Kent's 8th Birthday! Whoa!

 Today Kent turned eight years old, at exactly 4:44am. It is amazing how the years have just flown by! My crazy "little man" is getting so big! We feel very blessed to call him our son, and know that God blesses us everyday with Mr. Kent. So thank you Lord for our handsome gift, of eight years and counting. I see Kent's curiosity with the world, and all that surrounds us. It is the weather that grabs his attention, like no other! This kid wants to know the details, why and how, on it all. I have never seen such a kid, that can see "outside" the box. Kent asks questions about everything! His questions may constantly be repeated; but we wouldn't expect any thing less from our Mr. Kent! He is smart, and always using that brain of his! He is a cutie; and we are very proud of him. Today at 2:00, I dropped off cupcakes to his class. Lets just say, they were all excited! They got to eat them outside, and I got to take a class picture, with the cupcakes in hand! His classmates are all super cute and very sweet! When the kids got out of school, Jeff was already home (got home early for Kent's birthday); and we showed them the birthday table, all set up. Immediately, we took Kent's main gift (from us), out for a cruise, a cruise on the water, that is. We bought him the coolest toy ever! A battleship destroyer, that is remote controlled! Jeff has named it, The USS Destroyer. Awesome! That ship can cruise around our pond, no problem! Not only was Kent entertained, but Jeff and I couldn't wait to get our hands on the remote for OUR turn! Good times! Our good friends, Adi, Tim, and their three kids, all came over for pizza, gifts, cake, and good ol' fun! It was super nice of them coming over on a school night. Plus our kids get along so well, they all got lost in play. So we enjoyed our evening, and Kent had a blast on his birthday! Thank you to all the grandparents for his birthday gifts! He loved them all!

The "San Juan" Fall, On The First Day Of Fall!

 We made a quick weekend getaway, to Durango. It was so beautiful (as usual). Fall is every where, and there were a lot more colors changing, than we thought! We stayed at The Quality Inn, and it wasn't too bad. The important part, was the fact that the rooms were clean, and we got to have the longest showers, with the most amazing water pressure; (now for those of you that know us, and our water situation, you know how we feel spoiled, with getting to experience unlimited water, flowing from the faucets, and amazing water pressure)! I would say, that was one of the many "highlights" of our trip :o) We are so easy, and simple to please. We took a great big drive on Saturday, all the way to Telluride. Along the way, with stops in Silverton, Ouray, and other stops. We got to experience God's beauty, in the best season ever! This seems to be very early, with the changing of the trees, and brush. Usually it is between the very end of September, through October. All this means, is, we will be having a big winter. Mark my words. The trees know. They know. We ate at our favorite restaurant in Durango, Fransisco's. I enjoyed a margarita, and it tasted so good and refreshing! Haven't had one of those in years! We made sure to have plenty of coffee along our travels as well. After all, who can function with out it? No one. That's what I thought. We got home last night, and were pooped out! We are not used to late nights and such quick turn arounds, but it was worth it. We love our San Juan mountains.



autumn crafty



 the "caps" key doesn't work anymore. this is extremely annoying and all of my sentences are now incorrect. ahhhhhhh. here goes with no caps...today Adi came over and we made two fall projects, for each of our homes. i finally got to make my fall wreath (after i had made one for my friend, Angela. you all saw those pictures). Adi and i bought our supplies last night, and made our projects today, while Jeff was working his Saturday. our other project was making a pumpkin, out of canning jar lid rims, cinnamon sticks, and of course, i added my fabric and a couple of buttons. this by far, is one of the cutest fall decor items i have seen, or made, for that matter! i love it! now that Jeff is home for the day, he is steaming up the steam engine, and enjoying this very beautiful day! the kids are hanging around, here and there. Kent is outside with his daddy; and Samantha is in the house with me. Samantha, by the way...loves school! she always wants to be there. it's cute.  the chickens are all doing well too. i collected two more eggs today. the sister wives are still not all laying. i am waiting on caramel, latte, Betty and Pippa (yes, Pippa.) she was supposed to lay her egg already...she is such a tease. Marty is being Marty. doing his "thing" like all the time. seriously Marty?! it's called control Marty. control.  he does do a great job at protecting the flock. i have never seen such an alert rooster, and what seems like "caring" actions? sure. life of a rooster owner and his sister wives.
 p.s. spell check, let me "cap" some of my words...but not all of them. what the hey? better some than none.

Drives and Flowers.

 

 It was a pretty chill weekend, and that is a good thing. We hung around the house, took a drive down to Prescott yesterday, to have dinner at the Texas Road House. Today we took a drive up Bill Williams mountain. We haven't been up there in over a year. Our first stop was Starbucks in Williams, before our dive up; and yes, I did have my pumpkin spice latte. Dang that drink is so good! All the way up the forest road, was raining. It was fabulous! We reached the top over 9,000 ft., and with the rain and high elevation, it was 50 degrees up there. It felt and smelled like fall, and it made Jeff and me so happy! *Side note*...speaking of fall, we woke up this morning to a very chilly house; as in the low 40s outside, so the 60s inside; and when we were up the Williams mountain, Jeff commented on how it is feeling like fall (since we woke up), and that YES, I can now start to decorate for the fall! Yippee! I was really itching to start, but waiting; because yes, technically it isn't fall yet. He is now in the mood for fall as well. *End of side note* We climbed up the fire lookout tower, and what a view we encountered. The rain had stopped, and the sun started shining, and we could see the distant places of our great state! Jeff and I really appreciate northern Arizona, and all that it has to offer. We feel blessed. On our way home, we took our scenic old route 66 home. The yellow wild flowers have been going crazy everywhere! This is by far, the most yellow flowers we have seen (minus the natural sunflowers). These flowers have blanketed the grounds everywhere, and it is stunning. So I took a couple pictures of that, and the awesome 1800s house along old route 66. We have always admired that old home. It was a pleasant weekend.

A Little Bit Of What Ever.

I have been a slacker with updating the blog. I know. I am here now, with nothing too crazy to blog about, but I am here anyway! Okay...first I took a couple of pictures of an Autumn wreath I made for one of my good friends. She bought the twig wreath and flowers, and I took care of the rest! She loved it and so do I! I can't wait to make mine for our home. Good times! Last night, Adi came over and we experimented with a new canning recipe. How about caramel apple jam to be exact?! Oh yeah! It's funny, I took a picture with some of the ingredients we were planning on using (such as the already made caramels). Well in fact we did not use the bag of caramels, but instead, made our own caramel with brown sugar and butter! So this recipe means the apples are  soft,chunky, and not pureed. I suppose one could do that, but I didn't feel like making apple sauce. Having chunky apples will be more like an apple pie, or Jeff's favorite...apple crisp! We chopped up green apples; brown sugar; white sugar; little bit of water; cinnamon; nutmeg; butter; pectin. It smelled so cozy inside our home last night! Yum! So since we were testing this recipe, we only made three jars, but you can count on us making more, since it turned out! Can you imagine this on some ice cream? Or your toast in the morning?! Yes! The last picture is of my NEWEST Autumn decor, which I just purchased today at the Cracker Barrel. A beautiful tree, with branches, and golden leaves with little lights. I have had my eye on this thing since they brought it into the country store, well over a month ago! So today was the day folks! No more waiting! I still need to decorate the house and front porch with Autumn, but Jeff requested I wait for at least another week. Oooookay. I guess. I can at least have my new Autumn tree lit up now :o)