A New Beginning

Greetings from the face of the earth, from which I have fallen off of!!!!! Where has the time gone? Why can't I seem to get it together in the blogging world? I so admire my friend Tami, who manages to post a little something every day. She has it published into a book and it's such a wonderful journal of her daily family life. That's my goal people!!!! (By the way, Tami's son, Sam, is being sworn in to the Army tomorrow, so keep him and his family in your prayers please!!)

I'll try to give you the month in review, in no particular order, cuz it's been so long since I blogged that once again I don't remember how to load my photos!!!!

We've started a remodel-addition. Somewhere I had a before picture, but a Christmas one came up! Go figure! You can sort of see that we're pushing the LR out a bit. Putting a big fireplace in the center, getting rid of my "trailer" windows and putting 3 cute little ones above the FP. Also took out a kitchen wall and a dining room wall to open things up. It looks great and we're so glad we did this. Unfortunately it won't be done until the end of Nov. and I'm stressing a bit! Fall is my FAVORITE time of year and it about does me in not to decorate and enjoy a nice book and coffee by the fire!

In other news....moved Ashleigh down to Seattle last week. Here she is, her last day at home!

She'll be a junior at Seattle Pacific University! I made the mistake of only taking pictures of all the issues with the house (for future reference with the landlords) and didn't get any of the cute part! I have one shot of her LR! Isn't the red adorable? She's sharing the house with 5 other girls and they are set to have a good time!!!

Got everything in the truck and her car with a little room to spare!

Brian was down to see her this weekend. I sent the camera so he could take the cute pictures. He forgot. He took Tyler and his friends to a Sounders game in the Red Bull Suite. The goalie came up after the game...gave them all signed jersey's, pictures, and hung out for awhile. Brian left the camera in the car. Later that night he took Ashleigh and her friends to a Mariner's game. Forgot the camera again.................I love my husband, I do, I do!!!!

Tyler started school at the end of August. Didn't quite get the haircut in time for school pictures, but it is a lot shorter now. He informed me that the girls like it longer!!

He LOVES having his picture taken...NOT!!

New school clothes. He's getting a little too fashionable! We do live in farm country after all!!!

Just made some yummy applesauce! Probably my favorite thing to preserve as it smells so good-tastes good too. Doesn't it look so cute in those stubby little jars?

Tyler's looking at buying a car, a Mitsubishi Eclipse. This one just dropped a thousand dollars. Problem is he only has 3000!!

Spent a great weekend with Ashleigh in Eastern Washington. Happened to be the Outdoor Quilt Show at the Buggy Barn, so of course I had to go!!!! Stopped at Waterville for a driving break and a visit to another quilt shop and ran into my neighbor Carol and my old neighbor Lisa, who were also going to the quilt show!


I love the setting of the Buggy Barn! The middle of nowhere, surrounded by wheat fields. So Pretty!

Spent the weekend at Lake Roosevelt with my brother and his family and had so much fun! The water there is so amazing, clear forever, warm and smells like fresh laundry! We had a lot of fun swimming, boating, sitting around the fire. Uploaded the wrong pics, so maybe later!!


Spent a night last week with my sister in law, Meagan. These are some paintings from her new fall series. I LOVE these! I will definitely be buying some of these prints! You can see some of her other paintings at http://www.serenescene.blogspot.com/.

I did do a little fall decorating. I couldn't help myself!!! I know it's going to get all dusty, but I don't care!!!!!




Love this little shopping cart and my old door!




A few quilts, and the hutch that doesn't belong there!

The front porch...and my shadow! Aren't mums glorious? So vibrant!



This cute little bird was singing to me as I was in the garden. Don't know what kind it is.

Lots of pumpkins in my garden this year. They are my favorite thing to grow!

Today, the first day of Autumn, is my 45th birthday! As my BFF ( or former BFF, jk) said, "I'm halfway to 90!!! thanks Lynda!! It's a gorgeous day and I hope to work in my yard and get things tidied up in the garden. Thanks for all of the greetings that I've already gotten today!

Happy Fall!

Holly

Camping, Canning and Concerts, Oh My!!!

