Emergency Preparedness Enrichment Night

 I'm the Emergency Preparedness leader in our ward, and the Relief Society ask me frequently to do the enrichment nights (not sure what they actually call it anymore).  They asked me the week my grandma was dying, so I told them I was going to be out of town for awhile and to see if they could find a guest speaker.  Cindy (the enrichment leader, but now in the RS presidency) found a lady to come do the presentation part, so I did the activity and the dessert.  I was trying to think of something to go along with what we were doing that night, and my activity was making tuna can candles.  I knew we couldn't light candles in the church, but I  thought a gourmet s'mores bar would be really fun.  I asked Cindy and she mentioned it to her husband (he's in the bishopric) and he just said, "Cindy, don't tell me, I don't want to hear a thing."  He's learning how I like to go to extremes with my activities. So Cindy and I took that as the philosophy of "don't ask don't tell".  I'm so glad, because it turned out so cool. 

 I built the black boxes to hold the candles (I used tin can Sterno - safe for indoor use) from Noah and Grant's bunk bed scraps.  Lined the bottom with tin foil, just in case they got hot, and surrounded them with rocks from the yard.  I made regular marshmallows, but also made these raspberry marshmallows.  Oh my, they are good.  I'll add the directions for these at the bottom of the regular marshmallow recipe someday soon. 

 For the graham crackers I put an 'RS' for relief society.  Cheesy I know, but I couldn't help it.  I had a lot of different chocolates and some other toppings so they could try lots of different arrangements.  I love the traditional milk chocolate and vanilla marshmallows, but white chocolate and raspberry marshmallows is right up there in greatness. 

I think it turned out cute, and the ladies seemed to like it.  The church didn't burn down, so I guess we don't have to tell anyone of importance that we lit 'candles' in the church.  Technically, sterno cans aren't really candles, right? 

 

For my mom.  Here are all the posters the presenter brought.  

This is her water filter.  It really was amazing.  She poured in muddy water, more mud than water, and in the end it came out pretty clear. 

 This oven demo was really cool.  I'm going to make the 'bean bags' someday, and then test it out.  When I do, I'll post it so you can see what this is all about.  So, don't toss those old bean bags just yet.  At least save the polystyrene beads from them.

 The following night, we had an Elders Quorum party at our house.  I told you we've been busy.  We had 30-35 people show up.  Adam and his counselors cooked shish kabobs for everyone.  I told Adam I was going to be busy getting my stuff for enrichment ready, so he'd have to do most of the work.  I got the house ready, but he and his counselors did all the food preparation.  Good guys.    

The men voted on no kids, so for a few hours we all enjoyed dinner, games and great conversation sans kids.  It was really nice.  Don't feel bad for my kids, they got to go to Hannah's (their favorite babysitter, OK the only babysitter they've every had) house.  Her entire family helped watch them, and from what they tell me, they loved it.  Heidi, Hannah's mom, posted some pictures {here} from that night.