a guy on my street had a worse one. As we were walking home after school and haircuts for Lauren and Chloe we noticed 4 police cars, an ambulance, and a news van on our street. Hmm, people standing around on their porches looking towards the end of the street. Well, I watched policemen come and go out of the house near the bend in the road. Then the ambulance and news van left and boxes and totes started coming out of the house. When a policemen left and my next door neighbor talked to him I stepped outside to get the scoop and my suspicions were confirmed. This 30-something guy was running a meth lab out of his basement, that's right, a meth lab on my street, nice. I've never met the family. This summer though I saw a lady that could've been his wife and a little boy about 3 running around. Hope he was gone during this whole deal. I just associated him with this huge and muddy truck that would speed down the road and I always thought, "He needs to slow down a bit." I feel badly for his family and for his poor choices, just sad really. I also feel bad for whomever may end up buying the home, should they ever move. When we moved to our home, a few neighbors said things like, "Oh, I don't even want to tell you what happened in your house!" Seriously, like those kind of comments serve any purpose. So, I can just hear what those owners would be in for. So, I for one, won't be blabbing about what the previous owners were up to, if I'm still around. It does make me a little wary, but just mostly saddened by the thought that people do stoop that low. Too bad. Look for us on the evening news...
at home...
Here we are doing homework after dinner. Ha ha, we, I haven't done homework for about seven years, L & C are busting out their math homework. I don't remember having homework in first grade, but even the girls would agree-it's easy! Not to feel left out, Noah usually climbs up to the table and does his "homework." It's funny as he discovers what things are, he picked up a pencil-shaped block yesterday and tried to color with it :) My favorite was when he picked up a toy whose batteries were dead and he ran to drawer and grabbed a screwdriver! How many times has he seen me mess with those darn batteries. I'd forgotten how much those little eyes watch and pay attention to everything you do. Noah's been into piggy back rides too. Every time I squat down to do something he's there, climbing on my back, that boy likes to be carried around.
Please ignore the canning mess in the background-it's plums this week. Our neighbors (be sure to check out their son on my music favorites) had these two great trees we picked from. I've dried some, made jam, and our favorite is plum syrup. I still hope to do some tomatoes and make sauce from our apples. Well, still gotta get some stuff done while Noah naps, have a great day everybody!
Can you ID this bug?
So I held this friendly little creature today, he's an Australian walking stick. He has a prickly grip, likes raspberry leaves and is obviously not native to Idaho. I guess he resides inside during the cold winter months. He was part of the Master Gardener's exhibit at a science fair here in town. He really took a liking to Lauren and crawled all the way up to her neck! The science fair was sponsored by INL and had all kinds of science/safety tidbits. The girls really liked the "smoky bedroom." A trailer was set up to simulate a smoky room in your house with banana oil causing the actual smoke. Kids would crawl through on their hands and knees to escape out the bedroom window. L & C went through it twice. Pretty cool, who knew they could create smoke that didn't harm you. Personally, I liked seeing all the bugs, spiders, and butterflies. While I don't like to come across strange and scary bugs in real life they really fascinated me in their little bottles. I know, that's weird. Probably because I was able to actually identify some of the spiders in and around our house, plus figure out if they were beneficial or just plain scary. We all got a kick out of the safety exhibit. Kids had to find what was unsafe about the situation. The poor fly-fisherman with a sunburned head, scuba flippers, and an actual lure stuck in his eye-(it was one of the bug-eyed plastic mannequins.) Or the beer on the desk in the school classroom?! I wanted to laugh-but safety is no laughing matter! We all laughed about it at dinner, it was a fun Saturday, usually we just hang around, it was nice to get out together. Hope you all had a fabulous weekend!
I don't want to see...
anymore peaches! I've been knee-deep in canning! It's not something I thought I would ever do much of, not sure why, but I really like it. I did 54 quarts of peaches, half that in pears, apple pie filling, pickles, pickled beets, and tried my own concoction of apple/peach/mango sauce. Yum, it turned out pretty tasty- as Chloe would say- tasty is her word of choice these days. So I'm hoping to be almost done, maybe some more apple pie filling or sauce and tomatoes-if we get enough. It gave me a satisfied feeling to see all those jars full for the coming year. I'm guessing we'll polish it off in that much time. I had one more little trip for just me. On Saturday my Mom and I picked up my sister-in-law Carrie in Logan and we attended Time Out for Women. Their were some fun and inspiring talks and I really enjoyed the music. I came away feeling motivated to do better in some areas of my life, and that's always a good thing. It was a fun day, but always nice to come home again. Well, after canning nearly every night last week then being gone Saturday, I'm headed off the spend some time with Cody. I'd say he deserves it :)
home again home again...
Well, we changed internet providers and yes, I'll admit it, just for that week I did miss the web. But we're back at a faster pace, yea! On Friday I met my Mom in Pocatello and we drove to Boise to spend the weekend with my sister Shay. I had been looking forward to this trip, it was so fun. We hit up the farmer's market, Art in the Park, had sushi, saw Hairspray and just hung out together. I loved it, loved the city, loved being with the girls. The whole three days flew by for me. Cody, well, maybe not so much. What a good man, he stayed here and watched the kids. I just have to laugh at how he kept the house so clean, and yet today I spent the whole morning just picking up and cleaning. It's all a matter of perspective I suppose :) Anyway I had a fantastic time, so thanks to Mom and Shay. Mom and I also drove out to Caldwell and got peaches, pears, and apples to bottle. And we managed to squeeze in a few squash and pluots in her loaded car. So I'll be canning this week, I was excited to find such great fruit at a great price, yum, I love fall, harvest time, that chill in the air, and pulling on jeans once again. I got some fun ideas for sewing projects, I hope to get some done before it's time to Christmas shop. I'm finishing up my third apron-so exciting.....!
