The Theme for July is Camping

You know, I'm a preschool teacher and sometimes often that kind of bleeds into my non-teacher life.  Looking ahead to the month of July, we have plans to camp a couple of weekends already, so I figure we'll just plan to become camping experts.  Colby's scout den is camping the weekend after the fourth. Ron and he will be the only Feehans going to that.  The pack is having a family camp-out the following weekend.  At least four of us will make that one, Ron's going to see if he can get time off.  And now it looks like Colby's birthday party will follow the theme the next weekend. I think we will have four extra boys around and treat them to fishing, a campfire, some games, and a sleepover in the front yard.  Woo Hoo!

I found this site while I was looking for scavenger hunt ideas for the bucket list.  It also has various birthday party themes and activities.  Here is the camping theme.  Lots of fun stuff there to explore.  I wanted to post it here so that I don't lose it.

Thursday is a busy day here.  We will be in town all day.  We have plans for story hour, some errand running, a picnic at a park (possibly including a scavenger hunt, or not), and then we'll meet some other Clarke County Moms to paint tee shirts and play.

Freezing Bananas (a re-post)

I originally posted this 1-25-11.


I bake a lot of banana bread when I am baking for the farmers' market in the summer.  I do also bake it some when it is not farmers' market season, though my kids would say not enough.  I don't like to pay 50 cents a pound for bananas.  I also don't like my kitchen to smell like rotten bananas.  So I stalk my local grocery store.  Their policy is to discount bananas when there is no longer any green on the skin.  Once they are discounted, the customer can purchase a bag of bananas (usually about 2-3 big bunches) for a buck.  (Our Fareway changed their produce person, and the banana policy changed at the same time.  It is no longer that great of a deal, but better than full price.  I have found bags of bananas at HyVee though.)

I discovered a few years ago how easy it is to freeze bananas.  I peel and freeze the bananas whole in the amounts I need for a recipe.  If you need 2-3 bananas for a loaf a bread, freeze 2-3 bananas together in a baggy.  Pull a baggy of bananas out of the freezer the night before you bake.  The bananas with thaw into a brown puddle of mush, but this is perfect for banana bread!  No need to mash the bananas ahead of time.


I also do the something similar with zucchini.  I shred it, measure out the amounts I need for my recipes, and freeze to use later for baking.
I am sharing this post with the frugal ladies hosting the Frugal Tuesday Blog Hop.  Head on over to Learning the Frugal Life on Tuesday to see other frugal tips.  Post your own frugal tip on Tuesday and join us!

Summer Bucket List, Week 4

We have a Summer Bucket List, thanks to Kelly over at Little Wonders' Days.  This is simply a list of fun things we want to do or accomplish this summer.  We just completed our fourth full week of summer.  To review our previous weeks go here, here, and here.  This week was a full week of summer adventure.  We checked off bucket list items left and right and had a lot of fun!


1.  Visit 10 parks to play and picnic:  Friday between a couple of other activities we took a break and visited Q Pond's playground and also picnicked on string cheese, lunchmeat, grapes, munchies mix, and water.  The playground is an old-school playground.  The metal slide was too hot, but the boys climbed on the jungle gym and tractor tire, played on the swing, spun on the merry-go-round, and bounced on the bouncy platform.  Braedon led his brothers on a 'hike' through the short trail.


3.  Fishing:  Since I am late and writing this on Monday, I should probably not include yesterday's activities, but I'm going to anyway...  Yesterday we went to a family birthday party at East Lake.  The party included fishing and a short boat trip around the lake in a fishing boat.  We didn't catch many fish, but had fun practicing our technique.  And Colby pointed out this was the first time he had ridden in a boat.  Hmmm, I guess it is.  Yay!


12.  Library activities:  It seems we lived at the library this week.  But you know that wouldn't bother me one little bit.  This was our library's 100 year celebration, so the librarians had big plans for various ages throughout the week.  Monday we watched Gnomeo and Juliet as the free movie in the children's library.  Thursday we were excited to see the magician as part of their summer story hour series.  It was the same magician as last year, but he is quite entertaining.  Friday the boys had their caricatures drawn by an artist brought into the library.  He had several backgrounds for the kids to choose from and then sketched their heads and faces onto the body/background they chose.  We also started working on our library reading programs.  The older two get to enter their names for weekly prizes once for every book they read.  Brody gets a free book for every ten books that are read to him.  We'll be back to the library at least once this week for story hour's balloon artist.


