Monday Afternoon Surprise

While visiting with my friend Donna who had stopped in quick, I received a call from friend Nicole. She was in town for a week and called to stop by. What a great surprise! We used to go clubbin', country clubbing that is! Nicole and I worked at the Chambersburg Country Club along with her twin sister, and her older brother and sister as well! I have known her since she was in high school, then college, was at her wedding, now she is living in Florida and she and her husband just had beautiful Alexis in March! It was great to catch up and meet her cutie pie, even if it was just for an hour. :( The boys loved seeing a baby girl in the house and Mason kept saying, "Bye baby girls" for awhile after they left. Thanks for squeezing us in on your quick trip to PA!

It was a "grape" day!

Today was officially grape day at our house. My friend Annette Smith and I decided to make grape jelly and grape juice to enjoy all winter long. Above is the big canning pot, it holds about 7 quart jars to boil away and seal the lids on for long preservation.
Here is a picture of some of the 50 jars of jelly we made. From what we tasted, we can hardly wait to spread it on some hot whole wheat toast! Or as Brandon and Andrew like to do, eat it right from the jar with spoons!

Adin, Annette's oldest son, washed all of these jars and lined them up for us on the island. As you can see Thinh in the background, he helped by staying out of the way on the computer!
Oh wait, I forgot, he and Andrew helped to de-stem all 51 pounds of New York Concord Grapes.
After de-stemming and washing the grapes, we boiled them until nice and mushy.
Next, we put them through this food strainer to get all the pulp and juice in one bowl and the seeds into another bowl. It worked pretty good. The next step is to add the sugar, lots!, and boil again for a few minutes, then ladle into the jars and seal.
We worked on the juice after the jelly was all jarred up. We canned 37 quarts of grape juice with the whole grape inside with some sugar. The hardest part of this process is waiting for the canning pot to boil and then boil for 20 minutes, 7 at a time. These jars have to sit for about 6 weeks so insure best flavor. Thanks to Annette's mom, Marlene, for stopping in to give us some pointers and bring us more jars and sugar! We are excited to give the juice a try. What a fun day!

Where's Mason now?

Mason thinks he is a big boy now and does not needs naps anymore or even go to bed at a decent time! Tonight at bedtime was no different, I rounded the corner to go upstairs to check on him to make sure he was asleep and found him out on the steps drooling away! How can I get mad at him???

My little pumpkins

Our friends, BG and Donna, saw these enormous hay bales in the field behind their house and invited us over for a few pics on top of them. We ran over after church on Sunday and snapped a few memories. I love fall...and my guys too!

Applesauce and cake

Saturday, my parents came down for the day to show us how to make applesauce, all 3 bushels full. Brandon and Andrew were very into it. The loved to take turns turning the food mill and scraping out the apple guts! Very fun day!
Then, after all of our hard work, we grilled and celebrated Dad's 62nd birthday. His actual birthday is on September 29th. We are headed up to Ephrata this Saturday to get together again to celebrate again at the oldest street fair in America! The boys can hardly wait to see mimi and papa and go to the fair to win some more goldfish!

This is a pump track...

Have you ever heard of a pump track? Me neither, until our neighbor, Larry, told us about them. It is a dirt track made up of hills and turns and the idea is to ride around on it with pedaling as little as possible. Larry has been the master mind behind building one here in Chambersburg. It is off of West King Street along the rails to trails bike path. He and a crew of volunteers and the pump track builder guy, have been working on it this week and tonight, the guys got an inagaural ride on it. It is stirring up quite a buzz in the neighborhood over there. Check it out sometime! Brandon, Andrew, Mason and Oliver couldn't get enough of it! Great job and thanks for all of your hard work in keeping our boys fit Larry and the gang!!!

Bowl and Roll night

Saturday night we had Aaron, Annette, Adin and Tobias over for some egg rollling and wii bowling! Aaron and Annette share our love of Asian food, so we taught them how to roll up some Vietnamese spring rolls. I must say, they may be part Asian themselves, they did a beautiful job, such naturals at it really. Afterwards, it was the typical competition between Annette and Thinh bowling. Aaron and I play too, but much quieter. I do believe, if memory serves me correctly, Annette won and Thinh placed, uhum, last??? And, I must mention, Aaron always likes to go visit the man garage and wish upon a motorcycle. Poor Aaron! Anyway, good food, great company, awesome memories!

Raisin' dough ride

This morning we woke up nice and early for a bike ride at Norlo Park to raise money for the Coyle Free (Chambersburg) Library. Mason chose his scooter to take along, the big boys packed their bikes and helmets and off we went. First a pit stop at Dunkin' Donuts, then to the park. We met Oliver, Kim and Larry (the next door neighbors) and Oliver's classmate Brandon and his mom Leanne also. The boys had fun riding and playing on the train. Mason loved making sand angels in the sand box and then splashing in the puddles from all of Friday's rain. Needless to say, he was stripped down before he entered the car. It was a fun, fight-free morning until Brandon ate the last munchkin on the way home and he was supposed to give Andrew half, so there went the peaceful moment!

Rainy day fun!

Well, Friday it rained, rained and rained. So, Andrew and I hit BB's, the bent and dent, and came home with lots of good stuff! Andrew and Brandon were trying out their "new teeth" and Mason and Andrew devoured a mango in no time, both BB finds. We also made caramel apples for an after school snack. Note to other parents, easy to make, hard to clean up messy kids afterwards.

I stand corrected!

