Yummy Summer Recipe

I have a new favorite summer meal that you need to try! Josh and I have been going nuts over it. (That's not a great picture of it, but it's so good!) It's called "Santa Fe Chicken Salad Wraps", found on the Two Peas and a Pot cooking blog.

It was also my first time making homemade tortillas, which were super yummy.

Bryn Bryn

I missed this cute girl the four days I was at camp! It's so fun to be back home with my little buddy.

I love this little girl, and I swear she seems even older and even cuter than she was before I left!

And I'm glad to be home with Josh, too. But he wasn't as eager to pose for welcome home snapshots as Bryn was :)

Girls Camp!

I spent last week at Girls Camp with the young women of my ward and stake, and it was such a blast! Above are the girls and leaders that were at camp from our Huntington Beach 4th ward.

Singing camp songs at the fire pit

I totally made a fool of myself with the girls, but one of my very favorite parts of camp was the impromptu dance one night. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time! Oh goodness.

One of the days they did lots of fun unity games

The ropes course was a hit! Here's Alex coming down.

Suzy going across the "tight-rope"

And Taylor climbing up to the ropes course.

Sage, Suzy, and other girls painting blocks for a humanitarian aid project

Megan (left) is my awesome counselor who is over girls camp. And Kelli (right) is our wonderful ward camp director. I had so much fun with these ladies!

Our ward girls and leaders were split up into different cabins the whole week, but it was fun to be together at certain events.

Each cabin was a different country and I was one of the leaders in the Greece cabin. I didn't know any of the cute girls in my cabin before, so it was fun getting to know them!

It was the 6th year Kelsey and Elizabeth have been to camp, so this was their final year of girls camp. They had leadership roles this time and they were awesome!

The camp we stayed at prepared all the meals for us, but the menu was strictly vegetarian. By the end of the week we were all craving MEAT, so we stopped at In-n-Out on the way home.

What a fun week! I hope I serve in the Young Women program long enough to go to girls camp again and again.

**BIG, BIG THANKS to my sweet friends who watched Bryn this week while I was away. I have the greatest friends! Thank you!!!

Swimming

Bryn LOVED swim lessons this year! This summer she did three weeks of private lessons from my friend's awesome swim school. Maddy was her teacher and she was wonderful! Bryn's been asking all morning when she can go to swim lessons, so she's going to be pretty sad when I break the news to her that we're done for now. It was so fun!

Fun

We had a fun date night (with Bryn) at the Great Park in Irvine last night. We ate a picnic dinner, played at the park, rode the big helium balloon, and went around the carousel again and again. Bryn was in absolute heaven, and it was fun to see her so excited about the big balloon. And did I mention everything at the Great Park is free? We like free fun.

Dance Time

Bryn's got a new hero: Molly, the ballerina extraordinaire.

What is better than watching three cute kids dance themselves silly?

Artsy

Bryn was in such a creative mood today. She painted and colored all day long. We spent hours at it, and it was so cute watching her work. She thinks of what she wants to paint, I draw it, she goes at it with her paints or crayons, then she gives me the next object to draw. My drawings are embarrassing, but I love her little paintings!

Sometimes she requests simple drawings like animals or letters/numbers, but a lot of the time she has me draw really random things that crack me up. For example: "Mom and Dad and Bryn peeking out a window at Grandma's house!", "A rooster wearing glasses and eating cereal for breakfast!", or "A mean man, yawning and stretching!". Then she excitedly covers the drawings in color.

I hope this artsy phase lasts a loooong time. I love it!

YW

There have been lots of fun Young Women things keeping me busy lately. Two of our girls are graduating this week and moving to Utah for college, so we had a farewell lunch at my apartment. And then below are a few pictures from a joint Young Men/Young Women cook-off, which was really fun. I love these girls!

Yum.

I think I'm probably the last person to find out about the food blog Our Best Bites. It is awesome! I've tried lots of their recipes the last few weeks and they've all been great. Here are a few we've loved....

Taco Chicken

Yum. This recipe is a big step up from my old recipe for chicken tacos. I also use this chicken for a southwest past salad and it's delish!

Fauxtisserie Chicken

This is really easy, flavorful, and moist. I served it with roasted red potatoes and vegetables, and then made the leftover chicken, potatoes, and vegetables into a pot pie the next night. Super yummy.

Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos

My friend Jen introduced me to this recipe and it's amazing. We serve the taquitos with black beans and Trader Joe guacamole.

Mango Quinoa Salad (adapted from the Biggest Loser)

I didn't like this one as much when I served it, but I really loved it the next day. Maybe the flavors just had to mesh together or something? It's really fresh and light.

Coloring

Bryn's been on such a coloring kick lately, and I absolutely love it. It keeps her attention for so long, and I love seeing her hard at work.

Lately she's been doing this new style of coloring, where she colors each object with patches of different colors. And then she says "Look!!! It's a RAINBOW monkey!"...or whatever the object is. And she always tells herself "Wow!!! I'm so proud of you, Bryn!!! Mom is going to LOVE it!" It's pretty cute.

Different day. Same coloring technique.....and same pants.

Beach Day

We had a fun morning at the beach with friends. Our weekly "Storytime" has now changed to "Beach Day" for the summer. So fun!

I've got to take advantage of these final beach days before school gets out and the summer vacationers swarm the coast.