Grapes and more grapes

A friend of mine has a neighbor who was willing for us to pick his grapes, if we were willing to give him some jelly. So, Saturday afternoon, we went to Greeley and picked grapes. We had never picked grapes built over a trellis like this before. There was a glider underneath. It was somewhat difficult to pick the grapes from underneath. Rowen and Jeffrey took turns picking on top of the trellis standing on a 6 foot ladder.



Picking above one's head is hazardous to the eyes. We forgot to bring our goggles!

It was a cozy place to pick. We sure appreciate Leroy letting us do it.

We actually picked more grapes than this, but we gave some to Rowen's sister, so she could make jelly too. The grapes we ended up with weighed 40 pounds!

Here you can see how the trellis and glider were situated. Rowen is, of course, taking the picture, as he usually is.

On Labor Day, some of us spent the day in the kitchen making the grapes into jelly. We wore our mp3 players to help pass the time away as we worked. My faithful assistants, Jason and Emily, washed and de-stemmed all the grapes.

I cooked them and made the jelly. Emily did the sieving. I don't re-strain the juice through cheesecloth to make the clear jelly, because I like the pulp--more nutrition in the jelly. Since you have to use so much sugar to make it, I want there to be a redeeming factor. (Just my personal preference. I know it would never win the prize at the fair.)

I think this was the last batch of cleaned grapes. No wonder she looks so happy! It was a long day!

The 40 pints and 5 half-pints of jelly when the day was done.

Some catch up birthday pictures

I know everybody has been dying to see all the birthday cakes we have been eating recently :) So here goes! My pre-birthday cake, on August 23, was a DQ ice cream blizzard cake. It was very, very yummy and we had Michael Durkee to help us eat it. We had to have it on Saturday, because we don't buy on Sunday and of course, it needed to be eaten right away!

It was pretty, besides being yummy!

On Sunday, August 24, we had triple chocolate bundt cake. The reason I was smiling so big in this picture was that someone had just said I got to have all of it!

I actually shared it with our guests, Mathew, Nicole, and Phoebe Hinkle and our family.

Baby Ethan has not yet matured enough to know what chocolate is, much less how wonderful it is!

Jason had a French vanilla cake with peach jello poured over and through, covered with cream cheese frosting and sprinkles. It was yummy also!

For Jason's birthday, we went ice skating at the Ice Haus in Greeley. All the pictures taken of our people skating did not show their skates, so I chose this picture instead to represent our evening. This is our children posing by the sculpture of ice skaters outside the Ice Haus!

Jason turns 13 today!

Today is a very special day because Jason, our 5th child, 4th son, was born 13 years ago! I remember when I was expecting Jason, (I had not had an ultrasound, so I didn't know it was a boy), I wished for a little more space between Beth and the new one coming along. (Beth and Jason are the only two of our children closer than 2 years, 2 months apart; they are 23 months apart.) I was sitting in the hospital waiting room when Jeffrey was having a surgery and my cousin, LaDeana, was sitting with me during the surgery. She told me that she had had a dream about me and that in the dream God told her to tell me that the child I was carrying was going to be special and that God would use this child in a special way. That was such an encouragement to me and I have often thought of that and told Jason that too. He has been a very special child. He is very intelligent and has always excelled in school. He taught himself to read when he was five by listening to our phonics records. He told me he was done with kindergarten and wanted to start 1st grade. So we went on into 1st grade. He has always been a year ahead of his age in school. Today he is 13 and he is starting 9th grade. I have told him if he works hard the next three years, I will let him graduate when Beth does.
When Jason was born, he was our biggest baby, at 8#, 15 oz. (This year, Jason is 5 ft. 11 inches tall. We are thinking he will be the tallest one in the family, since he is not done growing!)
He had lots of hair, most of which stuck out from his head. I can't believe how the years have flown by since then! These pictures were when he was 2 1/2 weeks old. What a sweetie!

This summer, Jason has worked alongside Jeffrey for abeLAWNS, the lawn company that Randy and Tim started years ago and sold in 2005. Here Jason is mowing with the Walker mower in a subdivision green belt.

Here he is armed with a blower to clean off the sidewalks. Jason and Jeffrey both enjoy their MP3 players as they work. They listen to good music, the Listener's Bible, and some great historical works.

Jason can be hilariously entertaining and funny--at least we think so. If you haven't yet, you should read his blog posts at lawnjmon.blogspot.com Here is a picture of him when he was entertaining some small guests we had this summer.

This picture or a simlar one has appeared on our blog before when Jason got glasses for reading.

Rowen has posted a very nice updated picture of Jason on the side bar of our blog, so be sure and look there and I won't duplicate it here.
These are pictures from our time in the mountains last Saturday. The hat is great for sun protection on the neck, and helpful during rain showers which occurred while the family was on this mountain hike.

Jason loves to stick his feet in mountain streams whenever possible!
Jason is quite creative on the computer and the piano, but I don't have recent pictures I can post for those activities. Jason is a blessing to our family and I know God will use him as he keeps his life surrendered to the Lord! Happy Birthday, Jason! We all love you!

