Wednesday, September 6, 2023

2023 Blue Jeans Week 35

So this was a monumental week.  We took our youngest child to college. We are officially empty nesters!  We dropped him off and went on an "empty-nesters honeymoon" for a few days and loved it!  Coming home to real life and no kids has been an adjustment for sure! But Mr J is loving school, so that is good! 
Sunday game time! 

Had a family dinner at my parents which was fun to have everyone there!

Made another cake for this month.  Miss E decorated it.  It is a cream cheese cake with graham cracker crust with a cream cheese filling and raspberry compote.  It was VERY good! 

Mr J getting everything ready to pack up in the car to head out on Monday evening.

We took two cars out--our van with the bikes on it, and then Miss E's new (to her) car. This was our view for the long drive.

Mr J and I driving Miss E car.

We stopped by and spent the night with Ben's mom and dad. It was good to see them!

We spent the night with Mr and Mrs A who just got back from Italy the day before!  So good to see them!!!  Now just missing Mrs OC and Mr JC!

Got Mr J all moved in and unpacked in his dorm room. Looking good! He is excited!

The day after we moved Mr J in, we left and stopped in our favorite mountain town in Colorado for an "empty-nester honeymoon" It was so nice!

We did a lot of bike riding!

Love the mountain streams!


There is a beautiful lake there that has some great bike trails around it!

Thanks for visiting and catching up!  Hope you are healthy and safe and happy wherever you are! Have a great week!





 

2023 Blue Jeans Week 34

This was a great week.  We loved having Miss E home for a week. Mr J finished up his summer job, and Mrs OC and Mr JC came down to visit.  Loved having everyone here, but missing Mr and Mrs A who are still in Italy!
Cake of the month---this is a cornbread cake with a cream cheese frosting and a blackberry compote. It was really good!

Fun games together!

Mr JC and Mrs OC came and helped us at the soup kitchen this weekend.  It was great having them help!

Twinners!

This awesome kid has been working at the bank as a teller this summer. It has been a great summer job for him, and today was his last day of work.

Ben ordered a new bike, and Miss E helped him put it together!

We love it when Miss E is home because she makes the best food!  After her summer abroad and cooking classes in Italy and France, we love it when she makes homemade pasta!

Mr J is slowly getting his stuff packed to take to college. He is stacking it in the extra bedroom which is also my office, so I am feeling slightly claustrophobic!

Miss E made this amazing bread when she was home!  So good!

Saturday Ben has some meetings, so the kids and I went to lunch and around town. The kids have fun playing checkers at the park.

And it was really not busy at all, so we tried to get a Beatles shot :) I don't know how well we did :)

Thanks for catching up with us!  Hope you are safe, happy, and healthy wherever you are!

 

2023 Blue Jeans Week 33

Catching up.  Life is good.  Just not a lot of time to get caught up on things.  This was the week of Aug 13-19. It was a great week!  Miss E came home, and we had a super special day with Mr J.
Love the clouds today! A storm was rolling in.

Getting some yard work done.

It was a cool evening, so we went for a bike ride together. 

These are my go-to work snack.  I eat way too many of them in the afternoons to stay awake some days :)

Went to the movies with my friend. We went to see Sound of Freedom.  Wow. It was powerful. Unlike any movie I have ever seen. I highly recommend!

Super special day today as Mr J made the decision to make some significant commitments to the church and Jesus Christ. We were so happy to have so much family there!  We were missing Mr and Mrs A who were in Italy! 

My mom, and my sister and brother-in-law also joined us!  It was a great day!

Went to a fun lego store.  Mr and Mrs A were in Italy and sent us a picture of them at the colosseum, so we had to show them we saw it too :)

Loving our outside pizza oven! It was Miss E's first time to try it out, and she loved it!


Thanks for visiting and catching up with us!  Hope you are safe, happy and well wherever you are! 

