A week of figuring things out.

Family Home Evening

                I'll start off with Monday. Some of the couples have been wanting to have a campfire before it gets too cold. Having it be the Fall season we decided to have the campfire on Monday. It was so much fun. The best part was it wasn't very cold, it was great temperature to be up the canyon having a fire. We, Carlie Baxter and I, watched our husbands build a fire. As our husbands were getting the wood from the car Carlie and I picked up kindling. I thought we did a decent job with us being distracted with our conversation we were having. 

       When the boys came back, Nate started stacking the wood and Zach Baxter started collecting more kindling. Zach put Carlie and I to shame. It was quite funny. Our pile of kindling was a fourth of the size of Zach's. I thought to myself "I was even certified at girls camp to start a fire, why didn't I think of getting more kindling?" ha ha.

 

     Girls camp was a long time ago, but I guess boys get more opportunities to start fires. Oh well, we cheered them on and helped them as much as we could. 

Mediation Internship

                  This week for my internship I was able to mediate twice. Both of them lasted at least an hour in a half. For those of you who are unfamiliar with mediation it is a process where parties have the opportunity to determine their own outcome on the dispute they are apart of.  There are different kinds of disputes and unfortunately anything that happens in mediation is confidential and I can't tell you anything about it unless the case doesn't settle in mediation and goes to trial, than I'm able to tell you about trail. 

         My first case was in Lehi and the parties didn't settle in mediation. The dispute was about a debt that needs to be paid between two companies. The trail was postpone because one of the parties needed to collect their paperwork. I am planning to attend that trial to see what the judgement is. 

           My second case was in Heber. Although its a bit of a drive, right now it's a beautiful drive. The leaves are changing. Here is a picture I tried to capture. 

I was the only mediator at Heber who was able to do the mediation. My adviser had a conflict of interested and I was the only other person who showed up. My adviser stayed, observed and helped me out when I was getting stuck. The case was able to settle in mediation and the parties were extremely grateful that I spent my time helping them figure out their dispute with the other party. 

Their gratitude helped remind me why I like mediation. Yes, it can be hard and intense with high emotions, but if a case settles and the parties get what they wanted out of the mediation instead of having a judge decide. It felt so good to help those parties come up with an agreement that they made themselves. I still have much to learn, but these mediation are good practice, I learn something new each time I mediate. 

 
After my Heber mediation my adviser and I went out to Kneaders for lunch. I found this root looking thing in my salad. I'm not sure what it was, but it didn't look harmful. It was probably a potato root or something. My real question is How did a root get near the salad station? I worked in the kitchen at Kneaders for 6 months and I can't remember any food that would have some kind of root looking thing. At least I didn't eat it.

I found this in my Kneaders Salad

Double date with the Mallory's 

Andrew and Cara are cousins on my side. Well let me be more clear, Cara is my cousin who married Andrew.  Nate and I haven't seen them in over 7 months. The last date night we had with them was before Nate and I were married. Cara and I knew that was too long. This Friday we got together and made Caramel Apples! They were so yummy. Nate was our expert on the caramel. We followed the recipe that Cara had, but Nate would say things such as "I think the caramel needs to reach a certain temperature, if it gets too hot it will harden which isn't good and if it stays soft like this than it won't stick on the apples very well." He told us about how when his mom makes caramel how she does it so we let Nate be in charge of getting the caramel to where it needs to be base of his knowledge. Good thing we did because the caramel did turn out better! We did a test run before Nate informed us of the temperature and the caramel slipped right off the apple, only a thin layer stayed. After the test run Nate was in charge. Our second test was much better! We still have a lot to figure out and practice, but the apples were so yummy. 

I'm sorry I didn't get pictures of all our apples. I was caught up in the moment of making the caramel apples. 

Here is Nate dipping his apple. Do you think he is excited?

Cara dipping her apple