Happy Fall!!!

It's my favorite season! The smell of baking apples is in the air and the sound of the leaves blowing through the neighborhood fills my ears. I love all of the colors and the smells of Fall should be available year round!

I feel the urge deep within me to wax poetic but being incapable of such things I will wax normal. :-) 

The small of apples that I spoke of aren't actually baking apples but apples on the stove. Last weekend we went on a short road trip and brought along some sliced apples. As expected, no one was interested in them and they weren't even touched. (We are apple lovers but sliced apples have been the snack of trips for years and we're...burnt out.) So yesterday, feeling industrious and a little like little Suzy homemaker, I decided I wasn't going to let the browned apples that now no one was going to eat go to waste. I was going to make applesauce. :-) Or at least something close to it. (Last Thanksgiving my Mom "accidentally" make applesauce when cooking the apples for our apple pie so I knew it couldn't be that hard :-) ) So I peeled and diced the slices and set them to simmering. They cooked along fine and were soon getting soft so I added the cinnamon, sugar, and brown sugar as well (as a little more water which I had been adding a little bit at a time). I kept a close eye on it...but not close enough. :-S Soon I realized I wasn't hearing the sounds of simmering apples anymore so I went in to check. I wasn't hearing such sounds because now I was burning caramelizing the apples. End of said "Suzy homemaker" project. But! Today is another day and we had some Red Delicious apples that I knew no one was going to eat (not our favorite kind) so..... "Suzy Homemake" attempts #2! :-D

As of right now they are still on one piece as is the bottom of the pan. :-) I've been jumping up every couple of minutes to stir and sometimes add a little more water.

On to another subject for a bit while we wait for the apples to finish. :-) Fall has been "threatening" for quite some time now but hasn't really "hit" our yard yet. Well this morning it did. I walked outside this morning and saw that our lawn was covered in leaves (from our neighbor's tree, I might add :-P). So much fun! So of course I had to go out and take a few pictures...but of what? Just the leaves? Okay, got a few of those...

Aha! The cat! :-) She makes a very good model. :-)

 

Back to the apples. They are so yummy!!!!! I think I'll put the recipe on my other blog. You'll have to give it a try! If nothing else, it will fill your house with wonderful Fall scents. :-) Happy Fall everybody!!!

Sunrise...Sunset....and a mess up

Who hasn't tried a sunset picture. And who hasn't gotten some pretty good shots. It's an amazing piece of work straight from the Lords hands. A beautiful sight to behold and fairly easy to capture because of it's amazing beauty.

 But not as many of us have tried sunrises. I know I haven't..partially due to the fact that you have to get up...really early to catch it. :-P But I happened to be up the other morning and had to try to catch the amazing colors in the sky. 

I like what I got. :-)

Well back to the sunset. I actually took that on the very bumpy bus ride back from a youth rally we went to. Hence I had a few that were just a bunch of blur. I was deleting all of the blurry ones and about to hit delete on this one when I noticed the uniqueness of it. I don't know if you see what I see but it almost looks like a watercolor. Anyway, I loved it. 

So, always take a second look when you're about to delete something. Some times the most fun and unique shots are in the mess ups. :-)

I'm Cheating!

I am still here!!!!

I haven't posted in so long!!!!! Things have finally slowed down just enough that I'm starting to feel the pull of the blog! But I don't have time to wait for a slow computer to upload a picture so ... I'm using one of the ones I had saved in the edits for an emergency such as this!

This is a flower in our yard, actually taken this spring. :-) I just love the colors!

I will try to catch up soon both in photos and in life! :-) Thanks for being patient!

Bar-B-QUE!!!!

Every Memorial Day we have a tradition. My dad has, for many years now, had that day off and as few and far between as his days off are it's always really exciting when one rolls around. So since we can always count on Memorial Day we've set that day aside as one of our few family days. We usually have some friends over, BBQ, hang out all day together, play games (usually at least one game of croquet), and sometimes end the night with a movie. This year was no differant except for the fact that this year we had some new friends to add to the festivities. :-) Our house was hopping this year! Some friends stayed all day, then there were others that popped in and out. Just when some would leave, a new batch would show up. As special as this family tradition is, we also always remember what the day itself is a memorial of and we are so greatful. Thankful for the men and women who, through the years, and with or without the support of the people of their nation, have sacrificed so much for my, our, freedom. I am of the belief that America hasn't made very many wise decisions here in the last few years, but that doesn't change the fact that I am proud and thankful to be an American.

