Fall Fun

The Children's Museum had the most adorable Japan exhibit in its traveling section. My favorite was the sushi shop. There was also a tree where you could write wishes and a Hello Kitty section. Some of the exhibits are geared towards older kids, but this one was perfect for June's age. We went a few times with ward friends.

 

Rebecca went to Hawaii with Shannon and her family. She brought Ryan and Lars these matching Hawaiian shirts. Father-Son stylin' at its best!

 Cute little happy Lars!

This Fall we went pinenut picking in Mt. Charleston. I've been wanting to do it for a long time and it was surprisingly easy to find and do. We just drove up, pulled off the road, and found some pinion pine trees. It was amazingly sticky. Thankfully a friend had warned me. I took some rubber kitchen gloves and a blanket. A lot of pine cones had already fallen to the ground and had started opening. Ryan also picked and knocked some cones down from the tree. The cones from the tree were more green and absolutely covered in a thick sap. But when we opened them, they were full of untouched nuts. There were also pine nuts all over the ground in some places. So while I worked prying the nuts out of the sticky shells, the girls and Ryan took little baggies around and picked up loose ones from the ground. 

The girls had a lot of fun, surprisingly! We probably picked 1-2 pounds of nuts. I think you're only allowed to take a pound. I thought that was all we had, but once we got home it was a bit more. I read to put the pine nuts in water and all of them that floated to the top were "bad". It was quite a lot, probably a third of what we had gathered. But sure enough, when I cracked some of the bad ones open just to check, they were all dried out inside and inedible. From my reading, it seemed like that amount of bad ones was normal. I roasted the others in the oven with a little oil and salt. Then I bagged and froze a bunch and kept a bunch out of eating. Delicious!