Apricot Nectar

Have any of you ever made apricot nectar before? I grew up drinking this nectar from heaven and was so excited to make some for my own family. In the above picture, I'm holding the honey before I add it to the nectar.

This machine makes making apricot nectar so easy. It takes the cooked apricots and separates the juice from the pulp. This is the same machine I'll be using this fall to make homemade applesauce. I don't know what it is called but it is so nice and makes the smoothest nectar and applesauce.

Do you see all those jars of nectar? Oh so yuumy!!

We made twenty quarts of nectar today. Not all the apricots have been picked and so I plan on making a few more quarts next week. The fun point of the day was when we were picking the apricots and decided just to shake the branches, hoping the ripe apricots would fall to the ground...which they did...and then we just picked up the fallen apricots and brought them in the house to make into nectar. It didn't matter that they were bruised, we were just going to juice them anyway. And this is how beautiful they turned out!!

Apricots!!

This week the apricots started ripening on Mom's trees. Being the wonderful mother that she is, when I asked if we could can some apricot/pineapple jam, she said yes. So, we started early by picking the apricots...and then we had to wash them.

And then I needed to cut them and pit them. I wore one glove because I wanted to prevent the staining of my fingernails...such a vain thing...but I've done this many times before and I didn't want to end up with yellow fingernails.

And then we cooked the apricots, blended them a bit, put in the pineapple and honey, and let it cook more. After it was just right...we put them in pint bottles.

We ended up canning 4o-something pint bottles of apricot-pineapple jam. Oh, I'm so excited to have that yummy stuff in my food storage. Thanks again Mom for letting me make a mess in your kitchen and for showing me how to can this jam.

Baby Shower

I grew up next door to my cousins. It was nice to have four girl cousins since I had three younger brothers and one sister. Here are three of the four cousins...at a baby shower for the fourth sister. Great baby shower ladies!

This is my cousin who is closest to my age. We used to play for hours and hours together. I've enjoyed following her on her life on her blog. It's also been fun just to get together to talk.

Here is my grandmother, my aunt and my cousin.

This is the receiving blanket and two burp clothes I made for my cousin. Even though this is her first baby, she doesn't know if she is having a boy or girl. So, this is the best I could do...a blanket that could be for a boy or a girl.

And here is the special lady...ready to have the baby but baby is not ready to come until the middlish of August.

Here is my sister and cousin. This is the cousin that hosted the baby shower. What a great event!

And finally the best picture ever. My sister, mom and me!

Our Garden

Our garden is producing!! I feel like an expectant parent who finally has offspring to show to others. Here we have one of our first tomatoes. It looks kind of red but really is an orange tomatoe.

And here are some of the peppers. Yum!

Every thing is growing very well. The heat is causing things to grow and grow. Now we just have to remember to water it so that it doesn't die.

Here are the Anahiem peppers. Anyone have any good recipes for this pepper?

Jeremy has been working very hard to keep the tomatoes in their cages. I'm not sure if they are very cooperative but he's doing his best.

Quail Eggs & Cucumber

Mom was working in her garden yesterday morning and came across this nest of quail eggs. Unfortunately, Mamma Quail had already abandoned this nest and so the eggs weren't viable, but it is still neat to look at.

Mamma Quail put these eggs right under a very large cabbage leaf. They were well camouflaged and protected. I wonder why she had to abandon them.

This is a cucumber. Usually when they grow they straighten out but this one never did. It almost looks like a giant cut worm. I'm so excited that the plants from the garden are producing veggies. It's so yummy to have all that fresh food.

Bee Stings

My mom and I were over at my grandmother's to help her hedge some of her bushes. I started shaping this bush into a nice round shape. Suddenly I felt a sharp sting on my hand and knew immediately that I had been stung on my hand. Mom and I ran inside the house and found a cotton ball and put vinegar onto the sting. It helped and the burning feeling went away. We then went back outside again and Mom picked up the hedger and started cutting. All of a sudden there were lots of small, black and white bees swarming her head. She was stung on her lip and a couple stings above her eye. So, again we ran inside, grabbed the vinegar and put it on her face. Above is the picture of her face a day after it happened and below is a photo of my hand.

My hand continued to swell a little more than this picture shows. I can't believe how hard it is to do any little ol' thing around the house. But I'm grateful that it only swelled that much. I was stung 13 years ago on the same hand and the swelling was up all the fingers and up my arm to my elbow. I knew I had an allergy to bee stings but this is so much better than last time.

4th of July...a little late.

(I can't get the photos to move below the pictures for some reason, so if you want to know the details to my 4th of July, you will find it at the bottom of this post.)

