Operation save the babies

Operation save the babies was a success. Sunday Peter decided he would try to save the baby fish. This was quite an ordeal because in order to save the babies we had to take the big fish out, then we had to take out the plants and rocks so basically all that was left was the gravel. The babies were pretty easy to spot once the tank was bare, except one which really liked to hide. We found six and then while I was vacuuming the gravel I told Peter I saw another one. He looked and was convinced I had been dreaming. I kept vacuuming and he screams, "There it is, don't suck it up." So in the end we found seven baby fish that stayed safe in a beta tank Sunday.

Monday I bought a baby tank that floats in the big tank. We then had the fun of getting the babies out of the beta tank. Mind you there was gravel in the tank which made the process a little difficult. To our surprise by Monday evening we could only find five fish in the beta tank. Convinced that we started with seven, though Peter tried to tell me that I was seeing things and that possibly we didn't put seven fish into the bowl...I finally found the two hiding fish. The beta tank had a special slotted bottom that was designed to collect fish droppings. It just worked so well that the babies fit through. We finally rescued all the babies and they are all now back in the big tank inside a safe haven.

Today I bought some ghost shrimp and two other fish. We had two ghost shrimp already. Peter goes and looks in the tank and exclaims, "I see a shrimp....oooh I see two shrimp, they're both out today. Wow!!!! (added exclamation here and a sense of bewilderment in his voice) I see three shrimp.....uh Mandy how do we have three shrimp when we only found two when we were cleaning?" Me not being able to keep a straight face (though I would've loved to tell him he was losing his mind and that we always had more) started busting up laughing. Yes I bought ten today (they were $0.26 each).

Our new addition

We've had a baby! Actually we've had several babies. Today while switching some of the water in the fish tank Peter discovered a baby fish. He was convinced that it was orange (one of our mollies). Upon further searching we found two baby fish that looked like guppies. We checked out the fish that were fat that we were assuming were pregnant, and they definitely aren't as fat anymore. We are guessing that the other babies have been eaten already. We don't think the babies will last much longer as the bigger fish have found their hiding places and the babies have been getting much more brave and facing the open water. We snatched a picture of one being brave. It's another Where's Waldo picture, this one much more difficult than the last. However if you can blow up this picture a bit you can see right in front of the rock is a tiny thing with an eye. It is almost dead center of the dark rock right above the gravel.



Now it's a matter of survival as we don't think they will last. Peter is excited, we will be heading to the pet store to buy more male guppies as the only ones we currently have are female. He also is going to buy a recording of "Love is in the Air" and play it for the fishies :) We will also buy a breeding tank so we can save the baby fish. So there's our news today!

Camping Fun

The best thing about having the smallest tent in our campsite:
1-It was the fastest to assemble and take down and fit back into it's bag.
2-No instructions were needed, badda bing badda boom all done!
3-It was free-we borrowed it from my dad.
4-Makes for fun jokes by people passing by...Our primary president "That's the tent where you're supposed to keep the dog." :)
5-It's cozy and we stayed warm.

Our campsite was the talk of the area. We had two campsites right across from each other. One we parked the cars in and the other we put up six tents. It was a lot of fun!
On Friday night we went camping with five other couples to San Elijo State Beach. We went last year for the first time and had a great time except for the trains that would wake us up at night. This year was similar. It was way more fun with a bunch of people. We all cooked our own food (the Nefs and us cooked together...we had delicious kabobs made by Ellen and cooked by Greg-We hadn't used the grill before and didn't realize it didn't come fully assembled. Thanks Greg for putting it together and then doing the cooking.) and then Peter made apple crisp in a dutch oven to share and it was yummy. Saturday morning at 3am a freight train went across the tracks honking its horn for the longest possible amount of time. Everyone woke up! Peter and I wandered around the campsite at 7am and found some families we knew. Shortly thereafter our campsite was awake and we were busy making breakfasts. After breakfast we headed to the beach.
The couples sitting around right after breakfast. Greg and Ellen, Patrick and Carly, Peter and Me, Matt and Carla, Kadee and Jim, Karina and Adam.