Our Day in the Mountains

On Saturday Aug. 23rd we enjoyed a day in a special part of our local mountains. It was partly to celebrate Janet's birthday (Sunday) and the end-of-summer and start of our home school year. Mike Durkee joined us as we went up South St. Vrain Canyon, had a picnic by the river,

then finally (bad maps ;-( ) found the trail that we were looking for.

It was the Ceran St. Vrain Trail, which was just beautiful as it wound its way through the lodgepole pine trees, alongside the South St. Vrain River. It's early fall at 8,000 ft, and just a perfect time in the Colorado mountains...You should have been there!

Janet chose to take a nap in the car while the rest of us hiked.
Mike and the kids couldn't resist some wading in the mountain stream.

Putting up peaches

We were able to get a couple of boxes of Colorado Peaches this week. Colorado peaches are the best in the country, we think. Last night we canned 14 qts. and 4 pts. of jam. This morning, I
finished up with 6 more qts. It was a family project!
Slipping the skins

Emily put the peaches in the boiling water and timed it for us.

Jason sterilized the jars.

Jeffrey helped with the jam.

Beth's quilt top is finished!

Jason and I are up on the shed roof holding up the quilt top for the picture!

We started cutting strips on July 25. We started sewing on August 6. Yesterday, August 21, we got done with the quilt top!! I love strip quilting; it is so fast. We had a goal of getting it done before school started and thank the Lord we have succeeded. Now we'll be mailing it to MO to get it machine quilted. It is so much more affordable than having it done here in Colorado. This is Beth and me in Jason and Jeffrey's bedroom. The quilt is for their bed.

You can see why they needed a quilt made, since the comforter underneath is so girly.

Quilt Progress

We have made SO much progress on our SEWing project. We are excited about that! I uploaded a lot of pictures to my blog of our progress, so please follow the links below to see them.
Thanks, Beth

starting pictures http://ladytheophilus.blogspot.com/2008/08/making-quilt-top.html
continuation pictures http://ladytheophilus.blogspot.com/2008/08/promised-quilt-progress-pictures.html
more continuation pictures http://ladytheophilus.blogspot.com/2008/08/yet-more-quilt-top-pictures.html

Diversity of Taco Salad Styles

For 7 days we had a poll about which Taco Salad our viewers preferred; here are the results:

Taco Salad "A" (Rowen's) got 18 votes!
Taco Salad "B" (Beth's) got 2 votes. . .

Thanks to those of you that voted and commented!

But Beth is kind of mad about it :-((

My dear daughter Beth (a.k.a. Lady Theophilus) always makes her Taco Salad a certain way, while I make mine entirely differently. We are both insistent that ours be the way we like it, and this week we decided to ask YOUR opinion...Which salad is your style? "A" or "B"?

- Rowen

The "inevitable blog" about our weekend!

I know this will probably surprise some of our faithful readers, but we had company again over this past weekend! Paul and Sarah Koerner, with their daughter, Brynna, Paul's sister, Maria, and her boyfriend, Daniel Byler, came to Loveland with Daniel's family for some special services on Saturday and Sunday. So they stayed with us Friday night through Monday morning.
Koerners were here for Tim's wedding and then the week after that, so Brynna is getting kind of used to us, even though she had not traveled to Colorado to see us until she was 10.5 months old. We "adopted" Paul several years ago when he would spend time with us when Randy was going to school at Mitchell, SD.

Brynna even let her adopted grandpa Rowen entertain her. She will be one year old later this month.

Maria and Daniel have been dating for a short time. They seem to like each other a lot, and we are happy that Daniel is a spiritual leader in their times together. Praying together is soooo important!!

We had already planned a picnic and soccer game in Greeley with our friends the Cruzes and the Shields for Saturday evening. As our guests were involved in the services in Loveland, we were able to spend the evening playing, visiting, cooking, and eating! Our friends, Steve and Matthew Cary also joined us for the evening. We did not get pictures of everybody, and no good ones of the soccer games, but the cooking and the scene are pictured below. The reason for the gathering was to have a time together before Esther, Carmen, and Mary Cruz leave for Hobe Sound Bible College in Florida. We won't see them until Christmas break, except for when they sit in the camera's view at church and we see them as we join Hobe Sound Bible Church via the Internet for their Sunday services.
Here are Eladio, Mary, Carmen, and Ephraim Cruz, Doug Shields, and Jason, Emily, and Rowen (not in that order).

In the distance is Esther and Sherolyn Cruz, Charla Shields. In the foreground is Carmen Cruz and Emily, Eladio Cruz and Doug Shields.

This one is of our favorite outdoor cook, Rowen!

All the food was yummy and a good time was had by all. Even the mosquitos got full!

More pictures of Tim and Brenda's Wedding (from the professional photographer)

Emily, Audrey, Beth, Lexi, Enid, Kari, BRENDA, TIM, Randy, Eric, Seth, Jeff, and Jason