WALKING, TALKING AND CANNING

It seems to me that our last few weeks have been scheduled around my canning. Last Thursday and Friday I went over to Brian's sister Amy's house down in Spanish Fork, to help her to bottle up some grape juice. She had TONS of grapes! She and her family picked boxes and boxes of them from her husband's parents' house. I've never seen so many Concord grapes in my life! It was quite the experience getting them juiced. Amy and I set up our juicers on her stove and we just went in shifts until we got everything done. All in all we bottled 83 quarts of pure grape juice!!!! It smelled wonderful, and the juice tasted divine! I am hopefully going to be able to pick some grapes from a neighbor's house down the road, and then Amy will help me put those up. Then at the end of the bottling season, we will divide all of the spoils between our two families. I don't have any pictures unfortunately of our escapade, but it was quite a sight!!!

Vaughn has been very busy this week! He made two important leaps! First, we are pretty sure he said his first word! And second, he took his first step!!! Last Saturday the 23rd, I had just finished feeding him his breakfast. He had eaten a huge bowl of oatmeal-apple-mush, so Brian and I congratulated him by saying, "Yeah Vaughn! Good job! Yeah!" Vaughn got a huge smile on his face and said clear as bell, "Yeah!" Brian and I looked at each other and then said again, "Yeah!" Vaughn repeated it right back. Just to make sure, we tried it again, and again, Vaughn said, "Yeah!" We were sure surprised! Vaughn has said, "Ma Ma" and "Da Da," but it never sounded quite like what he said on Saturday. I would still like to think that "Ma Ma" was his first word. But we'll take what we can get!

Then on Sunday, yesterday, Brian was in the kitchen cooking himself some breakfast, and I was in the living room helping Vaughn to stand up. I let go of his arms and he stood there, no wiggling, for about 8 seconds. And then to my surprise, he took a step by himself!!! I yelled, "Brian! Vaughn just took his first step!" Brian of course nearly had a heart-attack on the spot. I had scared him when I yelled. But then he was really excited. Later on that day we tried to get some pictures of Vaughn standing by himself. He gets really excited when he can stand on his own.

Saturday evening was Women's Conference. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is a world-wide conference that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (The Mormon Church) holds for women. The meeting is held in Salt Lake, and simultaneously broadcast throughout the world. I met Laura (my sister) and her friend Tessa at their apartment, and then we went to the church across the street to listen to and watch the broadcast. It was uplifting and thought-provoking. Also, it was fun to be around Laura for the evening. I don't get to see her that much, but when I do I really have a lot of fun. Laura has a way of always making me laugh.

I'll try to get some more pictures for next week's entry!
Love, Lisa

WHAT A WEEK THIS WAS!

Last Monday, September the 11th, Vaughn and I dropped by Melvin Kuhni's place to wish him a Happy Birthday. For those of you who don't know, I used to work for Melvin, helping him to take care of his wife Barbara. Barbara was bitten almost five years ago by a mosquito carrying Viral Encephalitis. Within three days of being bitten, Barbara was in a coma. Since then, 90% of her brain has been eaten away. She is unable to communicate or understand anything really. Melvin has been at her side day and night for the last five years taking care of her. He is truly an exceptional man.
Melvin isn't really smiling in this picture for some reason. Usually he has a huge smile on his face. I think it's because he was caught off-guard. Melvin is one of the most upbeat people I've ever met. It's just too bad he's not smiling. When he is smiling, he's got a devious look in his eyes. He is full of mischief. He tells me since he can't leave the house really, he's got to have his fun there. One time while I was at work, I was coming out of the bathroom, and all of a sudden I see this thing crawling towards me. It looked like an animal so I screamed. It turned out to be Melvin. He was wearing a hat-and-mask combination of a raccoon. He is a nut! He laughed so hard I thought he was going to have to use the bathroom.

As we were leaving Melvin's house, he gave me two big boxes of freshly-picked peaches. He had mentioned he had some for me, but I didn't think it would be that many! So I took them home and began bottling! Over a period of four days I bottled up 28 quarts of peaches, and 24 quarts of tomatoes. My next-door neighbor had let me pick tomatoes from her garden, and I picked around 45 pounds! So the last week has been pretty hectic, needless to say. By the way, if you count, not all the jars are there. That's because two of them didn't seal properly! I've got to say that there is nothing quite like seeing the fruits, and might I add vegetables, of your labors!

