Jamboree and Canning

Saturday, August 17th, the boys had their first football "Jamboree" down at Boise State.

All of the optimist players from flag, to tackle, and even cheerleaders from all over the treasure valley were participating. It was quite the ordeal! We had a specific time that we were supposed to be there, meet in a certain location. The kids were lined up for pictures, marched onto the blue "smurf turf" for a team picture, then escorted into the field house, where the Broncos practice, to play a quick 7 minute game. The older kids playing tackle football get to play on the actual turf inside the stadium. There are literally thousands of people that went in and out of that facility that day! It was amazing.

 Our team got crushed! We couldn't move the ball at all and were really struggling with knowing where to go or what to do. The other team was running reversals, and all sorts of stuff. Plus, they towered over us, so it had to have been a team that had played together for awhile and was made up of mostly older kids. The game was only 7 minutes long, so it was over just like that.

It was a fun chance for the kids to play, a great learning opportunity for the players and coaches and fun to be at BSU playing football.

After the football game, we drove home and got to work canning all the peaches we'd gotten at the Orchard the night before.

It was a family effort for sure! Marc was in charge of blanching the peaches, the kids were in charge of peeling the skins off, and I pitted, sliced, and prepared the jars.

The slowest part was the water bath. We have a flat top stove, so it takes forever for the water to get hot enough to reach a rolling boil. Not all of the peaches were fully ripe. It took us awhile to recognize this. Once we became more selective about which ones we were blanching, and saving the others for a different day, it got a lot easier and the skins came off right away. We canned over 30 quarts! Not too shabby!