Five Years Coming

We had another lovely day today. The one negative was that we were all so sleepy for some reason that we really overslept and were quite late to church. Terral taught his first lesson in Elders Quorum today, and he said it went well. Also, Ethan did really well with going to the bathroom while at church. He held it while they came and got me and I took him back to the bathroom. He didn't do quite as well once we got home, but I think he's doing pretty awesome for a not-quite-two-year-old.

After church, we took a nap and then we gathered dinner together and went for another drive. We had seen a road yesterday that we wanted to explore. Ethan was really cute about our drive up the steep hill. "Up? That!" We were glad that he was having as much fun as we were.

I was very pleasantly surprised to see some gorgeous red leaves and stands of thick pine once we got up into the mountain a bit. I didn't think the mountains on this side were quite big enough for that. We found a few potential camping spots, and we eventually parked so we could eat. Terral got out of the car to explore for a while with Ethan before it got too dark and cold. I was still pretty hungry, so I stayed in to eat for a while. Well, before long, he came back with an I-have-a-surprise-for-you look on his face. I opened the door, and he handed me a pine nut. I tried not to get too excited yet. Then I opened it and found it full of the pure white meat of my dreams. Okay, that may be a little extreme, but I seriously LOVE pine nuts. And we have looked for them for five years without any success. I can't tell you how happy I was that Terral found some so close to home!

The pine cones were pretty small, but they had meaty nuts in them! We gathered as many as we could before it got too dark, and we plan to go back tomorrow for family home evening. After we put Ethan to bed tonight, we put on the Mormon Channel, turned on our "fireplace", and set to work extracting the nuts. Holy contentment. Of course, pine nuts are a lot of work for not a lot of nut, but considering how little time we spent gathering, we actually got a pretty good haul.

I just love pine nuts.