July the 4th.. aka Indepedence Day

The forth of July turned out to be a Fabulous, patriotic day!

The day started out with a lovely picnic with Clint & Allison at Nielson's Grove....









...and Clint made a DELICIOUS apple pie! How American!



After a delicious barbecue at the Ives' house, some of us went to the Pleasant Grove City Fireworks, which were FANTASTIC this year... I am telling you.. having a full-time fire department makes a difference on the forth of July. No more lame fireworks!

This is Nate, me, and our nieces Camilla & Peyton, and hovering in the background is our nephew Parker...





Then we met back up with Dad, Clint & Allison for a few driveway fireworks....













Happy Independence Day!

P.s. If you are out there, reading my blog right now, please take a moment to shoot me a comment! I want to know that someone is reading this stuff!

Summer So Far...

Summer has been good to the Ives so far. Here are some of the magical things we have done so far....

Sam & Darla got married....



...and Nathan was the Best Man.




There was a memorial day hike up to Battle Creek Falls....
Pictured L to R Kathy Strode, Allyssa Monson, Josh Monson, Renae Monson, Nathan & Me



...and we visited the cemetery.






Clint & Allison met our niece, baby Lillian Monson...



...and Lily loved Clint :)




I came home one night to find Nathan washing dishes like this, the dear....




We went to the Strawberry Days Rodeo...





...and Allie discovered the beauty of Strawberries & Cream






The old roommates got together because my BFF Mary came home from her mission...



...and some of us took a tour of the conference center on that Sunday afternoon.




I've decided to do the 4th of July in it's own post, so tune in next time for more summertime adventures!

A Blissful Morning of Biking

Erin, Doug, and I spent the morning biking from Provo Canyon down to Utah Lake via the Provo River Trail. It is a marvelous bike ride of about 15 miles. I highly recommend it, and will be doing it again soon! My brother Clint let me borrow his fabulous dutch personal bike - straight from The Netherlands, to my delight. My conclusion is that the dutch really know what they are doing when it comes to bicycles.

Erin's dad kindly dropped us at the top in his big red truck, and my adorable Nathan picked us up during his lunch break at the bottom in his dad's big white truck. No wonder I love him ;)

Obviously I didn't take this lovely photo of the Provo River Trail... but Matt Clayton did.

Sunny afternoons... beautiful.

I love where we live, even if it is only a single room. It's lovely, isn't it?

Katy's Banana Bread

Hello everybody...
Have you ever bought a large amount of bananas following a high-consumption banana week? Well, we have. We went through a phase of eating bananas in our cereal, which prompted us to buy a very large bunch of bananas, and then promptly stop eating them this way. So, I decided to make banana bread. I found a recipe online, but have modified it to meet my tastes and also to make it healthier, so I am calling it 'Katy's Banana Bread'. Feel free to try it and let me know what you think!!

Katy's Banana Bread

Ingredients:

-4 well-ripened bananas (lots of spots will do, they don't have to be black or anything)

-1 1/2 cups bread flour (original recipe called for all-purpose, so I am sure that would work too.)

-3/4 cup white sugar (original recipe called for 1 c. but I thought it was sweet enough with less.)

-2 tablespoons softened butter

-1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

-1 teaspoon baking powder

-1 egg

-2 generous tablespoons of applesauce


Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. (I love when recipes remind me to do this at the very beginning!)

1.Mash bananas in a mixing bowl. I did this with a potato masher, and left the bananas a little bit on the chunky side.

2. Add all of the other ingredients and mix well. I just mixed it by hand with a spatula, but a hand mixer on a low speed would also probably work great.

3. Pour mixture into 1 lightly greased loaf pan.

4. Bake in 350 degree oven for about 60 minutes, or until a fork or toothpick comes out clean in the center of the loaf.


Pretty simple, right?!

The reason I liked this recipe better than some others I have tried (and I have tried several), is that it is VERY banana-y! Most recipes I have tried called for an astonishingly small number of bananas in proportion to the other ingredients, I thought. Also, because my bananas were not extremely overly-ripe, they still had a little tang left in them. When combined with the applesauce, it left a very surprising and satisfying tang to the bread! Lovely! If this is not in your taste, I would recommend using the full 1 c. of sugar, rather than the 3/4 cup. Another lovely feature; because I left the bananas slightly on the chunky side, the bread was filled with pockets of sweet, delicious banana goodness! Yes!!
Also, if you like to use nuts in your banana bread, feel free to throw some in. I always choose to leave them out because I am allergic to nuts. Not so delicious. However, if you feel that banana bread is naked without some type of toxic nut inside, go ahead and add it in. I'm just sayin' that it tastes just fine without. Something else I'd like to throw in sometime would be a handful of craisins. I bet that would be delicious.

Anyway, Let me know how yours turns out!

P.s. Is it pathetic that cooking has become one of the more exciting topics of my life these days? (at least of topics that are socially respectable to talk about...) ;)

Ives Go Green

Nathan had a desire to be good to the environment and get a few of those reusable grocery bags. Great, I say! ...Except, every time we see them for sale in the grocery store, they seem so incredibly small! You could barely fit your milk and bread in there! ..until... we discovered the BUY LOW MARKET! We thought everything in there was pretty good for a discount grocery store.. but their bags are HUGE! Look! You can fit about 15% of me in one! Yahooo for going green!

Next step for going green, remember the bags when you go to the store. That is the real trick.

Have You Seen My Photo Blog?

Yes, many of you know, I have a small photography business.

Before now I have not published any of my photos publicly. This is because I keep as busy as I want to be from word-of-mouth advertisement.. but I wanted a place for clients to see a sneak preview of their photos in the works.

If you too want to see what my recent/current projects are, hop on over to:

http://katyivesphotography.blogspot.com/

Ta ta!