I CAN Do It!

It's August and as usual my garden is overgrown and overproducing.  It's a good thing, but a good thing that makes some extra work for me.

First off, we had the zucchini crush.  We have eaten zucchini bread, boiled zucchini, sauteed zucchini, baked zucchini fries, minestrone soup with zucchini, chocolate zucchini cake, ratatouille, you name it we've eaten it.

I've still got zucchini in my fridge and I've give some away but the plant production has slowed so I think I have a grip now.

Good thing because now I'm overwhelmed by tomatoes!  I grow three varieties.  I love each of them so much, I'm not willing to give them up now that I've found them after years of gardening.  I grow Sunburst cherry tomatoes - they are orange and are as sweet as grapes.  These plants are hardy and grow like crazy but it's not a problem because the girls eat them like candy.

I also grow two varieties of red tomatoes - Celebrity and Early Girl.  I love these.  They are meaty and just the right size.  And this year they are off the hook crazy.  I am getting at least 25 tomatoes a week.  We obviously can't keep up, but I'm trying.  I have already canned a bunch.  I have also canned salsa and made spaghetti sauce.  Plus we have eaten fresh tomatoes in as many ways as possible.  Just yesterday I canned salsa and made spaghetti sauce and guess what is still sitting on my counter?  A huge  pile of tomatoes.  I refuse to even go back out to the garden to pick anymore right now.

The good side of all these tomatoes is that I don't even sweat it when the squirrels and chipmunks drop into my garden to eat them.  What's a few lost tomatoes when you have hundreds?  In fact, I was just telling my neighbor that we have fat squirrels because of the well-rounded healthy diet they get from our yard--plenty of protein and fat from Dave's bird seed and fresh vegetables from my garden.

I'm complaining but not too much.  I like having fresh vegetables and do appreciate having the canned food later on, so we will continue on, the season is almost over, right?!

She Had a Birthday!

Ashley was 13 for three days of her Freshman year before she finally turned 14!  She was looking forward to this one.  She did have school on her birthday but I baked her a raspberry butter braid for breakfast and gave her a Costco size box of Sour Punch Straws.

While she was at school I baked her a huge cake.  She requested a marble cake with chocolate frosting. This one was four layers!

Dave came home from work a little early so after school, we opened presents and the girls and I went to eat dinner at Five Guys.  Ashley loves bacon cheeseburgers so she had to have one on her birthday.

Instead of a birthday party this year, Ashley opted for a special gift.  Part one was tickets to see the play Wicked.  She hasn't seen it yet and so she and I are going to go when it comes back to Chicago in December!  Paige gave her a wristlet purse to keep her retainer case, phone, and student ID in when she is at school as well as some headbands and an iTunes gift card.  She also got some birthday money from both sets of her grandparents.  I'm sure she'll want to do some clothes shopping with that!

After dinner, Ashley and I went to youth activities for church.  Ashley's group went on big bowling outing to celebrate her birthday.  It was fun to spend a little time with friends on her birthday.  LATER that night at around 9pm we were finally able to sing happy birthday to her and cut the birthday cake.  Unfortunately, she had eaten so much junk earlier she was too full for cake, but Dave, Paige and I helped with that.  And since the cake was so big - there was plenty leftover for the next day!

The second part of her gift was dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse.  We had to wait until the weekend to go, but it was delicious.  Paige was with a friend so it was just Dave, Ashley and I.  We went to a place called Chama Gaucha and oh my was it good.  The food and service were impeccable.  Ashley, our meat lover, was in heaven.  They even brought her a birthday dessert (caramel flan) after dinner.

This girl is growing up so fast, but is also doing everything right.  She is great daughter and sister.  We love her tons.

School Starts!

School started about a week earlier than usual this year, but we were as ready as we could be.  This is a big year for Ashley - she starts high school and Seminary.  Fortunately, she had one full week of school before Seminary started.  This gave her a chance to ease into the high school routine before she had to start getting up at 5am every day.  

Our Favorite Freshman!

On the first day of school, the upperclassmen are dismissed at 11:00 am and the Freshmen stay for what is called "Frosh Fest."  It's basically a big orientation, assembly and tour of the school.  Ashley said, her first day went well, she made it to all her classes on time and has at least one friend in every one of her classes.  

The following week, Ashley started Seminary.  It's only been a couple of days, but so far so good.  Honestly, as we went to the parent/student meeting, I left thinking, "this is intense, it's pretty impressive that so many kids do this!"  It takes something special to get up early every morning and go to Seminary.  Also, the requirements and coursework are pretty intense as well, but I know it will be a great blessing to her and she will definitely be able to handle it.

Fortunately, for me I don't have to drive her this year!  Talk about a great blessing.  She is able to ride with another family to Seminary and then another student who is a Senior and has a car, drives her and another kid to school.  Lucky me!  I get up to help her get ready and see her out the door, but fortunately, I don't have to be dressed or leave the house!

Over 2 hours after Ashley leaves, it's time for Paige to leave for 4th grade!  She rides the bus and this year, I am babysitting some of her friends before and after school, so she gets to go with friends.  

Our Favorite Fourth Grader

These girls are the big kids at the bus stop, almost everyone else is a Kindergartner!

Paige also had a great first day and came home happy, safe and sound!  

Here are my two favorite quotes from the girls about the first day of school:

Ashley - "I'm pretty sure 'M' comes before 'P"."  (this is what she had to tell a fellow classmate as they were working on an alphabetizing activity, geez!)

Paige - "It was an awesome first day, but there sure is A LOT to remember.  I'm serious Mom, a lot more stuff than in 3rd grade."

