Our latest project

We acquired a riding lawn mower recently (for free!) and decided to "pimp our ride." Here is the before picture:


And the after! It's been painted, a cup holder was added, as well as headlights and taillights.


You can see all of the in between steps here: The Lawn Mower

Then we found a pretty sweet trailer at a garage sale. After we took this picture, Jason painted the trailer to match the mower.


It's not like we really NEEDED a riding lawn mower, but how can you say no to a free one? And I have to admit, I love having it - Jason actually WANTS to mow the lawn now!

6th of July

On Sunday of July 4th weekend we had a cookout at our house. Anna/Ryan/Allie and Chrissi were in town so it was the perfect time to have it.

I made some awesome mini cheesecakes, with blueberry and strawberry topping. You can find the recipe here: Cheesecake Bites


It was fun to watch all of the little ones play together.
Brendan wasn't sure what to think about the pool.


Molly and Allie tried playing together - but they really just seemed interested in who could keep the "O."

Competition

During Fishers Festival weekend, Jason and Patrick competed in the cornhole tournament. Unfortunately they lost in the first round, but it was a close game. 21-19.

Beer making

Jason has really been interested in quality/unique beers lately - avoiding the usual Keystone or Coors Light. We realized that my dad had made beer once and mom still had a lot of the equipment, so we decided to try making some ourselves.

We started it on a Saturday and had to bring a few gallons of water to a boil - we used the famous Thanksgiving turkey fryer. We had to add all sorts of different grains/malt extract/yeast at different points in the 1.5 hour boil. Then we had to quickly chill it (no pictures of that) and get it into a large glass container. That has an airlock on it, and we let it sit for one week. Then we switched it to another glass container where it will sit for 2 weeks, and then we bottle it!






This was what it looked like the day after we put it into the container. That first airlock we used wasn't long enough and it was fizzing out the top. It's much better now. :)

Molly's first driving lesson

Anne stopped by one day to pick up something, and we thought it would be fun to surprise Jason with pictures of Molly "driving" his car.

Auto Cross

A few weekends ago we went down to Bloomington to visit with Jason's parents. On Sunday we went over to Columbus for an Autocross event. It was the first time that I got to ride with Jason in the car - it was so cool! I'm so amazed with the control he has over the car as he weaves in and out of the cones. Jason's dad also got to ride with him and I think really enjoyed it.