2012 Summer Vacation- Part 2

The second part of our vacation took us across the Canadian border to Ottawa, Ontario.  Josh was speaking at a conference there, so Mom and I dropped him off and then spent the night in Montreal.  It was fun using kilometers instead of miles and trying to figure out all the french signs.  We didn't do any sightseeing stuff in Canada at that point because we knew we would be back later to get Josh.
Mom and I reentered the US and drove through Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York over the course of a few days.  Here are some highlights from our little road trip.

We visited the LL Bean flagship store and outlet malls in Maine.

Capitol building in Concord, New Hampshire

Capitol building in Concord, New Hampshire

The drive was so pretty and green, but sometimes I wished we could see farther than just a few feet off in the distance.

Lots of green, curvy roads.  There were cities out there somewhere, but we couldn't see them.

Capitol building in Montpelier, VT

Montpelier, VT- pretty setting for the capitol building, don't you think?

Montpelier, VT- only a town of 8000 people

While we were in Vermont, one of our main goals was to get some real maple syrup.  We found Morse Maple Farm that has been in operation for 8 generations.  They no longer hang buckets from the trees to collect sap.  Now they use a more efficient system of tubing that connects all the trees and feeds sap directly into a large tank without any manual labor.   

You can see some of the tubing running between the trees and large pipes that carry sap down the hill.

Sap collecting tank outside the sugar house.  Again, notice all the pipes running to this area.  The condenser is inside the building.

More maple trees with tubing and pipes

More maple trees with tubing and pipes

A close up of 1 maple tree.  The little clear part at the end of the dark blue tube will be inserted into the tiny hole in the tree at the top right of the picture whenever it's sap collecting time.

The sugar house.  The tall chimneys are connected to the condenser inside.  Big clouds of steam come from these chimneys when the syrup is being made.

Another necessary stop in Vermont was the Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory.  We toured the factory and then had ice cream for brunch.  Mmm mmm! 

From Vermont, we headed west through New York so we could eventually get back to Ottawa.  We took a ferry across Lake Champlain and drove through the Adirondacks stopping in Lake Placid along the way.

Lake Champlain- waiting for the ferry to arrive

There's the ferry!

The views from the ferry weren't too bad

Our car on the ferry- we're to the right of the blue kayaks

We got to see a few Olympic areas in Lake Placid

The ski jumps at the top of a hill

The ski jumps at the top of a hill

One of the ice rinks- I think this one was used in the 1932 Olympics

At one point this was the speed skating rink.  Now it's more of a track area for the local high school.

Another ice rink- I think this one was from the 1980 Olympic games

"It's No Miracle- It's Real Snow"  Real snow trucked in from?

2012 Summer Vacation- Part 1

Our big summer trip started a month ago, but I'm just now finding time to write about it.  We spent 18 days on the road and covered nearly 6000 miles.  My mom joined us on this trip, but we left the pup at home this time.
Our first stop was Oklahoma.  We spent the night with some friends that I hadn't seen in 8 years.  We went to church with Josh and Amanda when we were living in Stillwater.  It was great to catch up with them and meet their 2 sweet boys.

Our next stop was Illinois to visit a bunch of Josh's family.  We were blessed to spend some good time with Grammy at the nursing home.  About 1 1/2 weeks after our visit, Grammy's health started to fail and she passed away soon after.  We will always cherish those last moments we had together.

Josh helping Grammy check her email and Facebook account.  Her arm was hurting, so Josh operated the mouse for her.

Playing Bingo with Grammy

Josh and Grammy were the big winners of the day with 4 dimes each.  Our table racked up $1.10 total!

Next up, Ohio!  Mom wanted to visit Amish country, so we spent a little time in the Berlin area.  I was happy to get to visit Lehman's old fashioned, non-electric store while we were in the area.  We also checked out the local fabric outlet store, flea market, several smaller stores, visited Heini's cheese house, and drove around in the country.

One of the 4 soda walls at Lehman's.  They had all kinds of interesting flavors from traditional root beer and fruit sodas to corn, bacon and dog drool sodas.

Horse and buggy parking area at the local auction.

We really liked the haystacks- not your traditional bales of hay.

Fabric outlet store!  This was just 1 of the 2 rooms.  Can you believe I didn't buy anything?  Some bolts were as cheap as $0.25/yard! 

Our trip was off to a great start.  Next stop: Canada!

This Car...

This car...
-was bought in June 1997
-was bought because its predecessor was totaled in an ugly car accident :(
-is named Lil Ruby although we never call our cars by name
-took me to college
-took us on our honeymoon
-has witnessed quite a few makeout sessions (sorry, Mom, had to say it)
-has lived in 5 states- NM, TX, CO, OK, WA
-has traveled to 19 states and 1 Canadian province
-consistently averages around 37-38 mpg
-has some wear and tear, but is in very good condition
-has been stuck in the snow
-has a wonderful cruise control because my dad installed it as a birthday present in 1999- yes, it still works and gets used everyday
-brought home our first puppy
-gets us to work everyday
-has been driven off the highway and into a pea field at 65 mph (don't ask, I wasn't driving)
-has gone through several sets of tires
-has only broken down on us once (and it was our fault for not changing the timing belt on time)
-has a half-chewed seat belt thanks to a bored puppy
-has automatic seat belts that haven't worked in years (we just lift the seat belts over our heads and fasten the lap belts)
-has a speedometer with a mind of its own
-has a broken emergency flasher button
-has a check engine light that refuses to stay off no matter what
-has several rattles and squeaks 
-has seen gas prices rise from $0.95/gallon to over $4/gallon
-turned 200,000 miles yesterday!

