 25 minutes at med-low with it boiling for the last 10 minutes and becoming the color of caramel.

1/2 t. vanilla added and whipped in right before pouring it out onto parchment paper in an iron skillet.  The point of the iron skillet is to help the caramel cool slowly.  If you have a slab of marble, that would be the best thing to use.

They turned out so great.  I'd be willing to do this again some time.  We wrapped some up to take on the road, and set some aside to give to grandma L. 

Spring!

Phillip pruned the peach tree and I got the branches to bloom.

Bradford Pear Trees are everywhere and it is so lovely.

This is the first blossom to open on our peach tree.

These daffodils have been giving us joy for a few weeks.

Bluebells!

Dandylions.  So awesome.  I grew up with spring, and had spring in Utah.  I kind of forgot how awesome it could be.  In Florida we had azaleas and lots of pollen.  I'm loving the flowering trees.