So after breakfast we headed down to the beach. These are the crazy people that actually got in the freezing cold water. Peter and I chickened out. We touched the water and said, "No way!" Mind you it was also totally overcast and really cold out.

This is what Peter thought of the cold water. BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Notice how we are all bundled up. I didn't take my jacket off until the sun came out around noon. And even then it was still pretty cool out though I managed to get sun burnt on my legs. The three crazies in the front went swimming in the frigid water and came back numb.

Birthday Fun!

This was my birthday cake and one of my presents from Peter. He ordered it using my computer and then left the website open, so the next time I opened my computer I saw it. It was a great present! I also got a really cool shower head that is higher than the old one. It is so wonderful to not have to contort my body to wash my hair.

Fun in the Kitchen Parts 3, 4 and Beyond

This morning we made another successful batch of plum jam. It was much less messy than the first batch, I think we're getting good at this. This evening we finished a double batch of regular peach jam. These were great peaches. We bought them on Saturday and left them on the counter to ripen until this evening. Most were easy to peel and all were easy to pit. This morning we left our plum jams upside down too long and now they all have the air bubble on the bottom. It looks kind of funny. This evening as we wait we are hearing a chorus of lids popping. It's quite fun. Some pop immediately when we turn them upside down and others wait a few minutes and then pop. We are totally having fun with the jam. Peter was worried this morning that we wouldn't be able to get rid of the jam. I told him not to worry our previous adventures had left us with only 5 jars left over. Now we have about 30 jars of jam and a lot of friends. :)

Our next adventure involves figuring out how to get rid of 20 pounds of apples. We're giving a bunch to both sets of families and plan on using a bunch as we attempt to make apple butter. Anybody have any great recipes? We've thought of apple sauce, apple crisp and apple pie so far. Anybody close by want some cooking apples? They came from Julian.

The Wave

Yesterday we went to The Wave water park in Vista. It was military appreciation day, so Peter's brother Chris, got in for free and the rest of us got in for half price. We had quite a group. There were Peter's parents, his sister Laurel, Chris and Mary and their three girls-5, 2 1/2 and 10mos, Debbie-she's a lifeguard and friend of his parents, and Peter and I. The Wave is a small water park with four slides, a lazy river, a big pool and a children's play place. In the middle of the lazy river is a place to boogie board on waves.
Now Peter comes from a family that has really really white skin. Peter once got sun burned at work during a fire drill. So his brother Chris faces the sun and gets a little pink. Peter wore a shirt the whole time and he's okay but we forgot to sunscreen his head, so that's a little pink. His dad on the other hand wore sweat pants, a long sleeved shirt and a hat-he survived, he's still whiter than white.
We spent most of our time in the lazy river and on the slides. There were three inner tube slides and those were pretty fun. By the time we wanted to go down the body slide, it had closed, but Mary said it wasn't that fun, she somehow flipped over and came out face first, she really didn't like that. Anyway the lazy river was pretty lazy. Little Claire-10mos. fell asleep and spent a few hours napping on the lazy river. She somehow managed to stay asleep as we passed her around from inner tube to inner tube. She was in a life jacket and had a floppy hat on. We all wished we had a camera with us.

Fun in the Kitchen Part 3

Where do I start? You'll be pleased to know our kitchen only scored a 2 on the mess scale. This is even after we realized we had too many peaches and therefore had to make a double batch.

We decided to show you all step by step how to make peach jam.

This is steps 1, 2 and 3. Step 1-Get lots of peaches. Step 2-Put peaches in boiling water for one minute. Step 3-Put peaches in cool water to prepare for step 4.

Step 4-Peel the peach. White peaches are WAY easier to peel than yellow peaches. The skin just fell off the fruit. It took us less than 30 seconds to peel each one.

These are the naked peaches.

