June Update!!!

Is it really the final days of June? Some times I feel like the world is going around at such a fast pace I cannot even catch my breath to keep up!!!

A few events that have happened since I last blogged, (I bet I have no readers on here anymore since I have been so flaky about writing anything).

Early this month Alexis graduated from high school! It was a fun and very sunny day filled with good food, old and new friends and a wonderful time celebrating this beautiful young lady who has come and blessed our lives in amazing and special ways. She has been so much fun to live with and I enjoyed meeting her extended family and seeing how much they also love her....Pretty cool.

Just this past week me and my sisters met in Sisters, Oregon for a "reunion" of sorts.  It was so much fun! We had a great time with good food, lots LOTS LOTS of laughter (the crying kind) and lots of good talk and sharing.  Can't tell you what we talked about because, "what happens in Sisters, stays in sisters..." get it?  We did a lot of shopping, often going back to the same place several times (quilt shop and coffee shop) and just plain having a wonderful time together.  We even rode bikes one day although I have a little piece of advice for anyone over the age of sixty wanting to ride a bike again for the first time....DON'T!!!!!!!!!!!  Seriously. Our sister Teri crashed pushing the bike off the curb to practice riding it, following THAT up with THREE more crashes!!! One of them into a telephone pole!  WHAT???? Carol, the oldest, crashed twice, once was just funny, the other one banged her knee up pretty good and she had to behave herself from then on....We had fun with some kids toys like glow in the dark bracelets and wax dracula teeth (as kids we used to chew them like gum...yuck!) and attempted to make home made ice cream in very hot temps!!!  All in all, it was awesome! We all came home with small trinkets that we had bought for each other, cool stuff like hats with BBS and our family number (um mine was #5 and I can't explain the BBS its an inside joke), really pretty purses, and our pink Sisters of the Heart poetry book, not to mention we each got a small journal and spent the week periodically writing in each others, just blessing them.  To say that this trip was a miracle is a HUGE understatement and not giving God the glory He deserves for Reconstructing our sisterhood! I am so grateful. We were joined by Connies bff from high school (well her whole life since high school that is) and our sister Teri even got to join us!  Anyway, it was a wonderful week!!!

um.....holy toledo batman.... 

Sweet sister Teri, eating a smore, made with a GIANT marshmellow 

 The fab six!  Carol, Teri, Penny, Judy (adopted by us), Connie and me

Go west young man...or is that east, or north or south???? where the HECK is that mountain?????

I came home and the next day we celebrated Bryces 25th birthday with a big family paintball war! After a small hiccup during the first "fight" we went on to have a great time, laughing, yelling, and of course trying to shoot one another with purple paintballs!!!!  Oh man! At one point Matt and I had John pinned behind a tree, a SMALL tree, each of us pelting that poor tree in an effort to hit John.  It was a great time and we ended it all with a great meal of crockpot ham and beans, homemade bread and lots of laughter and retelling of our battles!  Then we got to eat homemade ice cream made with fresh strawberries and warm chocolate pudding cake that Lindsay just "whipped" up....YUMMO!!!!!!!!

I am the kind of person who likes to new things, well, new homey things anyway, and have always loved to work hard at making our finances stretch in the home/kitchen. Its a lot of fun to me to find ways to make really good food with as few ingredients as possible....SO, I have learned how to make homemade yogurt in the crock pot...can you spell DE-LI-CIOUS??????  I am going back to my roots...seriously.   Years ago I began to feed my family organically grown food, home cooked meals with no yucky stuff and I used to can lots of fruit and veggies such as green beans, peaches, pears, cherries and the like,  I used to make my own butter, drink raw milk (just found a lady who sells it and am set to start buying it again! yay!),  I would hardly ever have to buy meat since we ate elk meat.  Its was awesome! I decided to go back to that!!! We have a garden planted and happily growing in our yard and a large one up at a friends house up the river (yes, to combat rising food prices but also to enjoy some good fresh home grown food), as I said before, I am going to be buying fresh milk which I plan to use to make my own yogurt, mozzarella cheese and butter, plus, DRINK!  I also hope to get hold of some goat milk since my hubby loves to eat goat cheese and my niece Holly knows how to make it (she's someone I need to get together with and exchange healthy foody ideas with).  We also hope to get homegrown chicken and maybe we will be blessed with an elk and some deer meat this year....I know it sounds like I am going overboard but...oops, forgot to mention that I am making my own bread now!!!!!! YEP!!!!!!!!!!!!  hahaha!!!! I love it!!!! I have found myself wondering why I stopped doing all of this stuff years ago.  I know that I started working and yes, got lazy, but I think I must have just decided that the other way of eating and living was "easier" and it was, but, it wasn't nearly as satisfying as knowing that I am giving my family really good food and not spending any more money than I was before, in fact, I will be spending LOTS less once our garden begins to produce and then we can start putting all that food up in canning jars and in the freezer!!! oh man I am so ready for that!!!!  

Thats the update of my life thus far....oh, yeah, I forgot, I'm gonna be preaching in July! Yep, first time ever...I don't know if I mentioned that in any previous posts?!