Grandma and Auntie Come to Visit

I totally slacked in the picture department here, but my mom and aunt came for a visit on Aug 1st. We had a lovely weekend. On Saturday we went to Savanna's arena soccer games, to the Avila Barn and beach, and then out to dinner. My boys, especially Brad, were elated that there was a "cooking place" with so many things he can eat (we hit up the Home Town Buffet in San Luis Obispo). They even had dairy-free ice cream. :)

The next morning Aunt Marsha attended church with us, we watched a movie (a REALLY bad movie- but comical...when Mom wasn't sleeping, she would open one eye and mumble, "that was lame."), and feasted on my garden's produce (can you tell that I am proud of our little family garden??). It was a very fun and relaxing weekend. We will be traveling out their way next week!

Another Benjamin Adventure

BEFORE

AFTER

Ben was running up the stairs and clipped the side of his head, splitting it open. There was lots of blood, and it was hard to see the extent of the injury, so James was forced (to his pleasure and my great dismay) to buzz his head. The cut ended up not being as bad as I had thought and required nothing more than a little ointment and fresh air. Man, this kid!!

July 31, 2009

Fashion Show

Kim and Lola, Savanna's grandma and great-grandma, came for a visit in mid-July and bought Savanna a complete new wardrobe! She gave us a fashion show. Man, are James and I in trouble!! Yes, he owns a gun, and he also does a great impression of someone with severe mental problems...he's been practicing, and Savanna thinks he is only joking. We'll let her entertain that fantasy for a few more years. :)

August 1, 2009

Making Pickles!

This should probably go on my food blog, but I have sadly neglected it lately- I'm too busy making pickles! We probably have close to twenty jars now stored in our pantry. That's a big money saver right there (we go through at least 2-4 jars of pickles per month and at $3 per jar that's another great garden money saving resource!).

Boiling the water in our water bath canner

Cutting up all the cucumbers and putting them in jars

Gotta add garlic- everything is better with garlic

Savanna is my "brine girl"- stir, stir, stir...

We tried making relish for the first time- looks pretty good

Once the pickles are packed and the brine is poured in, time to can them

Boil them in the canner for 10 mins

And Voila! Pickles!

Our Garden...

Our garden is thriving- it is SO awesome! Right now we are harvesting kale, cabbage, romaine, spinach, radishes, broccoli, cucumbers, onions, potatoes, zucchini, squash, watermelon, corn, and the lasts of our cauliflower. We have been able to cut out $50 PER WEEK from our grocery bill, and we still have enough surplus to share with our friends each Sunday at church.

We have also been canning more pickles (see the next post) and are gearing up to start canning our tomatoes. We will literally have hundreds of tomatoes- we plan on canning spaghetti sauce, stewed tomatoes, and lots of salsa!

Look at our purple potatoes- nothing is cooler than purple french fries!

That's our mound of surplus produce for one week- we took it all to church and gave it away

Our first watermelon- a little scarred, but delicious!


We also planted a bunch more seeds last week. We pulled out some plants that were dying and replanted new ones, and also added peas, lemon cucumbers and collard greens- mmmm!

Day #3 with the Wagners

Okay, our computer has been broken for 3 weeks, so I have some posts to catch up on!

Back to July 23rd! On our last day visiting with the Wagners we finally checked out our local mini golf place called Boomers. The boys loved the arcade and playing golf. The cool thing about taking little ones to an arcade is you don't even have to put in any quarters! They just ran around turning steering wheels and shooting the fake guns. They had a blast! They did pretty good at golf too. Brad hit a hole-in-one on his very first shot! They lasted about 10 holes. Us grown-ups finished all 18, and James was proud that he beat Ken by a very small margin. :)

We then headed out to our favorite indoor aquatic park in Lompoc. No pictures, sorry. But overall we had a great time with Jax and her family. We miss you guys already. Brad especially has been pining over Kendyl who he has written to three times already and refers to lovingly as "My Kendyl." So cute.