Time With Friends

We had a few good friends from Iowa City join us in God's Country for Labor Day weekend. Kara and Kristen made their way up and arrived late Friday night. Saturday morning I made my first batch EVER of jelly. Kristen and Kara were by my side cheering me on. That afternoon Kara "learned" me on how to make homemade egg rolls. Fun, easy, and delicious! Well, after all of that food we needed to get some exercise, so up the mountain we went. A neighbor had told us of a small group of apple trees near the top so we had added motivation to reach the summit. It took us about 45 min. And we did indeed find the apple tree! Unfortunately, the apples were clear at the top. Tom and Kristen returned to their youth and climbed the tree to grab the prize...a sweet, crisp, juicy apple. Well, let's try sour, mealy and wormy but it was fun anyway. As we were foraging for the fruit, Thomas, Michael, and Isabelle were scaling the rock wall. Thomas accidentally stepped on a wasp's nest so that was the end of that. We made our way back down the mountain and headed for home.

Sunday was very warm. We decided to find the local water hole. We found it about a half mile away on Mission Lake. It was a very nice beach. There are shelters, grills, changing rooms and most importantly SHADE!! While the kids were busy finding frogs, Kristen and I decided to swim across the lake--twice! It was great!

Monday morning came much too fast. I made caramel rolls for breakfast and Kristen had made panna cotta with gingered peaches for my birthday treat. Let's just say we didn't make it out of our sugar coma for quite some time and spent the day lounging around. We managed to have a BIG vegetable salad for lunch before saying good-bye to our company. Come back soon!