Last weekend we went on our annual camping trip to Lake Pearrygin in Winthrop, Wa. The group, about 50, started camping together when two of them were in 2nd grade and has grown from there. We've been going for 5 years now and it gets more fun every year! I have to say that this one has been my favorite so far. We've had a wedding, 25th anniversary, Hawaiian theme, but this year was "Sheriff Claus and his Reindeer Games". Those of you who know me know how much I love Christmas...everything about it! It takes me a week to decorate and while I complain the whole time, I'm always amazed at the transformation of my home and love the finished product! Needless to say, I've been excited about this camping trip!!!
Dave and Angie Miller host this event, and I encourage you to think "Cruise Director" as you read about this!!! We received a letter at Christmas with all the details. Events include: tent decorating, most traditional and most creative; dessert, best tasting and most creative; best costume; reindeer games; white elephant gift exchange; traditional Christmas dinner; kazoo caroling around the campfire!!!!! Due to extreme fire danger the caroling did not transpire, but we did all the rest!!!!
On Friday evening Dave became the game show host for the "Newly wed and the Nearly dead" game! Four different couples, married from one year to 28 years!! It was so fun - mostly for those of us who were laughing at all of them, while being thankful that we weren't in the "HOT SEAT"!!!! Congratulations Dan and Tracy!!!Saturday morning the tent decorating began...such a frenzy!!!! It really was a lot of fun! People had bought so many things the day after Christmas that they forgot what they had purchased! Such joy! Such delight! Almost like Christmas morning!!

Robin, Chip and their nephew Steve posing in front of their tent. I see next years Christmas card!!

Dan and Tracy went with the "Trailer Trash" theme, which is written on their bag! They had the advantage of being the only ones with electricity!!!

I was going for most traditional, so determined to win that I only focused on this contest, and entered no other!!!! Had to hang some diddy's on the clothesline!

Our humble abode! Unfortunately I forgot the door mat!!! Had my Christmas jammies and a lovely Christmas throw on the bed too!!

Hoping that Santa will fill all those stockings! My trees had "S'more" ornaments and garlands on them.




Sheriff Claus arriving on his golf cart! It was about 85 degrees out!!


The tents were judged first, and then the desserts. Announcements and awards would be made at dinner!

Stacy's beautiful cake!

Angie's little Christmas mice!!


Then, it was time for the games!!! All of the actual games are on my other camera, which has not been loading for me, so you'll have to visualize!! 36 people divided into 3 teams, red, green and white.

The Red Team and ultimate winners of the games!

The White Team!

And my team, the Green Team!!! We had all the young, strapping men on our team and thought they would lead us to victory, but boy did they let us down!!!!! JK!!

We played 8 games, which took us over 2 hours. They included, but were not limited to:

1.Having tags placed on our backs with the 12 days of Christmas, which we then had to put in order, without looking at our own tags.

2.Putting on a foam nose, Santa hat and a big pillow, racing to the chimney (painted cardboard box), climbing down the chimney and racing back!

3.Standing in buckets of ice water while throwing styrofoam balls through holes cut out of a wooden snowman.

4.Kayak races, with Santa hats on.

5.Re-writing Twas the Night Before Christmas, Pearrygin style.

6.I saw mommy kissing Sheriff Claus...use your imagination!!!! (Robin, you are a great sport!!)

7.Acting out the nativity according to our assigned characters!

8.I can't remember, but it was good!!!!!!

People from all over the campsite were watching us including some from above, with binoculars !

The Sheriff and his nieces, who both won for best costumes! Laura was a star but her points were being infringed upon!!



Christmas dinner, complete with Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, and salad! We got to eat the desserts too!!!!


Winners were announced and I won for most traditional tent decorating!!! Most creative was the "Grinch on Vacation"!!! Sorry I didn't get the picture on! A big old stuffed Grinch, sitting in his lounge chair with a cocktail, pink flamingo shirt, hat and flamingos planted all around! Very Cute!!!


Sarah and Laura got Best Costumes!

Angie got most Creative Dessert and Alyssa got best tasting for her Reindeer Dump Cake, which looked like little reindeer dumps!!! It was very tasty!!

Everyone got little ornaments for their prizes and the red team got snowflake medals!

After dinner we gathered around for the gift exchange! What a doozy!! The stealing, the yelling, the negotiating!!!! It was a mad house!!! Someone even wrapped an extremely large zucchini, with newspaper and duct tape, and someone else stole it!! I've been throwing mine away! Who knew they were so valuable!!!

Glasses, cake servers, pajamas, ornaments, fruitcake, elves, etc. , everyone went home with a great prize!!!

Very, very fun trip!!! Thank you so much, Dave and Angie!!! Can't wait til next year!! The theme is "Endless Summer, summer of '69" (How many ways can one make brownies?!!!)

