Berry Picking

Yesterday was one of the rare days that come along every now and then, when I really did't have anything to do.  Actually, I had plenty to do, but it all revolved around house work, and that did not sound the least bit fun to me. I was scrolling down thru Facebook (while I was attempting to clean a stack of papers off of  my computer desk) and saw an ad on Facebook for a berry farm.  That was all it took to hinder my cleaning.  So as soon as Rod got off of work we headed to Greer Farms in Dangerfield Texas.  It was a really neat little farm that had tons of blueberry and blackberry bushes.  They even have cabins available for rent on a little lake.  And they have cooking classes. And the wife is from Belize.  How have I never heard of this place before?

 I was the blackberry picker.  

 Rod was the blueberry picker.

 We ended up with lots of berries!

 When we got home I made a couple batches of blueberry muffins.  I used Paula Deen's recipe and they were SO good!

BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

Ingredients 

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1 egg, slightly beaten
3/4 cup whole milk
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup granulated brown sugar or white sugar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin.

In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and sugar. In another bowl, combine butter, egg, and milk and mix well. Pour the wet ingredients into the flour mixture and with a spatula, stir until just combined. Do not beat or over mix; it’s okay if there are lumps in the batter. Gently fold the blueberries into the batter.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tray, filling each cup about 2/3 full. Bake for 10 minutes and remove from the oven. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with the granulated brown or white sugar and return the muffins to the oven to bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool for about 10 minutes in the pan before turning the muffins out.

Rangers vs A's

We used some of our "free" tickets and went to our second Ranger game of the year last Monday night and watched them win against the Oakland A's.  The Rangers previously had lost 6 games in a row, so it was nice to see them win again!  

We stopped to eat at one of our favorite restaurants, Posado's, before heading over to the game.  Avery doesn't know what she missed out on sleeping through supper!

 

 My nephew Hudson, Michael, Cody and his girlfriend Amber went to the game with us

 Go Rangers!

 Our seats were up pretty high, but they weren't too bad at all.  And we had nice cool breeze which was great!

  

Since it was a Monday night game there were quite a few empty seats.  So about half way through the game we moved down by the bull pen to watch the "closers" warm up.  And we lost our nice cool breeze!!

Rod loves to going to watch the Rangers play.  I just like to "go."  Anywhere.  It was another fun night!  We will be going back the end of this week with a group of friends from church.

VBS

Our VBS theme this year was Circus of Faith and it was so fun to decorate for!  We did it a little differently this year.  Instead of having one classroom designated for a certain age group for the night, we broke it up into three stations:  puppets, Bible story and crafts, and the kids pre-k thru 4th grade rotated to each of the stations.  Mel and I were the Bible story teachers, so we taught the story three different times each night.  It seemed to work out so much better this way!  

Decorations started on Thursday evening and then finished up with the auditorium and foyer on Sunday afternoon.

The baby classroom

Bible Story room

Junior High classroom

Puppets room (Michael and Tripp were the puppets each night - Courtney filled in on Sunday morning.)

Auditorium

 Sunday night drew the largest crowd

 Charles was the Ring Leader and he did not disappoint!  He did an outstanding job as always.

  Puppets

 Bible Story time

Crafts

 These two girls kind of like each other

Snack time!

Courtney, Hailey and Katie Sue who came to VBS all the way from Quanah, TX

Michael turns 21!!

Michael turned 21 on Sunday!  21!!  I honestly can't believe I have a 21 year old!! With all the graduation activities, his birthday kind of sneaked up on me.  But when I woke up around 2pm on Saturday afternoon after my night of partying with a bunch of graduation seniors, I realized I had done absolutely nothing to plan for his birthday, which was the next day.  I always cook the kids their favorite meal on their birthdays or take them out to eat where ever they want to go.  Their choice.  I was secretly hoping Michael would choose to go out to eat since I was still recuperating from my late night and since we would be at the church building all Sunday afternoon decorating for VBS.  But he wanted his favorite meal of smoked sausage, potatoes and peppers (I just realized I don't even know the name of dish).  So, at 11pm on Saturday night I finally made it to Wal-Mart (I was still going strong since I had slept until almost 2pm) and bought what I needed to prepare his favorite meal.  And to find a cake. Wal-Mart has no cakes at 11pm on Saturday nights.  Except for graduation cakes or baby shower cakes!

The birthday boy!

Molly and the kids were in town from Quanah.  And the Butlers and the Mathews came over for lunch too.

 A frozen ice cream cake for the birthday boy.  It really wasn't too bad.

 We ended up going out to eat Sunday night after VBS too.  Molly was needing some real Mexican food while she was in town.

Happy Birthday Michael Blake!  You are a true blessing from God!

Project Graduation

Project Graduation actually started for us on Thursday night when we started baking all the sweets for the big night.  My plan was, to stay up late on Thursday night baking.  And then to sleep late on Friday morning so that I would be prepared to stay up all night after graduation.  Well, Thursday night went according to planned.  I finished all the baking and crawled into bed at 2am.  All I had left to do on Friday was ice the cupcakes and dip one batch of cake balls.  But Friday morning didn't work out as I had planned.  I woke up at 7am and could not go back to sleep.  So I had 5 hours of sleep on Thursday night to last me until 6am Saturday morning.  But I did it. Somehow.  

Red Velvet cake balls, red velvet cupcakes, mini banana caramel pies, chocolate chip cookies, chess cake bars, snickerdoodle brownies and cake batter rice krispie treats

 Each senior gets to take a guest.  Courtney took Kelby as her guest.

Some of my favorite people :)

  The Withers provided an awesome firework show around midnight

Michael stayed until about 1:30am.  He had to work the next day too.

Every hour or so, there were minute to win it games.  They were pretty fun to watch.

 Three on three basketball tournament

 Qtip shooters

 Mummy race

 Hoola Hoop chain

 A very tired girl.

And finally...the time everyone had been waiting for - 5:30 am when the award money was handed out.  All the seniors who stayed all night got between $40 and $1000.  Courtney ended up right in the middle with a little over $500.

We got home a little after 6am.  I had every intention of getting up around 11am or noon.  But when I finally got up the clock said 1:45 pm!  I learned I am way to old to stay out all night!!  But it was worth it to keep our kids off the streets and for the senior class to have one more night together!