Kitchen science

Here's a site I found while looking for directions for crystal candy. There are a lot of fun cooking science activities. After all, cooking is just chemistry. There are activities with candy, bread, eggs, pickles and more. Looks like fun.

New skirt

As I sit here watching Project Runway with my husband, I'll show you my latest creation. The shape of the skirt is the same basic A-line I used in my last skirt. The fabric is a cotton khaki twill. What makes it fun is the design I put on the front and continued to the back. First I sketched the design on paper, then transferred it to the fabric pieces using tracing paper and my little tracing wheel.

I used my foot with the hole in the cross piece to make the design. I threaded #10 crochet cotton through the foot and sewed it down with a narrow zig zag stitch. I did most of the design double to make it stand out a little more. The tight turns and corners were a little tricky, but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

Fun activities from the family party

Magic Nuudles

Made from corn starch, the girls had a great time with these fun little things. They are little marshmallow looking things. You dampen an end or side and stick them together.

Lemon charms

Grandma had little lemon beads and all of the girls got little lemon charms complete with leaves and blossoms. For the adults and bigger kids we had metal chains with clasps. For the youngest girls we used stretchy plastic cord used for stringing beads.

Coloring books

Grandma put together coloring books for all of the kids. It was mostly the family logos that my talented sister in law and brother drew for the family t-shirts. The last few pages were copies of the primary songs that we sang for our FHE. Here you can see the winning logo. It says Happy Lemons, the theme for the reunion. Very cute.

Summer vacation in Paris... Idaho

What a great week. We had fun in the sun at Bear Lake. We haven't been out of town much in the past several years so this was a new thing for our kids. We had a family reunion at a big family size cabin in Fish Haven, Idaho. One of the favorites things was the swing set in the back yard. Baby girl couldn't get enough.
My Mom had planned lots of activities for the kids. They loved it. The parachute was particularly fun.

There was a lot of talking and visiting and relaxing.

One afternoon while the big kids went to Minnetonka cave we took our little crew up the road to Paris. It is a cute little town.

There is a beautiful old tabernacle.

We stopped for a tour and the funniest thing was that almost on cue a tour bus pulled up and out came French tourists. Well, what to you expect when you go to Paris? French people of course.

The wood work inside the tabernacle was beautiful. It was done by a man who was a ship builder. I can't imagine being a ship builder and then going to live in Idaho so far from the sea.

We thought of getting a snack at the Paris Cafe, but it was closed. County fair I guess.

We stopped at Gladys's in Fish Haven for ice cream and popcicles. We also picked up ice cream and root beer for floats. We saved the treats for after the kids were in bed.

In the evening we had fun with puppet show improv. The kids loved it.

Everyone got a chance to try it out. Some of the funniest was the series of 30 second theater bits where you get a whole movie in 30 seconds. We got Napoleon Dynamite, Beauty and the Beast, and Twilight in less than two minutes.

Buddy boy even got the stage for his favorite joke.

What to you call a bear with no socks on? Bear foot.

He told that joke over and over again all week long. Thankfully people were still laughing after several days of it.

Dad instructed some of the older kids in the finer points of his favorite computer game. They were enthralled.

One of Buddy boy's favorite activities was the bear hunt. Just like the story. Through the rain, over the bridge, through the long wavy grass... Can't go over it, can't go under it, Oh no, we've got to go through it.

The deep dark forest. Then we found the bears with beady little eyes and small wet noses. The bears then chased us all the way back to the house.

There was a little stream running through the property. It was pretty cold, but the kids had fun anyway.

After it warmed up a bit we headed to the lake and the beach. The kids loved it. It was the perfect beach for the kids, shallow for a long way out, and relatively warm, for Bear Lake at least.

All in all, a fantastic week. When Buddy boy got home, in his bedtime prayer he said he was thankful for cousins, and cabins, and beaches. Me too.

...and one jar of cherries

I haven't done a lot of canning since leaving home. Mom would put various fruit and tomatoes in bottles by the bushel. This year my brother in law and his friends "adopted" a peach tree from a farmer in the central valley. For the adoption fee you get the privledge of picking all of your own peaches from your tree and taking them home with you. My share of the crop this year ended up being about 28 pounds of peaches and they graciously allowed me to skip the peach picking part. (Been there, done that.) I bottledmost of them and saved a few of those that were less ripe to eat all week long. I also did one bottle of cherries from the bag than was languishing in the refrigerator. I may do a few tomatoes depending on how the backyard harvest turns out or I might just eat them all myself.