Removing our Palm

On August 11th one of our palm trees finally sold. We have been waiting for years to have these tree's removed. It was such an interesting experience to see the palm removed. On the 10 the company sent out a team of three guys who literally dug out the palm tree by hand. They were armed with just their shovels. They even climbed the tree with ropes to trim it up to a nice "pineapple" look. The next morning the team that was taking the tree out of the ground came. 45 minutes later it was loaded on a truck and on it's way to San Francisco. We found out the the tree weighed in at 17000 lbs!




They were able to lay that 37 foot palm tree right between our purple plum and our fence!




Larry is 6'2.5" that is the root ball behind him


This is what the roots of a palm tree look like. I didn't know what I was expecting them to look like, but they are very fibrous.


Loaded and on it's way

Walk Down Memory Lane Wednesday

Cameron has always loved anything that moves. Trains, planes, boats, cars or trucks. If you can name it and it moves, he loves it. Most things that are in motion will actually stop him in his track so he can watch it. When we go to my grandpa's in Torrance, he loves to walk to the corner to see the trains go by. When he hears a firetruck or ambulance he will crane his neck to see it. He can even tell the difference between different sirens, just by their sound, before he ever sees the vehicle. He loves loves loves planes. He loves to go to the airbase to watch the tankers fly when a fire is burning. A couple of years ago there was an air show at Ryan airbase. He was thrilled and spent the majority of the day with his head craned toward the sky.







I finally got him to look at the camera

9 Y-E-A-R-S

Nine years! Holy Crow! Larry and I are celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary today! I can't believe that I'm old enough to have been married for 9 years! We got married in my parents back yard in a simple wedding that was FABULOUS despite it's simplicity. And 9 years later, he's still my best friend! Here's to many more years!!!












Here's a video from "Our Song" It's Your Love by Tim Mcgraw and Faith Hill

Defying Gravity

On Friday August 28th my friend Jen and I headed off to San Diego with the hopes of winning the Wicked Lottery. It was Wickeds closing weekend at the civic theatre. They had 20 seats for the lottery and each winner could get two tickets, which meant that if every winner took two tickets they would only draw 10 names. There was easily 100 people at the lottery. I was so anxious I was bouncing with anticipation as they started calling names. SLOWLY they would call someones name and then wait for them to come forward, check their ID and then have them go inside before they called another name. FINALLY I heard my name! I SCREAMED and started bouncing toward the front!!! I fumbled with my ID and then with my camera inside cause I wanted to make sure I had pictures! I got two tickets, for $25 each!! Our seats were in the FRONT row! For me this was the second time I had seen Wicked, Larry and I had gone while it was in LA, you can see those pictures here But this was Jen's first time seeing it. Naturally she loved it, I mean, how could you not? It was a Oztastic night!!!

Waiting for the lottery


Buying our tickets!


The civic theatre



Our tickets



Our great seats




We had SO much fun!!!

Walk Down Memory Lane Wednesday

In May of 2007 my cousins and us went down to Corona del Mar to take pictures for our grandparents. We had a great time!

Wow, Summer is over . . .

So I was thinking I haven't blogged in a while. Well that would be an understatement. Aside from Music Video Monday's (which I haven't even done in a while) I haven't written a real blog in about 6 weeks! Yowza! Where did the time go? Oh wait I know, it was summer which equals busy, which means time moves TOO fast. Well here we are on the cusp of September. It was a great and busy summer. I still can't believe that it is over.

Last Monday, August 24th was Cameron's first official day back to school. We are homeschooling again this year and he is in Kindergarten with Julian Charter School. He is starting to read! This is really exciting for so many reasons, but especially because I'm a big reader! He is doing first grade math and is really doing well! He LOVES to learn! We are really enjoying the homeschool experience and look forward to what this year has to offer!

Larry has been quite busy this year. He got a schedule B engineer job several months ago and has spent little time at home since. This is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing cause the overtime is great but a curse cause we miss him. He has, as of today been home 5.5 days in the last 6 almost 7 weeks. Needless to say, I need a break! But we are thankful for the work.

Business is going well. We have one more wedding planned for this year . . . but could still get more. If we don't get any more we will have ended the season with 7 weddings! That is significant growth for us! We have several events coming up and will head right into the Christmas season here in about another month. We are thankful that we are growing! I'm thankful that I don't nescessirily have to work, but get to on my terms. It's been a great experience for our family.

Well my goal now that I'm getting back into a normal routine, will be to update on a more regular basis. So stay tuned cause I have lots of pictures to show off from the summer :O)

If you ever get bored you can look at the business blog, I'm really good about keeping that updated!

You might be a redneck

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Bass Pro in Rancho Cucuamunga. If you have never been, then I suggest going! But that's a different blog. Bass Pro has everything the outdoor enthusiast could possible dream of! Including a line of interesting home goods and furniture. These interesting pieces helped me have a Jeff Foxworthy moment, so if you don't mind please join me in my version of

You might be a redneck if . . .

