Making Turtles-YUM!

Our family started making these yummy chocolate,
Carmel and pecan goodies more than 20 years ago.
Patsy, (Rhonda's mother-in-law) is our official
Carmel maker. After all these years we have come
up with our own system. Patsy makes and stirs the
Carmel, the rest of us dip the Carmel onto the pecans,
lift the Carmel once it has cooled and place it on wax
paper to continue to set up. Once all the batches about
6-8 double batches are complete we start with Rhonda
melting and keeping our bowls full of almond bark,
dip every Carmel and pecan goodies in the nice warm
chocolate and then let them set up. This year we had
all of the kids helping us(even Tucker), (that took a lot
of bribing on my part, he's the only boy).



Me, Patsy and Rhonda on Carmel duty. We
haven't let the kids help with this part yet
because it is so hot.


Rhonda....dip and drop the Carmel onto the pecans.

Here is what they look like, once cooled we

transfer them to wax paper to cool even more.



We let Nevaeh have a small amount of cooled

Carmel in a bowl. (pst, don't tell her mom we

gave her seconds..).She loved it! She has been

learning sign language for the "more" sign ,

and that sign was her favorite sign of the day.

I believe we counted over 1500 turtles this year.

A few years ago we made over 2200 candies.

We have plenty for gifts and then some.

This is only one of the tables of cooling Carmel

and pecan pieces.

The long long process of dipping the candies

in chocolate!


Taylor, Kylie, Bailey, me and Patsy

Tessa, Taylor and Bailey, still at it



Mmmmmmmm!



Here is the recipe if you are interested:

Single batch makes approx 100-125 large candies,

we tend to make them small enough to eat in 1-2 bites.

1 cup no salt real butter
1 1/14 cup brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup light corn syrup

1 14 ox can sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon real vanilla

Pecans (chopped)

Melt butter in a 2 quart (heavy) sauce pan. Stir in sugar and salt; bring to boil. Add corn syrup; bring to boil again, then add sweetened condensed milk; Stir constantly til temp. reached 235 degrees(you can vary a few degrees less for softer Carmel or few degrees more for more firm Carmel). Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Remove from heat and let cook til no longer boiling. Once Carmel start to thicken you can start dropping tsp size drops of Carmel onto cookie sheets of pecans. Let cool a few minutes and lift the camel/nut pieces from tray with a fork and place on wax paper to cool and set up. Once Carmel's are cool.(you should be able to pick up piece with out it falling apart). You melt the almond bark and drop candy pieces in the melted chocolate and cover the piece in chocolate then remove and place back on wax paper to set up.

Fun in the Fall

My niece Bailey had braces put on about a week
ago, Taylor had hers put on back in March of 2008.
These two are 6months and 6 weeks apart in age
and I wanted to get a picture of them with their
braces, they are so cute with them on. They go
to the same Orthodontist, every month they get
to change the color of bands that hold the wires
on. Bailey chose 3 colors, pink, green and blue.
She looks like she had a bubble gum fest in her
mouth. Taylor has orange and black on in the
picture. (although you can't really see in the picture)
I took Taylor to the Ortho yesterday and she
changed her colors to ...........yes,
Christmas colors. Red and Green.




Here is a short video I took last Sunday afternoon
with my new camera that my wonderful husband
bought for me on our California trip. Taylor is
number 43.



Here is a team picture on Tessa's Sunday league.
Tessa is on the top right. This is their SERIOUS
picture.

Here is their SILLY picture.

Tessa also plays for her school 5th grade team on

Saturday mornings. Tessa is very aggressive and

some of the girls in this league have never played

before. I believe this score for this game wis 36 to 4.

Tessa's coach has to remind her to "back off" of the

other girls, she can be quite aggressive when she

wants the ball. Last week on her Sunday league she

was crawling across the floor at a very fast pace and

rolling with another girl to get the ball, only to wind

up with a jump ball, it was really exciting to see her

play with so much spirit. Tessa and her cousin Kylie

are very fun to watch play ball, they are so much alike

in their spirits, there is never a dull moment.

Here is a tree from our neighbors front yard.

The leaves have been absolutely beautiful. I don't

think I was able to capture the true beauty here,

the sun was so electrifying shining through the

beautiful leaves.



I took my niece nevaeh out side to play in the

leaves, she was more interested in playing with

the rake than jumping in them.

She did not want to "pose" for a picture, that

rake just sitting there and she really needed to

get back to it.



Now, she was ready to "pose" for her picture.

Ever wonder what we look like at 4 am... well,

here it is. We took this photo at the airport in

Sacramento CA. before I got on the plane to

come back to INDY.

A trip out West

David and I recently drove west on I 80 to California,
just the two us. David took a job in California.
I drove all 2200 miles with him to take his car
out there and to set up his apartment. We left on Wednesday
night and arrived a little over 56 hours later. I flew
home on Sunday. Wow what a trip!!!



We went through many states from Indiana to California




We visited the Bonneville Salt Flats on the way.




I have to say we had so much fun together, it was
almost like a second honey moon.




This was taken somewhere out in Wyoming.

David and I are exploring the possibility of moving
to the Sacramento California area for his job. We
have set up temporary housing just outside of the
Sacramento area & David is trying out the job and
the area to see if this is what is in store for our future.
The kids are now in 10th, 7th and 5th grades, none of
whom want to uproot. We will take this one day at a
time and see what the future holds.

Healthy Level of Insanity

To Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.
2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice!
3. Every Time Someone Asks You to Do Something, ask If they want fries with that.
4. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their caffeine addictions, Switch to Espresso.
5. In the Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write ' For Marijuana'
6. Finish All Your sentences with 'In Accordance With The Prophecy'.
7. Skip down the hall Rather Than Walk ! And see how many looks you get.
8. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.
9. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is 'To Go'.
10. Sing Along At The Opera.
11. Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area and Play tropical Sounds All Day.
12. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend Their Party Because You have a headache.
13. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream 'I Won! I Won!'
14. When Leaving the Zoo, Start Running towards the Parking lot, Yelling 'Run For Your Lives! They're Loose!'
15. Tell Your Children Over Dinner, 'Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.'

Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that made you smile.