Homemade Salsa!!!

As I said on my last post my husband has gone crazy with this canning adventure. Well the adventure continues....yesterday it was salsa....i knew it was going to be a long process but holy cow it was a LONG process!!! BUT i think it was worth it, it turned out great and we should have salsa to  last us till next summer. 

Ken really isn't asleep in this picture, shoot this was near the beginning of the day, guess he was just taking a little rest for a second. (and by the way he's been dieting like crazy...look how good he looks!!) 

Ken grilling up the goods for the "fire roasted" batch. Wearing his Dad apron like a good dad and everything!!  

We went up to the local veggie stands up in Box Elder and got lots of great veggies. 

Me cutting up the veggies. This was early on in the day too, notice the smile. 

mmmmm look at those fire roasted tomatoes!! 

Spiderboy was hanging around 

I think i lost the smile by this point....I cut for hours

Alex helping me chop up the garlic

Look at all that fabulous garlic!! That was also fresh local garlic.

The end result!!! We made several different kinds and heat levels....of course some i could eat because i'm a sissy with spice, then lots of real salsa, as Ken would say. 

Our little canning adventure is turning into lots of good stuff. 

Hanging with Alex

Sunday afternoons usually ends up being just me and Alex, Ken works swing shift on Sunday and Braxton is with his mom. Today we decided to get out of the house...

First we went to the skate park in North Ogden. Alex has more fun when Braxton is there with him but he still ran around like a crazy man. Mostly he just likes so push his skateboard down the ramps and see how far it goes.

Isn't he too cute???

It ended up being pretty hot out there, we found some shade on the side of one of the ramps....good thing I brought Alex a bottle of water, he was a hot boy.

After the skate park we decided to get some dinner at Chili's.

I think Alex was starving because he ate like a champ. He loves corn on the cob and was so excited they gave him his corn with STICKS in it!!! He was all about it. 

And they even gave him a blue balloon when we left, he couldn't of had a better time. 

It was a great afternoon hanging out with my little man. 

Gone canning crazy

This summer we worked our butts off and made a little garden....turns out my little garden is doing pretty dang good. We planted stuff that we had hopes of making yummy stuff with, like salsa , sweet jalapenos, and pickles. 

We've been bringing in this much stuff every couple of days!! 

Once we started talking about canning my husband kind of took on a whole new adventure. He's gone crazy I think. I come home from work one day and he's bought all these gadgets for canning, tons of plums for plum jam, and everything and anything that we might need. 

Before I know it he's put me to work pealing dang plums!!! 

Look at all this stuff he got!!! I told you he lost it. 

and there's the new canning pot that was a must have for Ken. 

Here is our goods from our first day of canning. Plum and jalapeno jam. 

The second day of canning didn't go so well for me. This was pickle making day. I did great cutting up the cucumbers for dill pickle spears, but then I busted out the NEW slicer Ken bought to slice up cucumbers for bread and butter pickles......turns out that @%$#%$ is sharp!!! 

Got too close with my thumb and sliced off a good chunk of it. OHHHH MAN!!!!

There is the devil itself

Ken did a great job patching me up and calming me down. I don't do well with seeing my own blood. We always make fun of Ken because he has this tackle box full of medical stuff for his first aid kit....gotta say I was loving that kit today!  

I didn't end up being much help after that but Ken pushed on with the pickle making. This is just from a couple days worth of cucumbers from our garden. I'm so excited!! (and don't worry the stupid slicer was thoroughly washed and I went no where near it after that so the pickles aren't contaminated.) 

Riverdale Splash Pad

The day before school started I was going to take the kids to North Shore one more time but that weekend the pool had gotten hit by lightening and it blew one of the motors to the pool so it was closed for the week. Big bummer.

BUT

We decided to make the best of our day and go to the Riverdale Splash Pad. We packed some snacks, grabbed Karsen to go with us and headed out. It was such a perfect day.

Right after this picture my camera died so I didn't get anymore more fun shots. But we had a blast!!! 

Morrow Bay

We made a trip to Morrow Bay, which wasn't too far away from Pismo Beach, maybe a half an hour. It was a great trip, it was really beautiful there.

They had this huge checker board the kids were jumping around on.

Sea Lions just hanging around in different places.

This guy was HUGE.

Jelly fish

Ken's grandfather helped build these smoke pipes years ago.

This is where we ate lunch. Right on the water.

Braxton eating his first clam chowder of the trip. He LOVES seafood and especially clam chowder.

There was a tiny little aquarium with a couple of sea lions. They were so stinking cute.

Silly Boys

Back at camp, watch out Grandma has a sword!!!

Braxton and Cooper were friends.

I look awful in this picture but this is how seriously exhausted I was every evening. We were up early and just go go go all day, then we'd sit around the fire. Lots of fun but chasing around two boys it wore us out!!

Braxton being a goofball again. LOL

Alex putting seious thought into what type of cereal he wants for breakfast

Back to the beach

Ken hanging out with his parents, watching the boys

A Target truck came at the top of the hill coming down to the beach and advertised free ice cream. So the kids ran up and got some. Alex scored this huge rocket popsicle.

Free icecream on teh beach, doesn't get better than that.

Ron set up a movie in a cubbie on the side of their trailer. The kids had a blast, with their little popcorn bags and movie.

And of course this gave the adults a chance to relax around the fire!!

Alex and Jessie. Both boys really loved her. She was a huge help with them too!

Braxton in his sweats relaxing

Up early again. Grandma making breakfast, isn't she wonderful!!

This day we went to a water park. It was a ton of fun, the kids had a great time.

Jessie

The kiddie pool area was really neat. The boys had a great time on the little slides. They were just able to run around and have fun. It wasn't huge so we didn't have to chase them, it was perfect.

Me asking Alex how he liked the slide after we went down. It was pretty big and fast!!! He said he liked it but after going down twice he didn't want anything to do with it.

Braxton and Jessie went tons though.

This is a water halfpipe type thing, it was HUGE!! You sit on a tube and drop in, then go back and forth till you stop. The whole way there Braxton said he was so doing the halfpipe. Once he saw it he had a different story. I don't blame him, that thing is huge and no way I would go on it.

So we stuck with the fun water slide.

Jessie going down