And speaking of vegetables, this is what I picked from the garden today after church. Pictured here are acorn squash, a crookneck squash, zucchini, spaghetti squash, jalapeno peppers, a tomato, Anaheim peppers, and bell peppers. To give you an idea of how big those spaghetti squash are, they are about three-fourths the length of my arm. Brian's mother keeps her squash in the fridge and cuts off pieces throughout the winter. I think we'll have to try that approach too. Too bad we don't have a second fridge! That would come in handy right about now!

This "little" guy is quite a funny story. It was late at night, and I was finishing getting ready for bed. I went in to use the bathroom, and (sorry to gross you out), but I was sitting on the toilet, and I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I thought to myself, "There's no way that could be a spider. I know it's not a spider." Then I looked and of course, it was a HUGE SPIDER!!!!! This sucker was at least the size of a 50 cent piece. IT WAS HUGE!!!! And it was less than three inches from my face. I thought for sure I would have screamed, but I didn't. I think I went into shock. Everything went into slow motion. I somehow managed to keep my composure while I finished up and stood up. I knew at any second that beastly thing was going to jump on me and suck out all the blood in my body. I felt like I was in a scene from Arachnophobia. YUCK!!!! I have found at least three of these mammoth creatures in my home over the last few weeks, because the weather is starting to turn cold. I HATE SPIDERS!!!!!

If that story is scary, just listen to this one. As I was finishing bottling up the peaches the other day, I felt something tell me to check on Vaughn. I realized I hadn't heard him in a minute or so. So I went to look and I found him in our living room behind the couch. His hands and face were covered in something black. Then I realized something smelled funny. I saw our Kerosene camping lamp on the floor next to him. He had dumped all the Kerosene out of the lamp and played in it. I took him into the bathroom and washed him off completely. I could still smell the Kerosene, and then I realized the smell was coming from his mouth! I looked inside and he had black all over his tongue. At this point I freaked out and immediately called poison control. I couldn't get through so I called 911. I told the lady not to send out anybody until I had talked to poison control. Then if I needed help I would call back. But they came anyway. Within one minute or so of hanging up, the fire-fighters and paramedics were knocking at the door. They came in and checked Vaughn over. They said he didn't look like a kid who had swallowed Kerosene. He was acting just fine. They took his vitals and he was completely normal. They did recommend that I take him down to the hospital to get him checked over and get an x-ray of his lungs just in case. But I felt things would be fine. The Poison Control guy told me that I would know within one hour if Vaughn had swallowed enough to cause damage, because Vaughn would develop a very bad cough and start acting really funny. The paramedics and I determined he had probably just licked his fingers and gotten it in his mouth that way. Vaughn turned out to be completely fine, but he did give me the scare of my life. I don't even know how he got to that lamp!!! I had put it up on a shelf that was way too high for him to reach. We think he may have climbed up on the couch to get to it. Don't ask me how he did that either!
I think I've had enough scares for the week!
(The above pictures are of first, Vaughn after his bath and second, me and Vaughn at the wedding of a good friend of ours.)

Love, Lisa

September 6, 2006


HOW WE SPENT OUR SUMMER

We are going to try to play a little bit of catch up with this entry. We have several photos to post, which are from around April of this year until now.

In April, we decided to go up to Grandma Oviatt's house to visit. We anticipated that this would be our last time there, so we decided to make a day of it. We took the video camera and taped all the property. We visited with family, played baseball in the back yard, relaxed and just had fun. Vaughn was about 8 months old at the time. He really enjoyed playing with Grandma.

Then at the end of May, I took Vaughn out to Iowa to see Lindsey graduate from high school. It was a great time with family. We were so proud of Lindsey!!!! Poopa took Vaughn several times while I rested or relaxed with Lindsey, Laura and Mom. One of the things Poopa would do is give Vaughn baths. He would take a bottle of bubbles and blow the bubbles into the bath
water. Vaughn was absolutely mesmerized!
I hadn't given Vaughn baths in a big tub before, I had only used our kitchen sink. So this was a great new experience for him. And since then, he has had his baths in the big boy tub!

Then came the fourth of July celebration. We went to downtown Provo to watch the parade come through. It was very hot! But Vaughn still really enjoyed himself. We dressed him up in a little sailor uniform, and he was the cutest! We held him up when the officers would walk by so that he could wave to them.
After the parade we went to Brian's sister Amy's house for games and food. Vaughn proceeded to ride his first "motorcycle" there. We think his hair was totally appropriate for the occasion.


