Conference Campfire

The year we moved to NH we started a tradition of having a family campfire for the Family Home Evening right after Conference. We found the kids would sit and talk about what they learned from Conference if they could be mesmerized by the fire and the roasting of marshmallows. For the most part, it was a great activity, though we had a couple of rainy campfire experiences as well. After moving back to AZ almost 2 years ago (has it really been that long?!) we found ourselves in a home that wasn't so campfire friendly. We've kind of made-do ever since. I hadn't really thought how we'd do a campfire here, but learned yesterday we could do it in our unplanted garden. Don't know why I didn't think of that as that's where we did this particular activity in NH to begin with. Ah, a mind is a terrible thing to waste!

Having not planned for an actual campfire this year, we made our own little outdoor experience indoors. The only bummer was that today was gorgeous and would have been really nice outside. Oh well! I'd originally thought we'd make the Indoor S'mores bars from the Golden Grahams box. Greg reminded me last night of the mini s'mores I'd learned about at Cub Scout Round Table last fall, so we did those instead. It was a pretty fun activity. We did use actual fire inside the house, so maybe it wouldn't be so great if the boys were still little. The general idea is to roast a mini marshmallow over a candle (we used pink birthday candles as that color seems to be left over a lot at this house!) and smash it and a milk chocolate chocolate chip between two pieces of Golden Grahams (or the generic equivalent) cereal for a one-bite s'more. I made the candles stand on the plate by melting the bottoms a little and holding them on the plate while they cooled.


The kids thought it was great that they got their own "fire" and plateful of ingredients. They were also great talking about Conference. Mission accomplished! We might just redo it this way again next time- I got to sit in a chair in the comfort of the dining room, no ingredients had to be hauled in and out of the house, no smokey smell on everything, and I ate way less junk than I would have with regular s'mores. What's not to love!