The pictures run the gammit from nature, to animals, to amoebas! They are all there and some of the most fantastic pictures you ever saw!
Someday I aspire to take something spectacular enough that they want to publish it! That is like a dream of mine! Do you have dreams and goals! I would like to hear about them.
I recently completed a couple of scrapbook pages of her and decided to share them with you. This one is of her at the beginning of school last fall.
So in honor of Chelsea, I will refrain from posting the baby pictures I had saved up, at least for now! :) I will, instead, embarrass her with sentiment. 18 years ago, I had 3 kids, the youngest 10 1/2 and thought life was grand! Then I found out that I was having Chelsea! From the moment she came into this world in 1992, she has been a source of love, devotion, humor and precious memories for her dad and I. We are so thankful that Heavenly Father gave her to us and we look forward to many future birthdays with her as we watch her develop into an AWESOME woman!Cream:
1 1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 C shortening
2 eggs
Add:
1 tsp vanilla
1 C buttermilk
Sitr in:
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 C flour
1 1/2 C diced rhubarb
Put in 9 X 13 pan.
Topping:
1/2 C brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 C nuts
Sprinkle over top. Bake 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees. Serve warm with whipped cream.
Have a delicious day!
Chris
Putting Food By, 4th Edition, Newly Revised (Janet Green, Ruth Hertzberg, Beatrice Vaughan) This covers all kinds of preserving, has some recipes and has dietary tips to minimize salt and sugar!
Preserving Summer's Bounty (Edited by Susan McClure and the staff of The Rodale Food Center). This has ended up being my favorite book! Talks about what to grow, how to use it fresh and how to preserve it. Clear language and explanations. Lots of recipes! Excellent Book!
Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (Edited by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine) What can I say, 400 recipes! Some wonderful, some really wild (like Jalepeno Jelly that my daughter swears by)! Yummy stuff!
So let's get canning! Most of the vegetables are not ready yet, but the cherries are starting and you can always do jams, either from your garden or hit the local farmer's markets. Today I am sharing 2 recipes with you, Pie cherries and Kidney Beans. The kidney beans are so easy and you can do them any time of year. The cherries are starting on and some of the fruit stands have Utah fruit now. If I had known how easy it is to can cherries, I would have done it years ago. As it is, I was dragged into it, when my husband planted a pie cherry tree about 7 years ago. Let me tell you, they produce! And when you pick them, you better be ready to can right then, because they don't sit. After figuring that out and buying a cherry pitter (a real time and hand saver) I loved canning them!
Cherry Pie Filling ( from Susan Scott)
6 quarts pie cherries, pitted
7 C sugar 2 tsp almond extract
1 3/4 C Clear gel
9 1/3 C water
1/2 C lemon juice
2 tsp red food coloring
In a saucepan, combine sugar and clear gel. Add water, almond extract and food coloring. Cook on medium heat until thickened (boiling), stirring constantly. Add lemon juice and stir 1 minute. Add cherries. Put in jars and water bath for 30 minutes.
Clear Gel can be hard to find, but I get mine at http://www.4seasonsfoodstorage.com/, either on the internet at their local store.
Pressure-Cooked Beans (from Maureen and Colleen Scott)
In quart jars put:
1/4 C chopped raw onion
1/4 C chopped raw celery
1 1/2 C dry beans (kidney or pinto)
1 1/2 tsp salt
fill jars the rest of the way with water, to the rim. Add lid and ring. Pressure cook 12 lbs for 55 minutes. For pints, use 3/4 C beans and pressure for 35 minutes.
These beans can be used in any recipe calling for storebought canned beans. I use them to make chili, refried beans and in bean salads!
My last tip for the day. Go to http://www.pickyourown.org/! It is an awesome site that can hook you up with pick your own farms, has tons of recipes, canning tips, and links to where to get anything you would ever need! Check them out!
Well all this canning talk has made me hungry! I think I am going to make a cherry cobbler tonight! Hope you try something new today!
Chris
At first she was really full of herself, not holding on or anything!
So her dad sped up and started looping around to hit our own rollers! She got serious really fast!
We pulled her around for about an hour and then she was ready to get back in the boat!
The big surprise was Toby! He loved it! He kept getting up on the back seat where he could watch Chelsea, and even stood on the very back until I would yell at him to get down! He is a speed demon, that dog!
Here we are before we took off, Toby and Me!
