Some Fun Fall Family 2016 Miscellany

This last fall season was a huge blur for us, but I'll try to put it into some sort of order for the blog (with lots of pictures of course):

Family Date Night

In the late summer, we did something we've been meaning to do for years as a family; we attended the Gaslight Theater, a local comedy/melodrama performing arts center. Their shows are ridiculous and cheesy but fun all the same. Plus, they're family-friendly and they have an awesome live band

Every couple of months, they start putting on a new show with a different theme. We decided to go see "Freedom League" (their silly Justice League/Avengers spoof). So it was time to go with the super-hero-themed outfits!

The girls loved the show; they booed and cheered at all the right times. Afterwards, the actors came out on stage and gave special acknowledgement to all the visitors in the audience celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, etc. And then the announcer called our girls' names; they were recognized as being "honorary superheroes," due to their costumes! Boy, were we glad we wore costumes to the show! As a reward for their zeal, each girl got an ice cream cone for free. This cemented their belief that the Gaslight Theater was the greatest place ever. We will definitely have another family date there in 2017. 

Harvest Season

Even in Arizona, a state with perpetually warm weather, fall is a time when many foods are grown, harvested, and cooked (or preserved). This year, I decided to be a little daring and try something I'd never done before...harvest prickly pears!

The "harvest" is almost ridiculously easy...prickly pear cacti grow everywhere in our neighborhood, and during the late summer/early fall, the plants are bowed over with the weight of their fruit (which are pear-shaped, yellow or red in color, and covered with tiny spines). It was a simple matter of bringing tongs, gloves, and a large bowl, and plucking as many fruits as I wanted off the cacti. No one minded in the least!

I had to soak the prickly pears for a long time in order to get rid of those tiny spines. Eventually, the water softened them until they fell off the fruit (I scrubbed each fruit thoroughly for good measure...you don't want a sharp surprise in your food!). After scrubbing the fruit thoroughly, I let them drain for a long time. Then, with the fruit inside a colander (and surrounded by cheesecloth as an additional strainer), I mashed the fruit with a potato masher, squeezing out their juice into a pot below the colander.

Afterwards, I boiled the juice thoroughly. When all was said and done, I had two huge pitchers of the juice; I barely had room for all of it in the fridge! By itself, the juice was very tart; when I added sugar, it brought out a lot of pleasant notes in the flavor. Honestly, the family wasn't bowled over by the juice and didn't drink much of it. I drank a fair amount, but it took me a while to get through.

Most of the juice, however, was used for another purpose; I combined it with lots of sugar and pectin to make prickly pear jelly!

This isn't all the jelly I made; there was at least twice this much!

I thought the juice was decent, but I really loved this jelly. It had a lovely bright color and a bright flavor to match. It tastes especially good on toast!

Prickly pears weren't the only thing I picked fresh this fall. As is our yearly family tradition, we took a quick October trip to Apple Annie's Orchard and Produce Garden in Willcox in October. As busy as our weekends have gotten, it has been harder to schedule an Apple Annie's trip into our calendar; however, all five of us really enjoy going, so we like to make it a priority. And this time, for the first time, we took Grandma Barrett along!

It was nice to have Sandy as our companion for this trip. She had never been to Apple Annie's before and was very curious about it. This year, we went in October, which is when they have their large pumpkin patch and corn maze open for business, on top of the usual produce gardens and fruit orchards. All the extra activities make for a fun but exhausting day.

We managed to squeeze everything in: we picked up our pumpkins;

played in the kid's corner;

braved the corn maze;

picked lots of apples;

and scored a ton of produce.

We also made sure to eat a ton of hamburgers and apple pie for lunch, so we were stuffed with food both inside and out.

It was fun to have Grandma along for the ride, and show her why we love this place.

All the food always looks pretty impressive on our counter afterwards (this includes the products we bought at the country store). But I didn't have too much time for dilly dallying; I picked lots of tomatoes this year so I could immediately start canning our family salsa; we'd run completely out!

I had to grill the peppers before pureeing them for the salsa

I also did one (too-small) batch of applesauce, with some of the apples we'd picked.

I was ashamed of my applesauce production this year; usually I make several batches! This bad decision will come back to haunt me in late 2017, when we are all out of applesauce and the kids are begging me for more! I will try to make up for that with a lot of canning this fall.

