Well…minus our couple of attempts at tent camping…my girl is on her first official camping trip, sans parents and little brother.

I’m certain she’ll have a good time. She’s pretty excited about staying at the campground with Grandma and Grandpa Friesen. I just hope the motorhome can contain all of her excitement.

Evan, however, is sad. All he said all the way home was “Ellie, stay here”, “Grandma, stay here” “Grandpa too.”  He misses her. It’s cute, but it makes my heart hurt for him.

Ellie and I baked a Lemon Meringue pie yesterday to take to the camper. She and daddy have been reading “Amelia Bedelia” which is where she got the idea for the pie.

I’d never made one before…I guess it turned out okay. The good thing about not knowing what you’re doing is not knowing how its supposed to look once its done!

She was pretty happy with it. Apparently we all were, we ate half of it!

I don’t know why I always get the incredible urge to bake when its 90 billion degrees outside…I guess thats why I have a/c. My power company must just love people like me!

Oh for Yum!

Breakfast Granola

Makes 14 servings (not sure what classifies a serving…a 14th of this i guess. )

6 cups old fashioned oatmeal, uncooked

1 cup honey

1 stick unsalted butter or margarine, melted (I believe in butter, so i used it!)

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup almonds or pine nuts (slivered almonds all the way)

1/2 cup dried apricots, sliced (I don’t dig these…so i used dried cranberries)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spread oatmeal evenly in roasting pan or large jelly roll pan. In medium mixing bowl, stir together honey, butter, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, and vanilla. Pour over oatmeal and stir until evenly coated (i used my hands…stir? really?) Bake until evenly browned, about 20 minutes. Stir every 5 minutes to prevent clumping. Remove from oven, stir in almonds or pine nuts and dried fruit and continue to stir every 5 minutes until cool.

Notes: Okay…I wanted my almonds toasted…so i put them in the last time I “stirred”, with 5 minutes to go. They probably could have been in a little longer. I also like my granola clumpy…so next time I think I’ll stir less. Also…you’re gonna wanna bake this on parchment paper. You don’t have to, but I’d rather just throw that away than scrub a pan.

Store tightly covered in the refrigerator for up to one month.

Now, it says “breakfast Granola”. Somehow I don’t see mine making it to the bowl in the morning…I don’t see it making it to morning at all…

Ellie says to Ev the other day…”Hey, Ev…let’s play sleepover.” So Ev crawls on up. The problem with playing sleepover with Evan is he has no clue what a sleepover is. It involved the couch, a blanket, and his sister, and that’s all he needed to know.

The other problem is that Ev doesn’t sit (or lay) still very often. Like, at all.

I did manage to capture them once…before he rolled over, crawled over her, or fell off the couch.

I can’t believe summer is going this fast. On one hand, I’m thrilled…the further in we get, the closer to fall temperatures. On the other hand…the closer to snow too.

I just said snow…in July.

Anyway…Happy 4th. Hope you’re spending it with family and friends! Be safe, and remember why we celebrate today -