Beans!

This last weekend, we went to Boise for a family fun 4 day get away.  While living in Kauai, you may know that we developed many strong friendships.  These are friendships that I hope will never die.  Some of our best friends (Mandie and Holly Cook and their families) have moved from Kauai to Boise, so we love going to Boise to see these friends!

One problem is that my camera never came out while on this trip, I do not have a single picture of my little girls playing with their friends.  Hailey and Alyssa stayed in Kyleigh's room and they both love Kyleigh so much (they always cry when she leaves us or we leave them).  Abby and Kaitlyn are the same age, and so they play together wonderfully!  Naiya is a year younger, but makes that a fun trio.  Then Macey, she has Ridge (the only boy) and Aliya just a few months younger than her.  Really our kids work together perfectly.  While our kids are excited to go to Boise anytime, it's John and I that are the most excited.  We love Rusty & Mandie and Mike & Holly and are still much closer to them than others around us.

While there, Mandie (whom is a wonderful cook) made creamy chicken taquitoes with homemade refried beans.  She made the taquitoes beforehand and had them frozen in the freezer so that the meal could be quick and easy.  Everything tasted so wonderful and I wanted to share the recipe for the beans here.  They are a great way to use your food storage and also save by not having to buy cans of beans.

Refried Beans (without the Refry)

1 onion peeled and quartered
3 cups of dry pinto beans, rinsed
1 can chopped green chili's
2 T minced garlic
2 1/2 tsp Salt
2 tsp Pepper
1/8 tsp Cumin, ground
9 cups water

Place everything in the crock pot, stir to combine.  Cook on High for 8 hours, adding more water as needed.
When beans are cooked, strain them, reserving the liquid.  Mash the beans and add the reserved water as needed to attain desired consistency.

Sand dunes

Last week after our trip to Alaska, my mom took me and the three youngest girls home with her.  Hailey had 5th grade camp and John couldn't miss anymore work so we had a fun week with just 4 of us.  Brooke, my younger sister, just had a sweet little girl the beginning of May that I had yet to see.  I spent the week holding her and playing with her older sister Kamry.  She calls me her aunt 'We'.  My brother Brandon and his wife Michelle also had a baby a few months ago and so there was lots of sweet little ones and even more big noisy ones.  

This time of year is a great time to go to he sand dunes national park, because the river is still running.  So, we planned a day and went their with a few of our cousins, my mom and Brooke.

Here is Abby, Macey and Kamry 

Alyssa had me make her into a mermaid, as did Kip's daughter Olivia.

Parker wanted to be the king of the sea and a merman ;)

The girls had lots of fun and came home with lots of sand!

We stayed there for almost 2 1/2 hours when a storm came up, you can see the clouds below.  It sent us all running for cars and scrambling to collect everything that was blowing away.

It turned out we had a wonderful week.  John and Hailey joined us Friday night so they could be there for Kaisley's baby blessing and tote the rest of us back to Utah.  Now back to the real world after two weeks of vacation.

Alaska!