Back home to the garden and lots of canning. I made the mistake of planting two different kinds of slicing cucumbers, rather than one each of slicing and pickling, so I had to BUY pickling cukes!!! Canned 31 quarts of dill, 14 quarts of dill spears, and 2 gallons of bread and butter. Also canned 20 pints of beets and 21 quarts of salsa, froze 35 pounds of blueberries, grated massive amounts of zucchini and summer squash and have picked over a hundred cucumbers in the last 5 days!!!!!! I do love canning despite all of the work. Love having my food supply ready and waiting for that winter blast!!! Nothing like hunkering down under a cozy quilt with a pot of soup simmering on the stove, filled with summer veggies!

Two weeks ago, hubby and 4 girls, (I being one of them!) headed down to Qwest Field for the Kenny Chesney summer Flipflop concert tour. What a blast!!! It was so hot, but we kept taking breaks until the sun went down!!

Me and My Guy!!

My Girlfriends, Lydia, Karen and Linda!!

So excited!!!

Kenny came in on a swing!!! He sure puts on a great show! It must be quite a thrill to hear 40 thousand people singing the words to every song you perform!!!!! We also saw Sugarland, Montgomery Gentry, Miranda Lambert and Lady Antebellum. They were all so good!! Great concert with great friends!!!!



Summer's almost over, and it's time to get back to reality!! Registered Ty for school yesterday, bought his books, paid his fees, and paid that down payment...OUCH!!! He is still working and actually looking forward to school starting so he can see everyone again!!! I'm really proud of both my kids for all of the hard work they've done this summer!!

Had to share this pic of my dear friends Zodie and Amsa!! Amsa is the daughter of my BFF and Zodie is her cousin. Both were adopted from Ethiopia and are such dear, amazing little girls! They picked me this beautiful bouquet of flowers when I was visiting yesterday. Thanks girls! They are sitting on my kitchen table in the cutest little Ball canning jar! I think of you every time I look at them!!! Zodie and Amsa have become Best Friends and remind me of my dear Nettie, my cousin and best friend. How I miss you, but look forward to that glorious day when we will be together again in Heaven!!

Summer Fun!

Summer is flying by! Already it's almost August, school will be starting soon and hopefully some cooler weather is on the way! 103 degrees as I left work last night at 5:00!! The house won't cool down, I can't cool down and it's downright icky out!!!!
Thought I'd post a few signs of summer here in Lynden!!

I was out garage saling last weekend when I came upon these goings on on Main Street...
A little John Deere parade!!! Only in Lynden!!! About 40 different John Deere tractors driving down the street!!!! Raspberry Fest, third weekend in July. 3 on 3 basketball tournament, sidewalk sale, old cars, and my favorite...

Shave Ice!!! I love this guys truck, covet it actually! Even went online to find one for myself, however, I really want this one!!!

Cute little downtown Lynden!

Took a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island and went with my SIL Meagan, http://www.aserenescene.blogspot.com/, to the Seabold Vintage Market Show. Had a great time with her and found a few goodies too, but of course, no pictures!!


Liz and her best friend...aren't they sweet?!!! Liz recognized us right away from our blogs and was so cheerful and kind!!

This cute little booth had darling miniature aprons hanging on the front of their booth!
It looks like Meagan is negotiating a deal, but she's really asking to take pictures so she can paint them later. She got lots of great ideas!

Love all of the textiles that Liz creates and displays. Such beautiful colors too!

While Meagan and I were out and about the guys all went on a hike. Brian loves to hike, but no one in the family shares his enthusiasm!!!! He's thrilled that his brother lives in the area now, as they both share that passion!!!

Meagan and I worked on stuff for her upcoming art show and the guys had a rousing game(s) of poker!!! Thankfully, no cigars!!

Blueberries are coming on quickly! These are from our friends house! HUGE as you can see and very good. They were out of town recently and we didn't want their berries to go to waste!!!

Tyler and Brian at Larabee State Park.

Had to get a picture of Tyler driving his raspberry picker. He was thrilled!!! Notice that he won't look at me?

Once the girls saw the camera they were more than willing to pose!!!!

Good ratio, 4 girls to 1 guy!!!! This has been a great summer job!! Had a few 60+ hour weeks, but those paychecks are pretty awesome!!!

Kind of hard to tell, but Tyler sits about 10 feet up and it's a little breezy up high. Watching Tyler leave in the morning with flannel pants, jeans, shirt and sweatshirt seems weird, but it can be quite cool up there.
Today, however, is supposed to be over 100 degrees again. 4 days of this heat and at least one more! It's awful, and muggy , and I'm getting nothing done...because I can't move or I sweat!!! The power was out yesterday at Brian's office and they finally all went home. No AC on a building full of windows!!! Power's back on today, but no AC yet!!! Welcome to my world honey!!!!

