Fireworks in Sept?!?!

Yep, it's true. We had fireworks over the weekend and a good show...almost 20 minutes! So we had some friends over, ate hot dogs, hamburgers, pasta salad, beans, ice cream with all the fixins, sparkers, and the firework display. It seemed like we had the 4th of July in mid Sept. What a great surprise!

Waiting for the show. A lovely display!

Church Workday

Our church had a work day and our kids were the only ones there. So the guys fixed the filters and the girls weeded. After, we were treated by a nice lunch for our hard work.

Bowling!!

This weekend's family fun day was bowling. It's been a long time since we last went. In fact, Clif and I have never bowled in our time together...so that's at least 11 years!! Wow. But what a fun time. The kids loved it and want to go again very soon.

On our drive home, a lovely sunset. Little did we know that a huge storm was coming a few hours later.

Zucchini bread that I've been making. I now have 48 loaves of these! Figured I'd make these now since it's so cool outside. Makes baking seem more fun.

My First 5K!!

I finally ran my first 5K. This picture is before hand when I was nice a cool. Remember, this is a country town so on the left is Bob and he is what we call a "Williams Mountain Man". His group was the largest sponser of the race. On the right is the town mayor Mr Moore. Now here comes the whining...the race didn't even start until 10am so it was almost 30 degrees hotter than what I'm used to and I actually ate breakfast before which I never do. So I am disappointed with my run. But it's still at 11min miles which is not bad. Now I have new goals for next time...yeah, that's why I didn't place first, so I can have new goals. That's what I'll tell myself. Clif got some closer pics of me running, but I didn't feel like showing everyone what a lump of jello I look like and my bright red face. So this is all ya get.

I really am proud of myself. I never saw myself as a runner/jogger really so to have done this is a big accomplishment I feel. There are more 5K's in November and Feb....maybe I'll think about it.

County Fair 2011

We went to the county fair this year and the kids had a blast!! First they made paper people. Kaleb rode the bumper cars all by himself..wow.

Klara rode a "roller coaster" all by herself....wow again.

They both made their own clay pinch pots.

And Kaleb got to shoot a REAL bow and arrow...so did Clif. A great boys moment.

Canning Tomatoes

These are the tomatoes we have gotten so far from our garden. There are lots of greens ones still trying to ripen up. But for now, we had so many ripe at one time, I decided to show the kids how to can them. Klara helped with the blanching process. She LOVED peeling them.

Kaleb was thrilled to do the cutting parts. He was being super careful with the knife.

They were a HUGE help to me. They even helped with the cleaning. What a fun time we all had. When we were done, hearing them "pop" was the best part...a celebration for each one. We ended up making 11 pints. I can't wait to see if we are able to can the rest of them once they are ripe.

I told the kids that we could make applesauce and jam too. They were ready that night to just go to the store and buy what we needed. They need to learn we wait for great sales b4 we just buy. Guess we are still working on that.