Tis the Season!

And we're not talking Christmas. We are talking

RASPBERRIES!!!!

Oh, sweet, delicious, raspberry goodness!! The smell! Aaaaahhh! We LOVE this time of year when the fruit is so fresh. We can get a flat of raspberries for under $15! Niceness!!!! One of our favorite things to make is a recipe that was printed years and years ago in the Lynden Tribune (our small town paper) that came from the Lynden Dutch Bakery. It is the BESTEST ever!!

So here you go.

VERY RASPBERRY PIE

6 cups fresh raspberries

Topping:
1 cup sugar
3 Tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup water

Cream Filling:
1 pkg. 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 cup cool whip
1 cup powdered suger

Crust:
Originally calls for a store bought graham cracker crust or shortbread crust. But we have a "secret" recipe that we discovered in a funny way (that will be told people in private conversations only). But I'll give you that recipe since it's not a "secret recipe" since Kim found it on AllRecipes.com.

1 pound butter
8 oz. cream cheese
3 3/4 cup flour

1. Blend together softened cream cheese and butter. Combine with flour in mixer on low. Divide into 6 equal portions. Wrap the ones that will not be used with plastic wrap and freeze. Chill portions that will be used in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.

2. After chilling, roll out on a lightly floured surface and form into pie pans. For pre-baked crusts (like this one), prick fork holes all over crust and cook at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or until golden.

Topping:
Mash 2 cups of raspberries to measure one cup. Place in sauce pan. Add sugar, cornstarch and water. Bring to boil, stirring constantly. Cook and sir two minutes longer. Cool to room temperature.

Cream Filling:
Beat cream cheese, cool whip and powdered sugar. Spread on bottom of cooled crust/ Pool cooled raspberry sauce over the top. Refrigerate until set ~ about 3 hours.

Whipping Cream:
1 cup heavy whipping cream, chilled
1/4 cup unsifted powder sugar
1 tsp. vanilla


Combine all ingredients and mix until fluffy.

FINAL PRODUCT:

We used small ramekin cups which were the perfect size. And since David & Rob both ate a pint EACH before I started making the pie.


Enjoy! As you can tell, we did!


PS - The recipe also works wonderfully for fresh peaches!

First the Seed and then the Vine...

..then the flower very fine. Tabitha sang that song SO much that she learned in Kindergarten I STILL remember it. And she even had her little hand drawn pages too. But now we have the real thing!!

PUMPKINS!!!

Well, soon to be. We have never grown pumpkins before and thought it would be fun except they take up so much space. So we thought that since the majority of our tulips on the side of the house have stopped coming up, let's give pumpkins a try.

I'm in the mood for a giveaway. Take your guess as to what you think our harvest will be. How many pumpkins do you think will come from this.

What's the prize? Guess correctly and if you are local (and we get more than 1 pumpkin) you can come over and pick a pumpkin. If you are not local, then I can mail you a cute little something pumpkin-ish.

So what's your guess?

Yowza!!!!

I'm SO grateful we purchased central air conditioning 5 years ago. It comes in handy when the weather is like this!!

Right Now for
Lynden, WA

Updated Jul 27 04:05 p.m. PT

Sunny

102°F
Feels Like
116°F

Humidity:41%

A Sneak Peek

Here's a few shots that Cassie is teasing us with. I can't wait to see the rest!!!

Time to catch up ...again!

Sorry for the delay in posting. We've been in a whirlwind of activities around here.

4th of July was a nice, relaxing day.

Favorite part of the day ~ picking out the fireworks


Amber hasn't been home for 4th of July in about 4 years (she's always been off at EFY) so she's REALLY excited to go buy fireworks.


Rob is making his traditional Vanilla Ice Cream. This year he also added an new one ~ chocolate ice cream With HIS chocolate in a ganache. Boy!!! That was heavenly!!




Trying something fun with sparklers :D

We then rushed off to Utah for an ultra fast visit with Robert, Jessica and Lizzie.

Waiting for our flight


One happy little girl to be in her Papa's arms


Our cool chica w/her Auntie Amber


Lovingly abusing her Uncle DayDay. And he's enjoying every minute!


Our beautiful eternal family


Lizze LOVES flowers. She can't get enough of touching and smelling. And she even pulled one out of the ground that we promptly replanted :D


This was one of those shots where Jessica saw us sitting and talking with each other. So she came and took a picture of us. This is now MY favorite picture of me and my son.

Our "family photographer", Cassie ~ of CLG Photography flew in too and took some family pictures and senior pictures of Amber. STILL WAITING to see the sneak peaks. But from what I saw from the camera screen, they are going to be amazing!!


Cassie had never been to SLC so it was a lot of fun to play tourist and take her to Temple Square and show her around.

