Color on the Creek

We spent a couple of hours today at  Color on the Creek in Frederick, Maryland.  As their website says, "Color on the Creek is a project to enhance the water quality and aesthetics of the Carroll Creek Linear Park...This effort focuses on the use of lilies, lotuses, and other water plants to limit the growth of algae, currently a challenging problem within the creek."  It is remarkable..A friend had told us the other day how much she enjoyed the lilies...we did too, and the boys LOVED the huge fish.  Xander preferred the ducks!

Happy National Dog Day!

Xander is enjoying National Dog Day with a Puppie Pop from the Dairy Godmother... 
http://www.thedairygodmother.com/

Our Summer Wish List

We are a family that writes things down...yearly goals, weekend goals (if we aren't demo'ing), and summer goals.  This summer, we wrote out our wishes on a white board and placed it in the living room.  Walking by your goals every day does encourage progress! Some goals are more fun than others, like various trips we wanted to take...and others are more mundane, like sorting through closets.  Some are huge, like rebuilding Jeff's forge area....  and some aren't going to get done this summer, but many have been accomplished!  It's a bit silly, but effective!

Family Reading Challenge Recap

Our Family Reading Challenge was a success!  As you might recall, I decided that it wasn't really fair for the kids to be asked to read all summer long, while Jeff and I didn't really read at all, besides the newspapers (and Diana Gabaldon books, in my case...).  So, Jeff and I committed to reading (or re-reading) some classics, while the kids worked through their reading program  at the library.  These photos show some of the books we read, although many were library books and have been returned.

Primitive Fire Making While On Vacation

You can tell we are historical interpreters...even on vacation!  We couldn't resist a 2 1/2 hour workshop on how to make a friction fire using a bow drill.  It involved a lot of trial and error, which actually taught us a lot about the process.  The workshop wasn't necessarily supposed to last that long, but we were determined!  And, we finally managed to get an ember started before we called it a day:

International Can It Forward Day

Today, August 1st, is the Ball International Can It Forward Day to showcase the simplicity of home canning.  Now, this is something I can speak to, as I regularly can our fruits and vegetables.  My sister, Morgan, got me the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving a couple of years ago, and we use it regularly.  It updated the much smaller Ball cookbook that I grew up with.  One of the recipes we enjoy from the book is their Pizza Sauce, since we make A LOT of pizza throughout the year.  This is a batch I made this past week, and I have some tomatoes on the counter waiting for the same treatment.