Pictures of deer (maybe)

First of all these are pictures that Ryan took today while hunting with Nate and Mac and I just have to comment before he tells his hunting stories, see this picture above, well I can't tell you how many pictures we have that look just like this, I think instead of let's find Waldo it should be called let's find deero. Ryan always gets so excited about these pictures and if you look really close you can see a speck of a deer. I would much rather look at the pictures below and after going through all of our old pictures this last year I made a file to put the pictures that look like the ones above, it is the file that sits on the floor by my desk and gets emptied once a week, Sorry Ryan but I just like the close ups better.

Well, there we were, all decked out for hunting and nowwhere to go. We saw a couple of nice bucks, which were supposed to look closer in the picture, they were both nice fours about 24-26 inch spreads. We watched them until they went to bed, which wa like 1000 yards away, then we put Nate above them and had Mac come from below them and Nate was going to shoot'em in the gizzard. Except that by the time Nate got above them Mac had fallen asleep and I called his phone (that's how we were communicating) like twenty times and he wouldn't wake up. So I told Nate to just get comfortable until Mac woke up. Well, Mac finally woke up and so we started him into the jack pines to brush these deer out. At went well until the big bucks decided to bolt. Nate could have shot the doe and fawn and the big buck was coming along right behind, but then his buddy came out of the timber and ran past making him run and zimm-zamm they bounded right by Nate's shooting window so fast he didn't even get a shot off. So it was a big long hike for 30 seconds of excitement, but we did see a billy goat and about five or six bucks all total. But they are still up there. Maybe they'll survive until next year and we'll try them again.

Happy Birthday Cowboy Duke

Today is Evan's birthday and I missed talking to him because I was on my way home from Pennsylvania, but I do get to see him on Thursday. So Evan we love you and hope you had a great day, we love our "Cowboy Duke."

We are back in Hershey

We made it back to Hershey and avoided the big nor eastern storm that was coming to the east coast. We have a lot of pictures so here we go.

This one is of Livy before we left out on the screened porch it was very beautiful and green and we were surrounded by trees. We stopped in Philadelphia on our way home so Grandpa could see the Liberty bell, he had never been there and thought he would never have an opportunity to see it again so after being misdirected by "Lola", she was our navigator I guess it really wasn't her fault because I put the wrong address in and we drove around Philadelphia for an hour before we made it to the right address.







This is how Mel felt after driving around forever as you can see Jaedon didn't mind. Livy was a little upset.

This is in front of Independence hall Jaedon loved the horses.

This is outside the Seaview hotel where we stayed, when the storm was coming we saw them taking down those big hanging plants and thought maybe we should be more prepared, but really didn't do anything differently. Oh well, if we get blown away by the storm.

This was in the lobby.
We went to the Atlantic city aquarium and I have lots of cool pictures of the fish but posted this one for Jaedon because of course it is Nemo where he lives in the anemonenenenees.
Okay this one wasn't the best picture to post of me touching the stingrays because I really am not touching it

This was a cute picture of Mel looking through the other side of the aquarium and now I'm touching the stingray, they are kind of slimy.
This is out on the pier and Jaedon loved the adventures we went on. He wanted to go on them over and over and cried when we had to get in the car.

Of course you can't go to Atlantic City without going on the boardwalk, it extends for miles and of course we didn't walk the whole boardwalk.
The beach is just on the other side of the boardwalk and it definitely was Jaedon's favorite part of the trip. I think he could have stayed and played all day.
We found lots of shells and spent as much time their as we could. I don't know if it was because of the storm that was coming but it was usually windy and the waves were huge so we didn't go too far in the water.

As you can see the wind did wonders to my hair and the humidity was so great that while there I didn't have too many good hair days.


Grandpa loved the beach too and told us that when he went to Puerto Rico they shipped out of New Jersey and after seeing the waves I can see shy he was so sick on the boat, he would much rather be on the beach. I has sure been a fun trip and we will be flying out of Baltimore tomorrow. It will be sad to leave but good to be back to my lonely man back home.

