Homemade

Before I make it a whole year without writing, let's jump in at random and I'll tell you what we're up to.

Making things, that's what we're doing. We made our own corn tacos this week. Our family has gone through a big dietary change, as the girls and I have had to stop eating gluten and dairy. Thankfully we all LOVE mexican food Hernande'z style (a great local eatery) and they sell masa corn flour for us to try our hand at homemade tortillas. The results?

Yummy!


This summer I have had a lot of yearnings for rural farm property, for growing some of our food and keeping some animals. Don't worry, we still live in the city, and are constantly debating the pros and cons of both locations and lifestyles. In the meantime Kit started a bunch of roma tomato seeds in June, and I planted them all in July, too close together, without much knowledge of what they needed. This fall I ended up with this:

I actually harvested twice as much, those pics are of the green ones that have yet to ripen. I had to pick all of them green, then lay them out in the windows to ripen in the sun. I didn't think they would,  was googling green ketchup recipes, not sure how I'd use 50 pounds of green romas. But half of them ripened, and the other half are well on their way. So I checked my fave food blogs and found a simple ketchup recipe. I don't feel ready to make pasta sauce or salsa, because we all like different flavours for each, and I don't need jars of food I have to force on my family. Ketchup felt easy, we can always eat more oven fries right? I have zero canning experience, but I have experienced friends, so I jumped in.

Trying to fit the canning process around my busy schedule was a challenge, and I ended up starting the final stage last night after 9pm, and stayed up into the wee hours. But oh was it worth it!

I can't wait for lunchtime today when we WILL be having oven fries with this tasty ketchup. I feel so amazed and proud, having succeeded at canning anything, and also having canned something I grew on our tiny city property. Woohoo!

This week we met with our weekly group and learned to light fires. We went to a beach in the rural part of town (there's that longing again) and we talked about the various ways you can build a fire, what fires need and fire safety in the outdoors. Then we let them loose with all the supplies they'd need, to see if they could get a fire going.

They built a bunch of different fires, trying their own ideas or trying some of the standard styles we had talked about. There was a lot to learn, and the day couldn't have been better, dry after a rainy night, windy and overcast, but not dark or dreary. Fires blew out, matches broke, paper burned up and blew away, the wood left untouched. After some time, success! And then more and more, their fires lit and burned away the cold air. Then they ran off to dam up a nearby creek that ran across the beach. A great fall day on the coast.

Hope you're enjoying the chill of fall.

kisses
C

Okay, are you ready . . .

. . for possibly the longest post ever? Well, c'mon, I've got like 3 months to cover here! First, many apologies for leaving you all in the dark for so many months. Things have been so busy here, and it's a pace that likely isn't going to change anytime soon. I'm working on adapting so I can cope with the flurry of constant activity that is the norm around here. But I digress.

Every summer we look forward to a trip up to the cabin in Qualicum Beach. This year was no different. Mom and Al are busy building their dream home (though actually building it can at times be quite a nightmare!) and while they worked on that, we did what we always do at the cabin. Eat fudgesicles and slide around on the grass!











Hannah worked on her artistic style with a few portraits of her stuffed buddies.






Leif built a wooden tower (and then shot it down with his Lego cannon).



Ivy made a necklace for Grandma's birthday.



Hannah tried another money-making venture, opening her own Lego Exhibit in the livingroom.



We headed to Vancouver to celebrate Shona's Birthday at her Annual Birthday Extravaganza!! Each year guests must perform their gift for Shona, and this year our family blew the crowd away with our modern interpretive dance number.(Music is Pow Pow by LCD Soundsystem).

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A trip to Vancouver in the summer is not complete without a visit to Splashdown Water Park and The PNE. Man have prices gone up!!! At the PNE, kit said he and Leif wanted to try a ride called The Revelation. I honestly had to stand there and decide if I was okay with the two most important men in my life going on a ride that I feared could kill them. It was insane. I stood below and watched them and felt sick to my stomach each time they went by. Here's a clip of what the ride is like. Ugh.

We also rode the Wooden Coaster. Well, actually, Shona rode it in my place. It is so weird to me that I rode all these rides with pleasure in my teens and 20's, and now I'm too afraid of heights to handle it. But we make a good team, our family. Kit hates spinning but not height, I hate heights but not spinning, so between the two of us we meet all the kids' needs. Here's a great clip of the World's Biggest Wooden Roller Coaster, and the screams of the guy riding it. Love it.

Back home, blackberry season was upon us, and that means it's time to make blackberry tarts. Yum!!



For reasons I don't recall, Ivy dressed up as a devil one day (note her fab John Deer pants, made by moi).

The kids 'dug' for fossils with this T-Rex kit.

the finished model. He now sits on the shelf above our stove, my own Kitchen God if you will.

And then, oh my god, it happened. Hannah turned SEVEN!

She made turkeyballs for her birthday dinner (spaghetti and meatballs and corn on the cob).



And her chosen dessert was the usual, Strawberry Shortcake.

When we asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she said a suit, tie and top hat. Okey-dokey my love.



We gathered her buddies at the beach for a party. (She's the only summer birthday in the family, so we get as much summer in as possible!). The Dads got into the bay and helped them build a raft.



Then they set sail!



And she got her coveted Playmobil Ghost Pirates set, plus some vintage Star Wars figures, so all was well in her world.

We played some Qwirkle, a fun new game I am totally into. It makes my brain work hard and that's a good thing.




As fall approached the kids decided their stuffies needed pants. All of them.



Then in September soccer began once again. Leif plays on a new team this year, with a great coach.



Hannah has a great team this year, and is learning the point of holding her position. Go Hannah go!



This month we discovered the skate park across the bridge, and the kids are HOOKED!







I got in some knitting, this time working on a very delicate scarf for Susan's birthday. I love the vibrant colour.




The kids helped me with a dietary cleanse I did for a month. I'm sad to say veggie juice just makes me feel sick. But now I'm off sugar and gluten, and life is good!



And then we got ready to welcome a new fellow to the family.




We are so happy to introduce Bruce the cat. His name came from his foster home, and it suits him well in such a weird way.



He is a gorgeous black cat, very tall and lean.



To illustrate how big he is, here he is curled up asleep with Kit. Whoa!



Now that we are firmly IN fall, we look forward to our usual activities. We took a mushroom walk last week, with ID books and magnifying glasses.









We got out our Hallowe'en decorations. This year we made shriveled heads with peeled apples. They turned out SO cool!



And then last night much trick-or-treating was had. The Werewolf, Skeleton and Scooby-Doo had a great time, and after much candy gorging, woke up with colds. Yay.



We decided next year I'll trade them Lego for candy. Let's hope they still like that idea in 12 months.

Onward to November!

C