Colors!?!

Just this past week Lucas came up to us pointed to his shirt and said, "orange" which was in fact the color of the shirt he was wearing, and then he preceded to tell us that his pants were blue, denim is blue right?  We were so excited!  Quizzed him a couple of times through out the day about the color of his shirt and pants, praised him like crazy, he lives off of praise!  However, the next day I start asking him what color his shirt was, or what color the bus was, or the block, etc.  He got all of them wrong or he reverted back to associating them with the color of Sesame Street Characters.  I suspect he is just giving me a hard time, but honestly who knows, maybe it was a one time thing.  I guess time will tell!  Maybe next time I will be sneaky in how I ask him.

It's raining, It's pouring, The old man is snoring!

It has been raining constantly since last Saturday evening.  That is one thing that I don't like about Pennsylvania, the fact that it rains and rains and rains for days.  Not to mentioned that overcasts skies that we had several days before it actually started to rain.  What a bummer!  It was not until late Wednesday night that the rain finally stopped.  Here is hoping for some sunshine!

The Garden

Our poor little garden has struggled this season with the heat and then all of the rain.  I have had to plant my herbs twice and some of it still didn't make it.  Only half of my cilantro survived, but I believe this was partially due to Lucas and his shovel.  But our tomatoes survived!  When we arrived back home though, our garden needed some serious weeding and we caught the neighbor kids picking our unripe tomatoes, little stinkers!  Some still survived and there were several ripe tomatoes that needed to be picked.  So for the last week we have been eating very yummy tomatoes.

For the first time this year I planted basil.  Wow, this stuff grows like a weed!  I have made two batches of pesto, along with a few dishes that have called for fresh basil and it is still growing!  I have really enjoyed having all of this basil and experimenting with it!  I will definitely be growing this again next year!

Poor Little Car

This has not been the year for our little Camry.  The heater when out at the beginning of the year, so that needed to be fixed.  Surprisingly enough you can't fix it until it is warm enough outside, so needless to say it didn't get fixed till late winter.  Then summer came and we soon realized our A/C was out and you have to have a working A/C when you have a little person and humidity, plus it was really, really hot this year.  A more minor repair was our gas door broke and you had to manually open it, that was tricky, but an easy fix.  When I went home in July, Craig was driving along and one of the tires blew so we had to get new tires.  Our newest incident is our poor tale pipe has a gaping hole.  I apologize to our neighborhood who has been woken up to the noise of our car starting at 5:30 in the morning.  Sorry!  We attempted to fix it, but this morning I started up the car and could hear the muffler again, looking on the bright side of things at least it is not at loud as it was, before we tried to fix it.  Even with all that we have had to fix this past year, it has all worked out because Craig has been able to fix a lot of it on his own, which has saved us a lot (good thing I have a mechanically inclined husband).  So with this newest incident, I am sure it will work out, Craig already has a plan.  All things considered it is a good car and the things that have been wrong is all wear and tear, nothing too serious.  So in the end 'Go Us' and 'Go Little Car' you can make it!

Peaches!

With the fall comes canning.  I have been looking forward to canning this year, because I have been wanting to try to can peaches.  I love fresh peaches so much better than store bought canned peaches.  So image how excited I was when I found out that I had not missed peach season when I got back into town.  I feel so productive when I am canning, I am building up my food storage.  That is right I have thirteen jars of peaches sitting in the office just waiting till one of these days when it is really cold and dreary and I want a peach to brighten the wintry day.  I will be tasting some pretty sweet success!

So it begins.....again

Yes, it is here again that time of year when I have to coordinate our activities on Saturday depending on what time the "game" is.  When I know what I will be wearing every Saturday for the next few months.  When I stock up on Brats and chips, and apple beer (yes! the apple beer that we stocked up on when we were back west, boxed up, had examined at the airport, weren't sure it was going to make it, but it did! Success!).  Bring on the football!  When football officially started on Saturday we were ready.  Lucas was dressed from head to toe in BYU paraphernalia, carrying his BYU bookstore bag across the parking lot to the football party.  Poor child being indoctrinated into this ritual that is BYU Football at such a young age.  He even knows how to say "Go Cougars" and "touch down".  Of course you can't celebrate this monumental moment without friends.  Till next Saturday and the Saturday after that and the Saturday after that and so forth.

Watching the game at the James' with the Van O's.

Grange Fair

It is that time of year again.  One of the biggest events in Centre County, the Grange Fair.  This is a pretty important event, school is delayed due to this fair, people would kill their grandma to get a tenting spot at the Grange Fair.  It is that serious!

I like taking Lucas to see all of the animals, it has been fun to see how he reacts to the animals over the past few years.  This time around he was so excited, I think the rabbits were his favorite part, he would name the animals as he saw them and make the appropriate animal noises.  It was pretty cute!  We went with several of Lucas' friends, had some ice cream from an enormous ice cream sunday, and watched the Bald Eagle Band.  Lucas seemed to enjoy himself.  Lucas was able to walk part of the way with me and he was good to not wander off.  It was a very enjoyable day.  It is always an experience when going to the Grange Fair.