I was so happy with my homemade goods this year that I decided to make fancy gift packages for all the extended families for Christmas. I included the prickly pear jelly, of course, but I also made a dry rub mix for pork; a "brownie in a jar" recipe; cinnamon sugared pecans; and homemade holiday granola.

 

It was a bit of overkill, but it was all so delicious! I hope everyone who got their gift package enjoyed it at the holiday season.

Speaking of holidays...

Fall Brings Tricks, Treats, and Other Sweets

It just wouldn't be fall in the Barrett household if I didn't have a bunch of pumpkin treats in our house...like the pumpkin bread I give out to all my students/visiting teachers/neighbors/friends/whomever strikes my fancy that year.

And, of course, October is Halloween-time, and that means candy...probably too much of it!

Halloween with three kids was, as always, a blur of candy, costume changes, and scary decorations. We have one daughter who is finally (slowly) starting to "outgrow" Halloween, now that she is a big bad middle schooler, so maybe this holiday will be a little less nuts in the years to come. But we're not out of the woods yet!

 

Aurora, for instance, had a huge Halloween carnival in her first grade class. It was pirate themed; the kids all "walked the plank," dug for buried treasure, wore eye patches, and ate lots of yummy treats. It was a huge success and all the kids were totally adorable. After the party, the whole school took part in its annual Halloween parade; it was fun to look at all the cute costumes.

This year, our church had not one, but two Halloween-related activities. Our stake (regional group) put on a huge Halloween carnival, with a haunted hall, games, treats, dancing, and dinner. Unfortunately, a freak rainstorm wiped out much of the festivities, but the kids were having such fun running around in their costumes that no one seemed to mind.  A few days later, our old congregation held a "trunk or treat" and we decided to crash that party, too!

Plus, we got to bring Grandma & Grandpa Nash along for some of the celebrating! They had called us about a week previously and planned a surprise visit to see the kids. They were only able to stay in town for a few days, but the girls were so excited to see them. It was a terrific late-October/early birthday gift for Mom treat!

Luckily for me, the girls' costumes were pretty easy to assemble this year. A couch potato, an undead bride, and Ariel the Little Mermaid? Done and done. I didn't have to make anything from scratch this year, and the most expensive item I purchased was Ariel's flowing red wig. Everyone looked very cute, and they reported their costumes were very cozy!

The weather remained quite warm well into October, which meant we didn't carve our pumpkins until the very last minute (just a day or two before Halloween):

The girls are getting better at helping out with carving; maybe someday I will finally make them do all of it! This year, the girls were in a Studio C mood, so they carved Studio C-themed pumpkins.

Halloween day itself was a Monday, so there wasn't much time to party, what with it being a school night and all. But we still managed to fit in our annual tradition of watching The Nightmare Before Christmas.

After trick or treating, I took the older two girls out to check out some haunted houses; Lorelai and Celeste are my two adrenaline junkies! One of these years, I worry they will demand a trip to a professional haunted house.

Even though Halloween was over, fall was still very much with us...which meant more pumpkin-themed treats!

These adorable pumpkin tarts were made for an Activity Days party. They were accompanied by equally adorable (and equally tasty!) apple tarts. I am still an Activity Days leader in our LDS ward; last fall, I helped plan activities for the nine-year-old girls. My favorite activity to put on is the Thanksgiving Minute To Win It night! It's a great excuse to relieve stress and get moving and shaking, with a bunch of silly games and crazy challenges.

The girls had to knock bottles over on the ground using just a pumpkin tied to their heads! They had to move cotton balls from place to place using only their noses and some petroleum jelly! They had to hike a roll of toilet paper like a football, hoping against hope that it would fly through a nearby hula hoop held up by another girl!

Thanksgiving Minute To Win It is always a crazy night...and always lots of fun.

One more holiday in November I should mention: Veteran's Day. In 2016, Veteran's Day was on a Friday, which worked well for our schedule. We had lots to do that day; we paid our respects to our country's armed forces with a small visit to the local memorial our town just put up.

Later that morning, we made a large food delivery to our local food bank. We don't always have a lot of extra cash, but one of my favorite charities is the food bank. I like the thought of helping hungry people, especially around the holidays when so many (like us!) are so blessed while others are in want. I make our food bank donation an annual tradition with my girls every November; I hope it helps them remember to look outside themselves during the holidays and find ways to serve others.

We had a large family trip planned for Thanksgiving this last November; it was to be our second family vacation in just two months! I'll write more about those vacations very soon. If you think this blog post makes our family sound busy, just wait until the next one!