Marching Band Performance

Here you go, Megan! For not smiling in my photo! I love listening to the Marching Band...yea I'm a geek, so what?

Such a sweetie!

Bry: Where's your mom?

Elizabeth: That's her right there, the one with the giant camera taking our picture:)

Pretending I can't find her and Mego.

I really love hanging out at Marching Band functions even though I was never in marching band. Love you, kiddo. I'm proud of you for sticking with it.

Love,

Mom

Salsa

I learned how to peel tomatoes this year by scalding them and dipping in cold water. Check out how the skin splits and just peels right off the tomato.

I love canning. Well-let me say that another way-I love making food to put away for the future. I don't mind boiling-water canning. But it is VERY time consuming. You spend hours getting all of the equipment ready to go, 10 minutes cooking the stuff to be canned, and another hour boiling, etc. When you're finished, ultimately one jar doesn't seal correctly and your time has been wasted there. Okay-fast forward to this year. I have been working on freezer canning instead. I can concentrate on the fun part (cooking) and throw it in a jar with a screw-on lid (I think you can actually still use the glass jars for freezer canning, but we have a tendency to have things jump out of the freezer, so I prefer plastic while I still have boys living in the house.) I have also finally found a seasoning mix that is both readily available and easy to use. And the result was fantastic!

I used 6 lbs of tomatoes for my salsa. About 4 lbs or so were directly from my garden. I had to supplement with some tomatoes that I bought at the store, because I didn't want my tomatoes to go to waste while I waited for my tomatoes to ripen on the vine.


My favorite part is how easy this was. The most time consuming part was dicing the tomatoes. And it is awesome to use your own tomatoes! The only ingredients are 6lbs of tomatoes (I mixed Roma and Beefsteak), 1/2 cup of vinegar, and the seasoning packet of Mrs. Wages "Create Salsa" which is available here. I bought mine in the canning aisle at Walmart.

Here is the salsa after cooking on the stove and ready to fill jars.

5 freezer jars filled with salsa.

The recipe made EXACTLY 5 pints. Which is what it said it would make. I was impressed.
All that is necessary is to fill the jars and wait for it to cool. Then screw the lids on and pop it in the freezer. What could be easier? Well, okay, I guess if I'd just bought a jar at the store it would be easier, but it wouldn't taste the same.

Fresh salsa.

Of course we had to eat a pint with nachos to make sure it would be okay for future dinners :)

Sarah & Jeremy

Love you guys! Thank you so much for putting up with us and all of the rain that we brought!
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I love the flowers that you bought! They're beautiful!

Gridley thought that Butch should be petting him-not sleeping!

The Ranch, Part I

Laura and Charlie's ranch in Southern Colorado.

When Laura and Charlie found this horse, he was severely malnourished. He used to be a racehorse. They have had him for a while now and he still isn't up to his proper weight.

This is 86. Also known as, Houdini. She gets out of the pen a lot. Like twice in one day while we were there.

This is 96. He is still being bottle fed.

This is one of the hens. She is good at keeping eggs warm, so that is what she does.

Here we are with Laura & Charlie on Sunday night. They are totally awesome people and Laura did a great job of taking care of my husband before I was old enough to meet him :) Laura made some awesome food and we thank both of them so much for having us and putting up with us over the weekend!

Love this photo-I can't remember if Sarah took this one or if one of the kids took it. But it turned out great! And look at that backdrop! Love to get photos of me with my sweetheart!

I know Sarah took this photo. I am going to use this layout for the cover of my vacation book.

We had such a great time in Colorado! More photos of Sarah and Jeremy coming soon. Happy Popcorn Day {Thursday}!

Grilling Out

Clear and Sunny Skies Time together!

Pepper Jack and Colby Jack Cheese

Toasted Buns

Shadows of Togetherness

I am so loving summer right now. Happy Thursday!

I saw a similar photo to the one above somewhere. That's where I got the idea for this photo. I thought it was beautiful! I thought I saw it on Shuttersisters, but I went through 14 pages of their blog and can't find it. So I would credit the idea for the photo if I could. It was a great idea!

I did see some dandelions photos. Which would cause my husband to go into convulsions that there would be dandelions somewhere close enough to take photos of. **GASP**[Photo][Photo] I love these little sunflowers. They are only about 6 feet tall instead of the 12 feet tall variety that I have on the other side of the yard that I grew last year. Hope you enjoy them. They look great in the cottage garden. Happy Monday!

Football In the Yard

Football! So excited that things are back to normal a little bit. Now that Elizabeth has her driver's license, she has calmed down a bit. She is not nearly as stressed...which means...well-a non-stressed teenager means crazy, loud, happy, shouting, swinging, playing. As opposed to angry, yelling, tears...you get the picture. And Mom-I know you know EXACTLY what I am talking about. Especially after having 3 teenage daughters! And the car made it through all of the drives. And she even took a football to the hood...

Anyway-glad things have calmed down a bit. Happy Weekend!

10 Things I Loved About Today

Picnic at Pleasant Creek in Palo, Iowa.

1. William helping Bryan with word finds in the car on the way to Pleasant Creek.
2. Bryan quoting a previous conversation,"We have a Monicals...oh no that's Wm: "Grandfathers." ...he he....Godfathers....
3. Me: Periodic table of the emelents...
4. William's story about making up bad words with Weston using the symbols for the elements in the periodic table.
5. no complaining...well....except for me...and William...

6. Wiliam working on word searches instead of eating his KFC.

Play wrestling at the park.

7. Bryan powering the canoe sitting in the back while Daddy was in the front.
8. William getting mad at me for changing sides with my paddle.

William is catching up, Daddy!



You can't tell these 2 are related....not at all...

Photo by William-actually both boys took photos of us and they both turned out great! But I like this one because we are laughing. A piece of my hair blew in Daddy's face and William took the photo. The resulting picture looked like he was picking his nose.



9. Taking photos afterwards. (I LOVE how grown up you guys are getting!)

10. I FINALLY got to go canoeing!

We missed you, Elizabeth! We will have fun on Vacation though!

Campground Memories-2004

I don't think we actually went camping in 2004. But we did make it to the beach at the campground. Aren't the boys adorable playing in the sand! I seem to remember that it was impossible to keep the boys out of the water at this age! Happy Weekend!

Checkout that sand castle! I love it!

Fun in the sun!

(grungepaper5 by fudgegraphics and font karabine)

I love this look so much that I just might use it for my Christmas card. So if you get a Christmas card this year that just shows sun tea on a table....yea...that would be from us...but anyway..

(grungepaper4 by fudgegraphics and font karabine.)

This is SOOO easy. Loving this free class by Jessica Sprague. This last 2 weeks marks the first time that I have used textures in my photos. Now I want to use textures on all of my photographs! I may have to join textures anonymous-I am just that addicted to textures....

Anyway...Last year I created a Summer mini-book {insert photo here-I lost one of my cameras and don't feel like going upstairs right now to snap a photo anyway} showcasing our "everyday" activities throughout the summer. I have been trying to decide what I want to do this year. In a way-my blog is my showcase of everyday life-whether it is summer, school year, or holidays. So I might just post to the blog and be done with it. Or I might use the photos that I post on my blog to print out in 4x6 and put them in a photo album. It just might be that simple. Anyway-I'm getting excited about our trip to Colorado! Off for more planning and figuring out how I'm going to pay for gas! Yay! Happy Tuesday! Hope it's a great one!