And this is what it ends up looking like. I can personally vouch for the fact that it does, indeed, attract butterflies. For some reason it makes me think of a person with crazy hair.
The darker hollyhocks are blooming as well.
The hydrangea are slowly getting there.
And the wedding lily has come and gone. It grew hugely tall this year. Are they supposed to get this tall? I think one spike was 3 1/2 feet.
This is a happy story. I planted a Sweet Pea start last year that never grew. I forgot about it, but this year, there was a little volunteer sprout that showed up. I know sweet peas like to climb, so I got a little trellis, but the actual plant is over under the window, so I've got it dragged to the side so it can do its climbing Mt. Borah impersonation.
I've never been able to get sweet peas to grow, despite planting them off and on several times, but they have really taken off and the fragrance is just amazing.
Happy hollyhocks.
I also planted some peony tubers earlier this spring and some of them are actually growing, which makes me very excited for next year.
These are the "famous" family baked beans that make an appearance every July 4th, and are requested on other occasions like birthday dinners.
I found the recipe here, after watching an episode of an old Rachel Ray cooking program. I've also made the sandwiches listed in the recipe, but it was the beans that stuck. Several years ago one of my sons, who shall remain nameless in this post, ate so many helpings, that he set off the methane detector during the middle of the night in the room he and his wife were sleeping in. They're just that good.
The Beans
6 slices bacon, chopped (I've been known to use more that this....)
1 cup plain bread crumbs
4 scallions, thinly sliced
Coarse black pepper
2 (15-ounce) cans prepared barbecued baked beans, about 4 cups (I usually use two tall cans of beans and the topping works for that. I also drain off some of the excess liquid in the cans before putting the beans into the baking dish. I use a good-quality brand of beans, since all the additions are put on top and not in the actual beans themselves.)
In a medium skillet over medium high heat, brown bacon but do not fully crisp the pieces. Remove the skillet from heat and toss bread crumbs in the pan with the bacon and drippings. Add scallions to the bread crumbs and bacon and season the mixture with cracked black pepper, to taste.
Preheat oven to 425°.
Add 2 cans of barbecued beans or extra spicy beans to a shallow casserole dish. Top with bacon and bread crumb mixture and place in oven. Bake 15 minutes or until top is crispy and beans are bubbly.
Honestly, I didn't have enough time this week to document much of what I did, that will have to wait. However, I can tell you that I've been to Costco, and the grocery store, and cleaned the house as much I'm going to, since all but one of my kiddos and their families will be here this weekend.
Sent to me from the kids and grandkids this week....Eric sent me a few pictures that should probably be classified under "things you shouldn't show your mother." He and a few of the young men in his ward hiked Mt. Borah, which is the highest mountain in the state of Idaho.
I understand the necessity of teaching kids the concept of "you can do hard things." I really do. My husband and I worked very hard at instilling this lesson in our children.
But holy cow!
I know Eric's grown and all, but this just makes me scream really loud on the inside, while trying to maintain a fairly calm demeanor on the outside. Usually that facade crumbles, though, and I end up yelling, "What were you thinking???" at my mid-30's aged son. Even he said it was scarier than he remembered it being when he hiked it as a 14 year old. Took a while for my heart rate to come down.
Back east, Collin's family went to a light show at the Washington Monument commemorating the moon landing.
It looks like it was a really amazing event. As an aside, I have very vivid memories of the moon landing in 1969.
I was 10 years old and remember my whole family gathered around the big console TV in our family room, watching the whole thing. I do remember feeling anxious about the safety of the astronauts. Basic personality doesn't change, whether it's about astronauts I don't even know, or my children climbing Mt. Borah.
This one of Jude came from my daughter-in-law with the caption, "Happy Sunday!" There now. My pulse rate is back to normal.
My husband and I spent a couple of nights up at the cabin, setting some things in motion to hopefully counteract the roof sag that happens most winters.
It's so nice to be up there where it's about 10° cooler than it is at home. In fact, this rumbled up the canyon one afternoon. I optimistically thought we were going to get a real soaking, but in actuality we only got a few drops.
We enjoyed dinner out on the deck...some lemon-pepper trout fillets. Yes, I remembered them this time around. Those peas are from the garden, and creamed peas & new potatoes are a comfort food from my childhood.
I accompanied my husband while he fished one of the evenings we were there. There was a rumor that Fish & Game had dumped some planters into the river that day. My husband was up on the bridge surveying the available fishing holes to see if the rumor was true.
Apparently it was since he wormed up his hook and gave it a try. It wasn't long before he conned a few fish into taking the bait. He let most of them go, but kept a couple we ate for dinner a couple of nights later.
He even let me reel one in.
Talk about a man in his element. Unfortunately, the mosquitos also put in an appearance, and at about this point I retreated to the relative safety of the truck.
And if you want to see what happened to this fish, you'll have to watch the video.
Oh goodness, there are just special days that happen every once in a while.
