Love / Hate relationship

I have such a Love / Hate relationship with the FALL season! I love the cooler temps after a HOT summer, leaves changing colors and the fall holidays. I am thankful for so much. My family, home, our jobs... they are all wonderful blessings!!
Where does the hate come in you ask? Well... it is this! Canning & preserving everything that is harvested from the gardens. (I don't have a garden so don't be too impressed.) After working from 8:00am till 5:00pm 5 days a week... this is NOT what I want to do when I get home. The bad part is that I can't put it off for too many days or all of it will be rotten! AAHHH!

These pictures really do make the process look nice. Look how pretty the tomatoes are. I cook with tomato juice about twice a week so do the math... 2 quarts twice a week times 52 weeks = A LOT of tomato juice!!! 96 quarts is what I actually made this year. I still have a hard time thinking about this process. I did this for days!! My husband even helped this year. I think he now understands my hatred for it.

This is the part he volunteered for... the smashing of the cooked tomatoes into this hand crank juicer. This kids enjoy watching this part. Bailey even go into the action too. She was a big help.

That huge orange tub was FULL of juice along this the silver pan. This was one Saturday's worth of work. My mother-in law helped me pick tomatoes that morning and then I stared at about 2:00. I thought I would be done by 10:00 or 11:00. Guess what time it was was when I gave up and put the rest in the fridge??? 3:30 AM!!!!

This is only part of the massive amount of bottles that I did.

I can actually look at this now and think that it looks awesome!!

This is the finished product!!!

TA-DAH!!!

This is all of our hard work this year at following the prophet to get a year's supply of food!!!

All though we are not finished... it is a great feeling to know that we are doing something that the Lord has asked of us!

Now this is a BLESSING!!!

On a side note... I dried 1 box of pears and a few peaches. I also froze 22 quart bags of peaches, 28 quart bags of Corn, and 15 quart bags of stewed tomatoes!!!

This really is a Love / Hate relationship!!!!

Halloween 09

Bailey was a ghost, Kaysen was a non-morning person and Corbin was a (fevered) dragon. My niece and nephew came to walk around the block with my kids. Mackie was the corpse bride and Kai was the joker. They looked so great!! My kids were sick so I was just going to let them walk next door to aunt Susan's then rent movies. I helped them go to her house to make sure they didn't go in, but after that I felt bad for them so I let them go around the block.

This was an interesting Halloween to say the least!! I had gotten sick with the flu on the Sunday before this, and was flat in bed till Wednesday when Corbin had pink eye and Kaysen had a headache, cough, and sore throat. They stayed home with me that day. Bailey came home from school (same day) and said she was freezing. I felt her neck and she was hot!! I have no idea if we had the swine flu or not but I had every symptom... the kids had most of them, but not the same as the other kid. AAHHH!! Corbin ended up with a fever on Halloween that turned into an ear infection on Monday. None of us were feeling that great so this will be a memorable season! I have NO idea how my husband escaped without a trace of this flu but he did it!! I have NEVER been that sick before in my life!!! Like I have been saying... I think people die from this flu because they want to!! When my sister-in-law called and asked if I needed anything... I told her a gun!! :)
I hope the rest of you had a "happy" Halloween!!!!

Camping this summer

Trick photography!!
Actually... this makes me hyperventilate!! The older I get, the more afraid of heights I am! I have to confess that I was having a hard time watching my Dad with Corbin on that rock. Corbin would throw rocks down the cliff and with the motion of his body and the EDGE of the rock, it was really making me sick.

This was Corbin's first 4 wheeling trip and I have to say that he lasted a lot longer than Kaysen did at his age. Kaysen would have been asleep the first 15 minutes of the ride, but Corbin only dozed off for a few minutes towards the end of the 28 mile ride. (It doesn't really sound that far, but on a 4 wheeler ~ eating dust... it really is quite a ways.)

Kaysen got brave and went to this side of the cliff with Grandpa. (Kaysen is like me...)

The Kids really enjoyed this camping trip and trading riding partners with Yancey, Grandpa, Grandma and I.

I actually think that I enjoyed this trip the most. Spending time with my family and with my parents is priceless!! Memories are made in a second, but they last forever!!!

Corbin loved playing in the river after our long hot ride... Honestly... I think that we all did!!
Bailey is the only one that sat in the ICE cold river though. My dad dunked his head in it to cool off. I don't know which one would be worse... sitting in it or sticking my head in the water. AAHHH!

We had so much fun on this weekend but I am really sad that we only got to go once this summer.

Our goal is to go at least 5 times next summer. Maybe I will mark it on the calendar NOW!!

I have several more entries for this fall but you will have to wait in suspense to find out what has been going on at the Pitcher household. (Besides the swine flu!!! I now know why people die from the swine flu... It is because they WANT TO!!!)