Oh, How Does Your Garden Grow?

We have been having a great season with our garden this year!I am so excited to get enough tomatoes to bottle salsa, whole tomatoes and chile sauce. YUMMY! I have already pickled all our beets. Here is a picture from last years salsa.



The only problem we have had this year has been with squash beetles. They have destroyed all my beautiful pumpkins.I was looking forward to fresh pumpkin pies. STUPID BEETLES!




So here are some pictures of the survivors of our garden. Tomatoes,Potatoes, Swiss Chard, Basil, Zuchinni(barely hanging on)(dang beetles),Cucumbers, Raspberries, Cantalope, Honeydew, and Sunflowers.

Mike, showing off the sunflowers.

Shelby, loves the corn and her new haircut.

Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes!!!

Shelby, making mud pies in the garnden. YUM!

Strawberry Pie

We have had a ton of strawberries in our garden this year. So this pie has been a popular request by all my family. Hope your families like it as well.


Strawberry Pie

8 cups fresh sliced strawberries
1 ½ cups sugar divided
6 TBS cornstarch
2/3 cup water
1 baked pastry shell

In a large bowl mash enough berries to equal 3 cups. In saucepan combine the sugar and cornstarch. Stir in the mashed berries and water. Mix well. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Cook and stir until thickened. It should look like pudding. Remove from heat. Pour into bowl. Chill until mixture is slightly warm. Fold in remaining berries. Pile in pie shell and chill for 2-3 hours. Serve with whipped cream.

Jackson Hole/ Yellowstone

We had so much fun last week visiting Jackson Hole Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park. We stayed at the Snake River KOA, just outside of Jackson. Great place to stay. The weather was perfect, the warmest it got was 80 degrees. Yellowstone was a very, very long day. I swear every time we go, there is road construction. Yellowstone from Jackson is about an hour drive. With construction it took us 2 1/2 hours to get there.Shelby was determined to see a bear, if her brothers said anything about them looking for a bear she would throw a fit. However we never did see one. So Mike bought her a stuffed animal bear she named Bob. Not so much fun after a 5 hour drive the day before. We asked the kids what they would remember about Yellowstone and they told us being in the car. So much for memories. The following day we headed to Jackson to spend the day and get some old time pictures taken. First family picture since Shelby was born. They turned out fabulous. That night we headed to the Bar J Ranch for a chuck wagon dinner and show. Great memories, Mike and I hadn't been there since our honeymoon. It was so much fun. The kids were great through the whole 2 hour show(amazing). It was a ton of fun. So if you want a fun family vacation i would highly recommend Jackson Hole and Yellowstone(just check about construction).

 

Another funeral

Well it has been a while since my last post. To fill you in we had just returned from Mike's grandfathers funeral when we got a phone call informing us that my grandmother passed away. She was such a great and noble women. Jelaire Katherine Simpson will be missed by many. She taught me so much. She showed me a great passion for cooking and she was always a lady, in the truest sense of the word. She never looked frazzled. She never complained, she went and did what the lord asked without a single murmur. I don't know if I could have done that. She had to move several times with my grandfathers church work. It was always fun to see the mementos from all over the world. So we have been in St george Utah for the funeral. The one nice thing about funerals is that you get a chance to see so much family that you haven't seen for a very long time. Hopefully no more funerals this year.

Happy Fathers Day

I hope all you with sons watch and enjoy this video. This video goes out to my husbands family who lost a great man last week Elvin Ossmen. He truly was a great man. He will be missed. Don't forget to pause the music at the bottom.

Jacob City

We did this a few weeks ago but I am just getting to the post. Mike and I went on a four wheeler ride to Jacob City just above Stockton Utah. Thanks to Dianna and Nate who watched Shelby. We were able to go on this fun trip for a few hours. It has been a long,long, long time since, Mike and I were able to go out and have such a fun time. It was so nice to ride and have a great picnic lunch by a stream. I felt like we were dating again. However while having lunch Mike realized he didn't have his wallet or cell phone. We went into panic mode and had to back track the whole way looking for these two items. We were lucky enough to find them at the very last place to look. At the entrance to mine. They must have fallen out while crawling in.Besides all that we had a lot of fun exploring and just having fun. So if you ever want a fun day ride head to the little ghost town of Jacob City.Here is the link that I found helpful about getting there and little background history.

Dutch Oven

Since it is summer, I thought I better post a yummy dutch oven dessert. I like this because we all get a little tired of the peach cobbler. I hope you all enjoy.



Jordan River Mud (Dutch Oven)

1 Chocolate Cake mix, mixed according to package directions

Mud:1/2 cup cocoa
2 cups brown sugar
4 cups hot water
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
Topping 1 package chocolate chips

Line Dutch oven with foil . Pour the prepared batter in oven. Mix “mud” ingredients in separate bowl and pour over the cake batter. Cover the oven 8-10 coals on the lid, 8 coals on the bottom. Bake for 40 minutes. Remove lid 5 minutes before baking time is up and sprinkle with chocolate chips, let melt. Serve with whipped topping. It will look like cake with fudge sauce.