Zach and I have been waiting for this week for almost six months.  We knew this weekend was our time up at the cabin with some old family friends, and were excited to see all of the families.  It came really fast because I was consumed the days prior with work and the monthly Relief Society activity.  That’s where I will start first.  PREPARE FOR YOU MIND TO EXPLODE!!!

Thursday, my Relief Society president asked a woman she had met that started this blog:

365 Days of Crockpot Cooking

I’ve only used my crock pot to make sweet pulled pork, so I was anxious to see what this chick could whip up in a crock pot…365 times?  She was amazing, and I anxiously took THREE whole pages full of notes.  The whole time, she is giving us all these hints and tips and women are GASPING out loud at what she is saying.  I felt like I had been living under a rock all this time when it came to crock pot cooking.  Yes, I realize what I am writing makes me sound like a total married mormon nerd, but it was legit.  Here are some of my favorite tips she shared, please humor me if you already knew all of these…

1.  Did you know you can use any oven safe dish in a crock pot?  YES, it’s true!  Any bakeware that can go in your oven (if small enough) can go right into your crock pot.  So a bread loaf pan?  Right in there, and you can cook zucchini bread!  A ceramic dish, for a casserole, TOSS IT THE FREAK IN THERE!

2.  She claimed OVAL crock pots are better than ROUND crock pots.  They cook more evenly.

3.  She has this formula or some what of a conversion method for taking conventional oven recipes and making them in the crock pot.  GENIUS!

She literally has 365 + recipes to cook in a crock pot on her website, and I plan to explore them all!  She rocked my crock pot world!

Friday, Zach’s hockey team made it to the semi-finals for ice hockey and played in their last game that night.  Unfortunately, they didn’t win, but had a fantastic season!  After his game, and his shower, we drove up to Bear Lake.

Saturday was spent on the lake, or I guess it was on the Water Weenie.  We haven’t broken this baby out in a few years!

Here are the boys (Zach, Gavin, and Blake) doing a “No Hands” run.  Luckily there were no major injuries this round.

We also tried out a new recipe I’ve been lusting after for a while, Cinnamon Roll Cake.

It was divine.  It took three steps (the cake, the cinnamon goo, and the glaze) and didn’t look as glam as the picture, but it tasted BOMB.  I want it for my birthday cake!

Sunday afternoon after everyone had left, we made the drive home.  I guess you can say that the trip ALMOST ended in a bang because Zach and I almost died in a head-on collision in Logan Canyon because Zach HAD to have his Sour Sprees.  He was so distracted unwrapping them that we almost DIED.  Luckily, we survived.

Other than the almost-death-Spree…the weekend was awesome!  We love the Caywoods, Swensons, Websters, and Storms!  Can’t wait for next year already.