Cherries, water, and trails

 Now that I have finished picking cherries from my sister's tree, I have enjoyed cooking with them. I've used up all the fresh ones, but we still have some frozen ones (mostly from last year).

For Father's Day, I made a cherry pie and a cherry, apple, and blueberry pie, but I just used Costco crust leftover from Thanksgiving and Christmas. We ate the multifruit one and took the cherry one to my grandpa. 

I also made a s'mores cherry crisp. I make cherry crisp so much that I like to experiment with the topping. This time I ground up some graham crackers in the flour, then added chocolate chips and marshmallows.

And I can't let summer go by without making cherry salsa.

I also added cherries to German pancakes,

and I made a cherry chocolate tart, which might be my favorite cherry dessert.

On Monday evening, I was running up my beloved Woodbriar Trail when I was startled to see a new trail intersecting it! I had no idea this was happening!

Part of me feels sad about this. I like this trail because it feels secluded, and now it will be less secluded. But I have gone a few times to see the progress of the new trail, and it looks like it will be a fun, relatively easy one when it's done. For now, it's still soft with a lot of roots and branches. I had heard they were going to extend the Bonneville Shoreline Trail (which is what this new trail is), but I expected it to be at a lower elevation. 

On Wednesday, I finally got to use my Christmas present, an inflatable paddleboard. My parents took me and my nephews to Jordanelle Reservoir, my first time there.

Do you like this ice pop inflatable I bought?

My paddleboard

It was a fun day out on the reservoir. I spent a lot of time on my knees on the paddleboard, because I still don't feel entirely comfortable standing up, especially when there's a slight wake. But I did spend some time standing up. As I was paddling around on my knees, it was fun to think, "This paddleboard is my very own! I can take it wherever and whenever I want!" When I heard of inflatable paddleboards, I imagined them being like our inflatable boats. But it was much more solid than I expected. My oldest nephew, Preston (16), when out on it for a bit, and he thought it was made of styrofoam. My nephews weren't overly impressed with the reservoir, because it was mildly chilly, and the water was too murky to see through. But I'm glad that I went and that I now have a paddleboard.

Some evenings, I've been taking my youngest nephew, Nathaniel (11), on little hikes on the trails, because he is the one most interested in doing that. He is very talkative, and he likes to talk about outlandish scenarios. For example, he was saying it would be funny if trees could talk and make rude comments as you walked past. These boys love Costa Vida, and once he said, "What if they put ants in the beans to troll people?"

Sometimes I think these boys live in a different world than I do. Nathaniel and Franklin (13) don't even know all the months of the year, and of course that is something dear to my heart. They also have more political opinions than any child should.

On Thursday, I was in the barbershop at work. One little girl came in and was very confused. She kept asking about the barbershop, and she tried to go into the back door because she wanted to see the barbershop. It wasn't until they were leaving that I realized what she was asking. She thought they were going to the Barbie shop: "I want to go to the Barbie shop! I want to get a Barbie there!"

I also worked in the print shop, my favorite spot. Since typesetting one letter at a time takes such a long time, we just print off of plates, and I swapped out the Deseret News plates for the Declaration of Independence. I had never done that before, so I was a little nervous about getting all the furniture (spacing) right. But I did it! But I only printed one copy that day, so I might have to make some adjustments if I see that it's not printing great.

As I think about my historical knowledge and experiences, I am vastly underpaid at the park. When I think about what I actually do at the park, I'm not overpaid. We get lunch breaks, but we don't have regularly scheduled fifteen-minute breaks, because basically our entire shift is one big break with occasional bursts of working. Except when I'm driving the train. I could work fast food making more money, but this is a fun summer job.