A Productive Weekend

Last weekend was a welcome break from the craziness of the first week of school.  Out here, we start our school year before Labor Day and then the long weekend gives us our last tastes of summer.  We lived our last weekend to the fullest!  Here's what we did:

We canned and canned and canned.  14 jars of peaches in syrup, 7 jars of peach sweet and spicy salsa, 10 jars of regular salsa and 5 jars of pickled red onions.  We worked with friends and it was a really fun day.  Here are my attempts at food bloggery photos.

Lining them all up on the fireplace and then putting them away made me feel a bit like Grandma Tildy from But No Elephants, so longsuffering Willie let me read that to him afterwards.  He said he identified most with the elephant :)

We also brewed a batch of beer for Alex and Amber's wedding in October.  Alex was the best man in our wedding, and he and Willie were roommates for years.  We are so glad he and Amber are together-they are great for each other.  And Amber and I have a lot in common because she is also a teacher.  Here are our brewing pics:

Willie had already made one batch, and is making another today at Alex's bachelor party.  When all is said and done, I think he will have made half the beer for the wedding, which is awesome!

And the last cool foody thing we did this weekend was use my birthday paella!  Ever since I studied in Salamanca in 2006, I have wanted to make a real paella.  For my birthday Willie got me the pan, the rice and the chorizo, which is no mean feat when you live in Yakima.  We had a bunch of friends over and feasted...a perfect end to a great weekend!