24.  Go on a hike:  We hiked around Grade Lake on Monday.  This is a 2 mile trail, with the trail on the back-side of the lake through the woods.  Colby and Brody had walked this with me last summer while Braedon was in summer school.  This was Braedon's first time on this trail.  It was misting, windy, and chilly on the day we hiked, but we didn't feel any of that in the trees.  I learned that Braedon can identify deer tracks as he found several on our hike.  The path has wild black raspberries nearly throughout.  They weren't quite ripe, but we may go back this week and see if we can pick some.  There were also mulberries, but the berries I found were on the ground.  The boys refused to taste them from the ground, even though they were whole berries, in perfect shape.  The trees appeared to be too tall to pick from.  We had packed a lunch of sandwiches, trail mix, and water into a backpack and took turns carrying it.  


25.  Go to a movie as a family:  Wednesday our local theater offered two matinees of Kung Fu Panda 2.  Following our hike, we caught the 2:00 showing.  I love when we can go to the local theater.  It's cheaper than the bigger theaters in other towns.  The couple who runs it worked to renovate it a few years ago and the money for admission and concessions is going to a local business, not a chain.  It only has one screen, but the seating is great.  I saw several other families enjoying the show and I know there were others that came to the 10:00 showing as well.  So glad this is available to us.


(38.  Family Pictures by Jamie were scheduled for Saturday at East Lake, but we got rained out.  This may not be rescheduled until the end of summer.  Disappointed, but necessary when we had torrential rains and lightning.)


Other things we did that were not on the original list:
*Volunteering:  Colby, Brody, and I cleaned up after the youth rodeo as a cub scout service project last Sunday.  
*We had friends over last Sunday.  Ron had friends over to paintball.  Some of them brought their kids to entertain our kids.  Fun!
*Ron has gone in with a group of friends to purchase season tickets to the Iowa Raceway in Newton.  Three of his buddies couldn't attend Friday's race, so he took all three boys with him.  He sent me some pictures of Brody falling asleep halfway through the second race.  He was sitting on Ron's lap with the noise reduction headphones on and just drifted off and slept through the rest of the race.


Who knows what this week will bring for us.  The first part of the week I'm going to try to get some housework done that I've been neglecting.  So we will try to get some of those 'around the house' bucket list items checked off.  Thursday and Friday look full of fun in town and then we are into the big holiday weekend.  Woo Hoo!

Love the Library

I have always loved the library.  In my youth I would walk to the public library several times a week and spend hours devouring books.  I often forget and neglect to utilize the library as much as I could.  What is more frugal than a free book.  I never really read a book more than once anyway.  Nowadays there are also movies available, no rental fee.  And who can forget the scads of programs offered to all ages.

This summer our small public library has reading rewards programs for all ages, story hours, craft times, interactive classes, and contests.  It offers monthly book discussions for adults.  It offers free internet.  The librarians can help you find the books you are looking for and if they are not on the shelves there, they will order them from a neighboring library.

This week is our local library's celebration of 100 years serving the public.  They have some extra-special activities planned.  This afternoon they are offering a free children's movie complete with popcorn.  Friday they will have an artist there to do caricatures.  Fun!

Don't forget to utilize your local library--it is just about as frugal as it gets.

How my husband celebrated Father's Day

My husband is like a big kid!  He was lucky to get to do two of his favorite things this weekend.  Last night he took the kids to the local racetrack and watched cars (and then trucks) go around in circles at top speed and at top volume.  They had a good time.  I got to stay home and relax with a book, a movie, and a mountain of laundry.

Today he had asked if he could have friends over to play.  We have a paintball field in the back part of our yard.  He ended up with just short of 20 paintballers and some of their kids at our house for much of the afternoon.  He now has several new bruises and one big goose-egg.  He had a blast!  I hung out in the house, did a little housework, played around on the internet, and read another chapter in my book.

Hey, it works for us!

And before I post let me say a little something about Ron.  He was already a dad when I met him.  One of the things that attracted me to him is the way he interacted with his son.  He still is a great father to all four of his boys.  He is a male role-model for several other folks at his work and just in general.  He is very hands-on, coaching and playing with the boys.  He is easy to talk to.  He helps out around the house.  He's a pretty great guy and I'm lucky to have him.

My own dad is hard-working.  He is a farmer.  He was always there for my siblings and I as we were growing up.  He attended ball games, concerts, and dance recitals.  Currently he is the biggest fan of my baking.  He is my back of plan for day care and has taken the boys to help him on the farm (sometimes at the last minute).  We spent some time with him over the noon hour today.  He, Colby, and I worked together to get the fire started in the fire pit for our wiener roast.  Dad didn't get to stay too long though as he had hay to bale.  Hopefully he is enjoying his candy bar bouquet that the boys got him.  They had a hard time giving it up.

Neither of my grandpas are still living, but they were a big part of my life while they were here.  Grandpa George was also a farmer (as was his father, and my brother--it's in the blood).  He and Dad farmed together and he was at our house every morning at about 5:30 to go over the day's plans.  Every morning when I woke up, I could expect to find him at our kitchen table.  He also ran the feed store for many years.  He was my way in to early basketball practice.  My Grandpa Lewis was a veterinarian.  He raised six kids and was a father figure for several of their friends, and better than a dozen grandchildren.  He was so patient with us.  Whatever we needed, he found a way to get for us.

