Weekend Shenanigans

First off, we all know I haven't been religiously blogging this summer. Sorry.  Kid time comes first!

Secondly, because of that, I have a massive back log of information to share with you. Please bear with me as I catch up the next few days!

Wow!  The end of school-free summer is sneaking up on us fast.  Mr. Tupelo has been working extra hard lately, so it's fallen to me to make sure we get as much of the Summer Bucket List (see Here) checked off as we can.

Part 1: The Farm

Saturday morning we got up early and made a trip to Boggy Creek Farms, so we could check off "Visit a Farm".

We got to see some crops in the ground, shop at the farm's produce stand, and most importantly, visit the hens and tractors.

Part 2: Caramel Corn
Next on the list was to make caramel corn.  Now, I could've taken the easy way out.  I could have bought fancy caramel corn.  I could have melted caramels to pour on prepopped popcorn.  But no.  Apparently my brain only works in the simplest direction -

make popcorn

make caramel

Mix the two. (and lick pot clean)

One Gallon of delicious popcorn.

Let me preface this by saying I like to eat candy.  I'm terrified of cooking it. Boiling hot sugar that can eat your face off? Precise temperature measurement or else?  I don't do precise. I don't do scary. But I managed it.  The hardest part for me was leaving the sugar alone to boil for 5 minutes.  So hard not to stir it! I used a really well reviewed recipe of AllRecipes.  This one.

Delicious!  But only one of the boys would eat it. And Mr. Tupelo doesn't really care about sweets.  Oh well.  I took it to my sister's house, where it would be fully appreciated.

And honestly?  The sticky candy dishes weren't too bad to wash. I think rice crispy treat dishes might be worse. I'd make it again.

Part 3: Make Ice Cream (no pics, sorry.  hard to take pics when it's homemade ice cream for breakfast!)

I had gotten rid of our behemoth salt/ice ice cream maker years ago. Too much to do, too many steps, too loud.  Plus I was tired of moving it from house to house.  It's amazing how much stuff you can get rid of when you know you're moving.  Anyway, we picked up a fancy schmancy ice/salt free ice cream maker yesterday.   I had no idea these existed!  You just freeze the little bucket part, and the next day, you pour in your ingredients and have ice cream in a half hour.  Score!

We had some really ripe strawberries to use, so I now have a half gallon of tasty delicious homemade strawberry ice cream in my freezer.  And my boys got it for breakfast.  Lucky boys.

Tomorrow I'll let you guys know the update on my hip condition, since I saw the orthopedist last week.  I wanted to share the fun and interesting stuff today though!

Cheers! And happy Olympic watching!  What have you been enjoying?  The kids like diving, kayak/canoe slalom, and sculling. Strange mix, isn't it? And on my random soapbox, how are the flat kayak like things called canoes??? Someone enlighten me!