Living Not-So-Simply

After two weeks of “Simple Living” (a class/experience here at the Missionary Training Center) here are some pics!

I have jokingly accused Jim before of being addicted to the internet, but after two weeks of no internet, for me meaning no email, food network, facebook, cnn, etc,  I can pretty confidently say I was a pot calling a kettle black!  These past two weeks we also had very limited electricity (refrigerator and lights only, but lights out after 8pm), no computer, no vehicle, and limited water. We also went “wilderness camping” for three nights…it was a  fun time.

Here is Hudson helping me roll out dough for pasta (did I mention that all food had to be cooked from scratch?).  This boy loved all the flashlight activity we had going on in the evenings.

 

 

This is one of the oil lamps Jim made for us using a coke bottle, kitchen twine, and vegetable oil (Girls like guys with skills).

 

 

Part of the assignment for married men was that they had to cook at least four of the meals and a loaf of bread. I now refuse to let Jim claim ignorance in the kitchen. He did a marvelous job with each of his meals!

 

In getting ready for these two weeks, for some reason I thought we’d have more spare time. I ordered a new book and got supplies for a couple of new projects. But, we still had all of our normal homework and responsibilities to do, except now with fewer resources and appliances to help, so our time filled up pretty quickly.

The rest of the pictures are from our camping trip. We and our team used coordinates and a GPS to locate and hike out to our assigned camp site. The kids all donned their backpacks (at least for a little while) as we hiked out.

 

Jim made us a shelter using tarps. In this picture it looks pretty small, but it was big enough to sleep the three of us. Again, the guy has serious skills.

Jim helped set up a solar-powered water pump to pump water up the hill to our campsite. Soon after came the clouds and rain, which of course kept the much-needed sunbeams from powering our water pump.

The boys men enjoyed all the opportunities they had to use their axes and machetes, chopping firewood, building benches, etc.

Below, our team was in a competition, racing to melt large ice blocks (in the buckets) to retrieve our next coordinates (that were inside the ice blocks), which we would use a compass and a map to get to, so we could retrieve some rations. We had a fun team!

Hudson loved his first camping experience, and we all enjoyed being out there with good friends.