Smart Money Smart Women Conference

My sister in law Andrea asked Heidi and I to register and go with her to the Zion's Bank Smart Money Smart Women Conference.  It was free, so we figured why not?!  We registered and drove up together and met up with Andrea, her mom, her sister and her other sister in law.

Amanda from the KSL morning show was the emcee and she is very, what shall we call it, energetic would probably be a good descriptive word.  We had a welcome, they had a speaker and gave out some grant money and then we separated for classes.  I didn't really think any in the first breakout session sounded good, so we ended up in one about Investment Clubs.  Kind of like a book club or a bunco club, where a bunch of women get together once a month, pool their money, play the stock market, and have dinner.  Kind of an interesting concept, but not one I think any of my friends would be interested in.

The 2nd breakout session, Heidi and I split with the rest of our group and went to one on Small Business Sales.  It was AMAZING!  The speaker was great, but he talked way too fast for us to take notes.  Heidi couldn't even focus her camera on the slideshow screens to get the information before he moved on to the next one.  He gave us the 3 laws of sales.  There are actually 10, but he only had time for 3.  A normal speaker probably would have only got through one.  We came away with some awesome information that will hopefully help us with our business.

Then we went back and got FREE LUNCH.  They had wraps (not nearly as good as Jaxies) chips, cake and chocolate.  Then they had the keynote speaker, Geena Davis.  She was a great speaker, very funny and entertaining and informative.  It was a great girls day out.  I think I'll have to get my other sisters in law to register and go with me next year too.  We could take up a whole table ourselves if we all get together.

Father and Sons and McKynlee's Birthday

Sean and the boys headed up to Father and sons up Payson Canyon tonight.  Travis had to work, but Tyrel and Trevin were able to go with him.  Sean was kind of bummed because this was going to be Travis' last Father and Sons before his mission.  Since I was left home alone, I went up to McKynlee's birthday party in Draper.  I didn't want to drive alone, so I begged a ride with Todd and Haylee.   Traffic was HORRIBLE.  It took us pretty close to 2 hours to get from Payson to Draper.  Troy kept calling asking where we were, we told them to just go ahead and start, but when we did finally get there, everyone else was just getting out of their cars too, including the family that just lives a couple blocks away.  It was supposed to be at the park, but the weather didn't cooperate so they moved it to the church.

She was such a cutie and loved all of the commotion and noise.

Onion Day Parade and BBQ

Without Grandpa Nielsen as the announcer at the Onion Days parade, we had to fend for ourselves and find a new spot.  We decided on the Montague’s yard.  Apparently, the rest of the world did too.  We crowded in with the rest and watched the parade without any announcer to be heard from our spot.  The Montagues weren’t there, but we soon found out why, Raymond was the Grand marshall of the parade this year.  The funniest entry was the Spanish Fork High School band.  There were only 7 band members.  It was almost comical.  This picture is the entire band other than the leader, not just a part of it.

I think my favorite parade entry was Tuh-Mater, mainly because I got to make this awesome layout with the pictures I took.  Everyone else loved Cosmo though!

After the Labor Day Parade, the kids went with some of the aunts and uncles to the carnival for some rides and then out for snowcones.  Later that afternoon we met at Todd and Haylee’s for a BBQ.  All of the kids, big and small, had fun playing 500, jumping on the tramp, swinging on the swings, digging in the sand, and trying to avoid getting attacked by Deacon with his lightsaber.  It is so fun to see my big boys playing and enjoying their time with their younger cousins.  I love that they still like to play and hang out with them. 

 It was tons of fun and everyone had a great time.    

More Bottling

My friend Nicole from my ward wanted to learn how to bottle tomatoes, so she came over today and we bottled all day.  Her favorite part was peeling the skins off the tomatoes after we blanched them, which is my least favorite part, so it was all good.  We blanched and peeled the ones she wanted bottled as whole tomatoes.  The tomatoes we used for diced tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, and tomato sauce we just washed, cored, and left the skins on.   I know I'm weird, but that is just a time waster for me when you are just grinding it all up anyway.  No one notices that they were left on.  We bottled 12 quarts of whole tomatoes for her and 12 pints of diced tomatoes for her.  I got another 12 pints of diced tomatoes and 8 quarts of spaghetti sauce and another 5 quarts of tomato sauce/juice/puree, not sure exactly.  It was a fun day and we accomplished a lot!  My canner went non stop from about 10 in the morning until 10 at night.  We just turned it off long enough for the steam to go down, empty it out and fill it back up again.

