We went adventuring!

On Saturday we decided to go on an adventure. We packed PB&J sandwiches and Chewys and headed off into the wild blue yonder. Our first adventure was to try and find the road that goes around the lake. . . Utah Lake. We started at the entrance and drove around the border taking every plausible turn and we couldn't find it! It was a grand adventure though. We saw lots of cows, some giant horses, and cool fields with corn, melons, sunflowers etc. We also found a cool picnic place on the beach that doesn't cost to go to. And while we were checking it out, we saw some kite surfers! It was quite entertaining to watch. After the kite surfers, we walked down the road a bit and found a pond/marsh with a kajillion birds flying through the air. We decided that our cool beach spot was a sufficient lake outing for the day and started off on our next adventure. We found the park by Walmart that we'd always wanted to check out. And it turned out to be an awesome park! It's called Nielson's Grove and was the perfect setting for a round of Skip-bo.

View from the windshield

The "Will It Blend" Factory!

It was stinking windy!

Devin's inner little boy came out. Notice I caught the rock in the picture!

Sweet and Sour Champion

Lately, since I've had a considerable amount of time on my hands, I have been trying out lots of new recipes. During this time, I've been craving some legit Chinese restaurant style sweet and sour chicken. I've looked at and tried a few recipes but none lived up to my expectations until last Tuesday. I've found the champion! Thanks to Jamie Wood in my outdated copy of the Green Valley 4th Ward Cookbook . . .

Sweet and Sour Chicken

2 eggs, beaten
1 c. flour
4 chicken breasts, cut up
1 green pepper
1 can pineapple chunks

Sauce:
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. vinegar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 c. pineapple juice
1 T. ketchup

Cover chicken with egg and flour and brown in pan. Add diced green pepper and can of pineapple when chicken is done. Simmer sauce until thick and then pour over chicken. Simmer 3 minutes.

We had this with Devin's Famous Fried Rice and it was a delicious cultural experience! The only thing it was missing was the red food coloring. ha ha Bon appetit!

Legit Sherman Family Picnic

Last weekend, Lyndee's parents were in town, so we had a legit family picnic and outing. We got the childhood memory tour around Spanish Fork, Payson, Salem, and Spring Lake, courtesy of my mom, and settled at Memorial Park for a picnic. Our trusty disposable BBQ grill ($7 dollars at Walmart) cooked our hot dogs to perfection and our new bocce set was the perfect picnic game. We even took a refreshing "dip" in the "pond". Couldn't have asked for a more perfect weekend with the fam.

1927

Do you know what happened in 1927? Well . . . drumroll . . . this tree was planted! It's a rare Weeping American Elm and its branches grow out instead of up!


Roni (short for Moroni) Wilford, a grounds keeper for the city, was given the tree during a trip to the nursery and decided to plant it next to the Utah County Courthouse. Devin decided it would make the perfect tree house tree. That's one more thing checked off the Francom's Provo Bucket List.

Squaw Peak--Not just for making out!

For FHE on Monday, we decided to hike Squaw Peak. Our goal was to get to the Pride Rock that we can see from our apartment and re-enact some scenes from the Lion King. Devin was quite excited to play the part of Rafiki and hoist something (probably me) into the air over the rock. ha ha But alas, we did not end up reaching Pride Rock due to its considerable distance away from the trail head. Those mountains sure can be deceiving. Even though we didn't get to our goal, it was beautiful nonetheless.