The younger kids were supposed to take a nap, but that never happened. How can you sleep when you have fun cousins who want to play?

And even if you are too big, there are times when you really should have a nap. Instead you can mope in a chair until you get over it.

The Fourth of July was a very fun and busy day...and it started early with an alarm clock. No sleeping in for SM and I. His parents set off early for the park in Salt Lake County, to save a place for the whole family. We put together a salad for my family reunion, gathered together all the things we needed for that day and hopped into the car. We took SM's sister and youngest with us to the park where we met up with his parents. We were only there a short time because we needed to travel south to Genola. I honestly couldn't remember how long it would take us to get there...but we planned it perfectly and arrived at my family reunion right when it was supposed to start. Well, of course you can't start with a majority of the aunts and uncles missing. So, we waited until everyone arrived and then the festivities began. We had lots of food and a great opportunity to visit with cousins and aunts and uncles. Some of my cousins I haven't seen for years and years so this was a great time to get caught up on their lives and on their children. It was fun to see kids who had grown and grown. I remember most of them as babies and now they are no longer babies. During this reunion, I didn't pull out my camera. I now wish I had but at the time I felt awkward.

After the Genola reunion, we drove back up to Salt Lake to the park where all of SM's family were now enjoying the 4th of July. We had yummy food, played games, sat around talking to each other and kept an eye out for all the young kids who almost got lost many different times.

I did bring my camera here and so here are photos of the events. We stayed at the park all day and a good portion of the night. The fireworks were fabulous! And after the fireworks, we waited around as the thousands of people cleared the park. We had a great talk with the cops as they stopped to see why we weren't leaving. The main cop we spoke to must be a comedian as a side hobby because he had us laughing for a good half hour. It was a highlight of this years' trip to the park.

Family Reunion

SM and his brother were the officiators during the family auction. The auction is done yearly to earn money for the next years family reunion. It was very entertaining to watch SM and his brother run the auction. They did so well...we made more money than any other year and part of that was because of the auctioneer.

Water activities are always fun for the kids. In addition to water activities, the park has an awesome play ground. It's the coolest I've ever seen.

We made a quilt block for the family quilt. I got my inspiration from SM's shirt. I drew the picture and SM colored it. We make a good team.

There was also service projects that we could work on while we were visiting with family members. Here is the baby quilt that needed to be tied.

Here's a photo of the youngest family member...until the twins showed up. I don't know the twins but I know my niece. Isn't she precious?

A little dinner entertainment.

Cookies for dessert. Yum!

We had a great reunion. We've actually had a lot of activities the past three weeks. I have enjoyed all of them. One of the advantages of living near family is doing a lot of things with family. I feel so loved!

Lilies

My mom's lilies are blooming. They are so beautiful that I had to take a few pictures.

This lily had a surprise in the middle of it. The grasshopper was the same color as the green leaves on the lily. He really knew how to blend into the plant until he sat on the flower.

This is one of my favorite photos. I love the vibrant colors in it.

Aussie Burger

We've had SM's sister up for about a week and a half. Her husband served his mission to Australia. They have a burger called an Aussie Burger and we made them last week. It's a hamburger with just a few extra things...such as a fried egg, a slice of pineapple and several slices of beets. Yep, all of those were on this burger including the regular toppings such as lettuce, tomatoes, ketchup, mustard and mayo. I am not a fan of beets...to me they taste like dirt, but I put on my best manners and ate my Aussie burger with beets, and it was good. I think there are so many other flavors that you don't really taste any one flavor intensely.

15 Year Class Reunion

I had my 15 year class reunion the weekend before the 4th of July. Can you believe I've been out of school for 15 years? Sometimes it seems like I just left high school and at other times it seems like it's been several life times since I left high school.

This is a friend that attended all of elementary school, junior high, high school and church with me. I haven't seen her in a long time but she's just the same. It's so great!

One of my close high school friends was planning on attending...she paid her money...and at the last minute her husband and daughter got the flu and she was unable to attend. Luckily I had a few other friends show up. We had a great visit at our luau...enjoyed the food...enjoyed the entertainment and seeing so many friends.

Here's a photo of me and my cousin. We both got trophies. Mine is for having "the most degrees" and my cousin has one for the oldest child and one for being the first one to pay to attend the reunion. I really don't have the most degrees but I was the only one that attended the reunion and had the most degrees and my cousin doesn't have the oldest child out of everyone, but he did have the oldest child for those that did attend the reunion.

I can't wait for the twenty year reunion. Should be lots of fun....