We had so much fun at the People’s Choice art fest. Nate met us at the festival. We bought a cool statue (see picture). The statues that this artist makes are so cool. He takes railroad spikes and makes them into these statues. We’re probably going to get one made that is a canoe with two people in it.

We also bought a HUGE bag of kettle corn, which was probably the best kettle corn I have ever had in my life. There was some really cool artwork, and it was much more affordable than the other art fest.

We went back to Justin and Julie’s and started to get dinner ready for our massive bbq dinner. Ilana and I made crackers and we got the dip ready. Justin started the grill when he got home and as soon as he started putting things on the grill it started pouring, enough that the next morning our car looked liked it had been washed. We started to play mexican bean farmers again and then Justin didn’t want to play so we played spades with Nicole and Nate. Then we played Mexican Bean Farmer’s with Julie and she was the King Bean Farmer.

The next morning we had a great breakfast. Justin made ebilskivers, julie made fruit dip, and nicole made hashbrowns. Thanks so much, it was so much fun to see you guys we can’t wait to see you again.

After we shot off rockets, we went to the State College Arts Fest. We drove and parked at the stadium and rode a bus down to the festival. Aspen was so excited that she got to ride a bus, she said it was her first bus ride. We started walking around and there was some really cool stuff but it was so expensive, Julie met us and we ate lunch. There was a painting that cost $20,000. It was an old man coming out of a swimming pool. We walked around and eventually decided to go home.

We went to Wegman’s bought some great food for Friday night’s dinner. When Justin got home from work we went to The Corner for dinner, It was so busy because of the Arts Fest and the restaurant is downtown in the middle of it all. So when we finally got in we (Jordan and me, and Nicole and Nate) ended up sitting at a different table than Justin and Julie.

So we got our menus and finally decided what we wanted to eat. I got a philly cheesesteak sandwich and Jordan got a Ruban sandwich. All the food was great and not that expensive, which is also great.

Justin and Julie went home and Nicole and Nate showed us around Penn State. We got to go to the Creamery which was pretty fun. The ice cream was good, but I don’t think it is better than BYU’s ice cream, especially because you can split scoops at BYU. We went back to Justin and Julie’s and talked about lots of books, which Jordan made a list of so we would buy them .

We woke up and made breakfast- hash browns, bacon, onions, garlic, and seasonings. We have this pretty often and it tasted great camping. Cooking it in the dutch oven didn’t work very well. Julie had to go to class before we ate breakfast and Nate had to go to to work. We went back to Justin and Julie’s and just hung out. Julie came home from school and Nicole and Nate came over after work. They bought over some tasty donuts (more on that later). We went to the Boalsburg farmer’s market which was really small, but we bought some corn and Justin bought some cheese and tomatoes. We went back to Justin and Julie’s and grilled the corn and had barbecued chicken. W played Mexican Bean Farmers (also called Bonanza) and it was a ton of fun, enough that we’re probably going to buy it.

Wednesday

Nicole and Nate brought some really good donuts over on Tuesday afternoon, so good in fact that we drove 40 minutes the next morning to get them. They were so good. We also went to Bellville so that we could go to the Farmer’s Market there. The farmer’s market was really big and it was really cool too. There were a bunch of Amish people there were even signs that said “no buggy parking.” There were a bunch of animals that were being auctioned off, but still cool that the kids could see some animals. Aspen really wanted to see a chicken and we couldn’t find one. Someone heard her crying that she wanted to pet a chicken and told us that some Amish people were selling some chickens off the side, so we went there. The signs nearby said no pictures, so we didn’t take pictures of the kids petting the chicks.

After we left the farmer’s market we went to the Alan Seagar Natural Area. It was so pretty, Justin told us that it is some of the only old growth left in the United States. Ronan was carrying the backpack that had water in it and the lid came off of the 3 liter reservoir and filled his backpack with water. It was pretty funny because he was like, “guys, there’s water every where” then a couple of minutes later the same thing. So when we finally realized that the water he was talking about wasn’t the creek most of the water had spilled on him.

We drove back to their house and waited for Julie and Nate to meet us. Nicole and Nate when home so Katie could take a nap. We got stuff ready for dinner and then we went to Bald Eagle State Park to go swimming. We went swimming (the water was not as clean as Whipple Dam) and had a lot of fun. We made a really cool huge sand whale but we didn’t take a picture it was sad. We grilled the delicious green beans and corn that we bought at the Farmer’s Market that morning and it was delicious.

We went to Whipple Dam Park and we got to use the new water guns that we bought. The dam was pretty small and we were some of the only people that were there when we got there, but it got really busy really fast. Nicole took Katie swimming which was really cute, she liked the water a lot. Aspen really liked when Nicole made her a mermaid. We went back to Justin and Julie’s house and got cleaned up and planned everything that we wanted to eat for dinner that night because we were camping again. We decided we wanted to make chicken cor-don-bleu in a dutch oven. We went back to the store and got everything we needed for the next day. I tried to feed Katie an oreo because they are great but she’s too little to eat them now.

