It's Snowing- sorta

All the kids were delighted to notice a few delicate flakes of snow falling today. They were barely noticeable and lasted for only a minute, but they were snow, nonetheless!

Applesauce Day

Monday was the official applesauce making day. Work started first thing in the morning and continued until late in the evening. At the end of the day, all of the apples had been turned into applesauce or apple butter. When our reporter interviewed the family, these were some of the comments expressed:

"It's close to torture," Nathan complained.

"It's exhausting. Slightly boring. Very repetitive." Amanda responded. "Hot applesauce tastes good."

"My favorite part would be mashing. My least favorite is cutting apples," Joshua informed us.

"I was really impressed that everyone kept working with mostly good attitudes," said Megan.

Mommy also expressed admiration, "The crew did a fine, fine job. Hardworking crew."

"It's good to keep up the old traditions," Daddy said.

~Megan~ (Yes, I interviewed myself!)

This Week in Review: Birthday, Apples, and Trekkers

So here's the week's news:

Sunday was Joshua's 9th birthday. He says he had a great day.

We made him a creepy-crawly chocolate cake:

On Monday evening, as Mommy was setting the last dish on the supper table, the heavy glass lid slipped off and landed on Joshua's plate. The plate shattered; pieces flying across the table, into Josh's lap, and onto the floor. Josh was unhurt, but supper was a bit delayed while we combed the floor with a fine-toothed comb for microscopic shards of Corelle.

On Thursday we all went apple-picking.

We spent all of Friday evening making applesauce. Everyone helped wash, cut, cook, mash, and can, even the littlest ones. We filled 55 one-quart jars, but we need at least 200 to last us all year, so we'll have to make some more sauce next week.

Today, the girls made Star Trek communicators and rank insignia to further enhance our Star Trek fun. (In case you were unaware, our family has been working our way through the Next Generation episodes and we're a bit obsessed.) Here's all of us in our best Trekker uniforms:

Dress Like an Egyptian

The boys have been studying Ancient Egypt this week, so today they made Egyptian kilts out of pillowcases. Nathan was most unhappy and refused to be in the picture. However, Josh was more cooperative.

Adventure in New Hampshire

Last Thursday, we packed up the van with the camping supplies and on Friday morning, we headed to New Hampshire for a long weekend of camping at Russell Pond in the White Mountains. The weather was great (no rain!), though very cold the first two nights. (We survived by building big fires, wearing multiple layers, and drinking a ton of hot tea.) There was a really annoying problem with yellow jackets. Apparently, because of the weather this summer, the yellow jacket population is very high. Anytime you got out food, several yellow jackets would show up to bother you. We got pretty experienced at capturing them under cups. We stayed in a really cool double-terraced campsite. On Saturday, we were on our way to go hiking when the transmission on the van died without warning. We ended up on the side of the road with no cell phone coverage. We managed to borrow a phone and call a tow truck. Then we ran into another problem: there were too many of us to ride back with the tow truck guy. Fortunately, a couple with two dogs saw us and stopped to see if we needed help. They gave us a ride to the service station. There we were forced to hang around for several hours while they determined exactly what was wrong with the car. The verdict: the transmission was completely dead and needed to be replaced. The earliest it could possibly be done was Monday afternoon. So we unloaded everything we thought we might need from the car and hired a local dude to drive us back to the campground. A whole day gone with no vacationing done yet.

That night, we encountered yet another difficulty: there had recently been a problem with a bear at this campground and all food should be stored in your vehicle overnight. Without a car, that would be difficult, and none of us relished a visit from a bear in the middle of the night. We ended up putting everything in the campground hosts' truck.

For the rest of the trip, we hung around the campground and had lots of fun.

We biked, read,

watched the sunset over the pond, attempted fishing, and went swimming and wading in the chilly mountain water. On Tuesday, we finally got the car back and packed up to head home. On the way, we stopped at Otter Rocks, a spot where one of the mountain streams flows over the rocks and makes some awesome slides. Despite the fact that the water temperature measured an icy 55 degrees, most of us hopped in and had a great time anyway.

Welcome to our blog!

Hello, everyone! This is the Nisly family's new blog. Here we can keep you up to date on the latest events in our lives. Check back soon to hear about our exciting camping adventure in New Hampshire.