Karen's Dangling Conversation

Me and Cindy and the Guacamole! In all of our planning meetings it never occurred to me that feeding 400 people at a time would be any different than feeding 50 or so at girl's camp or that one stint we had of feeding the masses on a Stake Youth Trek.  But I was wrong.  This was very different because #1 we (our little team of 5) were doing all the cooking and #2 we were doing all the clean up.  Above and beyond that we were doing all the shopping, hauling, storing, hauling again, running to the store for last minute items, staging ice water at all the different locations and on and on it goes.  The logistics of all of this were at times mind boggling.  The weather was the hottest of the year.  And did I say there were lots of people at this thing?  From the Stake Center we were doing two meals a day plus getting the food ready for the members who were doing breakfast in the mornings.  We would start getting those boxes ready right after dinn...

Lots of Love! My helper Mackay! Scripture Study Time One of the funnest things we did was to have the kids eat at the stake members homes for breakfast.  So the kids were divided into groups for this event and each group had two counselors a girl and a boy from the singles ward.  We assigned each group to eat at a different house each morning.  We planned the menus and then passed out the fixings to each family who had volunteered to take this on.  And so it was that on Thursday I had 20 kids with their counselors showing up at my door!  I put them to work hauling up tables and chairs and set them up to eat out on the deck, which is a little bit shady in the morning.  We had a menu of waffles, eggs and bacon and I added berries, whip cream and fresh fruit.  We made introductions, blessed and passed food and chatted and joked our way through this yummy breakfast.  I was very impressed with this group which happened to be the one that Macka...

I just wanted to take a moment a jot down some of my memoirs from our most recent Stake Youth Conference. Brad and I were asked to help out on the food committee and we are always excited to help feed crowds and so we said "YES!" With enthusiasm.....somehow feeding 400 sounds much easier in the planning stages....and we are talking feeding 400 breakfast, lunch and dinner for three solid days! Whew! We had no idea what we were signing up for. However, I am so glad we did, it turned out to be such an amazing experience for me and I was only the kitchen help! The first activity was a Jon Schmidt concert out at the American Fork Amphitheater. We were planning to just feed everyone a popsicle and at the last minute realized that the kids would be there from 5-9pm and probably be very hungry. So we ordered 500 soft tacos to go.......and that turned out to be the easiest things we did all week! The concert was so much fun, if you have ever seen Jon Schmidt in concert, he...

Just walking into a library is a euphoric experience for me. Can it be the slightly musty smell as you walk in the door? Is it the glimpse of the beautiful illustrations as I walk through the picture books? Is it the promise of a new read, so incredible that I know I won't be able to put it down? What is it exactly? I have asked myself this time and time again. I don't know the answer, I just know that every time I walk through those doors I sigh a great big sigh of bliss! Which brings me to the other day when I was meandering about, running errands here and there and suddenly I found myself in Barnes and Noble. I didn't mean to go there, or more clearly I didn't NEED to go there but suddenly here I was none the less. I began by just cruising through the books on sale, one $5.99 book wouldn't hurt. As I perused the sale books, I was drawn deeper and deeper into the store, checking out yoga books and cook books (of which I already own too many) and then I...