Mom, Josh, Titus, and I all piled in the car for an ice cream run to celebrate.  We pulled over 1.5 miles from our house to take these pictures.   

I love this car and hope it's around for another 200,000 miles!

Garden 2012- Part 7, Corn, Potatoes and Melons

Just a couple of quick pictures to show our recent harvests.  

Josh pulled up a few red potatoes last week.  I call these the world's tiniest potato, ugliest potato, and most-like-a-strawberry potato.

Some beautiful corn, cucumbers, zucchini, and yellow squash.  That white squash is called a pattypan squash, but I prefer to call it our UFO squash.

I forgot to take a picture before we cut up our first watermelon, so here it is cut up instead.  We also pulled off 3 cantaloupe (the middle one is skinned already) and our first green peppers (behind the watermelon.) 

We're enjoying all this yummy food!  We sure have come a long way since last year.

Crafts- The Monk and Eliana's Rag Quilt

Do you have a mom that saves everything you've ever made for her?  Well, I do.  When we were packing up Mom's house, we found a few treasures that I made back in middle school.  I thought you might need a good laugh on this Monday, so I'm going to share my childhood craftiness with you.  I have to say that I really enjoyed art classes growing up.  I was absolutely horrible at everything, but I enjoyed the process.
This first project is from 6th grade.  I noticed my mom had a need.  She would often take off her rings when baking and didn't have a dedicated place to put them.  When pottery days rolled around at school, I knew exactly what I wanted to make for Mom- a ring holder!  Now, I have no idea what caused me to think a FACE would make a good ring holder, but I did.  Mom was supposed to place her ring over the nose of this masterpiece.

Problem #1- I made the nose too wide for Mom's rings.
Problem #2- I painted the face pink which made Mom think it was a mouth with a tongue sticking out.
Problem #3- It was hideous!  Why did I ever think Mom would want to display this in her kitchen?  And what is this supposed to be anyway?  A face with 2 legs with 3-toed feet.  What!?!  

Moving on to 8th grade.  Same teacher, same pottery technique.  Let's see if I improved at all.  This time around, I thought Mom needed a cookie jar.  My vision was to make a chef jar where the head with big chef hat lifted off of the body and the body was where the cookies would go.  Well, I ran out of time and didn't get to make the chef's hat.  So I gave Mom this bald man cookie jar that we affectionately call "The Monk."  Doesn't it look like one? 

Seriously, what was I thinking?  I gave my Mom a monk cookie jar!  As we were packing up her house, we found the wrapped pieces labeled "Monk head" and "Monk body."  Haha!  I convinced her that she could throw these treasures away.  Of course we had to take pictures first, but then they went in the trash.

Now let's jump ahead almost 20 years and see what I made last week.  I promise, I'll stay away from pottery!
Josh's sister, Christina, is pregnant with our 2nd niece.  She is due on my birthday!  Christina is married to Brady, who is a talented musician that runs a business making custom cases of all sorts.  (http://www.bradycases.com/)  I knew I would be making a rag quilt for little Eliana (Ellie), but I wasn't happy with any of the fabric I saw in Abilene.  So, when we were in NM, we made a quick stop at Joann's.  I was trying to match the nursery colors (brown, pink, and green) but was having a hard time.  Then Josh sees this fabric and says, "How about guitars?"  I said, "For a baby?  I don't think so.  Wait!  Yes!  Absolutely for this baby!"  It was perfect!  The colors, the theme- seriously perfect!  So we picked out some coordinating fabrics and went to check out.  Mom stopped off to check out the remnant stash and found a cute flannel cupcake piece.  It ended up being a better match to the guitar fabric than the one I already had, so I bought it too.  I couldn't wait to get started on the quilt.
Here's the finished product:

Rag side

Smooth side

Close-up of fabrics

I would love to give pottery another try someday, but for now I'll stick to sewing :)  I wonder if this is why my mom taught me how to sew?  Maybe trying to refocus my creativity?  Hmm...

Bless all of you moms out there who truly treasure your kids' "art."

2012 Garden- Part 6, Catching Up

I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since I last posted- sorry!  We spent 10 days helping my mom pack and move to Abilene and now we're back home for a few weeks.  Our garden has really taken off the last few weeks and we are starting to harvest lots of goodies!  I promise I'll have a non-garden related post soon, but this is all I have right now.

Garden- May 25th

Garden- June 6th

Tomatoes!

Tomatoes filling out their cages

Watermelon

Tomatillos

Honeydew

Cantaloupe

Corn

Almost ready to pick!

Cucumbers- we have lots!

Cucumbers are taking over!

Jalapenos- nearly ready

Our bell pepper plants are loaded

Eggplants have started blooming

Our harvest last night- cucumbers, tomatillos, tomato, green beans and okra

For those of you who prefer flowers, we have a few of those too. 

It's been a good year for the Indian Blankets- my favorite flower

Our monster sunflower is in full bloom too

Our back field is full of wildflowers.  Josh is documenting all the species this year.