You own a camouflaged chair


Now look carefully friends, this is not just a camo chair! It's a camo massage chair! That's right, after a long day of hunting you can come home, strip off your own camo pants, wash off that doe urine you put on to attract that buck, open up a Pabst Blue Ribbon and flop into this comfort of all comforts as you dream widely on which wall of your trailer you will be hanging that buck head when it comes back from the taxidermists. Weeewwwww eeeeeeeee that is one fine lookin chair! And it looks SO good next to this little beauty . . .



Yup, that there is a GENUINE whiskey barrel holding up that there table top! As if that was not a fine enough looking table, the artist went a couple of steps further and added rifles along the sides. I mean nothing says "come on and enjoy your dinner" like a Winchester rifle holding up your plate! But look closer friends, you see that thing the price tag is hanging off of? Yup you guessed it, that is a GENUINE spur! I mean it wouldn't be a thrilling adventure if you didn't have to worry about impaling yourself on that spur! Where would the fun be in that? But I love how the pros at Bass Pro knew who their target shopper would be. It may be hard to see in this picture, but those are beer cups on that fine piece of furniture.

And just in case you are shy and never let your neighbors inside, but you want them to know just how big a redneck you are, may I suggest one of these little beauties?



I mean come on that is MAGNIFICENT! Someone may never be able to come in and see that big ol' large mouth mounted on the wall, but they may assume you have one after getting an eye full of your mailbox. I mean . . . come on! Rednecks of the world unite! Join me as we stand together against conformity of the man! We have our choices! Yes!! You can choose bass, trout or catfish! No conformity here! Join me join me!!

Whew . . . sorry . .. I think I'll be okay now. Now back to your regular scheduled programing.

If all vegetables could taste this good. . .

For the last 8 years or so Larry and I have had a vegetable garden. There is something so satisfying about being able to go into your yard and pick parts of your dinner. We have been very blessed to have "green thumbs" and usually have more than we could ever eat. After you find yourself with an over abundance of produce you start to get creative with ways to prepare it. As a general rule, we only grow what we eat the most of or what can be canned so we don't waste too much. One crop we never have any problem with is zucchini. This particular plant seems to be more hardy than any other. It also seems to be the most bountiful! Pardon me while I have a Forest Gump moment here, but we like to grill it, cook it in dishes, slice it into spaghetti, stuff it, or eat it raw. But the most undisputed family favorite has to be zucchini bread.

3 Cups zucchini
2 Cups Sugar
1 Cup oil
3 large eggs
3 Cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 tsp vanilla
3 tsp cinnamon
1 cup walnuts (optional)

Mix wet ingredients and then add dry. Mix well bake at 325 for about an hour.

First you need zucchini, if we even go one day without harvesting, these little darlings get so big they only thing they are really good for is bread. But here is a good harvest from a few weeks ago


Using a shredder, I used my food processor (I have also done this by hand, which is NOT fun) shred your zucchini



You will need 3 cups zucchini


Add sugar, oil, eggs, mix well


Add dry ingredients, mix well



Pour into loaf pans or muffin pans. If your loaf pans are smaller this recipe will make three loaves, if they are larger, it will make two.


Bake at 325 for about an hour or until a tooth pick comes out clean


Remove from pans onto cooling rack, enjoy!


I like to eat it plain the day it's baked so the crust is still kind of crunchy. Larry likes his best with butter. You could also make a light glaze or top with cream cheese for a different flavor.

Yup, we grew those!

We LOVE apples. As a family we consume quite a bit. But I LOVE to bake with apples as much as we like to eat them fresh. One of our yearly traditions is going up to Oak Glen to pick apples. After doing this for several years, and spending a small fortune, we thought, "hey, we might be able to grow apples ourselves". So we made a trip to Lowes and asked the helpful people in the garden center if we could grow apples, here in our town and the answer, we were thrilled was YES! We just happen to get enough cold through the winter for some types of apples. Our helpful garden associate guided us to a type of tree that had been grafted. Each tree produces three or four different types of apples. Well, the blessed tree's had been in the ground just over a year when we started getting apple blossoms. A very pretty flower that despite the youth of our trees would never be more than a flower this year. Again I was surprised! We got quite the harvest for our first year. And like all other fruit trees, the fruit is ready pretty much all at once. So what's a simple girl from a small town to do when presented with lots of apples, that even her apple loving family can't consume before they go bad? She cans of course. I mean HELLO, this is the 21st century!


Well due to the size of our apples, we wouldn't be able to put them through our very handy Pampered Chef (c) apple corer, peeler, slicer . . . so this task, would have to be finished by hand. It is the 21 century right? Alas, with my veggie peeler in hand and a sharp knife we set off for the task.




We soaked the apples in a bath of fruit fresh to keep them from browning


Then we cold packed the jars with our apple slices.


Like with my apricots, I made a simple syrup of water and sugar (2 to 1) and filled the jars


We had to actually use the water bath method for the apples. The apricots closed nicely with the steam bath method. But after 7 minutes in boiling water, our apples sealed nice too. They also were the PERFECT texture for an apple pie (which I made for some friends on July 3) All in all we were able to can up 10 jars of apples. We left some apples whole for eating.