Pumpkin Patch

We're off to find our pumpkins!

The first little one we found. The field had been picked over pretty well and there weren't very many big ones left.

Such a cutie!

I look like such a dork in this picture!

We wanted a big one to carve, so we drove to another place and got this guy. He's huge!

Paul and his big pumpkin

I wanted to try and show you how the pumpkin is almost bigger than the dog, but after trying unsuccessfully to get Scottie to sit next to the pumpkin I just gave up and took this picture. You can see Paul laughing at the dog and me.

Another attempt to get Scottie in the picture, he finally sat, but not next to the pumpkin or even looking at the camera, oh well.

Birthday Pics

Here are the pics from my birthday dinner last night. The family and I went out to eat at a great Italian restuarant in town. The pics look a little funny because I had the flash turned off.

Dad is the middle, John (brother) on the right and dad's girlfriend on the left.
My brother, hates having his picture taken and it's always a fight to get one of him.
Paul and I

My Favorite cake, chocolate with vanilla icing and sprinkles

John and I again, taken after way too much pasta and ice cream.

Reese the Helper

Reese likes to help us while we're in the kitchen. Here she is checking pears.

I'm not sure exactly how much help she was here, but she assured me that she was helping.

She really likes to help me get ready for work but rubbing all over my nice black pants. Everytime!!

Fall Vacation

We took a few days off this week from work and I was on fall break from school so we did up some canning. I had been saving all the tomatoes and peppers from the garden in the freezer.

Here is Hot Red Sauce - 5 pints. Everything in this but the vinegar was from our garden.

Friends gave us a bushel of apples and a bushel of pears yesterday and we spent all day processing the apples. We made two apple pies (I forgot to take pics) and put in the freezer for later. Below is 9 pints of apple quarters in a light syrup. These can be used for desserts later or just to eat. My favorite item we made - 12 pints of homemade applesauce!!!! My mom always made us homemade applesauce and now I can't stand the storebought, so I was so happy to make some. It tastes so good and I'm not sharing any of it!! We bought a really cool gadget today which helped make it, an immersion blender, that thing is soooo neat. It really pureed the sauce quickly and easily.

4 pints and 1half pint of taco sauce. This was so easy and cheap to make and tastes exactly the same if not better than the store stuff.

Thursday I cooked up two chickens and made a bunch of chicken broth and took my frozen beef broth out of the freezer to can. I think there is 6 quarts and 12 pints of broth. I highly recommend making your own broth, it's super easy, cheaper and tastes better than the store kind.

Our pantry is officially full. I'm making some caramel apple jam tomorrow with a friend and Paul and I still have to do the bushel of pears, but other than that we are done with canning until next year. It sure will be nice to enjoy the fruits of our labor this winter.

I hope everyone is enjoying the lovely fall colors and cool nights!

More Quotes

I just love quotes from e.e. cummings, here's another great one -

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart) I am never without it (anywhere I go you go, my dear…) e. e. cummings

I am not what I ought to be; not what I want to be; not what I’m going to be. But I am thankful I’m not what I used to be. – John Wooden

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. ~Nelson Henderson

This one reminds me of my mother, who would often tell me, you have to make a mess to clean up a mess -


Life is inherently messy….But out of the messiness comes great things." Margaret Wheatly

Catching Up

So I'm completely overwhelmed with my life at the moment, but am trying to keep up. Trying to work and go to classes and then study too is defintely testing me. But I did want to catch everyone up on the few things I've been able to accomplish lately (mostly becuase I have a wonderful husband).

We tried our hand at making salsa the other day. The tomatoes and peppers are from our garden and Paul's mom's.

Here are the peppers, there is a total of 6 different types of peppers in this salsa. Way too spicy for me, but Paul is enjoying it.
I had to study, so Paul offered to finish up the processing. It was his first time canning without my help. I'm so proud of him, I just had to take a picture :) He's been absolutely wonderful these first few weeks of school. He's taken to calling himself the house husband. I haven't had to worry about anything but work and study, dinner is ready when I get home, the laundry is done and the house is clean. Thank you Paul!!!

The finished salsa. 7 pints in total, plus a large bowl in the fridge.

I did manage right before school started to volunteer at our Red Cross Ride for the Red fundraiser. It was very neat to see all the motorcyclists out for a great ride and a good cause. As you can see it was a wonderful day for a ride.