Sunday, August 13, 2023

2023 Blue Jeans Week 32

Our summer is quickly winding down.  Just a few more weeks before we take Mr J to college.  Time flies. We had a good week.  Take a look...
I love blueberries, and I have a few blueberry pies that I love. Got one made this week.  This is a blueberry custard pie with at streusel topping.  It is so good! From Mel's Kitchen Cafe Here.

I love hearing this guy play the piano. I am going to really miss that when he is gone!

My office has this shelf that Mr J has put all his lego sets on.  He has decided to take them apart before he leaves. He got one down before I could get a picture with all of them.  I will miss the legos too!

I got in a GLO this week with my wonderful friends. So glad we can still make this work! 

For Father's Day Mr J gave Ben these Hamilton figures, and Ben figured out how to stick them on the dashboard of his car.  Love it!

One of the accounts I follow on Instagram was having a giveaway for a Gozney Roccbox pizza oven, and I entered and didn't think anything about it, because you know you never win those things, but I DID win! It arrived this week, and I am excited!

It is an outdoor pizza oven, and I watched all the videos online, and we tried it out Saturday night.  So much fun!  Such good pizza!  I would never have bought me one on my one, but winning one was sure cool and we loved it!

It was cooking these pizzas at 900 degrees in about 40 second.  So cool! 

Ben was pretty skeptical at first, but he really liked it!  We are looking forward to using it the next two weekends with some of the kids home!

Some of our creations....Yes, one ended up with a hole in it, but overall for the first time I think we did really good! Excited to try it again soon!

Thanks for visiting!  Hope you are well wherever you are and have a great week!

 

Monday, August 7, 2023

2023 Blue Jeans Week 31

This was a great week.  Mr J got his quilt from Nana. I got a new bike, and all is well with the world :) Take a look at our week...
My mom is an amazing quilt maker! She has been doing a flannel quilt for each of her family members.  She got Mr J's done in time for him to take it to college. Such a cool design! It will look great on his bed in the dorms!

Game this week was Bold. A fun and more challenging type of a matching game.

How I decompress in the evenings.  I am on a screen all day, so I get out a pencil and do paper sudoku puzzles.  This book was my Grum's. He loved cross word puzzles and sudoku. Makes me think of him whenever I do my nightly puzzles. He did the puzzles at the beginning of the book and I am finishing them.

Ben has been looking and wanting a new bike for a long time.  He hasn't found exactly what he wants for the price he wants yet, but he found one for me.  I wasn't really looked, but he said, "This is a really good bike for a really good deal, but they don't have my size, but they have yours, so I am going to get it for you." That is true love. The bikes we have are ones we bought before we got married, so they are 26 years old this year! My new bike arrived Friday, and our date night was putting it together and then going for a bike ride.

All put together.  My friends asked me what color it was, and I told them I didn't know until we opened the box because I never saw the bike Ben ordered, but I sure love the color!

Making some final seat adjustments, then we are headed out!

Went for a bike ride Friday night, and then Saturday morning we headed out on a longer bike ride on the trails. Love my new bike!  Now we just need to get Ben one!

Thanks for visiting! Thanks for keeping up with us! Hope you are well wherever you are!


 

2023 Blue Jeans Week 30

Two weeks behind again, but better late than never! We are doing good! This was a fun week. Take a look...
Sunday was the last day the C family was with us.  We sure enjoyed having them!

We got a new California King bed, so Ben and Jesse were putting together the new frame for the bed.

Happy Birthday to my mom! We brought over dessert, but then she needed some help with some things at the church, so we went over to help her.  Sure love her!

These 3 kids went on a little trip this week and got some pretty epic ice cream shakes! DeeDee and Grum took us to the same place when they were little, and they remembered how big they were then! Fun stuff!

They went on a little trip for this tall guy's wedding.  He and Ella have been friends since they were born. They are more like family than friends, so it was fun for them to go to his wedding. 

A friend gave me a ton of huge garden tomatoes and a recipe for some really yummy salsa, so I made homemade salsa this week. 

My cake for July---I think it is my 2nd one for July, but who is counting? It is a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting.  We had it when the C family was here, so we had lots of people to eat it :)

Thanks for visiting! Hope you have a great week wherever you are!