We went back to the camp and we had the chicken cor-don-bleu and the kids had mac and cheese. We made roasted marshmallows between oreos (or smoreos) and starbursts. We got to take some cool pictures of the kids’ flashlights and then we all went to bed.

Jordan and I set up the tent it pretty much the worst place ever. It was on a slope down and a slope to the right. So when we woke up the next day we were down in the corner when we woke up it was awful, and incentive to retry the hammocks.

The next day we woke up and Law and Order was on so we had to watch it before we could leave the hotel (this is a treat for Jordan because we don’t have TV, so the only way we watch Law and Order is if we get a DVD on netflix, which is what he does).

So we got back on the road and drove to Pennsylvania and got there at about 3:30p. When we pulled into Justin and Julie’s they were pulling out. So we got there and called Nicole and Nate and they came over. Jordan got to meet Katie and she looked so cute in her little patriotic outfit. Justin grilled some pizza and it was delicious. Then we went and bought FIREWORKS. I love fireworks, so we bought some cool ones. The only problem is that in Pennsylvania you can’t have anything that shoots in to the air (including the parachute men). In Missouri we can have pretty much anything because we live in the county.

We bought some awesome fireworks and then we went to the coolest grocery store in the world, Wegman’s. We bought all the kids some candy from the bulk bins, Ilana likes to put the PLU numbers in the scale and printing out the stickers. The entire time we were shopping Justin was pushing the shopping cart (the mini shopping cart) and Jordan was riding on the back like a little kid.

We went back to Justin and Julie’s house and we lit off the fireworks when it got dark enough outside. Ronan loved the fireworks, especially the sparklers we took some cool pictures with the fireworks. Aspen got a little burn on her forehead but she was okay after she got a Dora bandaid. So we saved the big fireworks until the end and tried to light them all at once. There were six fireworks and Jordan, Justin, and Nate tried to light them all so they would go off at once, which didn’t work, only four got lit. So Nate took a torch and went back and lit them after the other ones were showering sparks. We kept telling the kids that the it wasn’t safe, and that they shouldn’t do that ever. Those are the pictures that are a big shinning blob of light.

Nicole was drawing a heart, and I was still adjusting the shutter speed. The half that she got done looks really cool.

Our garden is doing awesome. It is growing so well we get something out of our garden pretty much every day. I pick basil about twice a week and make lots and lots of pesto. Which we put on sandwiches, eggs, pasta, pretty much anything. Here are some pictures of our garden and some chickens are thrown in there too.

Here’s the pesto recipe we used:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/homemade-pesto-recipe/index.html.

I double the recipe and use only 2 cups of olive oil instead of 3. We like it more of a spread instead of a sauce.

It is amazing how fast things grown in gardens. Just looking at those pictures then looking outside, I realized that the tomatoes are at least double the height they were in that picture. Plants are amazing!

We had a great anniversary. I can hardly believe we have been married three years. We had a really good day. We both had work but we made some ice cream and went to Branson. We wanted a couple of things for anniversary presents. We wanted a french fry slicer (sounds silly but we bake fries all the time and you can use it to cut potato dices too), a food processor (to make it a lot easier to make pesto because a blender does not work that well) and a marble rolling pin. So we went to the kitchen store in the Tanger outlets in Branson and got the french fry slicer, but they were out of the rolling pins and the food processors were too expensive. So we went to the kitchen store at the Landing and got the rolling pin. We just bought the food processor off the internet later that night.

We made some crackers with the new rolling pin and it worked great. The pesto was pretty good, but I think that I’ll double the recipe next time.

Jordan, I can’t think of another person I’d rather spend the rest of my life with. Thanks for the best (and longest*) three years of my life. I’m so happy we get to spend forever together.

Then:

Now:

*this is an inside joke and is not negative in any way

Painting the kitchen has been on our to do list since we moved in the house. I was gone most of June and when things settled down the house was a mess (specifically the kitchen). There is nothing more motivating to have your house clean than something new and exciting. So we decided to paint. Way back when we were under contract with our house I picked out colors for most of the rooms, but once we looked back at the color we didn’t really like it anymore. So we pulled out all the paint chips and the pamphlets filled with paint chips and looked at more colors. I narrowed it down to two colors: Behr Eastern Amber and Behr Apple Crisp.

Conveniently, you can buy small cans of paint to try out before you buy an entire gallon of paint. I bought those two colors and promptly when home and painted two big blocks on the wall next to the sliding glass door. We left them there about a week so we could see the colors in all lighting and eventually we (meaning Jordan because I’m really indecisive) picked Apple Crisp.

Here are the before pictures:

and here are the after pictures:

I bought some picture frames for the big wall behind the dining table. I’m working on picking out pictures to print off, we have so many pictures to choose from but I have some good ideas.

UPDATE: I also put some curtains on the Sliding Glass door because so much heat comes from that window in the afternoon. I’ll take a picture of the pictures I printed off and the curtains.

We liked one of the sunset pictures so much that we printed it and put it in our dining room.