Taste Tested

My mom brought up some Colorado peaches Saturday and we used some to make Frozen Strawberry-Peach Pops from this cookbook.



They were really good, but would have worked better if I had used little Dixie cups instead of the bigger size. Brady suggested just freezing them for a little while to make a slush so that's what we'll do next time!



And tonight, we're going to use the rest of them to make one last batch of peach ice-cream. It is so good!

On another note: My process for putting recipes in my recipe box is - I have to have tried the recipe and liked it before it goes in. So I have piles of new recipes to test . . . .and most of them don't make the cut unfortunately (why do magazines include so many bad ones?!). I think for the good ones - I'm going to try to take some pictures and make the boys a family cookbook that they can have when they are older. I think it would be fun to see pictures of them growing up (eating the food) with the recipes. :)

Many faces of Brett

Taken before his 4-year checkup the morning of August 23rd while eating doughnuts/drinking chocolate milk outside of Dunkin' Doughnuts.

To The Sea

We started listening to Jack Johnson (musician and surfer) when Brady was little because he sings a lot of (if not all) the Curious George music. From there, we have followed him and his dedication to everything "green" (he has a "green" community at his concerts and gave his 2008 concert proceeds to more than 200 nonprofits with a green focus and is doing the same for his "To the Sea" proceeds).

We loved the concert and thank my parents for coming up to watch the boys. (If it hadn't been on a school night, we would have taken the boys with us because they love him too.)

And the intro act should also be mentioned - we had never heard of "foot stompin'" G-Love but he was pretty cool too.

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to my wonderful parents! They are celebrating 47 years today.

End of the Roadtrip

We peeled out of the campsite and left the bees in the dust :) and headed for St. Louis.

We arrived too early to check into our hotel, so we parked at the hotel and walked a couple (very hot) blocks to some fountains that we had passed that kids were playing in. When we were there, I mentioned pulling out the camera to take a picture and Ed said "I gave it to you." Uh, what?! I didn't realize he had given it to me/laid it beside me at the hotel. So I took off and ran the couple (HOT) blocks back to the hotel and luckily some teenage boys (who were still there) had turned it into the front desk. Bless those teenage boys!!

And then (for a reason Ed and I seriously can't remember - probably splashing) the fountain police asked Brady to take a 5-minute timeout so we decided to head back to the hotel. The wait was worth it, because we got a great hotel room that looked straight out to the arch. Very cool!

After getting cleaned up, we headed to the arch. We watched the "making of the arch" video (amazing) and went to the top.

When leaving, we took pictures with the timer. The first one cracks me up, but I love the second one.

The next day we walked to the City Museum - a very cool place.

We finished our trip by going to the zoo and the Magic House the last 2 days. We were sad our trip was over, but knew we needed to get back to Tanner & Trevor and get ready for school.

Floatin' on a River

(The pics of the actual float trip are on the "water" camera. We took a raft instead of a canoe and were glad we did.)

After passing through Bennett Springs, we headed to our campsite at the Niangua River Oasis by Lebanon, MO. Ed and I had been on 2 floating trips (on different rivers) before this with our dogs (one successful when they were pups and one not too successful because they had gotten too big) and decided we'd try it with the boys this year.

It was 103 the two days we were there. . . . . . but it did get cooler at night and we survived. We were so sick and tired of the flies/bees though - everyone got stung at least once. Good times.

The highlight of the trip for Brett was camping in a tent and having a campfire. We were trying to get everything that would help us build the fire thrown in there the first night, so Brett worried all of the next day about getting every stick he could spot into the campfire for that night.

Brady loved exploring (and is always collecting. I now have a flowerpot full of "cool" river rocks). Our tent (as you'll see below) was set up right by the river (and we could watch everyone float by which was fun) and on the opposite bank was a little beach. The water is freezing (but very clean!) but he made it across right away and loved that he was the only one going over there. The second night we were there he also made a friend at the next campsite and he came over and made smores with us and Brady loved going to their site and playing army (in the dark) with waterguns. The little boy was actually from somewhere in KC - small world.

Bennett Springs

On our way to our next destination - Niangua River Oasis campsite - we drove by the Bennett Springs State Park and stopped to watch everyone fish for trout (fly fishing). It was pretty and a whole new experience for me - I enjoyed watching the boy/man on the waterfall. . . . .







If you were standing on the waterfall fishing, you would be looking at this bridge. So pretty.



When we checked into our campsite we asked if there was anywhere to buy trout that we could grill - no luck.