Super Saturday!

John and I had a big day yesterday. I canned...

• 3 jars of green beans
• 3 jars of salsa
• 17 jars of pepper jelly
• 2 frozen enchilada sauces

While John ran the irrigation to 3 new boxes, finished the boxes, shoveled and hauled compost and sand to them!


Plus it was over 100 degrees and so humid! He was so tough! More boxes means more canning next year...don't know if that makes me happy or tired! Just kidding! Those 3 boxes will be for things that come back each year. One for the tomatillos, one for strawberries, and one for blackberries.

Speaking of the garden somethings are going so great!



I was just thinking how great our squash was looking. Cursed myself and found so many squash bugs this morning that had already eaten a huge section of our squash. John and I went to town pulling out the dead part and squishing squash bugs. This is what it looked like when we finished.

One big gaping hole.

Which is pretty good compared to what it looks like now...



I guess they can be really hard to get rid of. My garden Sensei Lea from the Pecan farm told us the best thing to do would be to pull them and replant. After seeing how many there were when pulling them out I would have to agree. They laid eggs on everything and we are still hunting for them. Last year we learned about tomato worms...this year its squash bugs...don't know that I want to know whats coming next year.

We keep learning, I guess that's the important thing!

4 years later

4 years and 780 posts later....Happy Birthday Blog!

I thought it would be fun to look back at past headers (in no particular order). Ive sure learned a lot about design in 4 years!



























I love you blog. You teach me so much about myself and help me deal with the struggles and trials in my life as well as keep a record of the most important people to me. Thanks to you there are so many special memories that will never be forgotten!

Happy 4th Birthday!

Fishin'

I remember fishing at Lake Cavanaugh when I was little with my Grandpa Leu. Funny thing is I don't remember fishing being so hard :)


When we sold our part of the Lake we were allowed to take a few of his fishing poles but they haven't brought us a whole lot of luck. Poor John hasn't caught a thing but he sure does have the heart to keep trying.


Mike, Chris, and John went out one night in the boat and suffered through the cold for nothing! We took the boys one down one night to a cove that the fishing was suppose to be really good at and still nothing. At least I became cooler in my boys eyes because I put worms on a hook :)





Maybe Grandpa Larry will come on a fishing trip with us and teach us all of Grandpa Leu's tricks!

Camping in Island Park

Right after graduation our family took off for our campsite with Johns sister Sarah. We were driving in the dark looking for a campground we had never been too....it was difficult and the scenery didn't look too promising. We pulled into Buttermilk campground around 10:00 that night. Thank goodness for having the tent trailer because it makes everything so easy and fast. We knew there was a lake nearby and right before we climbed into bed John noticed lights reflecting in water super close to our site so we went to bed with high hopes!

We woke up the next morning and were wowed with our site! We were only 30 miles away from West Yellowstone so it was really pretty. Our site was awesome!


It was huge and we had a private little path down to the water and the lake. The lake reminded me so much of Lake Cavanaugh.

We set the rest of camp up that morning and I was putting up a clothesline for towels and bathing suits and Caleb found some rope and really wanted to set up his own line. He was very diligent about hanging his things up all weekend long.


Mike and John found a nice little sandy beach just down from ours and with a little effort from Mike they created a nice little beach for us. The kids had a lot of fun just playing in the sand and water.



The big kids found ways to entertain themselves on the beach too :)


We were stoked to finally get to use Johns $5 boat. It was so nice to have!


The kids loved to go out on it and we used it as a makeshift dock for the kids to jump off of. It was also used for a little fishing but that's a post for tomorrow.


The water was pretty nice in my opinion for a lake but everyone else seemed to think it was too cold. Everyone but Aliya that is! She was my swimming buddy the whole weekend!


We had a crazy wildlife encounter with 2 moose!


They walked right through the campground and down to the water right next to our little beach. Davis saw them and said "look horsey's!" They were huge! They went out into the water right next to where we were and went for a swim.


When we were coming back to the beach in the boat they were swimming in right next to us. They ended up just behind us on our little beach within 15-20 yards! It was crazy! They suddenly took off and I was amazed with how fast and light on their feet they were for being so huge!

We ate a little too good this trip!


Lots of cobbler and lots of s'mores!


Chris had some huge marshmallows and Davis made a s'more out of one. Only he hadn't got the marshmallow very hot so it wouldn't squish down!


Even for his big mouth it was a little too much!



Davis and Caleb took turns riding their bike through the woods and it kept them very busy!


On Sunday night it seemed we had worn the kids out to exhaustion as a case of narcolepsy swept around and one by one we found kids sleeping in chairs.



Even Becks fell asleep!


It was just so great to be with family and see the boys playing with cousins!


It was pretty great to just hang out with this guy too!


We really needed that time to slow down and play together!

I cant wait to go camping again! Its one of those things that you forget just how fun and great it is until you go again. I have big plans for camping around here the rest of the summer!