Living with the Liles

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

The most wonderful time of the year???

Its a toss-up, I do love winter and Christmas time, but maybe fall is the most wonderful time of the year. Once again we drove to the Mesa for a picnic during peak color time and as always, it was beautiful! It was even quite chilly and as we drove off, we may have seen a few snow flakes! Here's some pictures of the color on the Mesa this year.

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

The art of preserving food

Since moving to western Colorado, we have become fans of growing some of our own food, eating local food (not in a snobby-foodie type way) and learning to preserve the food we have. I have been canning for several years, and find it to be a rewarding past-time! I have access to all sorts of fruit from working at the peach orchard and between my garden and friends' gardens we have all sorts of veggies. Justin has helped butcher and process a couple of pigs as well as a deer, and we have been able to get a quarter of a locally-raised, grass-fed cow. So our freezer has been full of meat that we know where it was raised or where it was living:) We definitely still spend money on other groceries, but its helped cut down the cost and its so cool to know that so much of what we eat we know where it was grown and we processed it ourselves. Here's some pictures of our accomplishments:)

Our freezer full of meat!

Peaches from C&R Farms

Tomatoes from my garden (this was my best crop in years, and I will never look at a store bought tomato the same, actually I may just try not to look at them:)

When we moved to our first house in Colorado, we had a crabapple tree and Justin remembered about Granny Bea's crabapple jelly, so I learned how to make it. Since we moved last year, we lost the tree, but our friends have come to Justin's rescue. People are quite happy to share their crabapples with you as it turns out. Anyway, this batch of jelly turned out perfect! Its the best, most by the book, probably winner at the county fair worthy, jelly that I've ever made. I'm sorry to brag, but after hundreds of jars of canning, its so nice to have 'perfected' a canning recipe!

My pantry is full! From canned peaches, to every type of jam and jelly, pickled peaches to dill pickles, apple sauce and tomato sauce!

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Soccer Star!

Nate indicated that he wanted to play soccer again this fall. Last fall didn't go so well. We signed him up, Justin even signed up to coach because they didn't have enough coaches for Nate's team, we all went out there, etc., and he didn't play. Well, he went on the field for like 2 minutes of the last game. So we were nervous. The first practice did not seem promising, we were ready to call and get him off the team. But the next day he insisted it was just because he wanted to wear his jersey and he would go out and play. So we let him. And he did! He's been participating very well and seems to really enjoy it. He loves to wave at us while he's running around chasing the ball. He's just too cute, we love our soccer star!

Nate is #46

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Summer in Review

Why is it that with all the 'extra time' you have in the summer you completely run out of time for the usual things, like updating the blog? Probably because I'm such a routine person, that get me off my routine and I forget everything. I did this last summer too, at least last summer we moved and I had a baby. Oh well. So instead of 20 different posts with all the details of our summer here is a review in pictures.

Basically, we spent a month in Texas, my brother got married, my sister had a baby, we spent lots of time in the pool and on the lake, rode a pony, had fun at the zoo, museum, aquarium and more, Adriana turned one and the kids started school. Enjoy:)