We're Jammin'

And I was SO close to catching up on my blog posts too... Oh well.

Last week we had a Signs family reunion in San Diego, but happily, my sister Mindy who lives in Oregon was able to come down a week early with two of her kidlets to spend some time here with us! That was the same week that Dennis and my 4 older boys were gone at scout camp, so the 3 of us got to spend extra time with them. It was grand!

Of course, Mom, Lisa and I HAD TO whisk Mindy away to our favorite girlie getaway spot, Clementine patisserie, for some yummy Frenchy Frenchness! We took our time, chatted, and worked on the plans for the reunion. It would have been simply perfect if sister Natalee and SIL Elizabeth were with us too!

I LOVE this picture of my momma and sisters! Signs girls rock!

But it wasn't all play. We also stripped my parents' tree of all the ripe figs (a hot and sticky venture!) and made ourselves a batch of white fig jam.

Getting figgy with it!

I don't know what it is about making jam that I love so much, but it is always so satisfying to see all those pretty jars lined up on a dish towel. It is gonna be so yummy with some good brie on a slice of Dad's homemade Ciabatta!

While we were slaving over a hot stove in the kitchen, Dad was baking banana bread in his Sun Oven in the backyard. Bread bakes pretty darn fast out there this time of year, and dad does it to perfection!

(Did you know that many a Sunday, you can catch my dad in the parking lot at church checking his food that he has cooking in the Sun Oven in the bed of his truck? He runs out there between meetings and adjusts it, then, by the time church is over, dinner is ready! Weird? Yes. Smart? Yes. Delicious? Absolutely!)

While Mom and my sisters, and I were busy together, the cousins were also having a great time together. The girl cousins were having a blast! I was amazed to watch them. They were doing things like drawing fairies. Fairies are so much nicer than the ugly monsters and aliens that I am used to the boys drawing around here. Refreshing.

They also got into a little boys vs. girls battle, and the girls tried to escape the boys, etc. Caleb decided to make a sign and asked my mom how to spell "Girls stink!" so my mom said "G-I-R-L-S-space-R-U-L-E" and Caleb faithfully wrote it on his sign. It was so funny! I think Caleb asked the wrong person.

Luke had a ton of fun with his cousin Zack! Those two are so funny together.

They invented a new sport on Mom's stairs - stair surfing; sliding on their tummies head first down the stairs at top speeds. Never mind that there is hard tile and the bottom. They kept doing it over and over and over, racing each other to the bottom. It was so funny. This is what kids do when it is too hot to play outside in the summertime. I am happy to report that there were no injuries.

Another thing we do in the summertime is make popsicles. We got Dennis this Zoku popsicle maker from Brookstone for Father's Day. It is SO cool! You leave it in the freezer and when you want a popsicle you pull it out of the freezer and pour what ever you want inside and it freezes right there on the counter top, in minutes, while you watch! It only does 3 at a time, but stays cold long enough to do 3 batches, so our whole family can have popsicles. Of course, on this day, there were only three of us, so we made diagonal double pops with chocolate milk and drinkable strawberry yogurt. SO yummy and refreshing on a hot day! What a fun invention! The kids get a huge kick out of watching it freeze and coming up with stuff to make popsicles out of.

This morning before my other sister Natalee took off beck home to Texas, we had to drag (kicking and screaming) over to Clementine too. We made her friend, Janet, who drove from Texas with her join us. After all, fair is fair. If we brought Mindy, we need to bring Natalee too, right? Right.

Next post will be all about our family reunion, but I'll get to that when I can. Today we leave for our big cross-country RV trip, and that will require a lot of blogging. Stay tuned for posts on our adventures, and of course lots and lots of photos from sea to shining sea!

Here we go!