Okay, I goofed. Thinh and Brandon read the blog and informed that Andrew actually scored 3 goals and Brandon also scored 4 goals with one going way up high over the kids heads and into the goal! Exciting...

Thursday night is ...Soccer night!

Tonight was the first time Andrew has ever played soccer! He loved it and even scored a goal! He played against his good friend, Adin Smith, and as you can see, even remained good friends afterwards as well. Thanks for taking this photo Annette!

A bigger challenge for us is having Brandon and Andrew playing their games at the same time! We stood in between their fields and cheered back and forth. I can't wait until we have 3 games at the same time!!!

First day for Preschoolers - YAHOO!

Well, another year has begun for Mom's Day Out and Preschool! Andrew could hardly wait and Mason, well, he was in no hurry to go. Andrew helped pack his lunch and Mason pitched a fit about which shoes he was going to wear! Andrew was excited about some new rescue hero toys in his room and his two new friends, he forgets their names though. Mason cried when I dropped him off. His teachers told me he was wimpering a little bit and they tried to distract him with different toys, but he would always respond with a "no thank you"! All in all, they both had a fun day.

Back to Monday

After yet another busy weekend, there was and still is, lots to be done. So, Thinh took Andrew to do some errands, and I took Mason. As you can see, Thinh and I have very different modes of transporting our boys for errands. Notice Mason does not seem quite as excited to go with mommy as Andrew is to go with daddy.

Mom's Birthday Bash

Today we celebrated my mom's 60th birthday at my Aunt Barbie and Uncle Tim's home back in the woods. It was a gorgeous day. We saw deer in their yard, a praying mantis, and the boys loved chasing the cats around.

We had lots of yummy food and good times. I even had the guests play a few games, like the infamous candy guess game, Oma won, and two trivia games about 1948. Those games were won by Uncle Skip, Grandma Grandma and Aunt Barb.

After games, we sang Happy Birthday to mom. This is actually a cake made from flowers. We ate ice cream cake instead! And, we toasted to her fond birthday wishes and goodbye to a rough year!

September is month full of birthdays on my mom's side. 8 out of 20 people celebrate their special day in September! We then sang to my Aunt Deb and my Uncle Tim. Their birthdays are this week as well.


Mom said it was her best birthday ever!

R.I.P. Sharkbait

Andrew loves fish! We usually have a few bowls around the house with a fish or two at any given time. His newest fish, Sharkbait, came to us by way of PetSmart, not quite two weeks ago. We paid a whopping .13 for him. Andrew really wanted a red bellied frog, but I talked him into this fish. Well, today, Sharkbait went up to Jesus. I broke the news to Andrew who at first gasped, then said, "Wow, that was quick!". Then, the usual protocol is Andrew walking the bowl with the floater in it to the toilet, he prays and happily dumps the fish in the toilet flushes it and says, "I already miss him". Within a few moments, he starts begging for his next fish...the cycle continues!

It's a good thing to share...

Mason was enjoying a rocket pop last evening after soccer practice. As usual, Tazzy was keeping a close eye nearby, as to what Mason was eating. So, Mason thought he would be a nice guy and share his popsicle with Tazzy. Of course it ended up being one lick for Mason, a few licks for Tazzy, one for Mason, a few more for Tazzy...

Happy 60th Birthday Mom!

Today is my mom's 60th birthday! We have all sorts of fun stuff planned for her.

My sister and her husband created this cool postcard and sent it out to 50 or so families to wish her a great day with a card shower.

Mom is a great and giving person and a very loving mimi (grandma, this is what my guys call her). She has also displayed this year what a strong lady she is as well. Tackling cancer head on, she just kept trucking along, taking one treatment and issue at a time. We are so proud of her!

We are looking forward to celebrating her big 6 0 this weekend!

I am what?!?

Yesterday afternoon we took the kids to our favorite Vietnamese restaurant for "Pho" or beef noodle soup. All three of the boys love this soup! They call it "daddy noodle soup". As we are sitting there slurping our soup down, Brandon heard the people next to us speaking what he called, "Chinese". Now he has heard Thinh speak Vietnamese plenty and Thinh's relatives were just here with us for a week in August and even Mason starting speaking it that week as well. So I am not sure why on this particular day he said, "Daddy are they speaking Chinese?" and Thinh says no they are speaking Vietnamese. Brandon was like, they are Vietnamese? Thinh and I answered him, Yes, and so are you. You are half American and half Vietnamese. Well, Brandon stood up out of his chair in amazement that he was actually of two nationalities and took his arm down the middle of his body as if he were cutting it half and asked which half was which!

Happy 13th Anniversary Thinhy!

Today, Thinh and I celebrate 13 years of marriage! We actually have been dating, engaged, married for a total of 18 1/2 years though. Thinh gave me a cute bouquet of garden cut flowers and wrote me an awesome poem, he is so great at it! Thanks for a fun weekend honey!

Our Brandon...a second grader!

Well, after some major first day jitters and a check over his classmates again, we convinced Brandon he was going to have fun on his first official day as a second grader. The whole family went to the bus stop and much to Brandon's delight, for the first time in 3 years, he has bus stop mates. A family with 4 boys moved in two blocks down and 2 of the boys are at the bus stop. Then we finally saw a smile! Brandon is just very concerned about the next fire drill! He does not like how loud it is. I can hardly wait for him to get home and tell us all about his first day in Mrs. Miller's class!

A boy and his dog...

Mason worked very hard tonight placing this cup on Tazzy's back. After he did it, he said very proudly...TADA!