Five highlights of the weekend:

1. Cleaning the garage. Don't get me wrong: the work itself was as awful as you'd expect. However, the sense of accomplishment now that it's complete? Even better than I expected. Now we just have to get used to using the garage for, you know, our vehicle.

2. First trip to the apple orchard. We're lucky enough to live less than a quarter mile from an apple orchard--the same apple orchard I frequented when I was a child. For about a decade it was caught in a downward spiral until a local family bought and revived it. Now, under new ownership, they once again make fresh cider, offer hayrides, sell cider licks (cider frozen in a cup with a popsicle stick in the middle), and let you pick your own apples. What fun! It was unseasonably warm this weekend, so the girls weren't decked out in their usual apple-orchard-fall-pictures wear (see pic to right), but it was a perfect day for playing chase through the trees.



3. Put up more salsa. We've had a disappointing crop of tomatoes this year: our romas are mealy, our beefeaters and heirlooms often have little black spots, and all of our hybrids up and quit on us. Damn you, June flooding! Apparently it's been a bad year all around the county, but that doesn't change the fact that we had big plans for our 25 tomato plants! Instead we've had to focus our efforts on our top tomato-related priorty: salsa. So yesterday it felt good to put up 7 quarts of our favorite recipe (after having put up 4 quarts last week). We'll never have enough to take us to next year, but at least we should be able to get through January if we exercise some restraint. I may be able to get one or two more batches out of the garden, but we're not going to get the 25-30 quarts we had hoped for. (I'm starting to feel like Ma Ingalls with all this frontier wife talk.)

4. An abundance of time for the four of us. Rob was off on both Saturday and Sunday, and that rarely happens for our family. We stayed around home all weekend, cleaned, read books, played games, engaged in many tickle fights, and generally reconnected as a foursome. I {heart} weekends together.

5. My friend H's baby is on her way to a speedy recovery from major surgery. She's been on our minds, and it's wonderful to hear she's doing so well. Snuggles, Baby K!



P.S. Happy Birthday, M. Much love. xo