A Blueberry Pickin' Mornin'

Tuesday morning we were up bright and eairly to go blueberry picking with two other families. It was something that I had never done before, but it was quite fun.

I don't care for the taste of blueberries myself, but I had a wonderful time picking them. The bushes are fairly tall, making them easy to pick off. 

It wasn't long before we reached our goals. My family ended up with just over 8lbs of berries.

Adventures in Oregon {2012 Edition}

For those who have followed my blog the last couple years, you know that my family usually visits family in Oregon about once a year. Since I've grown up going to visit Aunt Carol and Uncle Terry, they're house is like a second home to me and my family. I've shared some pictures from our trips in 2010 and 2011, which you can check out if your interested.

This year, we decided to go on the 4th of July. We left bright and earily on the 4th, around 5:30AM to be exact, so we had a lot of the day to relax. Most of us were tired by the time it got dark, partiularly myself, so we didn't say up to watch the fireworks. However, as the sun was setting, we had some fun with sparklers and some smoke bombs.



One of Daniel's favorite things to do while we're at Aunt Carol's is to catch lizards.



Recently Tiana and Alina made their own bows and arrows out of PVC pipe and brought them with us, since there's no shortage of space at Aunt Carol's.



Uncle Terry.





The weather was warm when we got there and just kept getting hotter by the day. On our last day there, it reached 90°F and I was melting! I don't do to well in the heat, so I was happy when after walking around town all afternoon, we found a water fountain at the shopping center that Tiana, Daniel, and I got wet it. It didn't take long before I was soaked, head to toe!





Cactus look pretty cool.





Some bright green grass under the shade of a giant tree on that 90°F day.



After grabbing some frappuccinos in Starbucks in town, we went to this really neat candy shop that we had never been to before. They had the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory playing in the back and had lots of fun and unique items and candies.




Tiana bought this Star Wars: Episode IV tin poster at the candy shop. She's a huge Star Wars fanatic.

First Time Canning: Strawberry Honey Jam

Sunday we arrived home from a trip to Oregon, which I shall be posting about sometime soon. We drove down of the fourth and spend several days there afterwards. I've also been busy doing different things for my homeschool graduation at the end of the month, which is going to be a big Contra Dance with lots friends. I'm super, duper excited for that, cause dancing is one of my most very favorite things to do! But right now I'm here to share some yummy strawberry jam I made.

---

At the end of June, we went strawberry picking for the first time in quite a few years. Even though it was cloudy, it was fairly warm out and soon we were ready to leave, after we had picked 35lbs of berries!

Jam had been something that I thought would be neat to make, but always seemed a bit intimidating, because of all the boiling of the cans and lids, keeping them sterile, etc.. Another thing I didn't like was all the sugar that was used in the recipes. I always try to make my food low to no sugar or use something like honey or maple syrup instead. So after finding a recipe online with just four ingredients, plus it used honey instead of sugar, I decided to can some jam for the first time.

The recipe was quite simple and preparing all the jars wasn't that bad. Since I didn't have a canning rack (or whatever they call it) for in the bottom of the pot, I used a few old towels so the jars didn't touch the ground or rattle against each other. I also just used regular tongs since that was what I had. The only thing I would want next time is a canning funnel, cause that would make getting the jam into the jars way easier.

And how does it taste? It's delicious. Everyone likes it and Daniel, who uses jam pretty much daily, has only been using this stuff every day instead of the store bought jelly from Trader Joe's. Now I call that a success!