Congratulations Teri!!

 Joel's girlfriend Teri 

graduated from nursing school and so today we had a surprise little get together for her to celebrate her achievement. It was just an intimate little get together with her family and our family and a couple of her closest friends.

I wanted to make her a card, as I had recently got a new set from Unity that I wanted to put some ink to.

I had the idea in my head and "this time" it actually came out on the paper the way I thought in my head!!

Sometimes that is not the case.

I started with all these components....

which made this final product!!

I'm actually pretty pleased with how it turned out. I have been taking some colouring classes with Kit and Clowder and it's crazy how a few short lessons with some basic principals have transformed my colouring.

Chow for now, 

Jacqui

Salsa Day!

 I have a very large number of tomatoe plants in my garden this year. I planted 13. 12 red tomatoe plants and 1 lemon boy, which bears yellow fruit and is to be a little less acidic than the red tomatoes. Shortly after I planted them something ate 6 of them. So I replaced those 6 with a fresh bunch of plants. As things got to growing a number of plants (like maybe 40) came up from seeds from last year! So I have a bunch of plants growing. I didn't know how the ones that came up from last year would do, but they are bearing fruit as well. Just small tomatoes, but that's okay.

I have never made salsa before, but Jade likes it and I like it every now and then so I thought what the heck I'll make some salsa. I don't like spicy stuff though - so no jalapeno's for me.

I got a salsa recipe from my friend John at work and got to work making salsa. I used all these tomatoes except for 3 in the recipe.

There all all the tomatoes chopped up in the stock pot.

Then I added in some sweet banana peppers

Them some bell peppers. I used green, red, yellow and orange. Very colourful!!

Here they are all chopped up!

Then a bunch of onions. These were all grown in my garden too!!! I planted red, yellow and white onions this year. I was hoping for better results, but maybe next year.

There it is all ready to cook. You bring it all to a boil and then let it simmer 3-4 hours. 

After 4 hours of simmering, I got almost 10 full jars of salsa. 

Joe was out mopping the floor for me (I'm a messy cook!!!!) and he was telling me when they were popping!!! Popping is the best sound when you are canning. That means your food is sealed and can be stored for a longer period of time. Here's hoping it tastes as good as it smelled in my house all day today!!

Chow for now, 

Jacqui

28 years - Happy Anniversary to Me!!!!

So I met this guy when I was in nursing school. His dad was my patient. He walked off the elevator to come and visit his dad one day...and well...as they say, the rest is History.

28 years ago today I woke up and it was raining. I thought great, rain on my wedding day, that's just awesome. 😢 But after multiple people telling me how it was "good luck" to have rain on your wedding day. I got over it!! 

 

It was just too much of an exiting day to be all bummed out cause of the weather. As as it turned out by the time I stepped foot out of the car that brought me to the park with Poppa - it had stopped raining.

Gathered with our family and friends we started down this crazy path of marriage.

We got married at Southside Park in Woodstock where we both spent many hours playing ball, watching ball or umpiring ball. So it was fitting to get married there!

Little did I know....the laughter was just beginning

There has been lots of hair come and go over the years! I'll admit though this is one of my favourite pictures of Joe, all tanned up from being outside.

Then we embarked on the "kid thing". Who knew bringing two little people in the world was going to bring us so many smiles and tears all wrapped up into big bundle of love?

And those two little grew up to be two pretty amazing adults. I could not be prouder of the people Jade and Joel have become. They are good people. Caring and thoughtful and they are all mine!!!

There is never a dull moment with this one around. He makes me laugh each and every day.

We even got to spend some time with Dolly (it doesn't really matter that it was a statue does it??)

We took some time a couple of years ago to get some family pictures done (now that there is a photographer in the family things like that are very very important).

We even were blessed to get some taken by that photographer Jade!

I know there have been many doubters over the last 28 years. "they'll never make it, I give them 5 years" etc. etc. But ya know what? Despite all the negative Nelly's getting married was not something that we entered into lightly. When things were rough....we worked it out. When things were great we rode that wave. We may not have a million dollars, and we may not have a fancy house or fancy cars, but we have love and that is priceless. We raised two amazing kids who are awesome adults.

This last picture though.....the looks on our faces.....is pretty typical. Pretty much every day at some point we'll look at each other and be like WTF? What twist is the world gonna throw our way today? But you know, we just buckle up and plow on thru cause we have each other - through thick and thin. 

Love ya honey, here's to another 28 years,

Chow for now, 

Jacqui