Canning and Camping and Crazy Fun

Dear Life,

I am eternally behind in the blog-o-sphere. I'll be honest, I just can't find the motivation to sit down and type after E goes to bed. And if you've ever spent time with a just-turned-one-year-old, you know that sitting down to type is most definitely not an option while she's awake. So here I am, at nap time, typing away as fast as I can before E decides nap time is over. She fell asleep about 3 minutes ago (after blabbing for close to an HOUR)... so I figure I have a good twenty minutes or so. (I wish I was kidding.) But the good news is... that at least I had the last hour to accomplish things! And accoplish things (plural) I did not. But I did accomplish ONE thing, and that is making applesauce!

Thanks to a tip from some friends of ours, we found an old apple orchard that had been mostly ruined by the flood a few years ago. Many of the trees are still good though, so people can just pick to their heart's content. Love.Love.Love.

My sweet child loved this as well...

So I had all these delicious apples that needed to turn into applesauce and apple butter and apple pie filling and appley apple goodness...

So I bought this beauty.

Meet Victorio, the food strainer. She's magical. Seriously magical. You cut the apples in half (or quarters if they are really big) and throw them in a pot of water... boil them for 15 minutes or so until they're hot and squishy, and then pop them in this beauty, turn the little handle, and out comes applesauce out of one end, and all the skins, seeds, leaves, and what-have-you out the other end!

Sure wish I would have found Victorio before I made 64 cups of tomato sauce in the blender last week...

Anywho! Live and learn I guess. There is always next year. :)

So anyway... none of those things were the point of this blog post. Serious A.D.D. Those kinder-kids are wearing off on me. (Speaking of ADD... every time one of my kinders wrote the letter "b" when I asked him to this morning he exclaimed, "nailed it!" in a "I'm 5 going on 17" voice. Where do they hear these things anyway?? Either way... kinda made my day.)

Ok back to the point. Jordan and Emberly and I went CAMPING this weekend. If you know me at.all. you know that I am not a tent camping kind of a person. Like... not even a little. So add in the fact that it was the first weekend of Fall, temps reached 34 degrees at night, and I'm a pansy... and you have a recipe for disaster. Except (I can't believe I am even saying this) we had SO.MUCH.FUN.

We woke up Saturday morning and packed up all of our gear. We drove the *cough cough* hunting suburban (that I swore I'd never ever step foot in) and drove to Maplewood State Park. This was year 5 for Jordan and I... year 2 for Emberly. It is one of my all-time favorite annual traditions. The colors were beautiful and we had a picnic, hiked some trails, and just enjoyed God's beautiful creation.

Then... we drove to the lake where Jordan had found this little camping area while four-wheeling, with a fire pit by a secret little lake. It was windy and COLD. But... E didn't seem to mind. She had fun "helping" daddy set up the tent and playing with sticks and dirt and leaves and all kinds of goodies that her over-protective, germ-hating, mother doesn't let her do at home. It was one-year-old exploring heaven.

About 7:00 we drove E back to my parent's cabin where she was intending to spend the night. Too cold for babies to sleep in the tent! So we piled back into the red-neck suburban... (Did I say red-neck?? I meant it.) and took E to grandma Go-Go and grandpa Juice's. I tucked her into bed and we headed back into the freezing cold camping land.

We had the most glorious campfire, made hot ham and cheese "tonka-pies" over the fire, mused at the beautifully clear sky filled with stars, and crawled under our 12 (not exaggerating) blankets to sleep. And believe it or not... we actually slept. Until 8:45 the next morning. Glorious.

We woke up the next day, made some hot chocolate, pancakes, and eggs on our camping stove, packed up our things, and went to get E. All around fun experience. (Jordan, are you reading this?? I'm even admitting it out-loud to the world!)

Sincerely Yours,

Molly