5 and big!!

When our Randi was little she couldn't wait to turn "5 and big"! Oh the things she was going to do, the closer she was to turning 5 the more fun she was sure she would be having. When Randi married and started having babies, I was so excited to be part of my own grown up version of "5 and big".

5 generations!!!
1st-my Grma Brown, 2nd-my Dad, 3rd-ME!!! 4th-my Randi and 5th-my Grandsons Elijah and Connor. I love this picture! My Dad looks proud as a peacock...but that was before Grma "got after" him, not once but 3 times for not telling her we were coming, it was priceless! Let me tell you at 94 Grma is sharp as a tack and a still a force to be reckoned with! This was so special for me! Randi was right...it is oh so fun to be "5 and big".

If ya can't take the heat...

Grilling out is one way we keep our house cooler in the heat of summer. I would really like one of those green EGG ceramic grills...but here's the honest truth...rarely do I do the grilling. Jon does our grilling and he is pretty much a master at it on our Weber kettle grill. I'm the kitchen prep part of this dynamic duo. Although I'm pretty sure if we had an EGG he would love it...and I would love him loving it. I did decide if I was going to say that we would really love an EGG I should at least make and attempt at grilling a meal or two. So far this summer I've done one meal all by my lonesome.I made pork and grilled corn. I found a recipe for grilled corn with a mayo mixture smeared on, it was really good. Most of the time when we grill there are 2 things that are a grill staple for us, grilled toast, and potatoes on the grill.
When we make Grilled Toast we try to use bread that we can cut thick, I like using sourdough. Butter both sides and sprinkle with Lawry's season salt and grill both sides, so good that even the ones that get a bit to dark get eaten. This year we are using natural lump charcoal, so far we are pretty impressed.

Potatoes on the grill.
Grated potatoes
Thinly sliced onions
Butter, salt, pepper, Lawry's, lemon pepper.
Spray heavy duty tin foil. Put potatoes, onions, butter and seasons on tin foil then wrap up and then wrap with another piece of tin foil. Grill until done. We usually put on before we put the meat on unless we are grilling something that is really thick.

Tastes even better than they look!! The sweet corn is from our garden, we plant Gotta have it from Gurneys and it is by far the best corm we have ever had or grown.

Summer supper out doors...keepin' it cool inside.

Here I am helping clean up(fulfilling my part of the dynamic duo;) in my new apron from Cowgirl Goods, I love it! Oh yea Cowgirl has an EGG, and she hardly uses her oven...yup she's cool.

Going Home

My Mom & Dad dee. I. vee. oh. are. see. e'd when I was 20, by then I had already been gone since I was 17, my Brother who is just a year younger had came and went a couple of times , my Sister Tami left shortly after the big D. at age 13. Our youngest Brother stayed the longest but was bounced between our parents and Ants & Uncles. I have often felt saddened when someone would say "we always come home on the weekends" or "I'm going home to see my folks". Fragmented family's often times don't lend themselves to having a roots kind of home. I remember when my Mom or Brother would say "are you coming up home for Christmas?" I'd reply "I am home but we are up coming for a visit"...petty I know. Trips north to visit family have always been so special to me, it has also been bittersweet. Recently one of my favorite Uncles passed away after nearly 3 year cancer battle (just for the record...most of them are my favorite, 9 on my Mom's side and 4 on Dad's). Packing and heading up north this time was that very rare feeling of "I am going home". A trip back to see Aunts, Uncles, cousins and neighbors that I hadn't seen in years, catching up, and being surrounded by people that I really love alot, at a very hard time...bittersweet.

Exhale. I am here, not my home but a home that I and my siblings spent ALOT of time at when we were kids, there are other homes, but for this trip this is where I want to be. The farm of my Uncle and my Ant. home. This is where I spent many summer days on the back of a horse or a pony herding the milk cows in the field out behind the barn. I also spent alot of time riding pigs and those milk cows, Uncle was fine with us riding pigs...not so fine with us riding the milk cows, especially when their milk production dropped. He never passed up a hard luck case or a good laugh. Over the years my Uncle and Ant took in many strays...human and critter...young and old. No one was ever turned away from their table. When he "went home" tickets were purchased post-haste, nieces, nephews, friends of his children that came to stay for the weekend and left over a year later...or never left until they were adults...we all came "home".

This is Sandy.
My Uncle and his son went to buy tractor parts, and came home with her, they bought her off a slaughter truck for $20, hooves over grown and nothing but skin and bones, she was in really rough shape. Another Aunt of mine, who lives down the road from Uncle had to have knee surgery...she was in rough shape too, so the donkey was named after Ant Sandy.

One day Kyle ran to the house saying "Grandpa Sandy is down, we need the 4 wheeler!" Uncle said "We'll take the truck, hop in" then he drove to get his son to help "get ol' Sandy up" all the while thinking it was Ant Sandy who was down. He pulled up to where Dan was, and said at the same time he saw Sandy the donkey on the ground "Dan, Sandy is down we need to go..." The story was still being told and laughed at as we all sat around and visited as families do when a loved one "goes home".

Ant Sandy's knee healed, and Sandy the donkey managed to get pregnant and have little Ellie Mae a couple of weeks ago, even though she still looks a bit rough she looks a whole lot better than she did when she stepped off the slaughter truck, another stray taken in. My Uncle will be missed, he was a good example of giving and reaching out to so many of us. It was a bittersweet trip...so if home really is where the heart is...then I can truly say...

...it was good to be "home".