Visiting Party for the Gibbons

We were excited to find out that the Gibbons family would be in town to visit around the Pioneer Day holiday. The headed out to Virginia last year for Shae to attend law school. It was sad to see them go and so we were excited to visit with them as they passed through town. When we invited them over it seemed natural to invite our neighbors, the Simmons, and our good friends, the Johnsons, at the same time to visit with the Gibbons as well.

Michelle jumps on the phone to see what schedules are like and if they could make it down. The Gibbons said they could come over on Wednesday or Thursday but we were going to be out of town on Thursday so we just told everyone that Wednesday was the day. Everyone could make it at some point so we called the Gibbons back to find out what time they would be in town. One thing lead to another and our little dinner or dessert get-together turned into a pot-luck dinner party!


Michelle loves parties so she called up a list of friends who also knew the Gibbons. We knew we couldn't get everyone but whatever we didn't get on the first go-around the Gibbons could visit individually later. As it turned out, we had a lot of people show up and it was a blast. Everyone seemed to know everyone and the kids just ran around the yard at mach 2.


We didn't have a lot of time to prepare for this party. We had gone hiking with some other family friends so we just cleaned up the yard (a little), made a salad and hamburger buns and patties and set up some chairs and tables. No one seemed to mind and everyone had seemed to have a good time. We are grateful that the Gibbons were back in town so we could have such a fun party. We want to wish the Gibbons the best of luck as they finish up their final year of law school.

Relief Society Bottling Party

One day, not so long ago, my dear wife was talking with Samantha Anderson. Now that isn't so shocking but on this particular day they happened upon an idea! This idea was to gather the fruit in the ward (that would normally just fall to the ground and be wasted) and bottle it and actually utilize it productively. This fruit could be gathered freely.

But this wasn't just about gathering the free fruit. This was an opportunity to teach those sister who were interested how to bottle that fruit so they could do it on their own the next time. And so the idea began to develop. Each person who heard the idea was inspired and excited to further the effort. Eventually Michelle, Samantha and Lydia (Taylor) began the organization of this bottling party. Word was put out to gather canning and bottling equipment, camp stoves, tables, bottles, lids, fruit, etc.

Every day this week something new has arrived, either fruit, bottles or other canning equipment. We were forced to (partially) clean out our garage to make room for everything. Then, the night before the canning party Michelle took me aside and gave me some very specific instructions about what I was supposed to be doing before, during and after this bottling party. As an afterthought she asked me if I'd be willing to help out!!!

Fortunately I was mostly in charge of the kids. I like that part. Especially when they decided that they wanted to play with each other. However, I was called upon frequently to move large boiling pots of water, steaming hot applesauce, etc. as needed.

The kids getting in some playtime...

It wasn't hard to find fruit testers...



And more playing...


The bottling party is just getting started. Note, only two stoves to begin with. We ended up with 10 burners going simultaneously!
The first step was taking care of the apples. At this point we had lots of big helpers.
The nectarines were started simultaneously as more sisters arrived.
Getting the bottles ready for fruit.

Then it was time for peaches.
Once the apples were ready it was time to squoosh them into applesauce.
Still more nectarines...
And apples...
There is an art to putting the fruit into the bottles to maximize the space.
More bottles to prep
But look at all that applesauce
Instructions and teaching moments were frequent


And here is the whole set-up. The canopy for preparing the fruit, the cooking on the patio (10 burners fired up and we could have used more!). The grass was the washing/cleaning area.
Making some jam

Finally processing for the finished fruit bottles And finally time to clean up

This was quite the process but it yielded some great results. These ladies bottled about 120 quarts of fruit...
Applesauce: 19 quarts and 18 pints
Pears: 22 quarts
Nectarines: 54 quarts and 2 pints
Peach jam: 17 pints and 16 half pints
Plum jam: 4 pints

We're lucky enough to be planning "round 2" in about 3 weeks. It was really quite the production but everyone seemed to have an enjoyable time, learned about bottling and came away with 120 quarts of free fruit! But the best part of the whole day was having 2 investigators come and participate in the bottling project! What a great introduction to the church and one of the ways the gospel blesses our lives.

Hot Dogs and Snickerdoodles

I received a phone call from Michelle while at work. "Do you have plans for tonight?" she innocently asks. Since my plans had been rescheduled I didn't have anything set, just some ideas in my head. "Well, I sort of made plans for us..." she continued. Quite frankly, I'm not sure I could reconstruct the events that lead to our evening with our friends but I'm certainly glad the forces of fate combined to create such serendipitous circumstances.

Unfortunately the plans were all to commence prior to my arrival at my own party! Michelle tried to assure me that it was okay. When I finally was able to make it home I found my boys trimming the hedges? You can see Donovan in action!

Michelle had started the fire all by herself and Kyle was splitting some wood to add to the fire. The Simmons came over as the fire was getting started. The Johnsons would show up shortly after that.

We didn't waste anytime getting the hot dogs roasted. Everyone was hungry and we couldn't come up with a good reason for waiting. I helped to roast the younger boys hot dogs but David and Donovan felt like they needed to roast their own hot dogs. They did just great, with a little coaching from the sidelines.

The irony of the eating situation was that the kids all needed to sit at the big (adult) table and the adults were forced to use the small (kids) table.


It was an enjoyable dinner with splendid company. But we couldn't wait until 8:00 pm to put the boys to bed. They still struggle with the concept of bed time before the sun goes down but we persist in trying to help them understand this concept. I'll be excited for daylight savings time when it will be dark at bedtime.

It took us nearly 45 minutes to get the boys in bed! Obviously they were having too much fun to stop for something as trivial as bedtime. But, in the end, they went to bed. The Johnsons put Zachary to bed in our room and we set up a monitor in the hallway to keep an ear on them while we went next door to the Simmons for some games.

The Simmons had a game called Imaginiff

That was quite an interesting game. You use all the players and random people (if you're playing with less than 8 players). Then each round you read a question about someone different and you get points based on the what the majority of the players feel is the best answer. It leads to some funny descriptions about the people playing because you are trying to guess what the other people are going to guess.

After that game we had to play a few rounds of "jungle" Uno. We had a little trouble trying to decide which "house rules" we were going to use. The biggest dispute was about the "match/play" rule. One version of "match" is that you simply get to play your card anytime you can exactly match the last played card and play picks up from you. The "match/play" rule says that you can go anytime you can play your card and exactly match the last card played and, if your quick enough, play any other playable card. Maybe we were just too tired to fully enjoy the "match/play" rule but we threw it out after one round.

Regardless of who could "match/play" or who drew the most cards we had fun time. Michelle had made some snickerdoodles for Elisa as a visiting teaching treat. I hope she actually got to eat one because the rest of us certainly did! Actually, Michelle felt bad that we had eaten all of Elisa's snickerdoodles and so she ran back to the house to grab some more to replace them. I have to say we are fortunate to have such wonderful friends. We went home around 11:00 pm and the kids were all sound asleep!

(When we woke up this morning the three oldest boys were being sooo quiet, playing the computer downstairs. So we didn't realize they were all awake and they let us sleep in!)

Michael's Birthday Party

This was Michael's 3 year old birthday party.  We had our good neighbors the Simmons and the Johnsons over to celebrate.  Also in attendance was Uncle Kyle, Grandma Jones, and Aunts Trista & Larisa.

Michael ask for a special birthday cake and wanted Lady Bugs!  So Michelle created the Lady Bug cake.  It turned out very well.

He was very pleased with his cake and was excited for all of the attention. (This is still one of Michelle's favorite birthday cake creations.)

Michael got some fun presents and little help from his brothers to open them.

(finally posted 8/3/14)