5 OH - We Made It!!

We made it!  Five - O!

We finally made it today.  It has been a long month.  Full of lots of obstacles, but we did it.  Next month is going to be lonely without my two troopers by my side, but oh the memories we made this month.

I am so proud of those two little boogers right there.  First month out of the gate and they joined me auxiliary pioneering this month.  Everyone told us we were crazy because it is the worst month to try and do it.  Almost half our pioneers were at pioneer school for two weeks.  Half of the remaining pioneers were on much needed vacations, and those that were left work so they were out limited hours.  But we had lots of support from those that were out.  We are so appreciative of those pioneers that had their hours in but came out just to help us.  Love them!


Ice Cream!

We celebrated our accomplishment with ice cream from the best ice cream spot around.  Williams Cafe in Barryton.  Biggest single scoop of ice cream you will ever see!

We made it through days that started out rainy and cold . . .

. . . and ended up sunny and hot.

We made it through days where no one showed up and we trudged along by ourselves.

We made it through days with pioneers very particular in their ways. :)

But we also made it through days where we laughed all day, learned new things about old friends, made new friends, saw parts of our territory we have never seen before, drew closer to each other, closer to the congregation, and most importantly, closer to Jehovah.

It was a most awesome month!



I can't wait 'till next summer so we can do it all over again!

Gifts From a Not So Great Garden

Our garden was incredibly sad this year. INCREDIBLY!  From seeds not sprouting, to not enough rain, to deer and raccoon, to lack of attention, and on and on.  Anyway. . . Incredibly. Sad. Garden.  The good news is, we are getting some gifts from said garden, I suppose it is trying to redeem itself, or beg us to not give up on it.

One of the things I really wanted from the garden this year was for all of my salsa fixin's to be ready at the same time.  Jalapeños are doing awesome, green onions this year are doing spectacular, but tomatoes and cilantro - not so much.  Cilantro is one of the items that I kept re-planting and it just would not sprout.  After about three or four rounds of planting and waiting I got maybe 5 or 6 plants.  So I used some and I just let some go.  Now, I am just waiting on the coriander to be ready, then I can use some of that and keep the seeds for next year and through the winter.  A little gift from the garden.


Cilantro blossoms.

Cilantro Seeds/Coriander

The bumble bees are loving the flowers right now.

Another gift from the garden is the one thing I could not find this year.  Tomatillos.  J. loves his green salsa.  Last year we had a bumper crop of them.  This year I was never at the right nursery at the right time.  But leave the garden alone for a week or two and it gives you a lovely little present wrapped in green crepe paper!


Tomatillo

Green Onions!

It is also giving us lovely little things to look at.  Like grape vines that look like little green snakes.

I know I am so far behind.  I promise I will catch up.  School is starting soon so life will slow down a tiny notch or two for me.  Stay tuned for what we have been busy with this past month!

My One Dollar Chair - Finished!

So we used to have this most awesome auction place in Mt. Pleasant.  Last year I got this chair for one dollar!  Wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with it.  I bid one dollar on it just so I could watch it and see how high it got.  I ended up being the only one that bid on it.  So, yeay for me, I got a chair for one dollar.  One, very sad, very dirty, very poorly repaired, chair for one dollar.

I decided this chair might make a good desk chair, so I headed to JoAnn's to check out fabric and found this upholstery fabric I loved and then waited for a sale and a coupon.  Then this poor project has been sitting on the list.  I took the "before" picture last fall after this project had already been waiting for months.  Can you tell this difference between our poor fall grass and our summer grass.  Anyway, we have had a very rainy couple of weeks.  Not so great for our pioneering this month, but great for catching up some projects.  Saturday, after service and a rain shower, I got busy tackling this little project.

Here's what it took:



This was someones idea of a repair.  It held well just didn't follow through with the cleanup.



So I went to town with my little dremel and got it all off. Then I sanded the whole thing down and spray painted it smoke gray in gloss.



Took that old nasty fabric off.




Can you tell how many times this poor chair has been recovered.

 

Now the fun part!  I grabbed some extra batting too.  The original cushion was, well, not very cushy.

Staple on the batting and cut off excess.



Then staple on the fabric.  I tucked the fabric all the way over the lip also to hide all those previous staple and nail holes.



But what to do with all those ugly staples?



Voila!  My handy dandy HeatN'Bond left over from my bathroom curtains.  And some lovely ribbon.



Ta Da!  No more ugly staples.  Everyone told me I was ridiculous because this is under the chair, but I say the entire chair deserves to be pretty! :o)



And there she is all finished.  Now if the rest of the office/craft area could be done so quickly and easily!



Truck and Tractor Pulls - Mecosta County Free Fair

As requested, here are some of the pics from the Truck and Tractor pulls at the Mecosta County Free Fair on July 13th.  Yes I know, that was almost forever ago.  But this was requested by a very special nephew.  Here they are as promised!

first tractor run

First John Deere

The Green Ghost

This machine was pretty cool.  It drove up from Grand Rapids got off the trailer, did this one run, loaded back on the trailer, and headed off to the next fair.  I sure hope they get paid a lot of moola for all that work for such a short little show.

Street Truck class



Street Truck class



The F-Bomb.  Seemed to be a crowd favorite.

One of the lady drivers.  I think this may have been the modified class, but I am not positive.

Another lady driver.  This one I believe was a teen.



Hot Diesel Class



A.'s dream truck and the lady driver that won the whole shabang!



The Winner!



The boys checking out the action.

 

I forgot what these tractors were called but they were my favorite part.


So there you go little nephew.  There are a ton of more pictures but frankly my fingers and my patience are done.  I guess if you want to see them all you have to come visit!

Love you!

What Do You Do With Giant Zuchinni?

Remember this?  Well when we got home from the convention we had five more just like it.  Some even bigger.  So what do you do with these giant zuchiniis?  Make pizza of course!

We brushed the slices with some olive oil, garlic powder, and italian seasoning and then broiled them on each side for a couple of minutes.  Then we added pizza sauce, cheese, and pepperoni.  So yummy!  Even those in the house who do not like zuchinni like it.

We have plans to make a white pizza next.  Alfredo sauce, chicken, mozzarella cheese, and mushrooms.

We also made tons of zuchinni bread.  So delicious!