Weekend in Review

/ Shane / Leave a comment

This weekend we had an unusual calm in the storm that is our summer weekend schedule. This means we had plenty of time on our hands, which we used to do basically nothing. Especially this weekend because it was super hot and humid, so I didn’t go outside unless I had a good reason. So I will give you the quick run down of the few events of the weekend:

We went to the Farmers’ Market and bought some of the best brats I have ever tasted. They were a tad pricey (okay, maybe more than a tad), but they were soooo delicious. They even came in old school butcher paper and they were all connected like a string of sausages. We bought a couple of ears of corn which we grilled with the brats and had a fantastic meal. I’m just saying.

While we were grilling outside, Evie made a “beauty salon”. I’m not sure where she got the idea from exactly, probably from one of her books. The beauty salon worked like this: she dragged a chair over to the porch stairs, and that was part of it, but we didn’t use the chair at all. Then she would have you sit on the stairs and she would sit on the stair above you, so she was level with your head. Then she would give you a back rub. Sometimes she would pretend to get something to put in your hair, sometimes she wouldn’t. Then she would tell you that you looked pretty and then call for someone else to come to her beauty salon. It was quite amusing!

Evie and I were practicing riding the tricycle over the weekend. She’s getting there. I was trying to teach her how to steer and I kept saying, “Point the tricycle where you want it to go!” and she would take her hand off the handle bars and point furiously, even as the handle bars pointed away from it, as if to say, “Over there tricycle! Why aren’t you going that way, can’t you see I’m pointing?”

Evie was my little helper over the weekend. We were fixing squeaky doors with WD-40 and she was my official  squeak tester. She was so excited to open and shut the door really fast and then declare, “No squeaks!” One good thing about kids is that, sometimes it is really easy to make them happy. 🙂

Camping Question

/ Shane / Leave a comment

In light of my recent camping post being linked to by a camping blog, I thought I would put up a little poll about something that came up when we were camping. I meant to include this in my original camping post, but I forgot to write it down on my blogging notes from the weekend, so it slipped my mind.

In other news, we are down to a 1 car family as Sara’s car takes an extended stay in the shop (should be about a week when all is said and done). And there will still probably be more repairs in the future. We are having a pretty bad run as far as car trouble goes. I think when all is said and done, we’ll have spent about $1,300 in about two months between our two cars. It’s really not too bad when you consider we haven’t had much car repair for the past few years, so maybe we should count our blessings. Still pretty annoying though.

Pickles!

/ Shane / 9 Comments

My grandma makes homemade pickles and they are to die for. I’ve always wanted to try to make the pickles myself so that I could rely on my own supply, instead waiting until she could sneak me a jar or two. I’m not saying she did sneak me jars and I’m not saying she didn’t, but I am saying that if she did sneak me jars and word got out (like on the Internet, for example), then I’d probably be in big trouble with the rest of my family.

So I planted some cucumbers this year on the porch figuring I’d get enough for a jar or two and we could give it a trial run. However, we had an opportunity to raid my grandma’s garden for cucumbers when she was on vacation, and we netted quite a few (and some dill).

our contribution

We had never tried canning before, and we were a little nervous about it. We purchased a nice set in anticipation of doing some more canning this year, especially once the tomatoes start rolling in from the garden. Previously we had just frozen everything and that worked pretty well, but, with the uncertainty of the garden next year, we might need to lay more of a supply by this year.

in progress

So, we managed to can 7 quarts of pickles and even had some spare cukes left over. One of the jars didn’t seal the first time around, but we re-processed it and it sealed the second time. Now it is just a matter of waiting for 6 weeks until these beauts are ready to go!

finished product

Michigan Pirate Festival

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Did you know that there are pirates in Michigan? Aparently there is a group that sails the 5 lakes (as opposed to the 7 seas) known as the Brethren of the Great Lakes.

Well, in late breaking pirate news, there is currently a pirate festival going on (Aug. 3rd – 8th) in Grand Haven, Michigan. So if you live around there and you read this blog, you should probably go check that out.

As a side note, I’d just like to point out that the “pirate lord” of Lake Michigan is known as Count d’Booty. Really? Count d’Booty? I mean, I guess when he picked his pirate name he didn’t necessarily know he would grow up to hold the position of pirate lord, but still.

In other news, last night I ate cheese. Cheese with bacon inside of it!

Vacation Part II – Birthday Party

/ Shane / 2 Comments

As mentioned, Sunday was Evie’s second birthday. Our party was a little more low key than last year, with just family attending. We planned it so that we would have presents in the morning, eat during her nap, and have cake in the afternoon, so that people could come and go and everyone would get at least part of the party.

Before her birthday, Evie had only a few requests:

Sara: “What do you want for your birthday?”
Evie: “I want a gift with a prize in it.”

She was also very specific that she wanted a “pink cake” with “sprinkles”, which was delivered to her satisfaction.

She got a lot of good presents, probably better even than she knows. Being a kid, she was more excited about things like socks and purses than things like books, even though she will probably get more enjoyment out of the latter in the long run.

One of the cutest things was practicing with Evie how to stick two fingers up to show how old she is. She would concentrate really hard, staring at her hand until she put the correct fingers down, using her other hand. Then she would slowly cover them with her thumb to hold them down and take her hand away. Then she would get a really big smile on her face, hold up the hand and proudly proclaim, “Two!”

So Evie was kind of into ages and Sara asked her how old the day care lady was:

Sara: “And how old is Florence?”
Evie: “Too much.”

Evie had a blast all day, running around like a crazy person with a big grin on her face. We couldn’t believe that she took a nap, but she was so exhausted that she stayed out until we woke her up. It was a lot more fun than last year since she actually kind of knew what was going on and was excited about it.

So thanks to everybody who came, I hope you had as good of a time as Evie did!