Happy Happy Birthday Birthday!!

Jon - Sept. 22, 1971

Collin - Sept. 22, 1998

Pre-Tahoe Pictures

We went to Albertsons for groceries and when we came out, we were greeted by this scene. I love mountains!

The rest are of our favorite people: the Winters. Jeffery and Collin & Brianna and Grace all go WAAAyyyyyy back. We had to get them together to play!

Ems met us at moms for a Tomato Soup canning lesson. It was so fun! Thanks mom!

We also ate at all our favs in "the Valley" and we got to go to lunch with Grandma at the Pizza Factory

Collin and his best bud Christian with Maya the Moezel looking on

Grace and her buddy Lia. They are exactly 1 week apart.

Grace lost her OTHER front tooth in Utah and she looks so cute!

Me and my adorable niece Alice. She showed me all the baNAAAAAna's in the book.

We also got to be there for our Priday Labor Day Breakfast tradition. Every Labor Day, 9am at Grandma Pridays house. We have missed out on the last 2!!

Top: Ems and Laura, Me, Yon, Sarah, Noth and Lia.

The kids and Grandma (their GREAT Grandma) Priday. They love being at her house and kept asking to go back. Collin said, "You can never get bored at Grandma Pridays!!"

We had such a great time and we miss you all!! I am still trying to choose out of 957 pictures of Lake Tahoe which ones to post. Should be soon though.

Don't Know What you Got till it's Gone

Number of boxes of tomatoes used to make soup: 1

Days it took to make soup: 5

Number of repairmen in the last 5 days: 3

Cost of labor and parts for a new stove breaker: $488.75

Quarts of tomato soup made: 15

Number of new grey hairs from the last 5 days: 11

Having use of this again:

Very wishful thinking

Priceless!!!

So Long, Farewell!

Dear Neighbor Who Stole my Recycling Bin,

I hope you love it as much as I did.

I hope you use it as much as I did.

I hope you find as much satisfaction as I did annoyance from this.

I hope you . . . . have a GREAT day.

Still no stove, even after $250. Too distracted for pictures.

MY Tomato Soup

(Enough for 7-9 quarts - depending on all sorts of things)

14 Quarts tomatoes (about 1/4 bushel)

7 Med. Onions

4 celery stalks

14 Springs Parsley

3 Bay Leaves

3 Tbsp. Salt

3-4 Tbsp. Sweetener

2 tsp. Black Pepper

1 c. butter

1 c. flour

Cut up vegetables . . . .

Cook until celery is tender . . .

Put through sieve - IF you have one. I don't, so I blend mine up in my Blendtec in about 27 batches.

At this point you make a roux out of the flour and butter and thin it with some of the juice from the vegetables and add to the rest of the soup. But when you are ME (and what makes my recipe unique), your stove breaks at this point and you have to make room in your fridge for 14 quarts of liquid magma and wait till Monday to call a repairman. Hopefully, in the very near future, I can:

Fill jars to 1" (or where the ring hits). Screw tightly. Put in canner and fill water to tops of jars. Bring to boil, lower heat to a med. boil and boil for 20- 30 min.

P.S. Still sorting through 972 pictures from our trip, so I'll get to those when I get the stove and soup taken care of.

P.P. S. 2 of my 3 sisters were making soup Saturday too. HA!

We're Baaaaaa-aaaaaaaack!!

How we feel about leaving our family

I am up to my sunburned scalp in camping laundry (which is about 7 times dirtier than regular laundry), getting the house back in order, getting the kids going in school and routine again, starting our science class at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and our GOCO Co-op, Enrichment, looking for a canner to start bottling tomato soup, and . . . . so more posts till next week.

Got Gap?

Probably our last post before Utah. We can't wait to see our family!

Southern Goodies, AND Rabies Free!

Sometimes I just love livin' in the south!! What's that picture of you wonder? Orange Chicken? Sweet and Sour Pork? NO! This is Texas! You know, pecans, steaks, fried food, chittlin's etc. But when you just don't feel like ONE more steak, or rustlin' up some grub in your backyard you can always open a can of Dehydrated Squirrel meat to make the succulent dish pictured above!! You know, so you can "spend more time at home, and less time hunting"! (If you didn't already click on the "Dehydrated Squirrel", please do so now.) Go buy a can today (I recommend the filets). It's rabies free for heaven's sake!!

Harvesting

We are on our way to becoming good LDS members by starting to get long term food storage. We have made several trips to the cannery and "put up" over a thousand pounds of wheat, rice, oats etc. But still have a long way to go. 

Anyone want to help me clean my house now??

Here we go again!

It's that time of year again . . . since we are going to Utah at the end of the month for a couple of weeks we started school earlier this year. This summer was SO busy so it's actually been a relief to get back into the routine (for me anyway). We switched up our curriculum this year too and it's been going well. One of the kids favorite things are experiments and this is one of Collins about beans and how long it takes for it to sprout. He named each bean. :)

After checking the final bean . . . I mean Collin.