Volcano Cooking, Etc.

We got this very versatile outdoor stove for cooking from Pop for Christmas. I haven't tried it out yet, but I'm going to team up with Tawna and Nathan soon to try out some cool stuff. We got them a 12" dutch oven for Christmas, so we are going to get together to do some fine cuisine outside. We have dutch ovens too, but alas, they are in storage somewhere. Can't wait to try it out. The Volcano website I googled has some good recipes, so I thought I would try their peach cobbler. It's made with pie crusts instead of cake mix, so hopefully will be more like a pie. We'll see. This cooker can run on wood, charcoal, or propane. Thanks Pop for a wonderful addition to our preparedness stores. I need to pick up on that a little more this year.

I've had a quiet week this week. Got all the Christmas taken down (never my favorite part of the holidays) and now I just have to get it all back into the holiday storeroom. Getting the tree down by the 10th was a first in a couple of years now. I have been known to leave the tree up until March. It's true. I was serving in Young Women that year and they finally made me a project. All the Laurels came over and helped me get the tree undone and back into garbage bags for storage. Good service project! I always say I'm going to go through stuff and stop storing stuff that won't get used anymore. Maybe I'll really do that this year too.

I'm reading two books at the same time, something I never do. Sometimes I feel like more action, so I pick up Tom Clancy's new release "Dead or Alive", and there are days I just want to read quiet things like "Women of the Old Testament". It's nice to have a choice and I can indulge myself with two good books. I just finished the entire "Harry Potter" series. It was a wonderful read and I enjoyed them all. I read them out of order because I'm crazy like that, so read seven,"Deathly Hallows" first. I had to do that since in "The Half-Blood Prince" they killed off Dumbledore. I couldn't stand to wait until the next movie came out, so I got the last book and read it. After that, I read six, "The Half-Blood Prince", then five, "Order of the Phoenix". Then I decided to start from the beginning, so read one, "Sorcerer's Stone", two, "Chamber of Secrets", three "Prisoner of Azkaban" and finally four, "Goblet of Fire". My collection is a mixture of paperbacks and hardbounds, but hey, they all read the same. I may have to look into the Fablehaven series next, or maybe the Aragon Dragon series. Jordyn has read them all and loved them.

Nothing like a good book and a bag of M&M's on a cold day.