The Olsen's make {strawberry} jam

To my surprise, Steve suggested we try our hand at homemade strawberry jam. Who is this man? I was thrilled and chomping at the bit to give this a go. After all, who doesn't love strawberries, especially fresh strawberry jam?! Shockingly, it wasn't as difficult or time consuming as we had anticipated. The best part? It turned out great! We didn't screw it up! I was told to follow the instructions to a T. No short cuts, measure ingredients perfectly, etc etc. And that's what we did.

It seems like a life time ago that we went berry picking. It was only two weekends ago. I guess a three day hospital stay for pre-term contractions will do that. Now that I think of it..I'm wondering if all that bending over and whatnot that involves strawberry picking and jam making had something to do with said pre-term contractions. Oops! Oh well...it is what it is and now I'm on modified bed rest, but at least we've got a freezer full of jam!

It was a perfect Saturday. Not too hot, blue skies and sunshine. The orchard was only a 5 minute drive from our house, and there was free homemade strawberry ice cream that day. Win win! The berry patch was considered "seconds" so it was only 99 cents a pound to pick your own. I will say most of the berries we picked were perfect, besides if there were some bruises who cares? They would soon be mashed up in a jam anyway. After about 45 minutes of dodging thistles and huge yellow spiders {shudders} we had the four quarts we needed. For less than $10 we enjoyed some quality time in the summer sun, strawberry ice cream and whoopie pies. Cheap dating at it's finest.

Now onto the jam making part of this post. Sorry this is getting long. Lot's of pictures will do that. All we did was buy Sure Jell and follow the instructions in the box. Add lots of sugar, some water and pectin, and you're good to go! Oh yeah, don't forget the strawberries.

By the way, four quarts of strawberries made about 24 cups of jam. After we picked the berries, making the jam took less than 90 minutes start to finish. It was soooo easy. We will definitely be making this an annual affair.

Tip: do yourself a favor and buy a strawberry huller like the one below. It was a huge time saver. And we had to buy a potato masher. Who still uses these?

And, voila! Freeze jam up to a year, or can be refrigerated up to a month. Now that I'm home on bed rest I've been enjoying the fruits of our labor with lots of PB&J's. :)

Holly xoxo

The Bramble Banks

Also known as the Outer Banks.

I figured it's about time I share about our lovely family vacation to Hatteras Island, NC. It was a first time for us all. All as in all twelve of us. Two sisters and a friend flew in from Montana. All five Stayer sisters together at last. Add the two Steves, two dogs, two parents, two grand parents and a partridge in a pear tree. My mom was on cloud nine. It’s been close to a decade since we have all gone on a family vacation together. I know what you’re thinking. This could go well or poorly. It went extremely well! And I’m not being sarcastic.

And whose bright idea was it to bring the dogs anyway? This is where “bramble” comes into play. Is this a real word? I don’t know. I think it is. What I do know is the terrain is very cactus/desert like in the Outer Banks. At least where we were staying. Not at all dog friendly. There were little prickly tumbleweeds everywhere. They got stuck on the dogs paws, they stabbed us in the feet {mostly my dads feet}. It was a pain literally and figuratively speaking. My dad called them brambles. Just so we’re clear. By the end of the week we were calling them brumbles {blame the alcohol?}.

We had fun. Lots of fun. Plain and simple as that. I don’t think I’ve ever been as relaxed in my entire life as I was on this vacation. There was nothing to do, people. Nothing. Like the only touristy thing we did was go see a lighthouse. And we didn’t even climb up the stairs to take in the view because we are a} too cheap b} scared of heights c} ain't nobody got time for that.

Our day looked like this:

9 am-2 pm: rise and shine, drink coffee, eat breakfasts made by the father, drink mimosas, apply sunscreen, go the beach, drink mojitos/gin and tonics/beer/wine/whiskey and cokes, walk back to the house to make fluffernutters, go back to the beach, take a nap, talk about life, throw around a football, play catchphrase, jump in the waves.

2 pm-6pm: get tired of the beach, make more coffee, go to the pool, re-apply sunscreen, try to get dad to say the word “bramble” or "brumble", grab a beer, go in the hot tub, take a shower, drink five glasses of water, apply aloe vera, put on something nice.

6 pm-midnight: Go out to dinner, order a water, eat seafood, take pictures of each other/yourself/the scenery, go to DQ for buy one get one 99 cent blizzards, change into comfy clothes or swim suit, resume drinking alcohol of any variety and/or coffee, sit around and argue about what we should do next, play a game such as apples to apples “winner takes a shot” version, have drunk conversations about how going back to work and reality will suck, laugh until your sides hurt, go night swimming in the ocean, go in the hot tub, go to sleep to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. Insert happy sigh {here}.

Repeat for seven days. And that's all you really need to know.

And since pictures speak louder than words…

 

 ^^^this is how one does a road trip with a dog. well pardon me, jake.

^^^safety first :)

^^^vacation= mimosas every morning

^^^take me back there

^^^the man who made us breakfast. thanks dad!

 

^^^he's all mine folks!

^^^daily DQ run

^^^mojitos

 ^^^sand bar

^^^crazy crowds

^^^Leesha "book worm" Stayer

^^^yep, I'd say this is about 4 o'clock-ish

^^^"now wave to the camera..." {???}

^^^proof of night swimming. also right before I went down and camera drowns. miraculously iPhone survives.

^^^i like turtles

^^^ <3

^^^cape hatteras lighthouse

^^^harvest moon

^^^amaw & poppy

^^^the kids table

^^^mandy. always the character

^^^don't ask how long it took to start this fire

^^^i just don't know

^^^because this makes me laugh out loud. every. time.

^^^what happens at a beach fire, stays at a beach fire

^^^on the road again

^^^the end.

We are already tentatively planning a trip for next year. It was just that enjoyable.