I'm thankful to have had all these men in my life.  They truly have helped me to become who I am.

Clarke County Farmers' Market, the past ten years

About ten years ago (I'm guessing, I can't remember for sure) we had a great abundance of pumpkins in our garden.  (Ron often gets excited about new varieties and over-plants.  The bounty depends on the weather and that year was perfect for pumpkins.)  So he and Calob, then 10 (or so), hauled pumpkins to the town square and set up a table at the local farmers' market.  They made pretty decent money.  Soon Ron was making plans for the next summer's garden and utilizing the opportunity to make a little extra money on a more regular basis.

Seeds and live plants were ordered or bought locally.  We attended a training so that we could accept the checks issued to WIC participants and senior commodities recipients.  A couple of areas were tilled up and planted.  Meanwhile while Ron experimented with varieties of plants in the garden, I experimented with various recipes in the kitchen.

We've had good growing seasons and poor growing seasons through the years.  Sometimes we sweat it out in the heat and humidity.  Sometimes we get rained on.  Sometimes we sit with jackets on and a blanket covering our legs.  Each year we tweak our plans and try to make improvements.

Our boys have grown up in our market.  They don't remember not being a part of market.  Colby and Brody were both born after we were involved in the market.  When we started out, we were the youngest vendors by about 30 years.  Many of the vendors were old enough to be my grandparents.  We now have several young families vending at the market and you can bet you will see kids playing in the grass or on the bandstand when you visit the market.  Several of those older vendors are still there, some are no longer with us.  We have become quite the family--celebrating births and mourning deaths together.  We are a very small market, averaging about 10 to 12 vendors at mid-summer during the height of the season.

There is more to say about our market and our personal involvement in it, but I'm going to save that for another post.  I am going to share a favorite recipe from my kitchen here:

Zucchini Bread
3 eggs
1 cup oil
2 1/4 cup white sugar
3 tsp vanilla
2 cups grated zucchini
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
3 tsp cinnamon

1.  Grease two loaf pans.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2.  Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together.  Add zucchini and mix well.  Add dry ingredients.  Mix thoroughly.
3.  Pour batter into prepared pans.  Bake for about 60 minutes.  (I bake this alongside the pumpkin bread and it takes 1 hour.  On its own it would probably take less time.  It's ready when it starts to pull away from the side and the center springs back when you tap it.)

I learned early on that you can grate the zucchini without peeling it.  This saves time and I imagine it adds nutrients to the bread.  This bread is moist and tastes like cinnamon.  Yum!

Summer Bucket List, Week 3

We have a Summer Bucket List, thanks to Kelly over at Little Wonders' Days.  This is simply a list of fun things we want to do or accomplish this summer.  We just completed our third full week of summer.  To review our previous weeks go here and here.  This was a busy week for us.  I had two half days of work and two full days of training.  We had ball games four nights.  We had Farmers' Market Tuesday evening and this morning.  However we did manage to accomplish a few things on the list.  Here is a rundown of our week.


1.  Visit 10 parks to play and picnic:  I'm going to count the playground at my school.  Braedon and Colby have been helping me with a preschooler that I am providing some summer services to.  As part of the plans we are orienting him to various parts of the school that he will be utilizing in kindergarten next year.  That includes the big playground (preschool has a separate playground) and the cafeteria (preschool eats in our classrooms).  So Braedon and Colby got to play on the playground and eat breakfast at the school with H and I.  Much of the equipment was purchased with a grant last year so it was new to me.  My boys attend another school, so it was new to them too.  Fun for all of us.


21.  Homemade bubbles:  Sunday Brody helped me make some homemade bubbles and hunt for unusual bubble wands to bring to Grandma's for the wiener roast.  We took the following items for wands--slotted spoon, slotted spatula, plastic berry basket, bead, apple slicer, a canning ring, and a regular bubble wand.  The boys enjoyed it and especially liked the devices that made lots of bubbles hooked together (the apple slicer and the berry basket).


50.  Make and play with playdough:  We made kool-aid playdough and have been playing with it as part of our activities with H at the school.  It's been great for working on fine motor skills, imitation, turn taking, appropriate play, and language skills with H.  My boys just love to play with playdough and we don't do it very often at home.


Other items we did that were not on our original list:  
*Four baseball games--trying to squeeze those games in before tournaments next week.  Brody and Colby are going to miss playing with their buds that we see while Braedon plays ball.  
*Ate fresh strawberries out of the garden.
*As I type the boys and Ron are attending a local race at the Clarke County Speedway.  It's scout night so they should also be enjoying good company in the stands.  


This week looks a bit less busy (but still pretty full).  I'm sure we can get some activities in.  As I review the list I'm looking forward to it!