Off To L.A. for the Weekend!

Soooo, doesn't that sound chic!! I was given the opportunity by my dear girlfriend from Kansas. She is going thru the process to be a surrogate mom, and she has a meeting in L.A. and has invited me to tag along, free of charge!! I fly out Friday night, and return Monday mid morning. We will only be there for 2 full days, but I am so excited to hang out with her, to fly on a plane, and stay in a hotel!! Not to sure that we will get a chance to see any sites, but I am still excited!! I have never been to California before, so this will be a first for me! My dear husband said that he would take care of the wildflowers for the weekend......what a guy : ) In the event that we do get to see some sites.....any recomendations??

In the meantime, I have been working on some projects but they are not completed yet, so here is just a peek......

Grapes, Sunshine and Family Tradition

As long as I can remember, we have always eaten homemade jelly. Never did the Welches brand get the chance to grace the shelves in our frigaders. (Well, it did when we ran out of the good stuff) You see, my Grandma Reen always made us homemade jelly made from fresh juice that she cooked herself. As we got older, we too were taught how to make grape jelly. In order to make that jelly you had to make the juice, and that is just what we did yesterday. We picked up 90 lbs of grapes, plucked them from the vine and cooked them down to juice. Sounds easy right.....let me assure you that it is not a one woman job! My mom, cousin Bobbi, myself, my dad and of course with a little help from the WildFlowers, we got the job done in about 7 hours!!

Bobbi and I were the pickers, mom was the cooker and juicer and dad and the wildflowers did what they could.

You have to pick them.....

Cover with water and cook them down......

Push them thru a strainer....

And viola......you have 12 gallons of freshly made grape juice!!

We had a fun time just being together and carrying on a tradition that has been part of our family for a long time. My grandma would have had such a fun time if she could have been there. She always loved it when we all got together for any reason at all. She would have loved to see the wildflowers playing around us as we worked......she is soo very missed.

This is the only picture I have of picking grapes with her and it is very blurry . Madison was just a baby.

Needing a Good Laugh????

Madison to Parker: "Perk, see my mermaid panties....(with a closer look by "Perk") he replies " ooohhh pitty". He really is soo sweet!

Found this video on You Tube and it gave me a good laugh!

Pray for this family.

(This post borrowed from Homemade By Jill)
I don't know the Nielsons, but have been brought to tears reading about their family's tragic accident and road to recovery. Design Mom declared today Nie Nie day, and asked the blogging community to spread the word.
Last week Christian and Stephanie Nielson were in a very serious plane crash. They are a young couple with four children under the age of six. They are in critical condition. Stephanie has third degree burns covering 80% of her body and Christian has third degree burns over 30% of his body. The recovery will be very long and very expensive.
If you are able, please consider contributing to this fund that will go directly to the family: Nie Recovery.
Today, several websites are auctioning off items for their benefit. Go here to see the comprehensive list: Design Mom.
Updates about Stephanie and Christian here on her sister's blog.