Pleasant Valley Days

Pleasant Valley Days is held in Scofield every summer, the weekend after the 4th of July.

Except, not last year because the whole area was on fire and had to be evacuated.

Lots of fun activities take place such as a treasure hunt, auction, dinner, breakfast, talent show, ducky derby, fireworks, and a dance.  Also, there are vendors that sell lots of junk from China.  

And the people watching.  oh the people watching...

Summer and Sierra out on the front porch playing some folk music.

I thought that they should go down to the park where are the people were, open up the guitar case and play.

Cole and Lillie

hangin' on the porch, singing to the music

Summer's big purchase.  We're not sure which kind of rodent this actually is...

(blurry, sorry)  These 2 characters put on the fundraiser auction every year.

They're actually pretty good considering the crowd they are working with.

It's pretty fun to watch the drunk people bid against themselves.  

And I might have purchased a 100 year old church pew from the old white church that was torn down last year.  

I've always wanted an antique church pew and now I have one with a bit of sentimental history.

It was pretty funny when Rick showed up and discovered what I bought, and then watched him carry it down the street.

Getting ready for the big Saturday morning breakfast...

Heating up the grills.  They had to make sure they grills were under the canopy since it had been raining on and off all weekend.  Sure enough.  Started raining right in the middle of breakfast.

Jerry Pitts.  He owns the cabin next door.  He's always the pancake man.

We were the "hired help".  Paid with leftover bacon and beans.

We were getting nervous.  7:10 and we were still not up and running...

7:15.  Ready to serve...

Bette and Kent.

We don't really know who Kent is other than he shows up every year and flips some mean pancakes.

He's a hoot.  We have a lot of fun.

Because the breakfast went a little long and we stayed in the kitchen to clean up, we missed most of the parade.  But I did poke my head out of the door long enough to catch a glimpse of Smokey.

This is Willie.  He comes from Sanpete County.  He's been coming to Pleasant Valley Days for as long as I can remember.  He's 92.  He's the least creepy clown you will ever meet.  

He pulls a little wagon and makes balloon creations for the kids.

Then, it was the talent show on Saturday evening.  

The girls auditioned on Friday by singing a cover of "Mr. Brightside" by the Killers.  

For the actual talent competition, they covered "Stubborn Love" by the Lumineers.

mic check...

Performing...Hard to see, but Summer has a drum in front of her that she is using a foot pedal to beat with the rhythm.

Summer

Sierra

And they won.  1st place.  $200 prize.

It was a lot of fun.

The guy that was the MC has been a fixture at Pleasant Valley Days for years.

He's from Price, graduated from USU and is now a producer for Fox13.

He competed against Summer a few years ago and lost.  eek.

But, he said after the competition Saturday night..."Even if you didn't want Summer to win, you would still cheer for her because she is so cute."

The judges told the girls that they should go to the American Idol tryouts this week in SLC. 

We thought that was quite a compliment, but the girls decided against it because Sierra isn't old enough and they want to keep performing together for a while.  (phew)

And it wouldn't be Scofield if a train didn't come right through town in the middle of the excitement.

(or the middle of the night)

(or both)

Dalton Family Reunion (Morgans + Robisons)

Family Reunion at Dolores's

June 23, 2013

 Halle & Sierra

Rick, Cole, Kelli, Nan, Summer, Sierra

Brandi, Jason, Halle, Nan, and Hunter

Nan

Entire Robison Clan

 Drama Queens

Max & Nan

 Brandi, Bryan, Kelli, Lanny

 Summer brought her guitar

 the girl cousins

 Grandma...oops I mean Dolores and Nan

The whole fam damily.

Pinterest at Capitol Reef

Well, I knew that we wanted to try out some dutch oven recipes while we were camping last week.

And I saw this awesome idea on Pinterest where you put the briquettes in egg cartons, 

light the egg cartons on fire,

and the briquettes begin burning nicely.

No fire starter, lighter fluid, etc needed.

Here is our picture perfect set-up.

...lighting the egg carton...

...fire burns nicely...

...and then goes out completely.

So, we decided that we needed to put the briquettes in the egg carton,

and CLOSE the egg carton (perhaps to contain the heat?)

...egg carton full of briquettes...

lighting the CLOSED egg carton...

...egg carton burning...

...still burning...

...egg carton burning...briquettes--not so much...

So, the next day when we attempted dutch oven madness again, we went to the next logical way to start a fire and keep it burning...

We turned it over the to pyromaniac 7 year old...

...taking his fire starting very seriously...

who needs egg cartons when dry grass and sticks burn so easily?

Dutch Oven Peanut Butter Bars

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup peanut butter (I used crunchy)

2 eggs

1 t. soda

1/2 t. salt

1 t. vanilla

2 cups flour

2 cups oats

Cream butters and sugars.  Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well.  Sift dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture.  Press into greased dutch oven.  Bake at 350 for 15 to 30 minutes or until golden.

For the frosting, melt 2 cups chocolate chips and 1 cup peanut butter together and spread over bars.  Serves 12-15.

I used about 24 briquettes, 15 on top and 9 on bottom on a 12 inch dutch oven (14 inch would work well) It took about 1 hour.  I sprinkled the chocolate chips on the bars, dropped spoonfuls of peanut butter (I used creamy here) randomly on top, and put the lid back on for 10 minutes.  Opened it up and swirled the chocolate chips and melted peanut butter around.  

**Recipe found on Pinterest from the Dutchoven Madness blog.

Family in Capitol Reef

Here's a sneak peak at the festivities in Capitol Reef last weekend at the first ever HFR.

 Cole and Lillie

 I had to include this picture as it is one of only 2 pictures in which I appear.

 Summer and Lillie

 Rick and I cooked dinner on the first night...cheese stake sandwiches

Sierra and Summer

 

This outing was full of pinterest experiments....s'mores in cones.  it was a hit.

Cole wasn't big on all of the dutch oven/pinterest experiments.  He opted for a grilled cheese.

It was a little hot for Hooee.  He liked to drink straight from the spout.

Cole and Little setting up the course for a game of croquet.

We hiked Sulphur Creek from Chimney Rock to the visitors center.

Afterwards to splurged with some pie from the Gifford House.

 Cole and Lillie

Playing some Yahtzee.

 Driving to Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.  or escalante for short.

 Stopped for a visit to the Anasazi State Park.

 Accidentally found a geocache.

 Group shot at the State Park.

the aunt and the nieces and nephew 

 Saturday Night in Loa.

My Uncle Don organized a roping jack-pot event and invited us to come.  like 4 times.

It was free, and we had no other plans, so here we are.  

There were actually other people in the stands, you just can't see the other 3 people.

Truthfully, it was a lot of fun.  Quite entertaining as you can see by Summer's attention to the arena.

Lots of this going on.

Now, we have her attention.

Here is my cousin, Tyler.  

He's pretty good.  He should be.  He's been doing this since he was old enough to get on a horse.

We hada lot of fun.  Got dirty.  Ate lots of good food.  Drank lots of water. (thanks to record breaking heat!).  played lots of card games/dice games.  Sat around and talked/chased the shade.  

Can't wait until the next time around...maybe we will remember to take a group picture...