Now unfortunately when I took pictures of Peter cutting up the peaches I didn't focus the camera very well and the pictures came out all blurry, so hence no picture of cutting the peaches, but that step comes next. Then once you have four cups of peach tidbits, you put them into a large pot and squish with a potato masher. Hence you get peach goo.

Believe it or not, this is how much sugar we had to add. 15 cups of sugar! So once we added the sugar, we had to bring it to a rolling boil. Our mixture was boiling and spitting hot goo. At one point we were worried about the size of our pot. Luckily for us the mixture didn't boil over the edge of the pot.

Of course while your peach goo is heating up, you should rinse out the jars you plan on putting the goo in.

After boiling goo for amount of time specified on pectin box ladle quickly into jars. Very carefully with hot mitts on or in hand twist on caps and turn upside down. We left them upside down for about twenty minutes or so and the lids seal themselves. The jar in the front was the left over goo, only made 1/3 of a jar.

Now we were wondering how white peach jam would differ from yellow peach jam...can you tell which one is the yellow peach jam? It's like a Where's Waldo book. There are a bunch of white peach jams and only one yellow peach jam on the counter. Can you find it?

And that our friends is how you make peach jam.

Fun in the Kitchen Part 2

We decided to try our luck with making peach jam today. We've learned from our mistakes last time. Peter said, "We're using the big pot this time."

Peter asks, "Do we have enough sugar?" Mandy says, "Yes we do." Peter- "Now is that a Mandy yes or a Peter yes?" Of course we both knew exactly what he was referring to (refer to fun in the kitchen part 1 if you don't get it), so I said, "It's a Mandy yes."

Now peaches are slightly more difficult than plums in the fact that you have to peel and pit them. Mind you pitting plums wasn't terribly fun, quite frankly it was very messy, but at least we didn't have to peel them too.

Now to peel peaches one must first put in boiling water for a minute. Then soak in cool water. Of course if you soak in cool water too long, they get hard, therefore destroying the reason for boiling. Mandy-"I still can't get the skin off and now they're hot too."

To pit peaches you have to cut in half and pull out pit. Make sure you do this before skinning the peaches or else you might lose a finger or two. However skinning the peach is easier done when the peach is whole, therefore also being very hot, so pick your battle.

The jams have been ladled and are now upside down in hopes that they will seal themselves(it worked last time). Then its into the fridge they go. This time we feel the mess was an average score of 3 where as last time it was well into the 8's. We have a bag of white peaches and a bag of plums so fun in the kitchen part 3 and 4 will be happening soon. If you live close by you might even get to have one of our delicious jams. :)

I might've....

When Peter says, "I might've..." I know he has! He once said, "I might've bought two model airplanes for $60 each, but don't worry I saved $10 on shipping by buying two." Of course he said that as there was a box sitting on our doorstep. He also said, "I might've bought some movies." They were ancient old movies...yeehaw. Not too long later he said, "I might've bought some more movies." They were a box set. He apparently got a good deal. A couple weeks ago, I heard it again. "I might've bought some musicals. Rodgers and Hammerstein box set only $50." 6 movies but with 12 discs ooooooo. So then tonight...It was my first day of school and I was exhausted and falling asleep at 7:30ish....he waits, it's about 8 and I'm in bed and he whispers in my ear, "I might've pre-ordered a Play Station 3 today. I got a really good deal. It comes with a controller that goes bzzzzzzz!" And lo and behold I'm awake now. We hardly ever use our Play Station 2. We still have games that have never been opened. He claims they're critically acclaimed.

Yet he tries to compare the times that I go for a good deal. I bought a case of belly flops from the Jelly Belly Factory.....yes we still have two unopened bags, mind you the entire case of 16 2 pound bags cost $48.

I might've married a nut....but I wouldn't trade him for the world :)

Teamwork

Peter and I have come up with an interesting way to put groceries away. Peter was working on shoving everything in the freezer only to find most wouldn't fit. I came in and said I would make it all fit, then I handed him a carton of ice cream that was nearly gone and told him his job was to eat it. He ate the ice cream and I made everything fit nicely in the freezer. Talk about good teamwork!