Days when families gather to celebrate. We were over at Marc's a couple of weeks ago for Jude's baby blessing. For anyone who hasn't read the blog for a while, the closest this comes to is a christening in other churches. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the baby is given his/her name for church records, and then given a special blessing by his dad or another worthy priesthood holder.
It probably wouldn't surprise you to know that Marc received coaching from a couple of his older brothers about what to bless Jude with. Things like, the ability to shoot straight, or to "hit the mark." Yeah, it's not that kind of a thing. Marc blessed Jude with just the right things he'll need as he journeys through this life.
Grandpa and I were so happy to be able to attend. Jude wore the little baby blessing outfit I made for his daddy's baby blessing. I feel like it all circles around and connects generations....the church traditions, the family events, even the little outfit. These are days when the happy just gets so big there's hardly room to hold it all.
We were missing Marc to make this a 4 generation shot. He was busy cooking up some lunch for everyone.
We were missing Edward in this picture, but this was contingent from our neck of the woods that traveled over to celebrate with Marc's family. Yeah, just look at Gramma Honey there surrounded by the sea of testosterone that is my family. :) Love them all!
There are special days and there is the everyday. We celebrate both.
Be prepared for a grandchild-heavy catch up post. Can I just put it out there that it's been one crazy year so far? Seriously, I thought when you had an empty nest things were supposed to slow down, but that just doesn't seem to be the case. In a lot of ways I'm busier now than when I had kids at home and I'm not really sure why.
First, though, it's my DIL Alison's birthday....happy birthday to her!
This was the sky the other day on my morning walk.
This has really been taking up some time, in a good way. I'm participating in the Twin Falls Stake production of "Savior of the World." We've been rehearsing in one way or another for 6 months, and next week is the performance. Hopefully I can remember my few little lines.
This was the bouquet for the week. You can see the roses are just a little droopy and some of them are slightly crispy in the hot weather. I know how they feel. I came home from a family wedding in Utah this week to find the AC wasn't working. You know what good friends I am with my air conditioner in the summer time. Very fortunately, the AC company got in and fixed it the next day. I'm not sure they wanted to see a grown woman cry if they weren't able to do it.
These came. :)
Sent to me from the kids and grandkids...Eric's family traveled back to Missouri for a family reunion. They visited a butterfly place, and I was totally amazed by the size of some of them.
Pretty amazing, right? They're holding little containers of nectar that attracts the butterflies right to them.
Ephraim was not as impressed with the butterflies as he was with the magnifying glass.
There was a trip to an amusement park.
Where Eric enjoyed some amusement park food. I'm not sure exactly what kind it is and I'm not sure I'll ever know since there's no evidence he's reading the blog lately, busy boy that he is.
There was a family of bovines ready for Chick-Fil-A day.
And they weren't the only ones. Across the country, it was happening for Collin's family as well.
There was some flash flooding in the DC area one afternoon, and Collin's wife and kids were stuck at a store for a little while. My DIL says these mini-carts saved her during the wait.
It's ugly hot out where Collin is, and it's pretty important to stay cool.
Cute Baby John asleep.
Collin's recent garden harvest.
John is becoming very flexible.
Sweet Baby John awake.
And not only awake, but giggling. There's nothing quite like that happy sound.
This also happened. Collin was informed that he will be advancing in rank to Major. The actual advancement won't take place for a while, but the letter came and his office celebrated with this cake.....with his face on it.
Here....you can eat your face. Is it just me or is this just slightly creepy?
I got this picture of Jude from Marc's family. While my DIL was with Levi working on potty training, Isaac was making sure Jude had adequate eye protection. My husband was so proud.
And I got a series of pictures from my daughter of the yearly "once in a lifetime" fishing adventure my husband goes on every year. You'll notice the big quote marks around "once in a lifetime." My husband, my daughter, her husband and my father-in-law went for some salmon. My husband likes to rationalize this by saying he's getting meat for the table, which is technically true, but he'd got even if he had to give them all back. He just likes to fish.
Truth be told, so does my daughter. Here she is with her dad. When I was editing these pictures to post, my husband looked over my shoulder wanting to know who the old fart was.
Since we're seeing these from my daughter's perspective, there were flower pictures.
I think these are similar to some up the trail by the cabin.
She does love flowers.
I really loved this one she sent of my husband in his natural habitat.
And if you want to doubt that she didn't enjoy the fishing part of this excursion, look again.
You can't be in the mountains with a bunch of kiddos who possess unlimited energy reserves and not take a hike somewhere.
We hiked up what I consider to be the prettiest trail in the area around the cabin. Since we've had a good water winter, some of the trail is also underwater and this is where I found my feet walking this particular morning. My husband and I got to the trail ahead of the rest of the group, and since I move slower than my mountain goat progeny, I got a head start on the walk.
Gus accompanied me on this first part of the hike. You might notice that he's drinking as he walks back towards me.
Since I didn't have to keep up with anyone, I had plenty of time to take pictures pretty things.
There was water in the trail for quite a ways, and somehow I managed to stay upright by myself, and was congratulated by my husband for doing so. He knows me well. He knows it's a major feat for me to not be soaked from at least the knees down at this point.