Swimming in Tomatoes

One of my dear sweet ward members called me on Friday and asked if I ever canned tomatoes.  I said yes.  She knew that we didn't do a garden this year because we were tired of paying hundreds of dollars to feed the deer.  I know the church tells us we should plant one, and I love fresh garden vegetables, but after only getting less than 1/2 dozen tomatoes last year, a few zucchini, no peppers and no grapes, we decided to give it a rest.

Anyhow, back to my friend, she told me she was swimming in tomatoes because her husband never asked her and he planted way too many and her girls were too busy to take any this year and her husband is too old to be picking as many tomatoes as he planted and she didn't know what she would do with them all and would I come rescue her.  So, I grabbed a crate out of the garage and headed to her house.  She answered the door, saw my crate and promptly told me it wouldn't be near enough.  As she proceeded to take me through her house and out to her back patio, I laughed as I could see she wasn't kidding.  I should have brought a life preserver instead of a crate because she literally was "swimming in tomatoes" or should I rephrase that as "drowning in tomatoes".  She had 4 kiddie pools full of tomatoes and another 12-15 flats of tomatoes around that and "more in the garden waiting to be picked."

So, I filled up my crate without making a dent in her flood and went home.  Yesterday, I spent the day processing tomatoes.  It is tiring work, but really quite rewarding and fun.  As I was about 1/2 way through, I remembered that I had told another friend in my ward that I would teach her how to bottle tomatoes if I got more this Summer.  So I called her and she couldn't come that day, which was good, because I was through all the teaching parts and just processing, so we scheduled for her to come Monday.  So, guess what I will be doing on Monday!?  I bottled tomato sauce and more pints of diced tomatoes yesterday and I'm going to try bottling some spaghetti sauce on Monday along with more tomato sauce/juice.

I got the crate I picked up the other day all done, so Trevin and I went back and got 3 more crates for us to work on for Monday.  He was a great helper and was excited to get to feed their pot bellied pig after we were done getting tomatoes.

The Last First Day of School

As I was taking pictures this morning, Travis mentioned that it was his last first day of school.  I can't believe my kids are growing up so fast!  I'm proud of the people they have become.  They are good young men with good values.  Travis only needed 1 required class to graduate this year, so he has kind of a laid back schedule (I think anyway).  So, he should hopefully have a fun Senior year.  Lots of his classes this year are with Tyrel, so that is fun for them too.

Travis is taking Seminary, English, US Studies, Music Composition, TV Broadcasting, TV Production, Computer Programming, and Digital Photography.  He is also going to be the TA for Mr. Andrews for his TV production class the 2nd half of the year. 

Tyrel is taking Seminary, CoEd Team Sports, ASL 2, Computer Programming, TV Production, Physics, Financial Literacy, Ceramics, and English. 

They did both have Advanced Guitar together too, but the teacher they took it from before isn't teaching it this year, so they transferred out of it.  I'm kind of bummed about that though because I like hearing them play.  Hopefully they will still sit and play guitar in the living room together even thought they don't have the class this year.  Travis is still taking Music Composition and writing for the guitar, so I think I'm safe.  His old Advanced Guitar teacher that he loves is teaching it.

Trevin is off to a rough start in Jr. High.  Friday, they had all the 7th graders go 1/2 day by themselves before all the big kids showed up at the school.  He got on the wrong bus to come home.  He called me from his friend Garrison's house to come pick him up.  At least he made it as far as Elk Ridge with a friend so I didn't have to go all the way down there.  Then this morning, the bus came 15 minutes earlier than it did on Friday, so he missed it.    Travis and Tyrel were going to Payson to pick up some of Travis' friends for school, so they were going to run him, but they ended up finding kids at another stop that hadn't been picked up yet, so they dropped him off there.  When he came home today, he said he felt short.  It is different from last year where he was one of the tallest kids, to now being in a new school as a little kid.  Hopefully tomorrow goes better for him.  I really hope the new Jr. High in Salem gets finished so he can start there next year.  I think it will be much better, plus it is closer to the high school so if he misses the bus, then Tyrel could just drop him off if needed.  His schedule this year is Exploring Technology, Learning Strategies, Science, CTE (Can't remember what that stands for), Math, PE, Choir, Language Arts, and English. 

Jalapeno Popper Obsession

So, ever since Uncle John shared his recipe for jalapeno poppers at the family reunion, we have kind of been obsessed with them at our house.  Everyone except Travis that is, we can't get him to try them.  We have been making them every time we get peppers in our Bountiful Basket and everytime we run to the store, jalapenos are right on our list of staples along with milk, bread and eggs.  We modified the recipe a bit and have also added our own renditions of some other mixtures plus a "dessert" popper that we love even though it sounds gross.  We mixed together cream cheese and coconut, stuffed the pepper and topped with cinnamon carmelized almonds and drizzled with chocolate sauce.  It is oh oh so good.