It's a Wonderful Life

Hmm, what to even say about this trip to Utah?  It was crazy.  It was frustrating. But it also had some fun thrown in. We started off great, driving to the Baltimore airport Wednesday afternoon for our 4 o'clock flight to Salt Lake.  We went through security, got to the gate, and waited . . . . . . then realized it was a little odd that there was no American Airlines worker at the gate with only 30 minutes before we should've boarded.  Well, before too long we got word that the flight was canceled due to incoming thunderstorms.  Erik immediately got online and got on the phone with the airline, trying to find us a new flight (an American Airlines employee never did show up).  The kids stayed happy wandering around the airport, checking out lots of (newly) grounded planes.  Finally, we got a new flight out of Dulles for the next morning.  So we drove back home, went to bed, and got up at 5:30am to make our morning flight. This one t...

The few days leading up to a vacation are always a little stressful for me.  This time I decided to spend as little time at home as possible while during the kid's waking hours so at least the house would stay picked up.  I have to say it worked pretty well! Kidz Play was Wyatt's choice on Monday.  The place was pretty empty, which made it nicer (for Anna especially). Say Cheese! Tuesday, was Jackson's pick: pool day!  Gotta love a close neighborhood pool! One thing that was stressing me a little, was getting our ripe vegetables taken care of before we took off.  Pretty much all of the corn ripened, so we just got it stuck in the freezer (either in the husk or cut off into a freezer bag). I also attempted some relish.  It was pretty time consuming, but tasty.   On Tuesday night, the boys were invited for a "late over" at the Stakers.  They were so excited!  Of course Brittany had cute things for them to...

Saturday was Amanda Clingerman's baby shower!  Lisa, Stephanie (Amanda's mom), and I threw it and it turned out really fun!  I'm so happy that I've been able to count Amanda as one of my greatest friends.  She's been so much fun to work with in Beehives, visit teach, hang out with at playgroup, and any other opportunity we get.  I'm so happy for her to have her second baby and first boy! The shower's theme was nautical, so Lisa made these cute jello boats. And pinterest supplied the idea for these nautical cutlery sets :) There was lots of yummy food that people graciously brought.  My favorite was the Paula Deen pecan french toast that Stephanie made, yumm-y! Bethan was a big help with the kids down in the basement.  Erik helped out with Bishop's store house all morning, so it was nice to have them occupied. Oh, I should mention that Amanda made the cute bunting.  I felt kind of guilty that the shower honoree made her ...

Our cucumber plant has been producing quite nicely.  Anna and I are the only ones that like to snack on them, so we've been making a lot of jars of pickles.  So far we've made 4 jars of dill and 4 jars of bread and butter.  Tonight I have 6 jars worth of relish sitting in salted water and spices waiting to be canned tomorrow night.  I hope the neighbors are OK with pickles for Christmas this year haha. I've been trying put up some basil too from our garden.  So far I've done several small bags of pesto and frozen chopped basil in ice cube trays.  I found a recipe for basil/blueberry infused vinegar that I will can after it steeps for 4 weeks (!).  I'm really hoping that this will turn out, because good vinegar mixed with olive oil is so delicious on salads!  Anyway, I probably shouldn't start a post about all of this food storage, because I know I have bored everyone (all 3 of you, haha). Last weekend, Erik and I went out and saw...