A Jammin Good Time with my Niece and Kim!

On Monday I headed into the kitchen to make some Black berry jam. I had wanted to do this while Kim was here because she wanted to watch the process. Well, to my surprise and excitement, Jessica my 14 year old niece wanted in on the process as well. I thought it was so neat! So Jessica and I began by smashing berries which she helped me when they were in the bag and then I threw them into the pot and finished up myself. What a yummy mess as you can see by the picture below.


I love the color and at this point was getting even more excited since I knew what enjoyment is to come over the duration of however long this batch will last, which isn't long when Rodney begins to dig in.
Waiting for our rapid consistent boil, it's a good exercise of patients.
Then on to filling up the jars.

I got to help Jessica top off the jars which gave me sight into how nice it is to have help during this whole process.
When it came to cleaning the rims and threads of the jars, Kim got to jump in. So Kim wiped up the jars so they were nice and clean ready for our 2 part lids which Jessica followed right behind and put them on. After that we put them in the caner and gave them a 10 minute bath. As we pulled out the jars Jessica and I had the opportunity to hear the "pop" of the lids sealing up. We let them cool over night and wa la......Beautiful jars of blackish purple yumminess! I sent a jar home with Jessica but held the rest at ransom for her to come visit me soon for more and another go round only with Apple Butter next time. In doing this, it kicked in my desire for fall and all the warm yummy comforts that come along with it. I was craving fall so much that I made a black berry pie later that evening and it was so good. We will be harvesting pears and apples soon and even sweet corn. I am very excited!

World Pulse Festival

On Saturday at 5:30ish in the morning two vehicles carrying 11 people headed up north to meet with another vehicle carrying another 4 people. Once the three vehicles had met up they headed further north to South Bend for an all day festival/concert. We arrived around 9, parked, headed into the gates and then found our spot to set up 3 shade tents. Now there was much focus and determination to work quickly in order to have the tents up before the rain pour reached us. This we achieved. After the crowd prayed for the storms to move out, the rain cleared and the fun and worship was on.
We got to see the Robby Seay Band, Ayeshia Woods, Hawk Nelson, David Crowder Band, and Jeremy Camp. It was a blast. Initially it was supposed to be blistering hot all day but with the rain pour we had, it didn't begin to get hot until around the Hawk Nelson band and from there got hotter.
We headed out to the vehicles for lunch and hydration, then back in for more music.
Here is our group, what a bunch and what a great time!
I really enjoyed being able to take our teen trio as well: Madison from church, Bre and Jessica our niece.
The last act was the main reason Rodney, Bre and I wanted to go.....Jeremy Camp. The poor guy had the hottest time to be on stage. Half way through his time he was struggling to go on and not pass out. With God holding him up, he persevered and finished out his time. It was the best part. I throughly enjoyed the music, the worship and the friends that all went. OUr family as well as Winter and Jesse have decided we are going to make it our yearly tradition for closing out the summer before school starts.

My how does a garden grow when on vacation!

So while we were gone our garden grew! When I got on the plane I began to get excited about seeing my garden, never did I expect to come home and find what I did. I pulled out 1 big tomato and about 7 cherry tomatoes as well as..................
these crooked neck squash and look closely for Rodney's I Phone for size comparison.
That is gonna be a lot of zucchini bread, penne and roasted veggies and one new recipe.... stuffed zucchini. Again, look at the size comparison with the phone. I only weighed one and it was 5 lbs and then I measured the longest and it was 19 inches.

The broccoli was ready as well and oh my did it taste amazing, nothing like the broccoli you buy in the store! Bre doesn't like broccoli and she went back for seconds!
We also found 2 pumpkins about the size of a soft ball and our buttercup squashes are growing so much bigger (the size of a kick ball, just waiting for them to change from green to orange). We also found a bunch of corn hair where the corn is beginning to grow. Our bell pepper is bigger but still not ready.

All that fun and wore out!

Big Surf

Thursday we headed to the water park for some fun. We had told Theresa we would probably only spend and hour or two there because we didn't want to be in the heat that long. Five hours later we headed home. We had that much fun!

We started on some kiddie slides in one of the kiddie pools. Here is Dakotah coming out.
Autumn enjoyed them so much, it was hard to get her to stop and swim with Madi and I.
Such a face!
Madi decided to be brave for a minute and try one slide. She freaked out a bit and ended up turning herself around and landing with her head going in the water first. She didn't go again.

She may not have gone, but gave me the thumbs up that I actually got the picture so she could show people she did go.After that pool and after the boys met back up with us from going on all the big slides, we headed to another kiddie pool. This pool was like ankle deep for me as where the other was about knee deep. I love this picture of all my little kiddies on the gator.
These slides were more Madi's taste and she made sure I got pictures of these too.

This was too cute a shot to pass up. I wonder if they were discussing the fun of the day so far.

Had to make sure I got a picture so everyone could see I was enjoying it too.














Ok, this is a slide that straight drops, it was cool looking. I took pictures of my boys, hubby and brother going down. Now yes you can't tell who is who, but I know who's slash is who's. Starting on the left.... My brother RJ (it's cool that you can see him under the water shooting through it), next Colby then Dakotah and lastly as well as the winner of the biggest spray.... Rodney.
This is how Rodney looked after that ride. I see the kid in him out for the day having a blast with his boys. I love it!
Madi was very confident with her life jacket so she actually swam around the pool and started dunking herself under the water.
Then she decided to be ornery and told me she was going to splash me and she didn't really care that she was going to get my camera wet. See that little fist.......

this is what that fist did and she didn't get the camera but I managed to capture the water beads mid air and I think it's so cool.
Goofy girl with her daddy. These two together melt my heart!
We also spent and hour in the wave pool which I left the camera behind for so I could have fun. Rodney and D shared a raft, Colby and RJ shared one and then I laid on the middle of one with a girl on either side of me. I wrapped my arms over their backs and we rode the waves and never flipped. It was so much fun and my favorite part of the day.

Pool Side Fun

Well of coarse being in Arizona we were bound and determined to get in a bit of swimming. My aunt Marilyn was kind enough to allow us to come to her house when ever we felt like it.
My very own pool boy :)!

Dakotah did amazing! He tool off the floaties and took off swimming in the deep end. He was able to jump off the edge into the deep end and swim off. It was awesome to see him gain strength and confindence.
Here he is swimming like a fish.
Autumn had victories of her own. She got to where she was comfortable with jumping in as well and allowing her head to go under the water. She also was comfortable with swimming into the deep end with her floaties on.
Madi took some risks as well but did it only for pictures then she was done. Here she is going off the diving board which she started out by sitting and kind of floped in to her dad. Funny stuff!
I got in on the fun as well.
Here is one of Madi's attempts at bravery.....
and in she went which she wasn't really wanting but it was so good for her.

I love swimming in this pool and have enjoyed it for so many years, since I was 14.


Mister D hanging out in the deep end and so loving his journey with his swimming.
Here is Rodney doing a flip into the pool and no matter how this looks like it ended bad, it really didn't.
Dakotah decided he wanted to try the flip as well. It was very funny to watch him gain his courage to do it. He stood on the edge of the pool attempting to do it about 10 times before he actually just got it done. He actually did really good too. I won't even try the flip, so way to go Dakotah.

In all we made it to the pool at aunt Marilyn's 3 times and had such a blast. I love swimming in pools and most of all with my family. My husband even commented on how he loves watching me swim cause of how much fun I have with the kids.