There were pretty growing things all around.
This is how the littlest grandkids maneuvered the water.
Caroline found all kinds of flowers on her walk. Just look at all the different varieties. We live in a beautiful world.
There was also a construction project in the works this weekend. My husband, along with Evan, Eric, and the kids worked on putting together another bridge over the stream that runs right next to the cabin. This is designed to replace the one that washed away 2 years ago. While I won't get to have my favorite view back, my husband's idea is that he can take the grandkids across it and they can have what he calls "jungle adventures" by making new trails on the other side.
No summer cabin trip is complete without a campfire, and fortunately we don't have a burn ban in our area yet. Caroline found a caterpillar she named Sunset. It crawled all over her arm while we waited for the cobbler to cook in the fire.
Emmett found quite a few sticks that were his favorites during the weekend.
While the cobbler cooked, Gramma Honey had a little Come Follow Me lesson to keep the kids occupied.
And finally, it was done! Red, white and blue cobbler, with the last of the homemade ice cream.
When my husband and I decided to build a cabin, we hoped it would be a place to make memories with each other and with our family. We're working on accomplishing that.
It was decided that once we had all the kiddos in their shirts, we definitely needed to have a picture and a parade.
It's pretty tricky trying to get multiple, multiple kids to all look at the camera at the same time. Gus did his best to cooperate, though.
You can see that the backs of the shirts also got decorated with stars and their initial.
Some of these pictures came off my DIL's camera....here's Gwen,
and a very patriotic Caroline.
Emmett,
and Ephraim.
And here's our spectacular parade. Since fireworks are banned in the woods, this had to suffice for our celebratory effort.
Well, that and the red, white and blue Dutch oven cobbler.
We're a patriotic bunch here in the Allan family. We love our country, we are grateful for the very personal sacrifices made to maintain the freedoms we have, both past and present, and we don't mind letting people know about it.
OK. I'm done pondering. Mostly I've dug out from under my schedule enough to get on the computer and upload a bunch of pictures that have been sitting on my phone for 3 weeks or so.
We spent July 4th in the mountains.
There are bunches of wildflowers growing right now, and Caroline picked a few from right around the cabin. We put them in a paper cup on the table for a decoration. Notice right behind her the still un-fixed dishwasher. I went back to the appliance repair place to get the hose that wasn't returned with the dishwasher, but of course they couldn't find that one, so they gave me a new one.....that was the wrong size. So the entire holiday weekend the dishes were done by hand. Oh yay.
There was some fishing that went on. This is Gwen sitting like a mermaid on the river rocks. "I wanna be where the people are....." You realize that I can never totally pull off one of these big family gatherings without forgetting something, right? This time, I forgot some trout we had in our freezer at home. It was supposed to be the main protein for one of our dinners.
Eric and my husband tried vainly to catch replacement fish, but they weren't having any of it.
Despite their incredibly valiant effort, they caught exactly.....zero.
Yeah, not enough for dinner, but fortunately I unearthed some salmon from the cabin fridge freezer and that worked.
In the afternoon my daughter-in-law, Elisa, had a patriotic shirt project for the kids. She found red, white and blue shirts at a "gently used" clothing store here in town, then each kiddo set about putting a flag on it.
They each used their hand print for the blue part.
Then painted stars and stripes on it. So cute. She even got enough shirts for the grandkids who couldn't attend and the kids pitched in and made some for their absent cousins.
Of course, it's not a holiday without the food. This wasn't the fish day. That happened another day during the weekend. I think I've mentioned before that there are certain things about the holiday meals that are set in stone.
I can safely say we had enough food.
Let's look, shall we? On the 4th, we always have ribs, and they are these particular ribs. Several of my boys have purchased grills and or pseudo-grills, aka smokers/Traegers--and I've expressed my feelings about those in the past. They've invested in rubs, sauces, and seasonings mostly designed to rip the top of your head off with the level of spicy heat. Their current favorite is called "8 Second Ride." I can only assume it got that name because it only takes 8 seconds before you're running for the nearest hose to put out the fire in your mouth. They've experimented repeatedly on racks of ribs and in all honesty, I was feeling a little intimidated about putting the same, old ribs out for holiday fare, but miraculously they managed to gag them down. There are also always these baked beans, and if one of the boys is coming from out of town, I will invariably be asked, "Are you making the beans?" The other sides fluctuate a little. This year there was a Caesar pasta salad, and some watermelon. I also found a new recipe for the drumsticks that was well received, and I'll share it soon. And probably the beans, too. Have I shared the beans? And maybe I should share the Rule of 13 story that goes with the beans. What do you think, Evan?
And we hand crank at the cabin. Even Emmett got in on the cranking.
From far away, Collin's family didn't brave the National Mall crush, but headed to an army base across the river and were adequately entertained.
And from not quite as far away, Isaac and Levi ready for the day as well. We missed them at the cabin, but Marc had to work. Adulting stinks sometimes.
