School Started!

The kids started back to school today and promptly went into the office to get a planned absence for Friday...Ha Ha...Oh well, at least we don't take off for the fair. Jord and I both had a very long weekend....his longer than mine. I told him...Do you realize you will have made 3 trips to Eugene in one week? Crazy!! He will probably be sleeping in the car when we hit the stores. We are looking forward to the trip. The car has been serviced and we get new tires tomorrow so we should be all set. I enjoyed my time with Dustin and Kya. She is a sweety and very cute too with her olive skin and black hair. It was good to have them spend the night, I won't get to see her as often as I'd like because Dustin is living in Spokane. But, it definately is closer than Oklahoma! I put up my first batch of salsa last night and will have to do one more batch when we return from Oregon. We are about squashed out....I've had my fill for this year and told Jord it was time to pull the plants, they keep producing and producing etc....See everyone in about 3 days!!! Yippee!!

Time Flies

Gideon and Brandi came out for dinner the other night and Brandi was looking at pictures of Kat/Creston when the were small. Time flies.....sometimes I wish we could roll back the days and have more time when they were babies....before they were teenagers!! HA! Jord and Dad are on there way to Oregon. Jord and I will be going to Seattle on Sunday morning to pick up Kya at the airport. She is flying in from Alaska to live with Dustin. I am excited to see her....its been over two years and this year she will start school. Apparently, Dustin and Katrina have worked out visiting. Dustin gets her during the school year and Katrina gets her in the summer. We are looking forward to making our way down to Oregon for some shopping. How many of you girls are going to meet us in Woodburn for some shopping and dinner? The more the merrier!!!! See you then.

Blooms and Garden

I put up some dill pickles for A. Martha's sweet pickle recipe. I had dill and cukes for the Bread and Butter's. We run up to Fitzgeralds to get cukes for the dill chunks.

Kim give us a box of peaches, so I thought I would try a little peach butter.

The long view

Classic Kansas Sunflowers


Cutting Sunflower


Jan gave me some purple beans late for color. I popped them in througout the garden.


The first serious batch of tomatoes. One of Jan's heirlooms.

Most of my tomatoes still look like this.


Green Tiger - still not ripe

Very slow to mature, but my dill has finally kicked in.

This is what you get when you buy cheap seed. These are suppose to be red. Note to self: pay the money and buy good seed.

Pure Summer Sweets

Giant Atlantic Pumpkin? Maybe?

Orange Hubbard Squash

Cinderella Squash

Scarlet Runner Beans - It would have been nice if the Purple Lablab Beans were blooming with them. Note to self - spend the money and buy good seed.

Our view outside the kitchen window

The basil loves my soil. I don't remember it doing this well for me in the past.

Zinnia Time

Lovely Pink - Note to self buy good seed so that I get that incredible Cherry Red Zinnia.

I love common old fashioned flowers




Black-Eyed Peas

One of my favorite late summer bloomers - Tithonia

A Working Weekend

Gideon left the truck with us over the weekend. So I took the opportunity to get feed and weekend-work supplies in Wenatchee on Friday night. We treated ourselves to Garlini's. Wonderfully Expensive. Up early on Saturday and got started assembling the book shelves for the bedroom. Looks like I'll have enough shelf space to get all the books off the floor and out of Kat's room. Then I started on Kat's closet and the laundry.

Closet before - just books and totes stacked on the floor


Still unorganized - Kat just pulled some stuff off the bed so she could get to bed. A 4' closet rod, a shoe rack, a top rack and some drawers (her dresser).


The new shelves




the old shelves

Bandit Loves Saturdays too


As you can see I can't take credit for most of the pictures on this post. I'm stealing them from my new little shutterbug - Kat.

Target - Clearance. Wish they had about 10 more strings.


So much attention

Computer Problems

Well.....our home computer decided last night to crash!! The bad part is, part of Jords work stuff is on the home computer and part on the laptop. So, he is frantically trying to get it to work (lots of computer lingo that I don't understand) so he can transfer this to that.....and so on. So, I am posting at work before my day gets crazy. I am counting the days until we leave for our much needed Oregon shopping trip. The kids are making lists of things they say they just have too have.....well....their lists and mine of course are totally different. Kim/Marty got home safely last night and it was so good to visit. We felt a little lonely out there without our neighbors across the pasture. Kat has to give up her 4-wheeler, I told the Evan's that it was probably out of gas......6 trips a day running back and forth....they got a chuckle out of that. Tamsin----I just got two 40% off coupons emailed to me for Justice. If you want one, I can forward it to you so you can print it off. I don't have your email, so you will have to call me. It's 40% off entire purchase.....great coupon.

Good Company!!

Fixed dinner last night for Tamsin & kids, Emma & kids, and Brandi/Gideon. We had a good time, full of laughter and lots of input from the two Wilson Boys....hmmmmm....you can only imagine. Ashton was hilarious. Kat has had the 4-wheeler at the house so she can do the Evan's chores, so she put her softball helmet on him for protection and would give him rides back and forth to see the puppies....too cute. Of course, I was busy cooking and didn't get any pictures. It's moments like those that you should be taking pictures. I ended cooking way too much food, so I sent some home for Gideon, brought some for my lunch today and probably have enough steak to do steak tacos tonight. All in all.....very enjoyable evening and would do it all again tonight if I could snag those Oregon sisters....Ha Ha.