Sunny Days

It's a beautiful sunny day here in Lynden and I've been outside for most of it! Three hours picking raspberries and peas! Another hour shelling and freezing! I did take some time to read the paper out in the sunshine during a little respite!! Here's the big picture of the garden. Hard to get it all and get it close enough for you to see.

Ran out of bowls, so dumped the peas into a lovely gift bag!!

Two bowls of red and two of white, but forgot to take a pic of those!! It's hard to tell, but the berries are so BIG this year! They fit over my finger and are about an inch long! They are so tasty and beautiful!

Getting ready for the freezer. I freeze them on cookie sheets and then put them in freezer bags. This way they don't stick together and get all gooey. I don't spray my berries, so I don't wash them before I freeze them, or ever I guess! I love to just eat them frozen out of the bag, sometimes with a little sugar on them. They are to die for fresh, with a little vanilla coffee creamer poured over them!!!

These are Champagne berries and I actually like these better than the reds, fresh. They are sweeter and milder. They don't keep very well though, so they need to be eaten right away. I don't think that they taste very good frozen, like the reds better for that!

One thirty foot row of yellow and two of the reds. More than I need, but it's fun to share!

Here are the peas, zucchini, beets and summer squash.

A front quarter with lettuce, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Swiss chard, carrots and sunflowers (not blooming yet!).

The corn is about 4 ft. tall and the pumpkins (my favorite) are blossoming and putting out cute little punkies!! I would be happy to grow a field of pumpkins...maybe in Heaven!

Baked a few batches of cookies, paid bills , balanced the checkbook and now that it's almost 5:00, maybe I'll get that shower in!! Salmon for dinner and a nice relaxing evening!!

Still Here!!

Some of you are wondering where I've been...I have many excuses, but no valid reasons!

I tend to spend so much time reading other's blogs that I never seem to have time to post one! All of your lives and stories are way more interesting to me than rehashing mine!

I also tend to post when no one else is in the house (guys are out golfing) and of course I'm having a problem with photos again. Turns out I deleted a whole card last week as I was trying to post. Now that may not seem like a big deal to some of you, but I rarely have my card made into pictures, cuz I have so many that my bill would be about $200.00!!! And... I don't know how to store them on my computer. Pathetic, I know. So, I lost pictures from as long as a year ago. My daughter's 20th birthday, my son's 15th birthday, the entire basketball season, Father's day...you get the picture. The only good thing is that as I'm aging, I can't really remember everything that was on the disc!
Now my computer won't read my card with the new pictures that I took so I'm back at square one! Hopefully my husband can sort out my mess, and wouldn't it be great if he found the photo's hiding somewhere on the computer? !!!! Pray people!!!!

I've been very, very busy with my garden! The strawberries have ended and the raspberries are going strong with the blueberries not far behind. I'm picking 3 huge bowls of raspberries every other day and giving lots away! Lots of lettuce,cabbage and peas on right now too! I love it though! I feel very pioneery as I put away my "crops" for the winter , and fill my jars and freezers! I put up 30 pounds of cherries and 24 pounds of apricots this week - froze some, dried some, made lots of jam, and the most beautiful apricot pie! And yes, I will be eating it by myself as no one else likes apricots or pie. Ashleigh loves pie, but not apricot! So Sad!!! These people don't know what they are missing!!!

Ashleigh is house sitting for friends this week. They have a pool. It was very, very hot yesterday. Brian and I took full advantage and spent 3 hours swimming, laying in the sun, reading and napping! It was heavenly!! All by ourselves, no yard work, no cooking, no phone or TV. Very relaxing!!! Ash is also working hard this summer. 40 -50 hours a week at one job and another 10 at her other job! Two 14 hour days during the week , but she is loving having her weekends off!! And actually having some money to spend!!

Tyler is working hard too. Been in the raspberry fields since June 5th, five days a week. Now that they've started picking, he's doing 12 and 13 hour days, six days a week. He's driving a picker and I hope to get some pictures this week! What a great opportunity the kids have here, to be able to work at 14, make some great money in a short amount of time and still have a whole month of summer before school starts. I'm so thankful that everyone is employed!!

I have been working lots this month also, both at the kitchen shop and at drench-mate. I'm in the garden every day harvesting, weeding, etc. Brian and I got all the mowing, edging and weed-eating done yesterday and all is well! Church this morning where were doing ten weeks of the ten commandments, Larabee State park after church and now home to wait for the rain. I've got a good book to read , a quilt in the works and life is good!