Making Your Own Soda

My friend Emily told us about how you can make your own soda

in Soda Spring, Idaho.

So of course, we added that to our summer to-do list.

We decided to not venture up alone and invited

Spencer, Nicole and Rhett, who would soon be moving to

Mississippi and we couldn't have them do that without making their

own soda in Idaho, right?

 It's pretty cool, the water just comes up out of the ground already fizzy.

Then you add your own flavoring to it and enjoy!

It wasn't too bad, the after taste was a little odd.

Overall, it was decided that real soda is better.

Travis stuck his arm down as far as he could.

We couldn't drive all the way up to Soda Springs and 

not see the man-made geyser.

(It took us a while to find it, had to ask for directions,

ridiculous considering how tiny the town is.)

Then we went to the other spring, 

aaaand played on the teeter-totters at the park there.

We looped around the bear lake way and tried to find a beach

to walk on but they were all closed and stuff.

So this is as close as we got.

Still, what a great adventure. :)

The Week of Bean Burgers

Travis and I don't buy meat during the summer. 

(Besides lunch meat.)

But you know how it goes, no one is more

obsessed with meat than vegetarians.

They try to make everything they eat look and taste like meat.

Travis is pretty good at making up recipes,

and he'd made bean burgers before, he just wanted to find

the right recipe--the one that has the best

taste and texture.

So, we had a week of bean burgers.  

A different one every night.

It's a good thing we both enjoy them.

So, we've come to the conclusion that onions help with the flavor,

(especially if you carmalize them, but it's not really worth the time and effort)

oatmeal gives it a better texture than bread crumbs,

and I think we both liked the black beans

more than the pinto beans.

(And yes, I am a food photographer on the side. :)

Celebrate Independence

Independence day is basically bigger than Christmas with the Stradley family.

I love everything about it.

This year was slightly different for Stacey, being married and all.

Instead of spending the 3rd with family, we went to the Logan

fireworks. The entertainment was an ABBA cover band

and they were pretty amazing.

The morning of the 4th was our usual breakfast and water fight.

That's my favorite part.

Travis had fun with the kids in the kiddie pool.

The night of the 4th we have a BBQ and head to the park

for some fireworks.

 Dallas Loved the Grass.

Nicole Loved the Muddy Buddies. :)

Softball

 Stacey joined a women's league softball team.

I've only played softball once in my life...freshman year of college.

My boss' team needed more players,

so I figured, sure, free shirt, get to play an organized sport,

why not?

We're terrible. 

Little league team.

Seriously.

Also, they apparently have a rule that after one team gets to like,

20 points while the other hasn't scored at all, 

it's game over.

That happened to us this week.

But it's still fun. :)

The One Hit Wonders

Cakes and Tractors

Travis and I have been developing new talents.

His mom had a great idea to send Colton (Travis' brother)

a birthday cake down in Texas where he's serving a mission.

So we volunteered to help.

We decided it would be best if we used

fondant...maybe it would make it in the mail if we did that.

Rule for fondant: if you don't know what you're

doing, ask a professional FIRST.

Now we know.

This was our practice attempt.

We could not get the red to look like red.

And don't even ask about the black.

Cute, right?

We tried again...this time using a whole tube

of red and black.

This is what we got.

I went to the craft store to look around.

While there I decided to do what I should've done

from the beginning. I called my Aunt Kim who

is awesome at decorating cakes.

She informed me that we should be using a paste.

Worked like a dream. 

 The finished product.

 Much better.

Still have plenty of practice, but not bad for our first 

and second time with fondant.

 We froze it and sent it in the mail and supposedly it made

it there in one piece.

We Reached the Light at the End of the Tunnel

 Be prepared for a lot of photos...sorry.

We did it.

We finally laid sod.

Sorry all I post about is our yard...it's consumed much of our summer.

Travis was so excited he didn't even

wait for me to take a before picture before 

he had laid the first piece down.

The sod man was kind enough to set the sod

all over the yard so we wouldn't have to walk as far.

However, this post isn't just about sod...

it's about a miracle.

Our stake had combined with another stake to have youth conference.  All the youth

got to wear those awesome yellow helping hands t-shirts and would spend

2 days out doing service projects in the community.

One of those planned projects happened to be putting up a fence in our neighbor's 

backyard. So, not 2 minutes after we'd started laying the sod 

(which is kind of fun by the way),

we had people over at our place asking if we needed help. They informed

us that they were running out of projects for the youth.

Who are we to turn down free help?

Sure enough two young men showed up with their leaders.  

These two young men happen to be in our ward, which was awesome.

They had half the lawn laid in no time!

I did help on the first half of the yard..but I wanted to document and they

just kept moving so fast!

The second half---I basically just took photos.

But at this point, we had an army of youth in yellow shirts...

Popsicle Break.

:)

See how much fun they're having?

It got a little crowded at the end.

What perfect timing, eh?

We were so grateful for all of their help!  

Our lawn was finished in just over an hour...

it would've taken us all afternoon.

We love our grass!!

We even had some sod left over that we had the youth take next door to 

lay down on our neighbor's lawn that has been struggling a bit. 

Worked out quite nicely.

The End.