Emery Jade

We are so excited to welcome Emery Jade into the world!! She was born Sunday, July 29 at 10:12pm; 8 lbs, 2 oz, and 21 inches long. Congratulations to Michelle and Jonah! Joshua and I made a trip down to Visalia yesterday to meet her.

 Proud auntie.

And proud uncle.

 She is such a sweet little cutie!

After visiting Emery at the hospital, we met up with Mom and the kids and had lunch at my parents' house. We had a special treat of cookies with pink frosting to celebrate Emery's birth. We went swimming with the kids in the afternoon, then another brief visit with Emery, Michelle, and Jonah in the hospital before meeting up with the rest of the family at the Nickell's for dinner. It was a short trip, but great to spend time with the family celebrating, enjoying summer, eating good food, and, of course, welcoming our newest addition.

The Flume

The maintenance team has spent almost their whole summer working on putting the flume back in and they finally finished. During Crestview team time yesterday afternoon, we all got to try it out and had a great time.

Lavender

There are a number of large lavender plants blooming by the dining hall, so last night I picked a bunch.

 I hung some of the lavender up in our closet to dry for later.

And with the rest I made lavender syrup. It was super easy. I boiled one and a half cups of lavender flowers in three cups of water, then strained out the flowers, added sugar, and let it boil down for about twenty minutes. The recipe called for three cups of sugar, so it's really sweet and if I make it again I will probably cut down a bit on the sugar, but it's still really good.

We used some today to make lavender Earl Grey iced tea at lunch, yum.

July 22

Joshua and I hiked George's Falls this morning; our first hike of the summer.

Sunset in the Mountains

 When you have a view like this how can you resist taking pictures?

Day Trip

 Dave and Gayle came up to join us at camp yesterday because Dave is speaking for highschool camp this week. Gayle and I enjoyed a trip to Yosemite together today. Our first stop was Sentinel Dome. It's a relatively easy 1.1 mile hike to the top of the dome and once you are up there you have a 360 degree view of Yosemite. It's pretty amazing; I felt like we were cheating to get such a great view with so little effort.

Sentinel Dome. 

View of Half Dome and Nevada Fall from the top. 

We had a picnic lunch at the top of Sentinel Dome and enjoyed the view; we were also almost attacked by the squirrels. We had to keep coming close to kicking them to scare them away, they are way too used to people giving them food. Don't feed the squirrels!!

Next, we drove to Glacier Point and enjoyed more great views from there.

In this picture, you can see Half Dome with both Nevada Fall and Vernal Fall.

Of course, we had to get a picture with Half Dome in the background. And we managed to get both waterfalls too, without even trying! We enjoyed some ice cream bars, then headed back. We wanted to make sure we were back in time to have dinner with the men, especially because Joshua made pineapple chicken, yum!

Peach Honey

I used the skins I saved from canning peaches to make peach honey. First, I boiled the skins in water, then strained it through a coffee filter so I had peach juice. 

Then all I had to do was add some honey and sugar and let the mixture boil down until it started to thicken up. I poured it into jars and processed it like jam. 

Canning Peaches

I have been wanting to find peaches to can all summer; trying to think of a way to get a lot of good peaches for a reasonable price. Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that my very own parents-in-law have a peach tree that is loaded with peaches and they said we could pick some (thanks Dave and Gayle)!!! The next day I set to work canning them and had a grand time.

I started with the freshly picked peaches and gave them all a good washing.

Then it was time to peel them. I tried the method of blanching them in boiling water, then soaking them in cold water. I was skeptical that this would work for some reason, maybe it just seemed too easy, but it was worked great and was indeed easy. The only problems I had were with a few peaches that were either overripe and the skin disintegrated or underripe and it didn't come off. Otherwise, it worked like a charm.

Boiling the peaches for a minute.

Letting them cool in cold water. The instructions said to use ice water, but I didn't have ice so I used cold tap water and that worked just fine. 

And the skin peels off like magic! 

Next, I sliced the peaches and put them in a bowl with a little vinegar to keep them from getting brown. 

I ended up with a large bowl of sliced peaches and a small bowl of peach skins, which I'm saving for later. 

Then I made a simple syrup which was one part sugar to two parts water. 

I cooked the peaches in the syrup solutions for 5 minutes, packed them into jars, topped them off with the syrup, and processed the jars. 

I ended up with 8 1/2 pints, not quite as much as I was hoping for, but certainly a good amount. We tried the small jar today and they are tasty. This was my first time canning fruit and I had fun and I'm happy with the results. Also, just in case anyone was wondering, the pickles are good too.

Round Two

Max as a dwarf

 We had Lord of the Rings night for our second family camp last night; it was epic.

Alan as a ranger

Joshua and I as a ranger and an elf

Tim as an elf

Zed as Gollum

The family campers divided into three teams and each team had to find a ring of power, complete dwarf, elf, and ranger training, fight Shelob, and throw the ring into the volcano in Mordor.

After the kids used their ranger training to defeat Shelob, John was bitten while checking to see if she was dead and the campers had to use their elven herbal training to save him. Thankfully, that did the trick and they were able to continue their quest. All three teams cast their rings into the fire of Mount Doom and Middle Earth was safe once again.