Eating Like Kings

I always feel a little nostalgic when the summer ends because it means so many great things are over. But one of the things I will miss most this year is the fresh fruits and vegetables. We live with my sister and she has a garden and all summer we've been literally reaping the benefits. I LOVE garden tomatoes! All of the kids in my family teased my parents because they always said you shouldn't even call garden tomatoes and store bought tomatoes the same things, so we called the garden ones "gardenatoes". We've been making these paninis with gardenatoes that are to die for - ham, pesto, gouda, and a gardenato. We also made delicious BLTs with the gardenatoes. Just thinking about all these foods is making me hungry. I LOVE the fresh corn on the cob! It's so yummy with just a little bit of salt and pepper (and if I went on a long run a little bit of butter too).

One night when we had a dinner that was almost entirely fresh fruits and veggies, Brad looked at me and said, "We are eating like kings. This is the kind of meal that kings would have had back in the day, and now, as poor college students, we get to eat like Kings." It was such a great thought!

Even though I'm sad for all this good eating to come to an end relatively soon, I'm excited because we've been able to preserve some of our royal food to have later in the year. The other day Brad spent his last day of summer bottling 20 quarts of fresh peaches! We've also made lots of blackberry jam. I think both of these treats will remind me in December of the days when we ate like royalty.

Vacations and Such

My sister's friend emailed her the other day and said, "You haven't blogged in a long time. That can mean one of two things: You are VERY busy or you're pregnant". I'm not pregnant, so you can all conclude that I'm busy.

We've been having lots of fun over the last few weeks. We had a big Hunter reunion in Bear Lake during the 3rd week of July. Brad's family owns property up there, so we go up a few times every summer. We love it there - it's beautiful! His family owns some waverunners that they leave up there, so our trips to Bear Lake are always really fun. I was sort of nervous for this trip though because we've never camped since we had Annie. My fears were relieved when we found out that since it was a large Hunter reunion Grandma and Grandpa Hunter had booked theLaketown Lodge for us for the week. It was SO nice - it had a theater in the basement, tons of games, and a big kitchen. We had a great time relaxing by the lake and at the lodge.

Right after we got home from Bear Lake we packed up and went to Glacier with the Winder side of my family. My family goes to Glacier every couple of years. It really is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It's on the border of Montana and Canada. We left, in true Winder fashion, by five am. Annie was a champ on both of the 11 hour car trips. She slept until about 10 each time and was mostly pleasant the rest of the drive.

My Grandpa Winder loves to hike and he instilled that in his children and grandchildren, so when we vacation that's what we do. We stayed in rustic cabins right on the shore of Lake McDonaldand then hiked almost every day. Annie did pretty well in the Baby Bjorn, all things considered.

We loved every minute of both trips!

The last picture is of Annie and her cousin Grace who is almost the exact same age. My sister-in-law came down to pick blackberries the other day and we made blackberry jam. There is something so satisfying to me about eating jam that I made. Maybe if I were more domestic I would feel that satisfaction a little more frequently . . .