Change is coming

Well it's official - Dave gave his 2 week notice at the hospital yesterday. Let me explain. When the hospital started having major financial problems 10 months ago, they closed the urgent care center here in our town where Dave worked and laid off everyone who worked there except for 2 people - Dave and the office manager. So although he still had a job (whew!), it meant more commute, and it didn't seem too financially stable; so he got another part-time job doing family practice 10 minutes away. It's been working out great - he does one long day at the clinic an hour away, 2 short days on the R.V. with the hospital's mobile health unit in rural communities (which he has loved), and 2 days in the family practice office. But then last month, out of the blue, someone called Dave about a job in pulmonology. She's the office manager there and used to work with Dave at the urgent care center. Dave was mildly interested, but then right after that the hospital informed him that they would be ending the mobile health unit and switching him to workman's comp all 3 days, one hour away. So he looked more into the pulmonology position, and they offered him the job. We fasted and prayed about it on Sunday and both received confirmation that this is the right thing to do. So he'll work for them 3 days/week and keep doing the 2 days of family practice. Even though he'll only be working 24 hours/week at the pulmonology office, they're going to pay 100% of the family's health insurance. Ironically 10 minutes after he called to accept the position, a doctor he met last year (when he was looking for employment) called to offer him a job working in the urgent care center he is re-opening. That was interesting. The next 2 weeks will be very busy for both of us as we get ready for Halloween (I've been sewing costumes for 2 days and I'm just about done), prepare for our trip to Hawaii, and do all that needs to get done for the job change. My to-do lists are just too long.

Strawberry Freezer Jam

Someone from church was handing out flats of strawberries for free because they were leftover from the food bank and would have gone bad if not eaten immediately. So we enjoyed sweet delicious strawberries all weekend, including strawberry shortcake for dessert last night. Then I made strawberry freezer jam with all but the last pound. I don't know if you've ever made it before, but it is SOOO easy and SOOOO yummy. It took me less than an hour last night to make one batch. It tastes fresher and much less sweet than regular jam. Here's the recipe:

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4 cups of crushed strawberries (about 3 lbs)

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 packet of Ball Freezer Jam Pectin (I get it at Wal-Mart in the canning section)

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First rinse strawberries and remove stems. Then proceed to rinse three more times by putting them in a big bowl, covering with cold water and draining. Dry on paper towels. Mash them in a big bowl using a potato masher. Mix sugar with pectin, then add to strawberries. Mix for three minutes. Ladle into clean jars, leaving 1/2" space at the top; serve immedately, refrigerate up to 2 weeks or freeze up to a year. Label with the date. Makes five or six 8 ounce jars. Put on biscuits, toast, sandwiches or over ice cream. It is so good!

Friday Night

Friday night was a party, I tell you. It was Aaron and Marrisse's last night here, and mom came up for dinner (dad was working). We left all the kids (except Katrina) at Kristen & Nathan's house with Christopher and Jonathan babysitting, and we went out to dinner at a fun restaurant downtown. We ate yummy food, visited, laughed, looked at art, and taste-for-tasted each other's desserts. When we got home it was very quiet - the kids were all upstairs watching a movie. So we left them alone and watched the movie Next downstairs, which some of us had already seen but liked so much we wanted to see it again. We didn't get home until almost 11:00. The kids had so much fun staying up super late with their cousins watching 3 movies in a row. It doesn't get much better than that.

random updates

Spencer's class went to the dump today. He was so excited about it. Afterwards they had lunch at the park where he said his first word. Remember that, Jen? He kept pointing to the ducks and saying "duck!" over and over. Then he had a duck-themed first birthday.

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Tyler has a bully in his class. Tyler isn't very big, and the bully is. He even punched Spencer in the stomach one day at recess - for no reason, he just walked up to them and punched them both. He keeps getting in trouble, but that doesn't stop him from picking on Tyler.

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Dallin went to the high school homecoming assembly during preschool today. He was all excited about the candy, the bear cat mascot, the stomping and the cheering, but he said the music was so loud it hurt his ears.

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Brennan went visiting teaching with me this morning and absolutely loved talking to her pet bird and eating grapes growing in her backyard. Now that I'm the visiting teaching coordinator at church, I'm trying to be better about doing my visiting teaching.

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I bought really cute, incredibly comfortable shoes today. The fancy shoe store downtown was having a huge parking lot sale, and I figured I'd take a look since I only had 1 kid with me. I have wide feet and I'm cheap, so I usually hate shoe shopping. But these fit me perfectly and were $86 on sale for $29, and I really needed comfortable black shoes for church. I wanted to buy more, but Brennan was done shopping.

Family Visits

One of the best parts about living near mom and dad and grandpa is that family comes here on vacation. Aaron and Marrisse and their 5 kids are visiting this week from Utah. Here's my sister-in-law Marrisse and their youngest, Katrina. This is Caleb, the one boy with 4 sisters. He's almost 3.

Since the kids were off school yesterday, we went with them to the pumpkin patch. Kristen brought 6 of her 7 boys plus a friend. It wasn't as crowded yesterday as it was on Saturday, but we sure filled up the hay ride. There were 21 of us, after all. And dad was off work, so he came too.

Here's Aaron (3rd oldest in my family) with Caleb and Maggie, age 7.

Hannah, age 9, is their oldest. She was born right after Kristen's twins, Alec and Braden. Peter snuck in there too.Sophia is 5 and just started Kindergarten. My mom was just saying that they have 4 grandchildren starting school this year - Elizabeth, Daniel, Sophia and Peter.
So I think I've had my fill of pumpkin patches for the year. Dallin is going there for a field trip with his preschool, but I think I'm good.

Saturday, part II

After we left the pumpkin patch farm we decided to stop by the beach. After all, we had come so close, how could we not drive another 5 minutes to take a peek? It was a little cool and we didn't have our beach stuff with us, so we just walked down the pier. As far as piers go, this is one of my favorites because there are fun things to see.
The fishermen had just dumped a bunch of fish scraps over the edge, and the seals and birds were going nuts.

I love pelicans, especially when they're eating
They sure weren't afraid of us - the boys even got to touch one.

Then we went down below the pier and saw where all the seals hang out. They were swimming around all the poles.
It looked really cool down there, but it freaked the boys out when they heard cars driving up above us. I love the view along here.
And anchors are always fun to climb. It was an awesome day.

It's that time of year again

We celebrate Halloween the whole month of October around here. It's a close second to Christmas for my kids, as far as favorite holidays go. On Saturday we went to our favorite pumpkin patch/hay ride/animal farm/vegetable stand/hay maze/ice cream parlor. We go there at least once every October. We usually like to go during the week, since it's always so crowded on the weekends, but this was the only day Dave could go this year.

We started out doing the hay maze. We didn't get lost in there too long this time, so that was good. And they have green hair because there was a green tarp on top to prevent people from peeking over the hay to find their way out.
Here we are on the hay ride. Brennan is quite excited about the tractor.
The hay ride took us out to the pumpkin patch. Actually there were several pumpkin patches in a row, so we chose the one with the most pumpkins, obviously.

Check out that perfect pumpkin. They already knew what shapes they wanted before we got there, which made choosing fairly quick and easy.
Sometimes we had to redirect them to ones that weren't rotten.
Brennan kept calling them "balls!"
I had to take this picture quick - that pumpkin is heavier than it looks!
Once we had them all picked out, we headed back to catch the hay ride.

After we arrived pack at the barn, we were all famished. So we ate our picnic lunch. Then we got treats at the sweet shop - candy for Brennan... And ice cream for the boys. They wanted to taste Brennan's candy, but we said "No way!" There have to be some things that only he can have.