June week 3

On Sunday June 14th our stake had a gourmet food storage fireside. This was way beyond the rice, wheat, beans. They showed us how to can meat (yes you can have meat in your food storage other than tuna, chicken, and that gross fish in a can). You simply add the meat (raw) to a mason jar and pressure can it and the meat comes out cooked ready for any meal. It doesn't store as long as the canned rice, wheat, and beans. They recommend using it up in 3 years but they say isn't a problem because it is so yummy. I'm definitely going to look into this because of the endless possibilities. They also had a great idea for those who have food savers collecting dust like mine. The food savers come with a hose to vacuum out the air in a container well you can buy an adapter that fits over a wide mouth or regular mouth mason jar lid and then you fill your mason jar with things that wont can well because of the oil content, like chocolate chips put them in your mason jar and put the metal lid on and then the food saver attachment and it will suck out all the air so now your chocolate chips, dried fruit, candy etc last at least 3 years. I already bought the food saver attachment but haven't done this yet have to buy some jars first, but my mom has done brown sugar, chocolate chips, salt, nuts. They don't recommend anything floury because that will get sucked up in the straw and clog. I'm so excited to try these new things because the idea of me and my family eating out of our one year food storage of rice, wheat, beans, oats and things like that is not very thrilling and my kids will be major complainers. So this sounds like a great thing to add to those not so yummy long term food. Brenton is back home from scout camp and had the time of his life. Connor is still in extended school and is loving being back into the routine of school and I think it helps knowing his teachers from last year are right next store to his classroom. Talmage started swimming lessons this week. He took them Tues-Fri from 10:00 am-10:30 at my sister Christa's neighborhood pool. Miss Andrea from our ward was his teacher she is friends of my sister Morgan so she is teaching private swim lessons and working at the YMCA as a swim teacher/lifeguard. We had four swim lessons going one after another at Christa's pool one was her kid, my kid, and the others from our ward. I was thinking of having Talmage take swim lessons last year he was 4 1/2. He didn't want anything to do with it. He wanted his arm floaties. So when I mentioned swim lessons this year I wasn't sure what his reaction would be. He was very excited and was ready for no more floaties. His first week was awesome. He did a great job and listened and did everything she asked without any complaints. He loved it. The best part about doing more relaxed private lessons at Christa's pool was the other kids could swim and play in the pool at the same time. The downside is we weren't able to go to the free movie this week. No biggie since we have the movies they were showing this week. On Friday, the primary had an activity. They did a family home evening activity. We all met in the Primary room and the kids were split up into 3 different groups. After practicing some songs, we headed to the gym for a sack lunch. After lunch, the kids separated into their groups and prepared a whole family home evening lesson. They made sure the families with more than one kid in them were in separate groups so they would each do a different lesson. So we came home with 3 different lessons and Talmage is the only one left to do his. The leaders did a great job at organizing this. Then the kids played a game and ate ice cream sandwiches. My kids had a fun time. Later that day Jon and I went to the temple to see a family Jon home teaches get sealed. I never realized the wife had never been to the temple. The husband went on a mission when he was 19. It was awesome to see them get sealed and then have their 2 children join them. The best part was that the Brother who was doing the temple prep classes in our ward was the one that sealed them he is a sealer at the temple. His name is President Scott and he is the brother of Richard G. Scott of the quorum of the twelve apostles. Pretty cool. We also went to the pool a few time in the evening for Connor since he was at school while Talmage was doing swimming lessons. I will have plenty of pictures on the next post since there were lots happening that week.