Twilight Hype

Not that I think these movies are worth all their buzz, but it is something fun we have started. We have been going to these movies since they started and there is just one more to complete this series. When the last movie comes out, I will have fun posting the photos of each of these movies. The most important part is the girl time we all get to share.

Maria, Sheree, Kacie, Tammy, Lori, Mom and Me

Apple Juice round 2

We spent a whole saturday (10-22-11) picking apples. That is actually harder than I thought, reaching, climbing ladders, lifting boxes of apples. I got my workout in for the day! I wore everyone around me out too! We stored them in Stoney and Maria's cellar until we could press them.

I don't think you can see them all, but we had 23 boxes of apples. That was quite the feat. Although not all of them were used for juice. Family members got lots of apple sauce made too.

Tommy putting some muscle into it!

Such a beautiful sight, Liquid Gold running into the pan!

I bounced around jobs, from washing the apples in kitchen sink, to emptying the pot of juice, to filling the apple pans to keep the grinding going. Tommy and Lori are the brutes that keep the grinding and pressing going. It was a pretty long day of work. It took us 6 hours to do our pickup load full of apples.

Since it was a hand crank, we were sure glad we had all these eager little helpers to turn the wheel.

Since I had a taste of what real awesome apple juice tasted like, we had a great way to use Stoney and Maria's apples this year, ALL of them. We had a fabulous member of our ward allow us to come to their place and use their apple press. Since it only had one bucket, it was a little slower going, but still amazing. Can't say enough how much I LOVE this juice.

Almost done, just a couple more boxes of apples to do.

Kenzie was the champ. She made that wheel spin faster than any of us and she kept at it the longest. Thanks Kenzie, you definitely earned your family's share of juice today!

The pickup full of apples goes home full of juice. So awesome. We froze some and pasteurized half to be shelf stable. What was fun to see is my nephews (spencer, thayne and riley) be converted to the coveted Liquid Gold.

Canning Applesauce

I made applesauce this year and it turned out fabulous. Breanna helped me get started with tips and tools. I didn't add any sugar and it was plenty sweet. The key I think was mixing a bunch of different kinds of apples, blending them to get a great taste. We had honeycrisp, red delicious, golden delicious, fuji, and granny smith.

This is how much I got done at my house. (Should have wiped off the hard water stains from the water bath canner for the photo. My bad.)

Then I got excited and went to moms house the next day and helped them make some more! Yes, we pumped out some applesauce!

Look at some of the different kinds; Cinnamon (we put some red hots in, let them melt and that was the only sugar in the red ones), 5 blend applesauce, apple cinnamon, and then just a few jars of red delicious applesauce. So tasty!