Monday, October 29, 2007

200 Years of History

I went over to my Grandma Betty Rice's this weekend. I had asked her for the old family pics. I didn't have any from the Cacy/Rice side and I was afraid that when she was gone someday they would scatter and no one would know who they all are. She gave me a bunch on the Cacy side (my great grandpa) and a few on the Rice side. She also gave me 3 old bibles and I was flipping through them last night and came across two lists of ancestors with birthdates and some death dates and the oldest was back to 1809! Not many people can trace back 200 years! I was so excited I could hardly sleep! I can't wait to try to get it all organized and mapped out. I don't think my Grandma knows what was in there! I'm gonna call her tonight :)

I'm glad someone on that side was a heritage keeper. Guess I'll be the one to pass it along now :) I'll upload those pics as I get them scanned too. I'm going to try to do it before Christmas so my Dad's brothers can each have a disc of pictures. More to come on that project :)

Monday, October 22, 2007

Weight Watcher Winner

20 POUNDS DOWN! I was so excited this morning to step on the scale and be 149.6! That's a bit more than 20 pounds I've lost since June 17! I'm very thankful because I haven't been able to find time to exercise at all. I was really worried I wouldn't be able to lose any but the Lord has helped me eek on down :) I feel great and want to keep going. 135 is my goal. We'll see if I can get there. It's good to have some success!

School Bus Birthday


October 2007 058
Originally uploaded by trlrover
Grace's birthday party went GREAT! We had 9 kids there (Kaylee, Kaleb, Emma, Andrew, Ashton, Tristan, Boone, Garrett, Cale, and miscellaneous adults. About 25 total I think. She had a blast playing with her friends and was so happy they came to her house!

Miraculously, the cake turned out great too. I found the idea in Family Fun Magazine. I was worried because I'd never attempted anything that ambitious but it turned out pretty good :) I also made school bus cupcakes. I didn't get started until 8 pm Friday night and I went to bed at midnight but it was worth it!

Jan and Kelly came from Nebraska around 5 and got the tail end of the party and spent the night with us. We were thrilled to have them! They had come up to visit Kortney in Columbia then were heading to Nashville to see Jamie and Jody on Sunday.

Mom spent the night too and Dad, Susan and Mama Rice all stayed for dinner. Bryon fixed a gourmet feast of grilled lamb chops, creamed spinach, roasted new potatoes and crab cakes. MMMMMM!

Grace got a TON of stuff! Way too much but she was thrilled. Dad gave her a 10 gallon aquarium and we went Sunday and got some goldfish. She likes it a lot. I think it's pretty cool too.

She'll be the big 3 tomorrow. I'm taking the leftover goodie bags (there was just the right amount left!) to school along with some store bought cupcakes. I'm baked out for a while! I made goody bags from brown paper lunch bags and filled them with a box of crayons, a tub of play-dough, a pencil and a glue stick. I think the kids liked them.

It was a great day and a really fun time. It was a good Mom day :)

Monday, October 15, 2007

The thing about persimmons

Every year we've been on our farm (five now) I've seen our persimmon trees have nice fat fruit on them in the fall and thought, "I should do something with those." So yesterday I picked some. Bryon asked me if I had ever actually eaten a persimmon. I said "sure". Well I guess I hadn't because I took a big bite and it made my tongue feel like it was wrapped in big white medical gauze! It was terrible!! Grace of course had to have some too. I told her she wouldn't like it but gave her one anyway. She ate it for a while then spit it out just like I had. Foolishly I picked some more, hopeful that covered in sugar and pectin and made into jelly it would be a wonderful fall treat.

Well let me tell you about persimmons. They are darn near IMPOSSIBLE to do anything with. I peeled then and then tried to get the seeds out (which were plentiful) and all your left with is a sad little stringy pulp. And not much at that! By the time I got my little bucketful of persimmons peeled and seeded I had less than a cup of fruit pulp! I was frustrated but determined so I took my internet searched recipe for persimmon jelly, divided it by fourths and took my almost one cup of fruit and proceeded to jellify it.

I got ONE sad little 1/2 jar of jelly for all my efforts. Bryon kept telling me to abort the mission but by that time I was committed. I tasted the spoon as I sealed up the jar. Still gauzy tongue taste. The sugar did NOT help!

Now I know why there aren't big quart sized jars of Persimmon Jelly alongside the grape and blackberry. Patty at work said I should have waited until after the first frost but I used ripe persimmons. They were all mushy. She says persimmon bread is the way to go...hmmm...bread...Google on.

White River Camping


October 2007 017
Originally uploaded by trlrover
We had a great camping trip down to the White River a couple of weeks ago. Grace was so much more independent this trip. It was probably her best camping trip so far :) She caught a walking stick before we left and carried it down in her "bug carrier" all the way to the river where she let it go so it could go to it's Mama :)

She caught several grasshoppers during the trip too. She's pretty fearless. I've tried to instill the appropriate amount of fear for spiders and snakes but I don't know that it would kick in when she finds them. It's just a matter of time before we take a trip to doctor with a BITE of some sort.