Four Wheel Fun

Mom and Dad are storing their two four wheelers in our garage.  We told them while we were building that we would definitely have enough room in our new garage for their four wheelers.  They finally brought them up.  The boys kept asking mom and dad when they were going to bring them up.  It's been so fun having them.  We like to go for little rides around the neighborhood.  A couple of times, we went for a longer ride around Bothwell.  We need Mom and Dad to come exploring with us.

Salsa with Jen

Jen and I have been putting off salsa but we finally did it!  It's such a process and it makes such a mess.  Jen said we could do it at her house.  (She didn't want my white kitchen cabinets to get splattered with salsa.) We doubled the "RaJenIp Salsa" recipe (Rach, Jen, & Kip) that we came up with years ago.  After it had cooked for over an hour, we tasted it.  We couldn't figure out what it needed but it just didn't taste right.  We added a little more lime and salt and then called it good.  We did 50 pints of salsa!!!  Michael set up the camp chef so we had two processing stations outside.  Tiff brought us Golden Spike for lunch.  She's not a big fan of salsa so she didn't want any.  But it was so fun to have her stop by and spend some time with us.  It ended up being an all day thing by the time we cleaned everything up.  But at least now we're set for the winter.  Plus it was great to spend the time with Jen.

Honey with Jody

My bee friend, Jody, was sweet enough to invite Bridger and I to help "take off the honey."  She and her husband Blake, had come up a couple of days ago and had taken out the boxes with the slates in them.  We met her at a place bee store in Ogden that has a commercial kitchen that you can rent to take off your honey.  We showed up at 8:00.  Jody and Blake got there around 6:30.  The process was so interesting to watch.  We learned so much!!!  You take a hot knife and carefully slice the hard outermost layer off of the honeycomb.  It looks like a plastic.  This frees up the honey that his hidden underneath it and is in the honeycomb.  You have to be careful not to damage the honeycomb because you want to reuse the slats to help the bees out.  Then you put the slat in a honey spinner.  It fits about 20ish.  Then it spins the slats and drains the honey off.  Then you strain the honey as it comes out of the spinner to get because gold honey.  It was amazing to us how Jody utilized every aspect to get the maximum amount of honey.  We had a waste basket that I thought she would just throw away (it had the hard layer that we burned off).  She said that she strains it for 5 days to get every last drop of honey out of it.  Then she takes the waxy substance and uses it to make lotion and lip balm.  She and Blake were so sweet with Bridger and I.  I felt like we were in the way because the kitchen was tiny.  But they said that we helped them a lot.  Seeing the process, made me appreciate honey!! One bee makes 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey it's entire life.  Jody sent us home with 8 jars of honey!  I was hoping to get one.  We were so excited with how much we got!  Jody said that "our" bees produced the most this summer compared to her other bee boxes.  It was a really dry and hot summer so that decreases production.  Her other bees only made half of what they normally do. Our honey was the lightest honey.  Matt was worried that the bees would bother us but we never knew they were even there in the back of our yard.  It was a win win for us and Jody.

Tanner and his puppies

Tanner loves his stuffed animals.  He's discovered some stuffed animals that were Bridger's.  They're puppies!!  Tanner loves to play with them.  One day I was getting ready and Tanner came in with all of the puppies hanging out of his pants. He said "take a picture of me."  While I was taking a picture of him, Sophie photo bombed the picture.  Every time we look at this picture, it makes us laugh.  Tanner is such a happy guy who finds joy in the little things.

The Trencher!

Matt has been moving a lot of dirt around in our yard to level things off.  His tractor has really come in handy.  Matt has spent hours and hours working in the yard and planning the sprinkler system.  He's finally ready for sprinklers!  Dr. B at work told Matt about this awesome trencher that you can rent.  We paid $230 for two days.  This trencher was an incredible machine!  It was so powerful.  Matt rode on the back of it and steered it around.  Ardell came up on Saturday and guided Matt around.  It was amazing to watch how quickly it dug the trenches.

Chase's Football Season

It's been hard for Chase to sit on the side lines and watch all of the football games.  When the entire team comes running out, Chase (and the other injured guys) come out at the end limping or walking slowly out.  It's like pouring lemon juice on a paper cut.  It breaks my heart for him because I know it's so hard for him to be on the side lines.  He's had a really good attitude about it.  (I'm the one that is openly struggling with it). I don't like to go to the games because it's hard to see everyone else playing and then see Chase standing on the side.  He loves football and I know that he would give anything to be playing.  But I guess his body is not meant to play football.

Tanner's Turn for School

Tanner has been so excited to start school.  We went with a new preschool this fall.  We loved Ms. Ginger but I didn't want to repeat the same curriculum.  We went with Tiff and Jen's recommendation.   Originally Ms. Nicole wasn't going to teach anymore but then she changed her mind.  We were so glad she decided to teach one more year.  Tanner picked out a Lightening McQueen backpack.  He looks so handsome!  He's also doing a kindergarten readiness program online.  Lilly did the program and loved it.  He has to work on the computer doing their program five days a week for at least 15 minutes.  It focuses on reading for the first 20 minutes and then he can do math and science activities.  He really enjoys it.

Shantelle gave me a letter board for my birthday.  I love it!

Tanner came running out of his school when I picked him up.  He loved his first day with Ms. Nicole.  I posted this picture on instagram and Kip texted me and asked where his school was because it looked ghetto to her.  It made me laugh so hard!  

After school, I took Tanner to Wendy's to celebrate his first day of school.  (His teacher gave him a certificate for a free frosty).  Tanner loves to dip French fries in his frosty.  He ate almost the entire large fry and small frosty.  Afterwards, we picked up Bridger and went and played at the park.

Peach Party!!!

We made over 55 jars of peach jam.  We made three pots of the jam (with each pot have a double recipe batch).  My kids don't like the chunks in the jam so we pureed my batch.  They love the jam!  It turned out the best we've ever made.

Shan, Mylissa and Marilyn showed up to mom's around 10:00.  We got right to work with our peach factory.  It made it go really quickly with everyone helping out.  Dad bought 6 boxes of peaches.  We ended up with over 92 jars of beautiful peaches.  Dad is so sweet to help us out.  He's in charge of the processing.  He set up a station outside the garage and was very efficient.  He had three processors going at one time.  We had a hard time staying up with him.  Even though I was dreading it, it ended up being a great day.  I didn't have anything going on so Tanner and I were able to spend the whole day doing peaches.  We were able to get so much done.  We were exhausted by the end of the day but at least we got it all done.

We use Grandma Taylor's peach jam recipe.  After making it, I realized why it's so good.  Because half of the ingredients are sugar.