We are in Atlantic City

We are in Atlantic City and have been here since Sunday well actually we are in Seaview which is about 15 minutes from Atlantic City. We have been to the boardwalk a couple of times and we have visited the ocean. I think this has been Jaedon's favorite past time, he could spend hours playing in the sand. This resort is a golf resort and Grandpa has wanted to go out an hit a few balls maybe we can talk him into doing it today. It has been very fun being with Mel,Jaedon, Olivia and Grandma and Grandpa. We will have to post some pictures later and show you how much fun we have been having.
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Happy Birthday Livy, you are one today!

Today is Livy's first birthday and we were able to celebrate it with her. This is of her trying to blow out the candles and eating her bites of her princess cake. It was fun to watch how daintily she started out eating her cake and then she had to rub her eyes and the cake was soon all over her face. Jaedon had as much fun with her presents as she did I think. We are glad that we have a princess amidst all of the Prince's that we have as grandchildren, she is a very cute Princess.
We stayed our first night at the Oberg's and had fun getting to know Ashden and Mayce and want to thank them for their fun hospitality. Mayce loved Grandpa and even wanted to sit on his head while he was sleeping. Ashden showed us all of his favorite toys and his athletic abilities in his jumpolene.
Bennett came home the next morning and we couldn't resist a man in uniform. They decided to come with us to meet Mel in Gettysburg so we spent the day playing and trying to get more historically smart about the civil war. It was a fun day and we enjoyed being all together.
This was our group picture at the Oberg's while watching the football game.

Grandma and Livy trying to figure out what I was trying to do with the camera.
Becca, Mayce, and Mel atop the Pennsylvania memorial.
This was probably the highlight of the kids day we finally stopped at McDonalds so they could play, it is pretty hard to get two, one year olds to sit still.
Grandpa enjoyed the history I think.

Grandma Shaw and Livy at Gettysburg.
Livy, Mel and Jaedon at the Gettysburg museum.

On our way back to the car to take the auto tour through Gettysburg. It was a very fun day and good to be with those we don't get to see very often. Thanks everyone for the great day!!!

Happy Birthday Rachel!!

This first picture is of Kace because he had a birthday too and we celebrated it last Saturday but today is Rachel's birthday and we want to wish her a very Happy Day!! Her birthday is a little overshadowed by Kace's because we celebrate her birthday with Kace's usually and she gets a little overlooked but hopefully she will have a great day today and because BYU has a game today I am sure it will help to make her day. Hopefully they win because if they don't she will be miserable. WE just want her to know how much we love her and we are so glad that she takes care of Nate, Kace and Tydon so well. We love you Rachel!!!

This last picture shows how much she loves her husband, she let him buy this float boat so he can go fishing more than he normally does. So Nate what kind of "boat" is she going to get?

I'm home right now later I will be here!

It has been a year since I have been out to Hershey town and today I will be there again! Well I will be in Baltimore and we will actually be there tomorrow, Olivia and Jaedon have grown since then and the pictures I will take will show that I am sure. I am excited to go and spend some time with the Bassett family. I will be going with my Mom and Dad, they have not been out there yet and we will get to see Bennett and Becca as well so I am getting ready to leave so see you all soon!!!

Brandon and Chelsea are married!

On Saturday my neice Chelsea and Brandon Tracy were married. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful day for the weather, it cooperated and they couldn't have asked for a more perfect day. We enjoyed going to the temple to witness their sealing and then spent the day at Carolyn and Kevin's having a wonderful lunch and a beautiful reception outside. I made a new friend Shaylee's daughter Kaeda, she liked my ice cream and then we were dancing partners. In the slide show you can see some of her dance moves she is just adorable. Thanks for a great day we were glad we were able to share it with all of you.

Brandon and Chelsea's wedding

Forgiveness

Today I was reading the church news and came across this message of inspiration from President Monson on forgiveness. I liked it so much that I typed it up and put it on my fridge. It made me think about how we in the world treat each other and how we should be treating each other and I thought to myself, " I have a long way to go." Then I got on the Internet and realized that it was 9/11 and thought, okay do I forgive those that did that horrible thing a few years ago? Then I thought of the Amish when they were attacked and their little girls were killed and how they responded to the family of the attacker. Instead of concentrating on the hate they concentrated on the forgiveness and surrounded that family with love. They knew that their lives could not be happy if they let the bitterness of hatred canker their soles so they made food and showed their love and sympathy to those who had wronged them. I hope that I can show that much love for someone who has made me sad or wronged me in some way because I don't want to break the bridge over which I must pass if I ever make it to heaven.

boys, boys, boys...

