It's Marketable...Maybe

Allison had this great idea..."let's make REAL fruit snow cones and sell them on the street corner!" Her mother said "no" to the street corner, but "sure" to the making of snow cones. She chuckled to herself when she thought through the process of how much work it would take to get enough juice to make even one snow cone. Allison's original idea included bananas, but when it was explained how you can't juice a banana with a citrus press, she moved on to other fruit.

So, here's what happens when cousins get together on a "hot" (70 degrees) Seattle afternoon.


Mushing the watermelon with a citrus juicer because the blender was off limits.


The goal: nine, not ten, snow cones.


Awestruck by the perfect cone-top created by Gavin with a kitchen funnel.


Yup, folks. That's almost half a watermelon and nearly an hours worth of time.


Grapefruit proved to be much harder than watermelon and Josi looks...well, done.


They roped off the front porch to inhibit any toddlers from entering the work zone.


Each snow cone was hand selected and flavor was carefully added with a turkey bulb syringe.


There you have it. Three flavors to choose from: Grapefruit (pretty sure that is more than the "one" grapefruit their mother said they could use), Lemon/Lime Gatorade and Watermelon.


After 3 hours of work, they are finally ready to eat! They offered one to the mother, and after sampling them, she'd have to say they were the kind of good only a labor of love can enjoy. (And an hour later, the mess is still on the front porch).

- You might have to zoom in to catch Duncan's expression. He had already eaten his when I went to take the picture. He still wanted to be in the photo so he told me he'd pretend he still had something to eat. This was his re-creation of the experience. Priceless.

Shed No More

While I hang out in Washington enjoying my nieces and nephews and visits with Jenny and Todd, Richard stayed at home. I think he'd rather be with us, but couldn't take a whole week off of work. To bide the time, he decided to tear into our summer project - the removal of the old, original shed is the first step on the list.

I can't imagine the exhaustion since I am only part of this transition via email and phone. Gavin and Allison helped a bit the first day, but then we left for Seattle and Richard finished the rest. I believe Ben Bird came over to help him get the roof off, which, apparently, was the only thing holding the walls up. When the roof came off the walls jiggled like jello.

We are hoping to use the brick to make an outdoor fireplace and in place of the shed there will be more concrete poured to expand our patio. The walls were actually two brick thick...I think my fear of not having enough brick for our project is dispelled.





We removed some boards and discovered there were windows behind them. Very cool. We are guessing they are probably original, which would date them back 100 years or so. The number of wasp nests were amazing! The old coiled metal looks like it might have been used to make a wagon wheel rim...who knows, I'm totally guessing. Maybe it's not too far fetched considering the family who built our home were Blacksmiths and we found the tool that might have been used for wheels.



The lilac bush is very old. Richard tried to chop it down a few years ago and it just grew back. We are hoping to take starts from it and make a hedge of lilacs to separate the patio from the backyard and new shed.



Maybe we'll use some of it for a path, or wall...or something decorative. That's more brick than I thought there would be!

iNSOMNIA hELP

What is insomnia good for? Absolutely nothing!...except perhaps blogging. At this particular moment, it beats Spider Solitaire, again. If only this insomnia bout would leave my brain functioning on a somewhat normal level so I could formulate my thoughts for a blog entry.

As many of you may have noticed, I have fallen off the Blogging Band Wagon. I think I fell so long ago that I am no longer even choking on wagon wheel dust. My feeble attempts to stay connected through this medium get weaker and weaker and yet, I still hear a distant sound that calls to me from my blog page beckoning me to do something with all it's wasted, outdated space. So here's what I have to say while I wait for my sleep "enhancers" to kick in.

California Speed. The card game my daughter and I are currently hooked on. She talked me into it last Sunday and we have played every day since. It's nice because I try my hardest to win and she still kicks my trash 80% of the time. She giggles a lot.

Robert's House. Currently, my son is lending his muscles to his uncle for some home repair projects. He left last Sunday with a quick goodbye and a big smile. As he walked out the door I hollared for him to call me when he gets homesick. I waited for his call that very night. I waited the next night and the next. Finally, today I called him. Oops...he was too busy and he didn't remember. Uncle Robert works them hard for the morning and then they spend their afternoons watching movies and eating at buffets for dinner. When I talked to him today, I mentioned he should call me before he went to bed that night even if he didn't miss me, because I missed him. 11PM. He called. We were almost sleep. Now I am on my second round of trying to get my brain to shut down.

Relief Society. I spend one hour a day and that's it. I can't do anymore. If the Bishop needs more he's going to have to bring down the powers of heaven and ask for a miracle. Now that I have set my guide, I am still trying to abide by it or if I am obeying it, I'm trying hard not to feel guilty for not doing something more. Oh, and I just got the new changes in Visiting Teaching taken care of and Richard informed me tonight about another family who's moving. It's not too bad, it just zaps the hormones right out of me. Ask Richard how he feels about that.

Hormones. Levels are too low to be considered hormones anymore, they are more plasma and flesh. I love that I am no longer breaking out like a teenager, but feel the insomnia and hot flashes might go away if I could get these babies back in sync. So, here goes another trial run at what works best with C's body!

Yard Work. Overdone, overestimated and overpaid. It appears nobody wants to work for nothing no matter how bad the economy is looking. We need a lot of concrete and fast. The weeds are making us looney and we simply don't have time for them. However, the garden is already the apple of our eye. We still have our fingers crossed hoping the little green shoots coming through the ground are actually going to bear fruit of some kind. We over-planted watermelon if anybody is interested.

Allison. Grew 1 3/4 inches during her fifth grade school year and she is only one size behind me in shoes. Ahhhhh! Not too mention and maybe I shouldn't, but we had to upgrade some of her undergarments to accomodate for growth. This is not happening. NOT happening. My baby is entering her last year of elementary school.

Gavin. He's The Man. That's all he requires and it's easy really. All we must do to get him to function in our family and do the work that needs to be done is to stroke his already, rapidly growing ego, by telling him "He's the Man". He smiles and does what he's told. Seems pretty simple to me. Do you think there are going to be any long lasting effects from this method of parenting? Guess we won't know until it's too late!


New families moved into the nieghborhood. Nice people. All of them. They like yard work and green seems to be their favorite color for a lawn too. They should fit in nicely. PLUS, they all go to church every week. I hope our goo goo's and gah, gah's over functioning members didn't scare them away.

The more I site the MORE i FEEL RELAXED. tHIS bLOOGGING HAS BEEN JUST WHAT TEH dOCTOER ORDERED. i THINK MY BRAIN IS FINALLY FUZZY ENOUGH FOR DREAM LESS SLEEP.LDFFKKKKKKKKKK JFFFFFFFJFFFFFLS FJJF EJ JF AS ....................................My legs feel like jello when I stand up and my up wants to be flat on the ground. I think they're working.