Pictures of Life

Here are some pictures. I finally found the camera cord in a random bag. There really is no significance to this post other than pictures, in no particular order or theme.

This is a sailboat named Stella. This is one of the most beautiful pictures ever.

These are our footprints right before we drove away from Homer. We took a picture just like this the first weekend we visited Alaska. 

Final beach picture on an absolutely gorgeous day. Oh 60 degrees...I MISS YOU.

Kennan loved building towers of rocks on the beach. Oh, the last one.

Obligatory photo of the amazing beauty that is Homer.

Sharp shift to our home in Iowa. Those are all the tomatoes we purchased. Actually...that isn't all of them. I had already used an entire paper's worth for sauce at this point. Aren't they beautiful? We picked them ourselves for 30 CENTS per pound. Yeah, that's right.

The peppers and onions for the salsa. There were a *few* too many. So now there are also pickled peppers and frozen peppers for winter. Make the best of the surplus!

Yes, we purchased all those jars. We had more than that before, promise. And they are now all full. Actually more than just those are full.

The kitchen while I was canning. The real beauty of this photograph is that the big canner was my grandma Conover's, the little canner is a gift from my friend Ellen, and the pot is a borrow from Kennan's mom Deanne. Isn't community amazing?

And look what it created. This isn't all of the beauty, but someday I will share a picture. I love canning, so it was very non-stressful to do this last week. The house was still piled high with boxes, but I just stayed in the kitchen, methodically doing what I know how to do. There are so many things about our current life that I don't know how to do, so this was a good thing.

I gave in to the espresso maker madness. Don't hate me. The insurance check came...and I caved. Actually, I did the math. If we purchased lattes twice per week (weekends, when we were used to having them and loving them...and then would feel bad for ourselves because our espresso maker burned...so we would go buy lattes to ease the pain) we would pay for this thing in 20 weeks. So really? This is a much better investment. 

And we've had espresso about 6 times since last Friday. As you can see, Kennan is happy. And my IKEA jars aren't bad looking either.

Sitting on our couch drinking the inaugural espresso. The moment was a good one.

Pictures only show the beautiful, but they help me to remember and they help all of you to see that we are really doing okay. There are still lots of painful moments and hours, but it is getting better. It really, really is.