Antique Waffles Anyone?

So I found a fun little toy on craigslist yesterday, and I sold some stuff to pay for it. An Antique Waffle Iron, made in 1925 that is in great condition and is I think very beautiful! It's quite shnazy how it works. The two sides of the waffle iron fit together perfectly, each with a coiled handle to keep from getting too hot to hold. The the top of the irons (left side in picture) has two semi-spheres that come together to creat a ball that fits into a socket on the base. So to flip the waffle you just rotate the ball in the socket and voila, Flip. What a creative contraption! The base has a metal handle and holds it all together perfectly. It is easily placed on hot coals and removed, and as you can see it works quite dandy on my stove.

This is just a pankcake mix that I had waiting in the fridge sans eggs and water. (Dry homemade mixes are great, just keep em cold and add water and eggs when the craving hits.)

Beautiful color!

As I was cooking I heard a *Clink Clink*, and I looked over and saw Adelle playing with a glass cup. Whats funny is she hasn't quite learned how deliberatly grab at something she likes. But I think as she did this on accident it peaked her interest. Whats that sound?

And VOILA! Yummy waffles! I am excited to make waffles a new family camping tradition. Anyone want to buy my electric waffle iron?

Memorial Day Eve....

The day before memorial day my fandamily got together for a bonfire at the Campbells and ate yummy smores and had great conversation. I have learned a TRICK to being better at taking pictures, but it requires some trust. I have started entrusting certain older cousins with my camera and asking them to go hog wild taking pictures of EVERYONE! (if you don't specify this you will end up with 100 pictures of just the kids making stupid faces.) It's great because they love taking pictures and being "responsible", and you get a good choice of pictures to chose from without having to always step away to take them. So this picture was taken by Emma Olsen.


Ryan and I went on our first bike ride with Adelle, and it was....interesting. We drove just down the road to visit Vanessa and Nathan. It was a beautiful day, sun a shinning, birds a chirping and wind a blowin. Unfortunately we didn't take into account that little Adelle babies don't like the wind a blowin so much, so she was pretty fussy the whole way there.

We felt bad turning around to drive home and putting her through that all over again, so Vanessa volunteered to drive her home. (DO NOT ask us how she did it, we don't remember...) So this picture was taken after a sweet aunt Vanessa made a little wind blown Adelle feel better. Unfortunately sweet Aunt Vanessa wasn't wearing any make-up so I am doing her the honors of not posting her beautiful face in the picture. Only because I love you Vanessa, no one would have noticed!

Great Great Great Great Grandma Neilson, I did it!

I planted my Garden!! For Mothers Day Ryan's Grandpa Best and brother Casey came over and rototilled me a garden spot. It sat vacant and lonely, as I am sans my husband and with baby, it's a scary task to take on alone.


Remember my attempt at doing veggie starters inside? Well they all survived until I transplanted them into those cardboard jiffy pots. That didn't go over so well. The cardboard sucked up all the water I put in so I could never keep them watered enough. Some survived including all the peas. So here's the 3rd transplant, right into the garden. (Stupid cardboard jiffy pots)


After the transplanted peas I put in a WHOLE row of more peas. I will be eating peas until next summer! (Assuming they grow of course...and grow peas.)


WHOOP WHOOP! As I was "gardening" I reflected on my ancestors, and how this used to be their equivalent of grocery shopping. I thought how amazing they were, their wealth of knowledge and I wished that that knowledge had been passed to me. How humble their lives were. What mattered to them really mattered, pride wasn't a luxury they had. To them Pride was being able to grow a straight and fruitful garden. Straight being the key word, look at this row! I can hear my Great Great Great Ma and Pa Kettle laughing at me, "has that Sister Marley never seen a straight line before?" "Look at that Sister Marley and her floopy Garden." "I am glad all my wives know what a straight line looks like". Ya, well, I am going to pass the buck to my nicer relatives that helped rototill this garden, they started it crooked.

See when you look at it from the side you can't tell it's floopy. Thats the trick. I only got the first row planted, so I'll keep you updated. Hopefully this fall I will have some yummy veggies to pick from!

If this is your car would you please stand up...

Really people. Really. I guess this is our "welcome to the valley" wake-up call.

Mothers Day Bliss....

Mothers Day is now a special day that I get to celebrate with my own little one. To ponder on how truly wonderful being a mother is. After feeding Adelle her last meal for the night I took an extra moment to just hold her. Whispering my love to her and being overcome by her magical smiles makes this years Mothers Day the best so far! Thank you my little thing for making me a Mother, and making it oh so fun. I look forward to the day I can share with you all the beautiful moments we have had together, I will keep them fresh in my heart.

Ooh La La....

This morning I went to wake Adelle up to feed her, and this is how I found her. I have no idea how she managed to get her little shoulder out of her jammy's, but it's oh so cute! I guess I've gotta start teaching her modesty earlier than I had expected. Where's that strength of youth handbook?

New Life....

As I was driving to Vanessas the other day I saw the most beautiful sight. These are snow geese, which I had never seen before. They all got up and flew in a circle away from the tractor, before landing again in the same field. It was the most beautiful thing but I couldn't pull over in time to catch a picture of it. I did some Snow Geese research and found this picture, which was similar to what I saw. There were hundreds of them!

Here's the picture I was able to catch, unfortunately after they landed.

So we did it. We are now residing in Palmer Alaska, YAY! We moved out here two nights ago, packed and unpacked and unpacked some more. Luckily Ryan had a whole day to help move us all in before flying up to the slope. Adelle and I are home alone, with a house full of boxes and chaos. It's SO hard unpacking, I can never seem to just put one box away. There's always something in there that requires me to open another box, or put it aside till I find a place for it. It's kinda like a bubble chart. Remember those from elementary school? They just keep going and going and going. So much to do with so little energy. But it feels so nice to have our own place. Too bad Ryan's not here to sweat and stress over it with me. Uga uga.

The weather has been in the 70's, and of course I am spending all my time indoors, unpacking and feeding baby. Lifes so unfair sometimes, and yet so fair others. I guess it's just roll with the flow, ya know?