Jordan, Martha and Lydia

*knock knock*

<peers around>

Anyone still out there?

Wow, but it’s been a while.

So while I work on getting back up on my feet and blogging again, as well as figuring out what has changed and what I need to be updated on WordPress wise, I think I’ll leave a recent family photo with you all so that you all know how much you might have missed. 🙂 This was taken up at Glenn’s Point at the Grand Canyon.

A rare shot of Mommy and Lydia.

Lydia’s dimples with her beautiful smile.

I love my baby girl!

Lydia and I were helping Candace shop for car decorations for the Christmas Parade in Ocala. We found some fun little hats, and Lydia wanted to push the cart.

I couldn’t resist a picture of Candace getting a picture. :p

Fa La La LA La La La La la!!

Here is to all of my friends who love Zaxby’s, and yet can’t go there because their lovely state doesn’t have the franchise located there (YET!) My favorite meal: The Big Zak Snack! *drools*

Lydia was loving helping Auntie Candace “Drive” her bug. We were in Sonny’s parking lot, and Lydia was having a wonderful time playing with the controls.

Me thinks we will have no problem teaching this one to drive!

We are in Florida for my sister Ruth’s wedding, and are staying at my brother’s house. He and his wife have two little dogs and a cat. Here Lydia is sitting with Keiki, who is her new found little friend.

They are having so much fun together. It is really cute to watch them!

This year, Thanksgiving was being celebrated with Jordan’s paternal side of the family. My Grandma had sent me a picture of a veggie tray done as a turkey, and naturally I had to try my hand at the culinary artistry.  Here is my rendition of the turkey.

Needless to say, I had a hard time getting people to actually eat the turkey! That’s why I made it! 😛

Here is our attempts at getting a group photo taken. 😀

A picture of Jordan’s Mom, his brother Austin, and his Dad.

The kids were taking as many photos of Austin, Mom P. and Dad P. as they could.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jordan got drawn for an Elk tag, so when the time came, we packed our bags, packed our coolers, packed the gun, packed the ammo, packed more coolers, packed tarp, packed Lydia, packed bedding, packed a tent, packed an air mattress (with pump and batteries!!!), packed up our kitchen stuff, and packed up just about anything else that we might or might not have needed. Needless to say, we took the bigger of our two vehicles (Jordan’s Suburban) so that we could fit it all.

Here we are, on our way up. (Note: This is early in the trip, as we are happy and excited! LOL)

Here we have arrived (about 4 hours later) at our camp site, where we commenced to setting up amid the greetings from the other people who were also hunting/camping.

As we pitched our tent, we awaited our neighbors (a couple from our church) as we kept an eye on the brewing weather (it was threatening to rain) and keeping close tabs on our warm wear.

Fortunately, we got set up pretty quickly, I made up the bed and got everything arranged, and our friends arrived just in time to help them get set up before needing to crawl in bed. By the time that they arrived, the weather was picking up, and it was raining, and getting cooler by the minute. None too soon, everything was up and ready, and it was time for bed, as Jordan had an early morning (3am?) to go spotting elk.

Here I am being silly with Lydia.

We don’t get pictures together very often, so we were having fun.

We finally had company down to visit. Jordan’s family came to visit us and to stay the night. They also brought the chicken pen (as we are planning on getting some chickens). Well, some of the kids went to see the river, and brought back some company: our neighbors dogs.

I was a little surprised to see the size.

They can check out the property and such now, cuz when they chickens come, I don’t want them exploring any more!

Needless to say, I tried to fix a nice breakfast for them the next morning. Fruit salad, made of Strawberries, nectarines, pineapple and mango.

Here is a better look at the serving tray, with a tray of just mangoes on the top.

The Pineapple top, with oranges.

Apples and oranges.

And a family favorite: Hashbrown quiche.

After a big breakfast, everyone helped clean up, and then they left. It was sad, as it had taken almost a year to get them to visit, but as they had company themselves, they had some places they wanted to show the company. Maybe they will come to visit again soon.

It was a hot and summery day in the desert, sales and I was headed to Costco, ask so I decided to pick up some half & half and some strawberries, find as Ice Cream sounded SOOOOOOOOOOOoo good! I had the bigger electric ice cream church, so after some coercing and cajoling, I received help from Hadassah in churning the ice cream…with the hand crank ice cream churn.

We had already mixed the base (half & half, eggs, sugar and vanilla), so we poured it into the churn, added ice and salt and started cranking!

Here is the base as we are churning.

The prepared strawberries waiting their turn.

The ice cream before we added the strawberries.

Pouring the strawberries in.

Around and around it goes!

Time for the freezer!

The finished product ready to be served!

I think most everyone enjoyed the ice cream. I sure did!