And perhaps my favorite pictures. Max (the grey cat) always has to look at the groceries when I bring them home. Then he'll find the potatoes and lick the bag. it's so weird.

I think he's trying to teach Reese how to do it too.

First Garden Bounty

Our garden is starting to produce and we are so happy. I'm so grateful Paul's mother planted a bunch of veggies for us in her garden. Most of the food above is from her garden. The picture below is our first bell pepper from our garden. It's so pretty and smells so good, I almost don't want to eat it. The tomatoes are starting to turn red, we ate a few little cherry tomatoes this week and the chili peppers are doing awesome. We'll have more than enough little red chilis for several months.

We worked hard all week to get everything put up for winter. So far this week we've done 2 qts and 7 pints of peaches, 3 qts of cherries, froze 12 cups grated zucchini, made 2 cherry pies and froze them, 4 pints of dill pickles and dehydrated a ton of squash and zucchini. The herbs out front are getting huge and I'll probably dry another batch of basil, sage, oregano, thyme and tarragon this weekend. Paul also worked hard to make several batches of his wonderful homemade wheat bread. It's nice to have the bread ready to go in the freezer.
I ruined my dehydrator trying to dry candied cherries. Luckily Paul was able to find me another one at the store. This one is slightly bigger and has a better fan setup, which allows for quicker drying. However, the best gift I got this week was from a friend that loves to go to yardsales, she picked up 100 canning jars for me for only $10!! That's an amazing find. We are set for canning jars for quite awhile.

School started today and life will be very interesting and crazy for awhile. I'm anticipating very little sleep but I am excited to get started.

Busy Busy

It's been a crazy busy few weeks. We're trying to get alot of projects done before I start school in just a few weeks. In our quest to make more items from homemade and to cut out processed foods, I tried my hand at homemade noodles today. They are brown because I used whole wheat flour.

My other project as usual for summer is my garden. This year, I planted alot of peppers and tomatoes so we can put up enough to last through the winter. Below is the picture from when we planted everything.

Here is the picture from today, not too shabby. Everything has taken off, we have lots of little green tomatoes, chili peppers and bell peppers. I am so excited to see everything doing so well. The tomatoes come up to my chest, that's about 4 feet tall!! Thank goodness Paul's mother gave us a large freezer, now I won't have to rush to can all the veggies.

My other project a few weeks ago was to redo our half bathroom. It was a boring creamy color and in desperate need of help. Here's the mostly finished product. I still need to paint the ceiling and finish the trim around the door. Let me offer one word of advice on painting a bathroom, don't do it unless you absolutely hate the color. Painting this room was a huge pain.

Wedding Pics!!

Will post more this week!

Wedding Advice

At my bridal shower the girls had everyone write down some marriage advice in a little book. I loved the gesture and brought it to the wedding for our other guests to share their thoughts as well. Here are a few of my favorites:

- be sure to babysite nieces as much as possible to prepare you for parenting and to give your sister a break :) (from paul's sister)

- Three phrases a husband must learn for a happy marriage 1. yes, dear 2. you're right, dear and 3. it's all my fault (from paul's BIL)

- Remember to take out the trash, work on the honey do list and always say yes dear!! Oh yeah, I taught him everything he knows (from paul's mom)

- take time each day for each other, one little hug or kiss has alot of mileage, as well as the occasional I'm sorry. (from my friends)

- be grateful and loving to your partner and your relationship will be solid (from co-worker)

Our Vows

I loved our vows so much so I wanted to share them. They are a combination of a few vows I found online.

Vows

Sarah, in the presence of God, and before our family and friends, I, Paul, with joy and in love, take you to be my wife, to be the mother of my children, and the companion of my days. I promise to fully share my life with you, through days of happiness or sadness, abundance or want. I pledge to you my unfailing love always.

Paul, in the presence of God, and before our family and friends, I, Sarah, with joy and in love, take you to be my husband, to be the father of my children, and the companion of my days. I promise to fully share my life with you, through days of happiness or sadness, abundance or want. I pledge to you my unfailing love always.

Ring Exchange

As a ring has no end, neither shall my love for you. I choose you to be my wife this day and forevermore. Take this ring, as a sign of my love and commitment.

