Salt Lake Vacation and Father's Day Pie

Hello again Blog World.

I have let myself get off the "sharing my life adventures" train for a few weeks. I just got busy with preparing for the wonderfully huge scout camp that I helped with. I will devote another blog entry to that camp experience, but for now, I need to update you on a few things that I've done the past few months.

At the end of May, my husband and I went to Salt Lake City to visit his sister and brother-in-law and for us to see the 25th anniversary tour of Les Mis.

My first time seeing the professional show! Definitely awesome. (Only downside, they should have kept the revolve for this tour. A few moments were less awesome because I was expecting the revolving stage.)

First time going to a session in the Salt Lake City Temple. Really cool to be in such a historical building. It rained a lot during our trip to Salt Lake City, but we still had fun.

One of the fun things to do on rainy days is to do scientific experimentation with Oreos. We compared the US double stuffed version to the Canadian double stuffed version. I now have a preferred kind.

We ate at awesome restaurants, one of which was Cafe Rio. We loved it so much that Byron and I, upon returning home to Canada, both researched the possibility of opening one where we live. But alas, they are not a franchised company. I guess that's better for us as I don't think I really want to own a restaurant right now. But whenever they expand to Canada, we are going to eat there a lot! (For more details on our trip to Salt Lake City visit The Harkers blog.)

I have always found it hard to think of good gifts for things like Father's Day and even birthdays and Christmas. When thinking about a Father's Day gift, it came to me that Byron really likes my apple pie. (And so do I.) So I thought I would show you the pretty pie that I made on Sunday morning while he was at his really early meeting.

I get my recipe from Better Homes and Garden New Cook Book 12th edition. I like a strong spice flavor to my pie, so I add more cinnamon and nutmeg, and I add a little bit of cloves.

The trick that keeps the pie looking beautiful is that I cook the pie with tin foil around the whole pie except for a little circle in the middle for 40 minutes, then cook it without the tin foil for the last 20 minutes. This is one of the recipes that I feel I pull off really well.


Before heading off to our great big scout camp, (stay tuned for future blog on this), My sister in law, Laura, offered to make us dinner. Laura is a great cook. She likes to explore lots of new recipes and the one she brought for our meal was magnificent. She shares it on her blog, Laura Thoughts. She made the corn spaghettini and we had this delicious cheesy bread and even cheese cake for dessert as it was my husband and I's 5th anniversary.

I would like to become a better cook and try more new recipes, but I find that I just don't like making a lot of dishes. I think I need to make an arrangement where I can do all the cooking if someone else does all the dishes.