Monday on the Homestead

 

Well the weather is just beautiful here in the PNW! We have had several days full of sunshine and heat and I just love every minute of it. I think summer has finally come to our little corner of the world.  

 

For the last few days I have been cooking with my crockpot.. or should I say crockpots.. I have 2 of them a big 6qt and 2 or 3 qt..  I think that is the size. It is an old one that use to be my moms many years ago, but it works like a trooper. I love being able to put both of them to use for a meal. One day I put a beanless chili in the big crockpot and cooked pinto beans in the small one. When the beans were done cooking I drained the liquid and added a little more salt and some butter and smashed them up right in the crockpot to make refried beans (not that they were fried at all..lol..).. Sierra made a salad and the combo was delicious. Another favorite combo is meatballs in the big crockpot and mac and cheese in the small one and serve with a fresh green salad.   I have been taking the crockpots out to my husbands shop to plug in and cook for the day to keep the house from getting hot. It has worked great! I make the meal while it is still nice and cool and then enjoy the day working around my home and the afternoon swimming and sunning with the kids..  dinner is ready to go when the family is hungry. 

 

Updates from my daughter Leanne. She is now on week 2 of her two week boot camp. We have gotten one post card from her and the phone call she gave me when she arrived in Orlando and today I got a letter from her. Sounds like Boot Camp is rigorous and full of lots of hard work. She is a hard worker and I am sure she is handling that just fine but I think she is feeling home sick. They have them up at 5:30am and doing KP to prepare for breakfast and then the days are long and hot and sweaty and very busy.  The Teen Missions website has been giving updates and posting pictures of the kids and what they are doing. We have been checking in to see what is going on. Emily was so excited today to find a picture of Leanne!! She was swinging across some water with a rope.. Leanne is very strong and from the time she was a little girl she would grab onto the rope swing that is out over our pond and swing and climb that rope, she loved doing that.. So we all had to smile to see this picture of her:

 

 

If you want to see more pictures of the 2008 Boot Camp at Teen Missions you can see that here

 

This last week my daughter Carolyn and her hubby Jonathan and my grandbaby Caden came to town for a visit.  They are still here. I have seen them a couple of times and over the weekend they headed to the Oregon coast with Jonathans family. This week we plan to get together again. The highlight of the visits so far was when my little grandson Caden called me “grandma”.. just melted my grandma heart..    Another highlight was going out shopping with all my girls, except for Leanne of course, and she was very missed by all of us!  But it was a fun afternoon and it was cute to get a couple of baby belly pictures of Carolyn and Hannah my two mommies to be. Here is a pic of all of my girls:

 

 

Tobin and the boys have been working like crazy around the property. They have been trimming trees, mowing, clearing out weeds and I have to say the front of our property is looking like a park! And the great side benefit from this work is that we have about 1/3 of our winter wood already. Jacob has done a lot of cutting and Isaac has been helping with the stacking and clean up. Tobin split all the wood that needed to be split and it is all stacked neatly in the bins… we all smile at it as we walk by.. knowing how important that wood is to our winter time comfort (even in the midst of summer heat ).    Here is a pic of our pond and some of the surroundig area..

 

Tomorrow Tobin and I celebrate our 24th wedding anniversary!   We are going to go out to dinner tonight to celebrate. I have to say that the more years that go by the better marriage gets and the more in love and committed I am to my man.  Maybe I need to follow the lead of my friend Laurie and mod of my board and very loved friend of mine )… she takes the number of years married and lists that many things she loves about her hubby.. if I have time I may do that and post it tomorrow!  

 

That is all for today. I need to get some laundry going and get think about getting ready for my evening out with my hubby..  

 

Have a great Monday on your homestead!