As a ring has no end, neither shall my love for you. I choose you to be my husband this day and forevermore. Take this ring, as a sign of my love and commitment.

Condo gardening

I'm doing my container garden again this year, but I think I might have gone a little crazy. We got the majority of it planted tonight. Paul took a bunch of pictures which I'll try to get posted later. Here's what we have so far.

12 beef steak tomato plants
4 roma tomato plants
4 cherry tomato plants
4 grape tomato plants
Green Onions
Spinach (already pulled, season is over)
10-15 basil plants
2 thyme plants
3 sage plants
3 oregano plants
5 cilantro plants
8 yellow bell peppers plants
4 super chili peppers plants
1 serrano pepper plants
1 tabasco pepper plant

His mom has some squash and zucchini going for us at her garden, since those don't do well in containers. She also planted 4 pepper plants though I'm not sure what kind. I'd love to have a few more things, but I think I'm done because 1. Paul will probably strangle me if I bring home anymore plants or potting soil, 2. The majority of this stuff will be ready just about the 3 week of nursing school, and 3. there is no more free space on the patios!!

Who says you have to have land to have a garden?!!

Gem Mining

I wanted to go gem mining while we were on vacation, so one night we went over to pigeon forge and stopped at a gem mining stand. You buy a bucket of dirt and they give you a screened box and you get to pan for gems. It was alot of fun and we did get several nice precious stones. One of the gems was a 6 carat ruby, the gem mining stand had a jeweler on hand and we made our ruby into rings for us. Very cool souvenir.

Me with the gem mining black bear.
Paul with the gem mining black bear.

Lodging

The entrance to the resort. A nice rock waterfall with stone bears.

The initial road went straight up and was lined with stone black bears, these have welcome signs. All the buildings are on the side of the mountain, it was straight up with lots of twists and turns to our room.
This was the view from our balcony. Awesome!!

We're Back

We're back, the wedding was perfect, the honeymoon was wonderful. Here's a few pics friends have sent us. More pictures to come later.

Announcing Mr & Mrs R.
Us watching toast from best man.

We're Off

We're off to go get hitched. The weather is not quite what I had hoped but it's not as bad as it could be, it looks like it will be warm, upper 80s, with a 50% chance of rain, right now it's really breezy and cloudy. Rehearsal last night went well, we're both exhausted and hoping we can savor every moment of the wedding today, but if the rehearsal is any indication it's all going to be a blur. In 8 hours, I'll be Mrs. R *~*~*~ Yeah*~*~*~

Weather Forecast

Whoo hooo!!! The weather forecast for next Saturday the day of the wedding is 86 degrees and 0% chance of rain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, it's now June 2 and I am now obsessed with checking the weather for Saturday, it's now 80 degrees with a 40% chance of rain. Cooler is much better!!

Nursing School

Oh, I forgot to share, I got into Nursing School!! I'll be doing the 4 yr BSN program, which will allow me to continue working for awhile. The school is considered one of the best in the area and hard to get into so I'm very pleased.

Instant Oatmeal for Pennies

Instant oatmeal is a great healthy easy breakfast. You can make your own much cheaper and healthier than the storebought. First you'll need a box of quick cooking oats, baggies and salt.
Powder 1 cup of oats in the food processor. Put in each baggy 1/4 c oats, 2 Tbsp powdered oats and 1/4 tsp salt. Seal baggie and store in a tupperware container. To prepare add 2/3 c milk or water and microwave for 2 minutes. Add more or less milk depending on how you like the consistency of your oatmeal.

You can make your favorite flavors too. Just add 1 Tbsp sugar and 2 Tbsp dried fruit and enjoy. We try to dehydrate our own fruit whenever we can right now we have coconut, strawberries, apples, oranges and bananas.

A box of instant generic/store brand instant oatmeal is $2.00 for a box of 10 servings. We paid today $2.00 for a box of oats, which will make 40 servings. Plus our oatmeal has 4 ingredients oats, salt, sugar and fruit, not the big list of ingredients we can't pronounce that the store bought oatmeal has.

Update - We made used our homemade instant oatmeal for breakfast this morning (me-maple syrup and brown sugar, him-cinnamon and apples) It was delicious!! So much better than the storebought. The only change I'm going to make is to try 1/8 tsp salt instead of the 1/4, it was a little salty tasting to us.