The Cahill's

Okay, a little explanation on my sudden trip! I went to Mt. Hermon, CA to visit my sister-in-law, Kim.

Kim works as a kitchen manager at Mt. Hermon, a Christian conference center settled on the side of a mountain in the middle of towering redwoods – gorgeous!
 
We walked every day (sometimes twice a day!) and I was awed by the scenery and wildlife. I saw a deer and her two fawns on one of our walks.

  One day we enjoyed the California sunshine in Santa Cruz (about ten minutes from Mt. Hermon). We walked along the beach and admired the natural bridge. I liked watching the Pelicans too. It was cold on the beach so we found a spot out of the wind and sat for a while – unfortunately, we didn’t realize just how hot the sun was until examining our sunburns that evening!

The next day we took a hike along the railroad tracks – again, stunning scenery. It really calms and soothes me to be out in the beautiful woods and weather. You could hear a stream in a gorge below for about half the walk.

And finally, here’s Kim and I just hanging out and eating good food. We had a good time and I’m glad Brian was able to give me up for that long.
*edit* I came back home to a clean house – I have such a wonderful, thoughtful husband! *end edit*

Guess it’s time for another update on life:
  About two weeks ago I picked a bunch of wild pears off of a tree I had been watching since spring. I had two Wal-Mart sacks full of them! You are supposed to pick them while they are still hard and then let them ripen.
  Well, they were ripe now, so I decided to put them up as pear butter (kinda like apple butter).

Here are about half of them as I washed them in the sink. Then I cut them in quarters, peeled and de-seeded them. My hand was worn out after peeling so many – it took almost two hours!

This is the biggest bowl I have, but the picture hardly does it justice. They were very good and I kept snacking as I worked I froze a ziplock bag of them, made two loaves of pear bread and cooked the rest in a big pot until they were soft. Then I mashed them and put the in the crock-pot over night with a few spices and some sugar.

Here is the finished product, or at least half of it, I’d already dished half of it out into a applesauce jar before I remembered to take a picture. It was a nice sloppy mess . It tastes pretty good though – we had it on our pancakes this morning. So there you go, homemaking 101!

Well folks, some good news…I finally got my degree from Charter Oak! Yes, I finished last year but paper work and who knows what else kept it from coming until now. I now have it in my hot little hands and got around to taking my picture. It matches the one of Brian with his so I’ll post them together.

Now we’re both smart – though Brian is getting an edge on me with his Master’s classes.
Today he is studying and tomorrow he’ll take a computer test around 9:45 in the morning if anyone could pray for him. He’s hoping this certification will help him in his job hunt.