Whew!

I was right! With all that's been going on at our house, it's now been 3 weeks since the last time I posted on here!

We have officially turned out house upside down as we clean out every nook and cranny ... and some we didn't know we had. Finding a whole bunch of stuff that we put away for "next year" and now it's years later and we can't use it any more. Finding papers etc that we "needed" to keep but are now finding that we can trash them. Digging up memories, some happy some sad.

The boys are re-doing one of our bathrooms. They've completely gutted it ...

(in the process, found a huge wasps nest!)

and are hopefully soon in the process of putting walls back in it...and a sink...and a toilet...We really miss having two bathrooms!

I tried to do a garage sale last weekend with all of the stuff we've found throughout the house. Friday I got up, ran an errand, then just I got everything set up, it started to rain on my parade garage sale. Needless to say, I wasn't very happy but it was just a "few-minute-rain" so I wiped everything off and decided to give it a second shot. I ran my sister to work real quick (by now it's 10 A.M.) and as we're driving it starts to rain again. I think it was about that point that I decided to give up. So I decide we're going to get up bright and early Saturday and try try again! ....... I slept through my alarm. :-S (That's how busy we've been!) So! Ever the hopeful, I'm going to give it one more shot this weekend. We'll see what happens...

We're having a Memorial Day BBQ this monday which I am looking forward to. We've got a list of jobs we're hoping to get done by then. It'll be nice to hit our first "goal". I think it'll feel more like we're getting somewhere then.

Since the last time I blogged we had our Mother Daughter Banquet. It went well and I got a few cute pictures then ... 

such as the boys standing at

attention as our servers :-)

and on Mother's Day.

Nathanael had his first violin recital on Mother's Day. He did very well!!! It was so exciting!

And last night the church held Laura's Baby Shower. The night went fairly well (if you don't count the black out)...a few mis-haps, the most critical being, after taking a dozen or so pictures my batteries died! I really, really, REALLY hate that "Batteries are exausted" screen. But I did get a few before then.

Other than that, I haven't taken very many pictures lately. I'm telling you, we have been swamped!

Well, seeing as how I'm using up valuable time that I could be using to work on ... something back at the house, and how this is turning into a short novel, I guess I'd better run. I'll see you again one of these day! :-)

Random

I have been SO busy lately. And I know, we say that right? But I really mean it when I say busy. What makes it harder to get on the computer for me is that I don't have one at home. :-S So, it's whenever I can run to the library real quick...then plug in my camera...impatiently patiently wait for it to load...look through the hundreds few pictures to decide which one to blog (unless I already have an idea)...open it...and blog. I know, quite the process. :-P So I've begun to, when I actually am here, with my camera, save a handful of pictures and then when I stop in for just a second, I have a picture waiting for me to blog about. :-D Great system, right?

Anywho...this is one I grabbed real quick the day I went out with Nathan and Dillion for Senior pictures.

It intrigued me.

Unfortunantly, for my blog, the Summer is only going to get crazier and crazier. So, we'll see how often I actually get here. I will try to post photos of all of it as it happens! :-)

Rain, Rainbows, and Blur

So the other day when I was here at the library it started to pour! As some of you know, I had left the windows down on my car! lol! So after weighing the pros and cons I finally decided to make a run for it. (hiding my camera in my large purse so it wouldn't get wet. Thankfully I love my larger purses!) Well I ran for it and still got soaked as well as my backside getting soaked from the car seat! It was alot of fun though! And I came home to my younger brother standing around in the rain with a friend from church getting absolutely soaked to the bone! :-P

Can you see the rain?! I couldn't believe how much of it there was!!!

Then afterward, of course, was the beautiful rainbow! And it was amazing! So bright and you could see the whole thing! So of course, more pictures. :-)

I've always loved rainbows. They are so beautiful as well as an awesome reminder of the grace of God. They just take my breath away.  

Then I had to play around a little bit....Can you see the rainbow in the background? :-)

I love the blurry look. :-)