We celebrated their survival of day one with some frozen custard for dessert later that night!  They deserved it.  

Back to School Dinner

Our annual back to school family dinner was all-American.  We had chili dogs, french fries and IBC root beer in bottles.  We even ate our food out of cute red plastic baskets.  It was fun.

After dinner, Dave gave both the girls father's blessings.  He did a wonderful job, comforting both his daughters.  I know this was important to the girls as they both had a few things to be anxious about.  Ashley is starting high school, it's the real deal now.  She is also going to start early morning Seminary.  It starts at 5:55 am every day, that is a serious commitment, but she's ready for it.  Paige is starting 4th grade, so it's pretty routine and familiar.  Her biggest worry is being able to handle science lessons about human anatomy.  She is so queasy and easily affected by just the thought of anything gross that it will be a challenge.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to do some exposure therapy, like looking at picture books a little at a time, to help her overcome her aversion.

Anyway, it was great family time spent together as we prepare for a new school year.

Getting Ready to Go Back to School

It's the week before school starts and so it is registration and preview night at the girls' schools.

Ashley started it off with Freshmen registration and schedule pick up.  I went with her, but I didn't take any pictures.  I was actually a little surprised that parents went with their kids to pick up schedules and get their lockers.  I know when I went to high school NOT ONE parent went with their child to do this.    But this is suburbia, with attached, super-involved parents so of course you go with your high school freshman and help her find her locker.

Another reason that parents have to be there is because they need someone to write all the checks for the copious amounts of money you have to shell out.  A friend who lives in Ogden was saying how she really doesn't HAVE to buy a bunch of specific school supplies for her kids.  Kind of made me laugh when I think of the huge list of items that my kids must have every year.  It is very specific all the way down to the brand of pencil, count, size and color.  In fact, I'm pretty sure they have these "preview" nights before school starts so that parents can help their kids haul in the bags of school supplies they have to bring.  

Okay, back to Ashley.  We went through the whole registration process, got her ID card and schedule and then went to find her locker and look for her classrooms.  Her school by our standards is huge something like 3,000+ students.  Her Freshmen class is around 700.  Likewise the building has to be pretty big to accommodate all these kids.  It's 3 floors and sprawling.  In fact they just finished building a new addition.  The lockers are in double rows, one on top of the other and of course, Ashley got a bottom locker.  Kind of ironic as we saw a girl next to her who was less than 5 feet tall stand on her tiptoes to reach her top locker!  Oh well.

We walked around to each of her classes so Ashley could orient herself a bit.  This whole process took about 2 hours.  At the end, Ashley was like, "Mom, can we walk through my schedule one more time? Just to help me remember it more?"

OKAY STOP HERE.  What would your response to this be?  I'm sure most of you would think about your little girl all grown up and needing a little more reassurance as she prepares to start high school and would therefore, probably say, "sure."

HERE IS WHAT I SAID, "No, let's go home."  Go ahead and judge me, but seriously, IT HAS BEEN 2 HOURS.  We have walked all over this place, up and down stairs, around the swimming pool, down this hall, etc, etc.  I'm not the one in high school!  I'm officially done.  We have done enough for Ashley to get her bearings, she'll figure it out just like everyone else does.  

I might mention two things about this:   1)The very next day after registration, a parent friend of mine, told me how they took their child back to the school later that night to walk the through the schedule again and actually time out how long it takes to walk from class to class.  2)Ashley was fine on the first day of school and had no problem finding her way around. 

As for Paige, her school "preview" was pretty much about just meeting her teacher.  Easy.  Of course, it's never that easy.  Because I am in the PTA, I had to make some posters and handouts and so it was a little bit of a hectic rush as we also had back-to-back activities that day.  In the end, everything worked out.  Paige even got the teacher we were hoping to get.  Even better was that her best friend Riley is also in her class.  We were definitely not expecting that as it always seems they like to break kids up.  Needless to say, the girls were thrilled!

Dave got a picture for us.  Paige's mascot is a "wolverine"
Ashley mascot = "wolves"

Can't Summer Last Forever?

This is our final week of Summer vacation.  I think we all wish it could last longer.  We've been doing the usual school supply and clothes shopping.  We didn't go too crazy with clothes as my girls seem pretty well stocked, plus they did a lot of shopping this summer.  They both needed shoes but other than that, we just filled in the gaps here and there.

We have also had Paige's friend Riley with us a lot so she's got to join in a few of our last minute bucket items:

1)See the new Percy Jackson movie.  We enjoyed it.  It definitely followed the book better than the first movie.  We also saw it at the themed movie theater.

2)Shopping, including a visit to our friends new clothing exchange store.  Ashley really wanted to do this.  She found some very cute jeans and the little girls bought matching sunglasses to go with the matching shirts they bought earlier!

3)Try the new frozen yogurt shop in town.  These girls love froyo!

17 Years

Dave and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary today.  17 is one of those numbers in between major numbers that you always have to think twice about and count to figure out exactly how long it has been.  I mean, 15 and 20 are easy but those middle numbers like 17 take a little extra mental effort!

17 years.  Dave and I have known each other for more than 1/2 our lives and we have had a lot of good times.  This year has been full of challenges for us, but we are still happy we just know what "through thick and thin" "for better or worse" and "in sickness and health" means now.

Anyway, we had a low key day but it was nice.  We went out for dinner, movie and ice cream in the evening.  We ate at Katy's, our favorite Chinese noodle house and then saw the movie, Elysium.  After the movie we got some ice cream at Oberweis, a sweet way to end the day.

Dave, me  and the flowers he gave me