Sydney is in!!

We just got the official announcement in the mail today that Sydney was accepted in the Suffolk Early Start Program. This means she will be attending a regular preschool program in the fall. Sadly there is not preschool program at Creekside, our local elementary school, but there is a program which we hope she will be at just down the road about 10 minutes away. Her teacher from last year will be teaching there, and had mentioned that if Sydney was selected, she will do her best to get Sydney in her class. That would be wonderful from my point of view since she knows Sydney and Sydney adores her. She will also have the one other 3 year old (a little girl who is deaf) in her class so she would have a friend at school already.

Hopefully we will get Emily's teacher and class information soon. I really can't believe how fast the summer has flown by!

Canning!

I just made my first batch of canned chicken. I was inspired by visiting Heidi to actually use the lovely pressure canner I bought a few months ago. I have made 1 batch of barbequed pork, but nothing has actually been canned until today. Part of it was just the uncertainty factor, and part of it was just not knowing what to do. So I asked lots of questions and tasted her end result. Yummy!

Here is what I learned about canning chicken. It is worth paying a little bit more to buy the boneless skinnless breasts because it takes a long time to chop up the chicken otherwise, and you end up throwing away a lot of bones. Yuck! It is also probably best done on colder days, but it really wasn't too much hotter in the kitchen when I was done, but here is the kicker! about 55 minutes after taking the cooker off the heat, (and I have to admit that I totally forgot I was waiting for the thing to cool so I could open it because I was working on my blog) I heard a ping. I remembered the chicken and trotted down stairs to open the lid and remove the jars. Although there was not pressure in the machine, the jars of chicken were still boiling inside!!! I was so shocked I almost dropped a jar! I did not expect them to be boiling still. I made 8 jars of chicken today, so I will have to get some more chicken the next time it goes on sale. I am planning to do some tomato sauce & soup this year, but need to food mill first so I don;t have to peel all those tomatos! Heidi has a soup recipe that is just amazing. I can never eat Cambell's tomato soup again!

Upstate New York Road Trip

Emily, Sydney, and I went on a week long trip to Ithaca, Syracuse, and Rochester to visit family. It was a wonderful trip, traffic & GPS issues aside. April, Gary & Caleb came to Ithaca, and fortunately for us we were there at the same time as Aunt Jane.

We started out the trip in Syracuse, where we arrived in time to help Heidi try to recover from her emergency appendectomy. No fun for her or Kenneth! But we got to meet Arianna for the first time, what a sweet little munchkin! And Emily & Sydney got to play with Emma. The last time they met her, she was just about 1 and not really talking so it was almost like meeting her for the first time as well. Most of the time the three older girls played well together, but not always.

Then it was on to Ithaca on Friday. We arrived in the afternoon, hit the Commons for a quick trip to Now You're Cooking to buy some replacement spoons, and 4 "very necessary" cat cookie cutters. Luckily for me they only had 4 different ones. Then we spent the evening with family. It was wonderful to see Grandma and Aunt Jane. April and family arrived shortly after we did. The next morning, we headed out to the Farmers Market, an Ithaca must! The girls loved looking at all the stalls, but we disappointed I did not buy more things. We are dealing with a bad case of the gimmies right now. It was great having the minivan since it was easy to pile into the van & go all together. After a Yummy lunch from Subway, April, Gary, Caleb & I headed to the local YMCA for a quick workout. The girls stayed at Buttermilk and had lots of fun with Aunt Jane & Grandma! We headed over to the falls for a quick visit, but did not have time for a dip. Then it was off for dinner and a tour of the farm at Uncle Hugh's. We got to feed to miniature horses, sheep & donkeys. I was amazed that my girls didn't get to nervous, and were actually able with Grandma's help to feed them & not get hurt. After dinner, we headed home to get the girls in bed.

The next day, we had a great quiet morning where Emily learned all about checkers, and lost rather gracefully too! Aunt Jane was her coach, and I was the opponent. Sydney explored all of the other antique games with Grandma. I got to spend an hour or so going over old pictures in an album with Gram, and taking notes so I could transfer the pics into an acid free album where they won't get destroyed. Then we grabbed some lunch, and spent the afternoon with April & Gary. We went together to dinner at Joe's, my favorite restaurant in Ithaca, and also Aunt Jane's favorite. I did not know that Joes had been open for 60 years, or that it was her tradition to get Spaghetti& meatballs there. She decided to try a new dish this time & get an excellent eggplant one. I decided it isn't that I don't like eggplant, I just can't cook the thing. And cheese and frying really seems to improve the flavor! Low fat eggplant just isn't that yummy. The girls made murals on the tablecloth which Aunt Jane & Gram cut out & took home with them. They were delighted by that!

Then we loaded back into the car for the short drive to Rochester to visit David, Lydelle, Greg & Chris. We got there fairly late, so we got the girls tucked into bed and happy as quickly as we could then chatted for a long time. It was wonderful to see all of them again. The next few days we spent at their house we wonderful, we hit the mall, played with the Wi, where Emily proceeded to rock the house with bowling. I got worse each round as she got better. She made it up to the pro level, but had a few bad rounds & dropped below pro. Chris played wonderfully well with them and was extremely patient as they chattered his ear off. I met Greg's new girlfriend, and just had a fun low key visit! Emily was in tears the morning we left, and has declared that we are moving to New York next.

We went back to Syracuse to spend a day with Heidi when she was not injured. Then we headed back into the car for the drive home. We split it up on the way home, stopping in Fairfax at April's house before returning home the next morning after lunch. Although I did not want to see the inside of the car for a week after we got home, it was a wonderful trip and I am so glad we were able to go!