Fire!

Last weekend we were invited over for an oyster roast at the home of long-time family friends.  We love going to their home because they have a humongous back yard where the kids have the most wonderful time.  Layton enjoyed being pushed around on the little cars/bikes. 

Dallin, Mandy, and Chloe spent most of the evening jumping on the trampoline.

It got pretty dangerous at times.

But there was also lots of love.

After the oysters were all roasted,

Nathan dug right in.  I just don’t know how he eats them.  I just can’t stomach them.

Thank goodness Sister Wheeler made some of her famous corn chowder.  So Yummy.  Not to mention these amazing cupcakes that I tried out.  I don’t normally like to try out a new recipe to take somewhere because sometimes it is not always as good as I thought it would be, so normally when I take something somewhere I stick to tried and true recipes.  This time though, I came across this cupcake recipe that looked so good.  Chocolate Cheesecake Cupcakes.  Just the name sounds good.  They turned out even better than I thought they would.  I took 24 of them over there and people were complaining that I didn’t bring enough!!!!  I promise, I’ll share the recipe tomorrow.
The kids enjoyed roasting a few marshmallows

 

over a beautiful fire.

That fire really is lovely isn’t it?  The flickering flames of a fire can be so mesmerizing.  That is until the flames get so high that they become terrifying.

The big event of the evening was the burning of Christmas trees.  It was crazy how high they burned.

It was easy to see how quickly during dry weather acres and acres of forest could be consumed so ferociously by the greedy flames.

The intensity was so great that all the plastic cups left on the tree stumps near the fire melted.  It was crazy and amazing and a little scary and strangely beautiful all at the same time.