Geek of the Week

This is what happens when we go out to eat at a place with music.  Never fails. This particular place happened to be Joes crab shack.  They were dancing behind the glass of the play place. What a bunch of geeks

The Force

Peter has finally honed the force, just enough to open and close doors.

We were at his favorite place the DI when he discovered he had this awesome power.  He and all the people in the check out line were very impressed with his new ability.

Being the gentleman that he is he used the force to open the doors for all the people coming in.  

He was at it for quite some time before I finally whipped out my phone to document his latest development.  Beware,  if you get on his bad side who knows what he'll do with the force.

Peterism and Brennenisms

Some funny words my kids have said. Brennen had a lesson in church about lying.  His teacher told them the story of Pinocchio.  While at the dinner table he proudly announced that he knew the story of Pitokyo.
Peter heard something funny and mentioned that it was so her-rare-ious.  Then he picked up is calcater (calculator) to do some numbers

Geek of the Week

This is no one I know just some kid at Planet Play which my kids like to call Pizza Planet. I have never seen anyone look like this that wasn't doing it as a joke.  So the Geek of the Week goes to some unknown kid whom I just couldn't believe chose this look on purpose.  Talk about a redneck.

You can't really see it in the picture but he has a sweet preteen moustache

p.s. sorry about the quality of pictures I was trying to get one without it being too obvious.

BYU vs UTAH

Scott and I went to the BYU/Utah game this weekend.  He was so excited.  He woke Sat. morning jumped out of bed and stated sifting through his closet trying to decide which BYU shirt to wear.  Then he laid the rest out for me to chose one.  I calmly let him know that I'm sure I could find a blue shirt to wear.  We got our tickets on ebay at a steal for $100 a piece.  They were great tickets 11th row.  As we walked from our car to the stadium we got more jeers than I care to admit to.  Shouts of go away, and plenty of BOOO's and other comments I don't care to repeat were thrown our way.  I have to admit I was getting a little nervous.  The stadium began to fill with bodies and all I saw was a sea of red.  Where was all the blue?  They eventually came,  all 200 of them not including the marching band. I was relieved to find the opposing fans sitting next to us were harmless.  I can't say the same for the fans a few seats over.  It was quite the experience.  Some fans were totally crazy.  The good kind of crazy.  This one guy in front of us would randomly turn around and shout  "GO UTAH WOOOOO!"  The poor lady in the seat behind him needed a face mask to protect her from all his spit.  Then there was the hugger.  A lady that got very friendly with anyone wearing red.  In this case I'm glad we wore blue.  Then there were the insane fans reeking of alcohol and swearing up a storm.  Lets just say the atmosphere was very different from a BYU home game. I almost said something but I knew Scott wouldn't approve.  Sometimes my mouth gets away from me and he is sure I am going to get him beat up some day. 

The weather could not have been more than perfect.  

 Neither of the teams played very well.  The refs threw out about 50 flags and everyone seemed to have butter fingers. They whole experience was a learning one for me.  I really don't know much about football and I kept asking Scott what things meant.  I am sure he would have had more fun with one of the guys but I was grateful he wanted to take me.  Thanks babe I had a good time with you even if we didn't win.

the spitter

extra time?

I thought with all my kids in school I would have all this extra time. I thought of all these projects I could finally get around to doing, quite a few of them sewing projects. Turns out I was very much mistaken I actually just got busier.  I did finally get my couch pillows done.  Mine were looking so sad I just couldn't put them out anymore.  I went to the fabric store and fell in love with this fabric.  I bought enough to do 2 pillows  this fabric was a little expensive ($20 a yard but I got it @ 50% off) so I only wanted to buy the minimum.  I brought it home and set it next to my couch just to see if the colors worked in the room.  As I was admiring it Scott mentioned I should make 4 pillows because we have 2 couches Duh.  Well now I had to go back to the store for more fabric only to find they were all out.  So I ended up getting the striped fabric for the back of the pillows.  It works and now my fabric stretched to make 4 pillows.  To save me some money I didn't buy pillow forms for $8 each. Instead I bought standard pillows for $3 each and cut them in half. Voila 4 designer pillows for less than $20.  

Now if I can only find time to make my lace skirt and trim my garden and winterize my wave runners, and detail the downstairs, and build shelves in the garage etc. . .. . .

canning Grape juice

How bountious are my blessings.  I have so many grapes that there is no way we could eat them before they went bad.  I thought about raisins but we don't really eat that many so I thought I would try grape juice. I never canned grape juice before but there is a first time for everything. I set out to harvesting and there never seemed to be an end.  I picked and picked for over hour. Brennen was helping me  and he was getting creeped out by all the spiders.  That is until I told him the spiders were actually good because they were eating the bugs that were eating the grapes.  After that he was all for spiders.  He would see a bug and call a spider to come over and eat it.  After I picked them all I filled my bins with water to wash them.  Little did I know how creepy this step would be.  For those organic growers out there be prepared.  As the water filled ALL THESE BUGS AND SPIDERS CAME CRAWLING UP AND OUT OF THE TOTES.  It was like a bad horror movie. I couldn't believe how many were hiding in the grapes.  So I washed and rinsed and washed again then I went through them one by one to make sure all the yuckies were gone.

Next step de-stemming and juicing the grapes.  This step took F-o-r-e-v-e-r.  It seemed like 30 min= 4 quarts of juice and we canned about 36 quarts. I had my trusty canning partner my sister Amy.    

Steps

1. get grapes and clean them

2. take off stems.  This process isn't necessary but I did it with the thought of making fruit leather with the leftover pulp.  (after 6 hours in the kitchen I bagged that idea. I was sick of grapes)

3. Steamer is a must.  put water in the bottom part and I put in a couple of coins so I could hear if I was out of water.  When you hear the coins rattling your fine.  If its silent you have a problem check your water level with each new batch of grapes added (use coins of the same metal so you don't ruin your pan)

4.put washed grapes in the strainer part of the pot put on the lid and wait.

  The juice will start to come out of the hose.  You are not supposed to stir the grapes if you want clear juice. I don't care about clarity so I stirred them to get every last ounce of juice from my hard earned grapes.

5. put on your canning lids.  I put mine in a water bath for 15 min to make sure they were sealed. (a step I learned later that it is not necessary. Oh well at least I know they are sealed)

This is concentrated grape juice so you mix 1 part juice 1 part water and add sugar to taste.  It really shouldn't take more than 1/4 cup of sugar per 1 gallon of mixed juice.

Now what to do with all these apples?  I just bought a juicer so maybe we'll just have fresh apple juice.