Life... Summer...A Blast...!

Hang on Jenika!! New driver at the wheel! A wild one to...:)

What a great last few days! The party was here last evening to wrap up our busy week-end. We had friends here for soft pretzels, strawberries/blueberries with shortcake, campfire and the kids enjoyed driving and riding the four wheeler, it was great to catch up on life since the cabin a few weeks back.
(We missed you Mike, Lori and kiddos!)

Javon and his friends...these boys love to hang out together...! They had a blast with the wheeler...

 

We spent Friday indoors and the fishing tournament activities were postponed until Saturday. It rain soft and steady ALL day long!! Rachel Ann was here to clean and she over stayed her time to whip up a big batch of yummy granola bars!! (Thanks girl!) We then made a trip to the library, I had signed up to make lots of bars to sell for the fund raiser so as the kids were entertained with library books and a DVD I set out to make lots more bars to add to the granola bars!! I will share some recipes at the end of this post...

We then got together in the evening at Sam and Marilyn for a small party for Austin's third birthday. The rain did let up finally so the kids could run free outside for the last daylight hour...:)

 

Happy third birthday Austin!!

Saturday morning started early... Jordan was fishing by 5 o'clock!

I got a four mile run in early then I took the Little's down to the food tent for breakfast. We were smelling the food from the house all morning before we finally made it down there...:) Justin had a friend for a sleepover (in the man cave) so they came down there eventually to. I think they were up way to late!! I kept hearing them in my sleep. Jordan spent the night camping at Mark's so it was a great week-end for everyone...:)

It was fun to be able to go back and forth the pond all day Saturday. It was so close that we all just came and went as we pleased...:) Dave met us there after some odd jobs he had to do. I came home and mowed the yard and got some things caught up around the house in the afternoon. We all came home for a refreshing shower in the evening and went back for more food, singers, quate tournaments and lots of fellowship. We were out until about 11 o'clock!

Here are some fun pictures of the day Saturday...

It was chilly and cloudy until afternoons when the sun came to warm us up,  the winds came along to dry everything back up after the very soggy day before! It was to windy for Dave to fly and do the candy drop so they did the candy drop from a Ladder Truck from  Gap fire company, It was a great way to do the candy drop...:) The company let the kids explore the truck after the candy drop.

 

Dropping buckets of candy!! My kids lost there candy bags somewhere... Thankful Momma!:}

 

Danny and Javon hand in hand after the candy drop... They went to check out the fire truck...:)

Notice the color of my kids mouth on here...~! I took them down for breakfast but they ran off to meet friends, before I knew it they both had a huge jaw breaker they were sucking on!! Before breakfast! Jen's was blue, Javon's was red!! After that I could not even get breakfast into them at all...It was donuts and junk most of the morning...:/ She is even holding a donut on here...They even still have sleep in there eyes!!... The Bar-B-Q chicken was amazing for the evening meal but up to that point they had there fair share and beyond of sugar!!

Javon is trying to learn from the big kids...:) Tyler was so cute and fun to watch!:)

Thanks Amy and Marty for the great time in the picnic area... My kids enjoyed every minute of it!

Jordan was up bright and early this morning again. He was down at the pond with Mark trying his luck at the left over fish... He caught and cleaned two of them in the few hours he was gone...:) One fish he caught this morning had a tag on it and on Saturday they were giving gift cards for the tagged ones! I saw he text ed Amy from my phone to let him know he caught a fish with a tag...:)

I picked a bucket of peas from the garden this morning, I need to get out for more. I'm sure I have another bucket or more down there yet! The rain is coming down hard now so it will have to wait. I love the rains in June... It seems to often get dry at this time of year so the soft steady rains are a plus before the hot July month comes.

Our pool is now full, but... when I went to plug in the brand new pump on Saturday it did not work!! I need to return the pump today and hope they won't make me return the whole pool!! After all the time and water issues it took to fill this thing the last thing we want is to have to return the whole thing!!


We had a Riehl reunion scheduled for this afternoon/evening (my grandma Beiler's side) but the rains are leaving a questionable cancellation on the whole thing?? As of now we have a chiropractor planned but if the sun comes out we might change plans to make the gathering at the park. It really would be interesting to see distant relatives I haven't seen in years!

My Grandma Beiler is slowly (or fastly) losing more and more of her memory. It's so sad to see. She now asks the same questions over and over! She does not remember the children's names anymore and at Austins birthday party the other evening she kept thinking it was Javon's party! She'd ask..."How old is he now??" Over and over!! It's to the point that it's best to just go along with her way of thinking and not even correct her because it seems to confuse her even more! Her eyes seem to have a confused glaze about them all the time now. It really is sad to see how this disease robs people of there memory and makes life so confusing and scary looking to them! If you think about it pray for her and her caregivers!

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Here are some of the bar recipes I used... I find it hard to be in my kitchen to bake anymore so this afternoon of baking felt strange to me...:) I love coconut so I of course had to find some yummy looking coconut bars... I did some sampling but Rachel Ann's granola bars were my favorite! They go perfect with a cup of coffee!! I'll get the recipe from her sometime and post it.

Buttermilk Coconut Bars...
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 cups flour
1/2 cup butter (softened)
3/4 cup coconut
1/2 cup walnuts
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla

Bake 350' in 9+13 pan
Combine sugar, brown sugar, flour, butter (blend the crumbs)
remove two cups to a bowl and reserve the rest
stir coconut, walnuts into two cup mixture and pat into pan.
stir baking soda, salt, cinnamon into reserved mixture
blend egg, milk, vanilla then add to reserved mixture, pour over crust, bake, cool and cut

Coconut Dream Bars...
I cup flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup soft butter
bake above mixture 350' for fifteen minutes
In a bowl beat two eggs until thick and light in color
gradually add 3/4 cup brown sugar and continue beating until light and fluffy
add 1/4 cup flour, 1/2 tsp. baking powder, fold into egg mixture.
mix in 1 1/3 cups coconut, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 cup chopped walnuts
spread over crust and bake 20-25 minutes until lightly brown...cool and cut

Fudge Bars...
2 cups brown sugar
1cup butter (softened)
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
2 1/2 cups flour
3 cups quick oats
12 oz. chocolate chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 Tbsp. butter
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup chopped nuts

Cream brown sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla. add salt, baking powder and quick oats.
mix well spread 2/3 mixture onto greased 10" 15" pan. set remainder aside. In double broiler melt remaining ingredients and spread onto crust mixture, top with remaining oatmeal mixture. Bake 350' 20-25 minutes.

These bars all got wrapped individually to make selling easy. It took time but it was fun kitchen time for me with the kids entertained in the "Man Cave" watching a DVD...:) That "Man Cave" is now empty and ready to go back out to the shop. It was fun while it lasted...:) Justin is already trying to figure out how much one of these would cost so he can keep it in mind for later years when he wants to have friends over more...:)

A few quotes that caught my attention this morning... Be a blessing to someone today...