Patriotic Jam!

Oh my!  Mommy made this delicious strawberry jam today, and you can see here it is packaged quite nicely for the Memorial Day holiday.  She had jam on the stovetop, and we were waiting a bit for it to reach 220 degrees there, each of us taking turns holding that thermometer.  But in the end, it was worth it, because the end product was delicious!  And much appreciated!  

But not everything that goes near the oven turns out the way you expect...!

This is what happens when a potato explodes in your oven.  Yep.  Holes were poked in it, but nevertheless, the pressure built up inside and... BOOM!  Madison was working in the dining area and she heard the sound from the oven.  She quickly went over and turned the oven off immediately, and we told her she did the right thing.  The other potato was tasty, by the way.  It turned out fine.

Today was Memorial Day, which is traditionally a day off and the start of the summer, which is time off as well.  But for Madison, it's like any other day lately.  There is no great barrier between spring and summer now, as the two are blended together by day after day of isolation at home.  But at least there are no more classwork assignments.  She is quite done with that.

But today we made our way over to the grandparents' house, as is a Memorial Day tradition.  There was a lot of good and delicious food there, cooked burgers, corn on the cob and more.  It was a traditional Memorial Day feast, but the highlight of it all was having family together.  We spent a long time together, and even had several rounds of a game of dominoes.  It was a great time together.

We were quoting "The Emperor's New Groove" a lot lately, so that was our movie tonight.  I think it was related to the alligator story the other day.  You'd get that reference if you knew the movie as much as we do.

It was a good day - lots of rain again, as there's this tropical storm somewhere nearby.  We're supposed to have a good bit of rain this week.  That's no problem, as it cools things off, and is so refreshing.  It also sounds great when it is that gentle rain, just outside.

Tonight we read and we prayed.  Ba-Ba is having a more difficult week, this due to some medication designed to bring his blood count back up again.  The side effects are awful.  Mommy knows this first-hand, having had to do that time and again in the past.  But she beat cancer, and we're praying and believing that same outcome for Ba-Ba as well.