Conference Weekend

So this weekend the girls and I drove up to my sisters house in Laverkin Utah. We met my parents, my brother and his wife there to watch LDS General Conference together. Our parents have always been very faithful in having a food storage supply. Enough to feed an army! They  can almost everything that can be canned. They have been doing this ever since I can remember. I remember as a young child watching them grow a large garden, full of all kinds of vegetables. At the time I hated having a garden, mainly because that meant us kids had to do lots of weeding! In the summer every morning we would go out and water and weed the garden for a few hours. I have to admit that sometimes we did enjoy our selves. Kara and I would play "pioneers" in the corn rows. I wont go into detail how we played ha ha but we had a lot of fun! Looking back I am grateful that my parent made us work hard! I have learned so much from their examples.

I hope to be a good teacher and example to my own girls as my parents were to me. My girls just love my dad!! (all of the grands kids do) he is always letting them help with all his projects that he does.

My mom and dad brought like 60 lbs of meat for us kids to can. We had 3 or 4 pressure cookers going, at once.My parents wanted us all to learn how to can meat. We did mostly chicken and a little beef.

It takes so much time to can meet!! Every detail is so important to do just right. We have to cut the meat into cubes, put the meat into  the mason jars and then boil the flat part of the lids (the part that has the rubber around it) I can't remember the name of it, but that part seals the jars.

Next you have to put the jars into the pressure cooker for 75 minutes. (sounds easy) you have to watch the pressure gage  to make sure it does not pass 15 degrees. If it passes that you have to turn the flam down and make sure it does not drop past 12 degrees. Kara is doing this part in the back yard on the camp cooker because we ran out of room in the kitchen.

The kids played house all day long!

Kris got a little wiped out after cutting a good amount of the meat:)

My dad needed to make sure we were getting the rings on the jars just right.

Me and my sweet sisters!! we are just a trio of good looking cooks right? (notice Kara and I have absolutely no makeup on with lovely bed head)

Lunch time!! Not only do my parents grow a great garden, but my dad is a great cook!! He is always making delicious  dinners that are always mouth watering. Growing up my dad was a shop teacher and then a Principal. But he can pretty much do anything you can think of. He built our house we grew up in,  knows every meaning of every word in the dictionary, he can fix almost anything, he can pretty much build anything you can imagine. He built me a changing table when I was pregnant with Portiln, I showed him one I like out of a Pottery Barn magazine and he just whipped one up. He built my girls a kitchen table and a dish cupboard one year for Christmas, and for another Christmas he built them the most amazing doll house.

While we were up at Kara's house they needed a new toilet so dad went out and got one and installed it within the hour. Needless to say we think he is pretty talented!! I guess what I'm trying to say is I am pretty lucky to have a dad that can always be counted on!! We love you dad!

All the kids playing in the empty toilet box. Who needs toys?

The finished product HOURS latter! We ended up canning about 120 pints or more of chicken and beef.

Aren't these just Beautiful!!!

These will last up to 10 years on the shelf. They taste no different in dinners then fresh chicken or beef you bought today. Thank you so much mom and dad for taking time to teach us and help make this such a fun and memorable weekend for me and my own children!!

Rowan and Bridger with their own pumpkins from Nana King.

Rowan is just making sure she picked the right pumpkin to take home!