Summertime...when the livings easy...

The last couple of weeks have been pretty fun and a little busy.  I feel so tired but I don't think that it is because we have been running around like crazy people, but we have been doing a lot of fun stuff.
We went to the annual swim party with Aaron's friends from high school. It was great, because his friends are so cool, and we have tons of great food, and Julian gets to play in the pool! He hung out in the pool for hours just kicking his legs and floating around in his little lady bug.  At the end he discovered how fun it was to jump in from the side.

On a little quieter note we went up to the farm in Northern Utah to spend sometime with Aaron's grandpa.  We just found out recently that he is really sick and is probably not going to be with us for a lot longer. We wanted to make the trip to make sure we got to spend sometime with him.  I wasn't sure what to expect but it really was a sweet experience.  He is set up in the front room where he can look out over acres of his farm.  He seemed so peaceful and relaxed laying there and was surrounded by so much family who came to stay and visit with him.  It is just amazing to me that a hard thing like this can be so sweet when a wonderful man is surrounded by so many who love him. Here is Julian visiting with Grandpa...

A part from our little outings here and there we have just been passing the summer lazily away and doing some projects here and there.  Here we are at Gardener village to see the awesome Tahitian dancers.  Those ladies really know how to move it!

Here's Julian at nap time:

Besides sleeping he has finally, yes finally officially stacked his blocks.  He also loves to read to himself when he can get away to somewhere private.  I am also so impressed always with Julian's ability to eat at the table with us and feed himself.  He is pretty good at eating everything. He has mastered the skill of folding his arms and bowing his head through our prayers.  It is so cute!!! Also he has been starting to say more words like momma, woof, and hi.  So we have hope that he is going in the right direction.  He also loves to go for rides in the stroller, give us big hugs and kisses,  and get into trouble;)

Here is our most recent project.  I found an island finish that I really like here. It is a lot easier and cheaper than what we were planning on doing.  We (as in Aaron) just put up the bead board yesterday and we bought the mdf at home depot for cheap. This is where it's at right now but I think it will be finished soon.

I fell in love with the blog above and am excited about some more cheap updates for our crazy but getting cozier home:)

So a bummer this year is that we did not plant a garden.  It really is one of my absolute favorite hobbies, like I love every part of it.  But, we have been blessed with wonderful family and friends who do garden and have been very generous to us.  I have been trying to take advantage of every opportunity to bump up our food storage a little bit and take advantage of the fresh goodies.  Here are some things we've made recently:

So I am not really a pie person but they are Aaron's favorite treat so I make them here and there.  Aaron's wonderful mom gave us a box of gorgeous, state fair ,amazingly sweet, oh my goodness peaches.  The trick however was getting them used up before they went bad, so one of the things that we made with these peaches was the no bake peach pie.  This really is a little piece of heaven on earth;)  Apart from the peach pie we have been eating peaches every day and I cut a bunch and froze them individually to use later as well as putting a bunch in smoothy mixes that I can just
pull out of the freezer anytime.

(I am not a big fan of peach jam or canned peaches so I skipped those).

Next we got a huge bag of basil leaves.  We are pesto lovers and really enjoy putting a bit on cheese ravioli.  I gave up on homemade pesto a longtime ago because it was always terrible but thought I would give it another go and the results were fabulous!!! It was just as good as the stuff that we buy and maybe even a little better.  I put it on our dinner and then put the rest in this canning jar to freeze.  I covered it with a layer of olive oil to keep the top from changing color. 

We also cooked and froze some green beans and made zucchini brownies and I think that was all we did with what Aaron's mom gave us. So besides all that goodness our neighbors gave us a bag of plums.  Which we ate a ton of but I thought I would give plum jam a try.  So I was sure that it would be super weird but fun because it was different. However, I learned that plum jam is super yummy.  With this and the batch of raspberry jam I made a few weeks ago we are SET for the year! 

 

Last but not least I made an amazing discovery recently at the Latin market downtown.  (It is a very magical place by the way).  I went there to get empanada shells to make for the iron chef that we went to for the Olympic opening ceremonies.  I looked for them everywhere close by because I didn't want to drive all the way downtown just to get them. But after a fruitless search at all our local markets I was forced to go. What I found there besides the shells was worth at least twice the drive. CHIPA!!! Otherwise known as cheese bread! I LOVED this stuff on my mission in Argentina (as with most of the food) but I have only been only able to get it at Tucanos.  And I CANNOT make them but I found them in the freezer section, all ready to go, just gotta pop them in the oven.  So that's what I did and what I am going to continue to do! I also had extra filling from the emapanadas and found a recipe for shells that actually worked for me (which is the first time in almost ten years of trying).  So we had an Argentine feast:

Julian typically has this panicked look on his face before dinner...