Summer vacation

I heard that school starts around here in 2 weeks, and teachers start up at the end of this week. I'm always surprised when the summer vacation comes to an end, mostly because it is so much earlier than up north, and also because there are no signs of fall weather anywhere. I do love the fall, though, so knowing September is right around the corner makes me happy. I doubt the pack of wild children that live on the corner feel the same.

Lisa's family came to visit a couple of weeks back. I unfortunately had to work quite a bit while they were here, but the nice thing about living at the beach is that vacation comes to you and you still get to enjoy everyone's company. We made 4 batches of homemade ice cream:


More on our dessert-fest later....

While playing Bocce on the beach one evening, Julie and Christie entertained us all with a series of well-timed jumping photos. Too funny.

Yes, Christie is smoking a candy cigarette. I hear they are going to ban them soon.


Hey Robin, didn't Mr. McSwain say that the way you jump reveals something about your inner psyche? I'm no psychologist, but I feel there could be volumes to analyze here!


The best one was of Julie, realizing mid-jump that her chosen style was not mini-skirt friendly. It ripped up the back about 2 inches.

It was Christie's skirt.

It's gettin' hot in here...

Today was really hot. It may have reached 100, I'm not sure, but at 6PM it was still 91F. So what did Lisa and I decide to do? Can tomatoes.


If you've never canned tomatoes (or anything I guess), it requires standing over a stove with all 4 burners going on High. Since this was our first attempt at canning (Lisa had made strawberry jam a number of times, but this is a little different), we probably weren't that efficient but to get all 3 jars ready, with both whole and chopped tomatoes, we used all 4.

I wish I could say these were our homegrown tomatoes, but they weren't. We do still have a few tomatoes ripening, but not nearly enough to can. So these came from our co-op -- not organic but grown in NC. Hopefully we can pack a nice stash away for the winter.

While we were waiting for the jars to boil and seal, we relaxed with a nice Taiwanese black tea:


We then made a nice dinner of crab cakes, spiced lentils, and salad, and then checked on the final product:


They look pretty good! At first we thought one of them didn't seal, but it looks like the "button" is down now....
We may try another 3 cans before bedtime. Ever wonder what people without TV do for fun? Now you know.