CAN ANYONE SAY
HARLEY?!?!
By the way, we would like to point out that
most bikers don't choose to wear Winnie-the-Pooh jumpsuits. But who cares, right?






In July we headed down to California with Brian's family for a family reunion/vacation. We went all over the place! We spent a day at Newport Beach, which Vaughn absolutely loved. It was his first time at the ocean, and he had a blast. We only got still shots of our trip down to Mexcio though. It's funny, but neither Brian nor I had set foot outside of the United States, and Vaughn beat both of us to it! We were pushing him in the stroller as we crossed the border, so he was officially first in our family to leave the country.

I don't remember ever being so hot. It was steamy down there! We spent the day walking around Tiajuana, trying to dodge the kids that would swarm us to buy things from them. It was heartwrenching see those children forced to sell things to raise money for their families. Many times we would see a mother sitting under a tree watching her kids selling their wares to tourists. They would be there for hours. And many times the mother would have a very young baby in her arms. It really opened our eyes to how lucky we are.

We did finally find some souvenirs that we
thought we would enjoy. I bought a sombrero, which oddly enough fit Vaughn too! That kid has a huge noggin! We also found a cute poncho, Vaughn size of course. Vaughn loves wearing the sombrero now. If he sees it up in our closet he gets really excited and points at it and says "Uh Uh." If I don't get it and put it on his head right away he gets very upset and cries. Once he has the sombrero on, he'll just sit there smiling and waiting for me to lavish complements on him about how handsome he is. Once that conversation ends, he is his normal self again and goes off to play. We sure know who's boss!

On the way back from Tiajuana we stopped off to see the SanDiego Temple. WHAT A SIGHT!!! We were there at the perfect time of day. The sun was getting lower on the horizon, and the lighting was spectacular. This is absolutely my favorite temple. If I had known it existed when I got married, I would have gotten married there. Oh well. Besides, Manti is exotic, right?





I was very glad to be home after our California vacation. Vaughn
didn't feel very well in the heat, and wouldn't really eat very well. He lost a few pounds while we were there. But in few weeks after we got back before his birthday he gained it right back. Vaughn celebrated his first birthday on August 12th. We were so happy for him! We made him a Winnie-the-Pooh birthday cake. Brian drew the face on a clear piece of wax paper, and then I transferred it as best as I could to the top of the cake. Then I redrew it as best as I could and filled the face in with yellow frosting. IT WAS SO HARD!!! But it was worth it too. The stupid thing is I forgot to take a picture of Vaughn with it! We only have video of him.

For his birthday Vaughn got a card from Poopa and Momma Isis with Nemo balloons. He also got a swimming outfit from Amy and Brenden and kids.

Now to tell you about something that has been going on all summer. I planted a garden about the very end of May it seems this year. I replanted most of the plants about four or five times becuase we had a really bad case of bugs. There were tons of them, and lots of different kinds. I tried lots of different things to try to kill them, but nothing would work. Finally I listened to Poopa and called IFA, and they recommended a brand of something that knocked 'em dead! Our tomato plants, on the far right in this picture, never really got away from the cut worm in them. They eventually were able to grow, but they aren't really producing any tomatoes this year. We may get some towards the very end of fall, but I'm still not sure about that. But the plants that have done very well are all squash! Imagine that! Poopa keeps sending his condolences.

We have had tons of anaheim peppers, and various colors of green peppers. We have had a truck load of zucchini. I canned over 20 pints of zucchini relish, and then made about 10 loaves of zucchini bread. I have also picked 2 cantaloupe from the garden, although they weren't very big. We also have acorn squash, spaghetti squash, jalapeno peppers and watermelon.
Here is a picture of our smaller watermelon.

I already have made plans for next year's garden. We are going to expand the garden. We are also not going to plant ANY squash or zucchini! Well, we might plant one of each. It is just so amazing to watch a garden grow! I still can't believe that from just one little seed you can get so much produce! As Vaughn gets older it will be fun to have him join in the fun.

Well, it looks like this blog thing is going to be a success! We hope you all enjoy it!

OKAY! This is about the tenth time I have tried to set up a blogspot for our family. I am going crazy! I hope this works. If this works, it will be our first official blog, and I will be elated! Here goes nothing!