The night we flew home, my friend Lynette was coming into town too. She was here for her niece's wedding. So we had a wonderful house guest for the weekend.


Giving Lynette a taste of summer in Washington


On Monday morning, Rob and David woke up at the "before crack of dawn" to head out for Scout Camp. Followed by Lynette heading home and then taking Amber to the meeting place for girls camp. What did that mean? Amy was ALONE for 2 days!!!!! What a treat!!!

Amy then headed off to Girls Camp where she was in charge of Humanitarian Service projects. And to shock everyone ~ I spent 2 nights AT camp. Slept in a tent with 3 other gals!!! I still don't "enjoy" camping but I LOVED being with the young women in our church.


Amber, Tabitha and Liz (my other daughter for the camp)


Tabitha and Amber in the talent show singing "Sister" from White Christmas

Then time to come home and get clean. Woohoo!! Sleep in my own bed again!!!!

We've also been harvesting from our garden. The yummiest lettuce EVER!!!


Needed to thin some of the carrots but the kids wanted to eat then anyway. And peas.

Happy 4th of July

As we sit here in our comfortable homes, let us remember what this day is REALLY celebrating.

In talking with Amber and David I learned that they have NEVER had to read the Declaration of Independence at school. A big mistake on our parts as parents thinking that this is something that is commonly done. It used to be!! I'd really like to know what is taught in their various history/government classes that they are required to take in middle school and high school.

I know what we will be doing tonight!

Idol Update

Well, sorry to say that Tabitha did not move on to the next round. :( The judge told her that the song she picked (a Whitney Houston song) wasn't what they were looking for the show this season. But the judge encouraged her to audition next season. We talked with her this afternoon and evening and she's in good spirits. She LOVED the experience and is considering auditioning again as long as it's closer than California.

There is the possibility we may see her on the show where they show people from various audition venues. They do sign their rights to their image away when they audition as the camera's are rolling on each contestant as they audition. So let's all keep our eyes peeled when the show comes back on for the LA venue and look for our Tabitha. She was wearing a red dress so hopefully it won't be to difficult to spot her.

Now they get to enjoy the rest of their vacation at Disneyland for 2 days!!!!

No Regrets!

I'll tell you, when you start getting to "the age" where you thought in your 20's and 30's, "oh, that age group is a long ways away" you really do look back at your life and think "what if I had it to do over again, what would I change?" We all have those thoughts.

One of the first things that came to mind was I wish I had given my "dream job" a second try. What was my dream job you ask? You KNOW it has to involve this place!

Being in the Disneyland Parade. Yup!! I did audition at the tender age of 17. WOW! What an experience that was! I LOVED it! And I made it to the final cut. But the other girl beat me out because she had a few more years dancing experience than me. And I never went back and tried again. My regret? I wish I would have!

So you can imagine how excited (and nervous) we are for Tabitha following her dream. Today, right now as I type this she and Josh are in LA sitting at the Rose Bowl waiting for her turn to audition for this:

She will have NO regrets or "I wish I would have..." because she's going for it!! And she has all our support despite whatever the outcome.

WE LOVE YOU BABY!!!

We Couldn't Be Any Prouder....

... of our sweet Jessica!! This girl is rockin' her photography. We've ALWAYS known she's had this talent. Here's some of her earlier photos.






It's just SO much fun to see her growing and learning and taking AMAZING pictures. Here's just a small sample:






You can check out her blog at Jessica Anderson Photography.

First Week out of school...

...has been GLORIOUS!!! There was a lot of the usual activities like Amber's driver's Ed. class and drives, bassoon lessons, voice lessons, and step-aerobics classes. But there was also a day where we did absolutely N.O.T.H.I.N.G.!!! It was amazing!!! We almost felt guilty doing it while Rob was off working hard all day at the office. We had a Harry Potter movie marathon, Amy scrapbooked and we stayed in our pj's and didn't even answer the phone. Unless it was Rob of course.


Seeing bunnies in our backyard. Probably munching on our garden :P


Rob trying his hand at being a chocolatier! Yummy but not as pretty as Chocolate Necessities.


Enjoying a walk on the trail.


Amber trying a mask while mowing the lawn because of her allergies.


A friend bringing me flowers.


And something we haven't seen in almost 30 days. Rain!!!

Next week won't be so relaxing as we now will start attacking cleaning and organizing bedrooms, painting the downstairs bathroom, reviewing math (so David doesn't get rusty) and Rob traveling to Calgary for work.

At this rate I can see summer flying by way too quickly!! But it's always better when we get pictures of some of our most favorite people.

Little cheesy girl!


Copying her Daddy as you can see Mom laughing


Come on Mom!! The new family photo!! LOVE IT!!