Well, since no one else is posting anything..., I guess I will. If you haven't heard, first of all, Isaac and Mary are expecting a little kiddo in January. They found out on Sept. 2nd that they are adding to the football team. That's right they are having a boy!! We are so excited for them, but wish that little Livy could have had another little cheerleader to cheer with. :D Maybe Livy will just have to join the team I guess. Congrats you two, and we love you!!

It was a LABOR day

Happy LABOR day! I remember when I first met Ryan that whenever there was a holiday I would ask him what he was doing to celebrate and his answer was usually"working, it's just another day." I thought how boring is that because our family always celebrated in some way and had a picnic or went camping or had fun with our cousins down at the camp ground. Well today we celebrated the holiday like Ryan did when he was growing up and we worked! It actually started raining last night and we are so glad to see the rain because it has been so dry. I love it when it rains, thunders, and lightnings especially when I am inside and am in my bed reading. This morning it was still raining so I decided to clean the house and Ryan went up and fed the animals and came down and said we should do apricots and plums today. Now when he says that he usually means lets dry them on the food dehydrator but today he wanted to do jam and his idea for the plums was to pit them and put them through the Victorio strainer so that we could make plum jam. I thought the apricot jam sounded okay but doing the plum jam that way sounded like a little too much work even to do on a Labor day. So I went over to Preston to see if I could find a new steamer, juicer because the one I had has pretty much seen it's last days. So I went to Alco and then to Stokes and there was nothing, so I went over to the Preston's own Bob's Mart. Well because it was labor day it was closed but I noticed that King's was open. I had gone down almost every aisle when I found the place where the stock pots were and what to my wondering eyes should appear but a real steamer juicer. When I looked at the price I thought, "wow, the price has really gone up on these canning gadgets." It was priced at $89.99.. I pretty much had two choices, to buy it or to not buy it and go home and pit all of those plums. So I thought," well it is time to get a new one." When the cashier was ringing it up I mentioned that these steamer juicer things had really gone up in price and she then asked, When did you buy your last one?" Me: Umm lets see that would be about 30 years ago... wow do I ever feel old. The cashier just smiled and said,"Yes they probably have gone up in price."

I took my prized possession home and started making the apricot jam and then when Ryan came in with the bucketful of plums I opened the box and was pleasantly surprised to see how nice it was. After doing one batch of plums we found out that it made 5 1/2 quarts of juice and it was a beautiful pink color. Mel, it doesn't look like prune juice. I even felt older after talking to Mel and she mentioned that we were making our own prune juice. It tastes pretty good and now that Ryan saw how fast we made 5 1/2 quarts of juice he is up picking more plums.

The apricot jam was very good and I used my Grandma Shaw's recipe here it is if anyone else would like to make some:

Grandma Shaw's Apricot Jam

12 cups of ground apricots (I just pulsed them in the food processor until they were the consistency that I wanted.)

11 1/2 cups of sugar

2 oranges (quarter them and take out the seeds and cut off the stem on the end then put them in the food processor and chop them until they are very fine, leave the peelings on it makes the jam taste like apricot marmalade.)

2 lemons ( do the same thing you did to the oranges.)

3- 20 ounce cans of crushed pineapple

Mix it all up in a very large bowl because it won't fit in one large pan, and then divide it into 2 large pans. cook it on medium high and then when it starts boiling turn it down a little and stir it until it gets thick and then put the jam in pint jars and process them for about 10 - 15 minutes. It is delicious and just how I remembered it.


This is the new steamer, juicer. It works great!
These apricots are almost ready and if you would like to come and get some just let me know.

This is the little red hen or I guess rooster who planted the tree, watered the tree, picked the fruit, washed the fruit, put the fruit into the juicer, filled the bottles with the juice, sealed the bottles and will then drink the juice, I am sure he will share if you ask him.

It was a good LABOR day.