The picture at the beginning is of Gene letting Toby in and out in the tube! He even loved that!
Last night when my husband were talking before going to bed, he commented that his time was shorter on this earth, saying at least he outlasted Michael and Billy Mays. After I slugged him, I got thinking about it, and I guess what he was trying to say was he was facing his mortality. This morning I have been doing that. None of us know when we will go, so make the most of life NOW. I know Michael had a lot of controversy in life, but I choose to remember the good stuff, songs like Rock with You, I'll Be There, Billy Jean and of course Thriller. I remember crowding around our TV with my young children, anxiously waiting for the premiere of the video to "Thriller" We wore out a cassette tape of that album. And who could forget "We Are The World", when it premiered that morning on the radio, and you realized as you listened, that all around the world, everyone else was listening! So, to the gloved one, I tip my hat! Goodbye Michael.
Billy Mays had only entered our lives in the last few years, but he was quite a character! I even watched him on "Pitchmen" one night and was awed by his ability to sell anything! He had a way with people and 50 was too young to die!
What else would you call it! We had a jam packed weekend and the time of our lives! Friday night we went over to Jefferson Lake to watch fireworks! Jefferson County puts on a wonderful fun fest the day before the 4th and then an awesome fireworks display coreographed by KUPI.
I am still learning to take night pictures, but here are a couple of the fireworks. Saturday morning we had a flagraising ceremony, where my grandma's cousin, Gail Nelson, spoke. It was really nice! I lead the music and even had the kids march carrying flags while everyone sang You're a grand old Flag! Afterwards, the girls served a yummy breakfast. Then it was off to the Rexburg Parade. We sat with a bunch of friends and really enjoyed it! Saw some people from the ward, and of course Chelsea's friends in the dance team. But the whole reason I go, is for this---->
The car wash men from Ray's Chevron! Every year they have a drill team to the song "Car Wash"! It is a hoot, and they aren't bad to look at either!
After the parade, we rushed back to Menan, where we shopped the booths, ate too much, then sat and visited with friends as we waited for the parade to start at 2:00. Chelsea had to go to work at 3:00, so we parked near the end of the parade so she could park her car just beyond and get out! She got to see most of the parade before she had to go! After the parade, we went home, and took a nap to save up energy for the night! Then we went to Artic Circle and out to wait for the fireworks in Menan! Chelsea joined us after she got off work. There were over 25,000 people there for this little celebration and the fireworks were awesome! I wasn't going to take any pictures, but the fireworks were so good I whipped out my Blackberry and snapped a few. Here they are!
Sunday, after church, we came home and chilled out for the afternoon. Jeremy and Niki joined us later and brought some yummy steaks and corn on the cob, which they cooked for us! It was really nice to have them do the meal! Not very often that I get to relax instead of slaving over the stove! :) I added a couple of salads, lots of veggies and even some swiss chard out of our garden! It was an awesome meal! Later we lit some of our 'illegal fireworks', the kind that shoot into the air! It was so funny, cuz Jesson is just like the rest of the guys in the family, right up there wanting to light them and so excited when they go off! Maddie on the other hand, does not like the noise. After about 20 of them, the wind picked up and we had to stop. But Jesson and Maddie and I sat on the porch and watched the lightening. I told them they were Heavenly Father's fireworks, and Maddie liked that they didn't have any sound with them! What a perfect night!
Today temptation set in! We were running erands in Idaho Falls, when we happened upon Broadway Ford. There happened to be a blue Mustang Shelby Cobra GT500 on the lot. So we happened to stop by to look. And then Gene and Chelsea happened to go for a test drive! The picture above is of Gene pulling out of the parking lot. He tells me they got it up to 145 mph! Glad I wasn't there. Anyways, they both came back drooling and sold. Chelsea was ready to sign on the dotted line! (Yea right)
I did take a picture of her in it! I told her I was going to make a poster of it and she could hang it in her bedroom to remind her of why she should go to college and get a degree!
Fireworks a couple of days early! These are over Arlington Cemetery and I got the picture from National Geographic, one of my favorite magazines!
Hope you have tons of fun and lots of family this weekend! I will check in periodically!
My flowers have really struggled this year, with all the rain! But in the last week, with a little sunshine and heat, they are starting to snap out of it!
I kind of feel like them, after a week of warmth and sunshine, I am snapping out of it!
Hope you are enjoying all of Heavenly Father's beautiful gifts today! 
