Visit from family

So, most of my family came to visit over the weekend (a week ago). It was great! We had lots of fun making and canning applesauce all day! We got 84 quarts done that we split between us. Things were pretty busy, hence I have no pictures of the applesauce making. After all that, there was still time to do a little shopping and go out to dinner together. And, we celebrated 4 upcoming birthdays with cake and ice cream. (Tyler's, my brother-in-law, Kayla's, Lily's, and mine)

The Land of Milk and Honey!

So, this is what I've been up to for the past month or so: canning, dehydrating, juicing, and freezing just about everything. Well, not everything, but the best part is that all of it has been FREE! We have a ward garden where we all go and help plant and weed throughout the summer and then when the harvest is on it is great! We also have a church owned orchard 10 minutes away from us and when you go and help thin, and pick, you can glean the fruit for FREE! So, here's the low down from my pantry right now:

Strawberry jam (from the garden. . . and actually, that's in my freezer, not my pantry)

Peach jam
Plum jam

110 quarts of peaches

50 pints of salsa

25 pints of sweet and sour sauce (Bryson loves it!)

14 quarts of tomatoes (with a whole bunch more in my fridge that I will be canning tomorrow)

20 quarts of apple juice

And my mom is coming next weekend and we are going to be canning some major amounts of applesauce. . .

4 gallons of dried apples (with cinnamin and sugar sprinkled on them they are sooo good!)

1 gallon of dried peaches

Tons of fruit leather. . . peach, apricot, peach/plum, so far. . .

Chopped green onions in my freezer

Garlic in my freezer

50 ears of corn (actually cut off the cob and froze - Bryson did that)

12 bags of grated zucchini in my freezer

I have squash to grate still --I like to add it to spaghetti sauce, rice casseroles, or even soups to get more hidden veggies

And I will be getting onions, carrots, and potatoes for free to store in the garage for the winter

Once it freezes outside I'm going to get grapes (for free) and do grape juice

Besides all that, we've been living on fresh potatoes, squash, cantalope, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, watermelon, all from my garden and the ward garden. It's truly like the Garden of Eden here!

This picture is already outdated. . . most of those empty jars are filled with my tomatoes. And all my dehydrated fruit is on the other side of my pantry.

Boy, I'm tired. But happy.

Walla Walla

I took the kids to Walla Walla for a week to see family. We got to be there for Grandma's birthday (my mom) and my grandpa's 90th birthday. Brad, Jana, Daylen and Kate spent the week there, too, so we had lots of fun!


Here's Kara, Lily and Lori.

Here's Kayla and Kate. They are about 7 months apart, but close the same size!




Nathan and Lily spent almost the entire week outside in the swings or jumping on the trampoline.


Kayla enjoyed the swing also!

Here's Lily and Daylen jumping. . . they had so much fun playing together . . . and fighting over grandma!

We went to an aquatic center for my mom's birthday. Nathan really surprised me at how much of a little fish he was! We haven't done much swimming since we moved from Las Vegas. I just can't go by myself with all the kids hanging on me and I don't like to pay to go swimming!

Here's Grandpa blowing out his candles!

The party was at my uncle Jim's house. They had this great little truck that Nathan enjoyed driving. It was almost scary at how much of a pro he was at it!

Even Lily got a turn to drive it!

Ward Campout

We had our ward campout back in August. . . I'm slowly catching up! We had a great time and here are some pictures from that night.



This is Nathan with his friends Nathan and Josh having a good time fishing in the Snake River. Yeah, we have a lot of fun with the Nathans. They call each other by their last name. . . it's so funny! Now all their other friends do it, too. : )





Here's Lily with Bryson, doing some fishing.




We don't have a tent big enough to fit us all, so we had to borrow another and split up, the girls tent and the boys tent!

The Elder's Quorum was in charge of breakfast. . . Bryson's a great pancake flipper. :)

Anyway, it was a fun time to spend camping with friends in the ward!

Our trip to Chesterfield

So, I'm a bit behind on blogging, things have been busy and I have started using Facebook, too. Anyway, here's our great trip to Chesterfield, Idaho. What??? You've never heard of it?? That's because it's a small farming community with not even a gas station to it's name. It is a great place and Bryson lived there until he was seven. His parents recently retired and have spent the summer in the nice cool Idaho weather to escape the hot Mesquite summer. So, we had a little Perkins reunion there and it was great! We started our trip by taking a pit stop in Twin Falls and went through the temple open house. By the way, we took this trip back in July. The temple is beautiful and after going through it, we drove out to Shoshone Falls, literally 5 minutes from the temple, to see it, since there is a beautiful mural of them inside the temple.







We woke up to a very CHILLY morning on July 24th. I forgot that it is much cooler over on that side of the state and was totally unprepared. We were all in summer pajamas and I didn't bring a single jacket, pants, or anything warm for anyone.







There's a Pioneer Day pancake breakfast, parade, and races (the kind where people run on the grass kind of races) in the thriving metropolis of Bancroft, the nearby town (population 350) every year. We had a great time at the parade! I heard it has grown over the years. It went down mainstreet, and then turned around and went back, so we got to see it twice! They do know how to throw candy, we got more candy from that parade than we got at Halloween!







Here'a little warm up race with some of the Perkins before the real thing.







Bryson or Brad??? I caught the lucky photo finish on camera.







We got Lily up on a horse for a ride. She enjoyed it once she was up there! It was hard to get her to get on it, though.





We roasted hot dogs and marshmellows. . .;

We toured the historic town sites. . .

Chesterfield was settled by Mormon pioneers and is one of the few that is still around in a similar condition that it was when it was settled. There are still many of the original townsite buildings and cabins. This is the Perkins Cabin, built by one of Bryson's ancestors.

Kara was staying with us at the time and got to come with us. :) Kayla is always looking for something to eat. . .

We had 13 of the 15 grandkids there! Here are Cameron and Nathan. They are 3 months apart and like to call each other on the phone and talk every now and then. It was so nice to see everyone since we are so far away from them!

We also had fun four-wheeling! I didn't get a picture posted, but Nathan and Lily were practically glued to the seats! They loved it! We had so much fun spending time with family!!

Photo Shoot

My sister, Kara, stayed with us for almost the whole month of July, and she went home on Sunday. :( It was sooooooooooooo great to have her here! She loves playing with the kids and it was great to have a babysitter when we had things to do at night! Before church on Sunday, I took a few pictures of her with the kids. Kayla was taking a nap. . .

So, this one was supposed to be of just Kara and Lily, but Nathan stuck his head in right as I took the picture. . . it turned out to be his most normal smile in all the pictures I took of him!

I also have several of Lily will silly faces!

Isn't that one sweet!

I asked Nathan to sit down on the stool and smile. This is what I got from him. . .

There's a good one!

I have no idea what Lily is doing there. These kids were so hyper when we were taking pictures, their faces were always moving!

We've had lots of adventures in July, but I'm going to be working my way backwards. Goodbye Kara, happy birthday today, and we miss you!

Happy 7th Anniversary!

Bryson and I were married 7 years ago today! Time sure flies! They have been wonderful years and I am so lucky to be married to him!! Thanks, Bryson, I love you!!!