Drew's Homecoming

While Pete and I were at Notre Dame this past weekend Drew stayed at home for Homecoming weekend.  We were so thankful for Tyler coming home for the weekend to be chauffeur and photographer!!

Yep, always brothers!! :)

a Notre Dame weekend

This last weekend Pete and I went to Notre Dame to visit Jake. We needed to bring him the rest of his things that didn't fit in the car on move-in weekend and we were also lucky enough to get some football tickets for the game on Saturday.

Friday evening, we picked up Jake from his dorm and took him out to dinner. It was so nice seeing him and catching up on his first month of college!

We stayed at a fancy hotel - a Super 8. :) Seriously though, rooms on game weekends are very hard to come by and room rates go way up! (This room was over $200 a night and nothing fancy, but it was clean and just fine for the amount of time we were actually in our room.)

We were so excited to take in our very first Notre Dame football game!! Jake had his own ticket in the student section.

Saturday morning we stopped by our friends 'cabin' over by campus to park our car and do a little tail gating.

At 1:15pm everyone lines up along the sidewalks to see the "Players Walk' from their mass at the Basilica to the stadium. This is such a neat tradition!

We saw the Irish Guard.

And saw the Marching Band Concert at Bond Hall; another pre-game tradition.

80,000 fans!

It was such a fun game and the Irish won!

Later that evening we went out with friends to a couple of spots near campus.

It was a great weekend and we were so happy to see Jake and take in "the spectacle of a Notre Dame football game."

Homecoming week

{weekend lens}

pizzas on the grill night : dinner out with friends : General Store outing with my sister : 

picture texted from Jake- road trip to Purdue playing Notre Dame football game

Homecoming ?

She said Yes!

{weekend lens}

farmer's market flowers : zucchini bread (recipe) : jalapeño poppers : smoked pork : 

Notre Dame football game

salsa making

Yesterday I went to the Farmer's Market to gather my ingredients to can some Zesty Salsa. The Farmer's Market is just bursting right now.with all kinds of end of the summer goodness, which makes for the perfect time to do canning.

25 pounds of tomatoes, 12 green peppers, 40 jalepeno's,  24 onions

oh my

Salsa making is a ton of work with all of the chopping, cooking and then canning... but the end product is always worth it. 

memory lane {Des Moines}

We moved A LOT when I was little, and for three of those years I lived in Des Moines, Iowa. On our way home from the family wedding in Kansas we drove right through my old home town. We made a stop for lunch at an old favorite pizza place, Felix and Oscar's. {Not exactly like I remembered after 30+ years, but still worth the stop!}

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After our pizza lunch, we drove by my old house. The house used to be 'farm house red' and my old bedroom was the double window in the front right of the house. My room was bright yellow with sunflower wallpaper! {I am still in love with sunflowers!!!!}

It is funny; I was telling Pete and Drew that I remembered our street being very busy traffic wise and now looking at it- it was so quiet! :) I think only one car passed the entire time we were on the street. :)

Our old friend (and surrogate Grandma) Mrs. Lause's house. She was a little old lady that lived a couple houses up from us. My sister and I would visit with her all the time; chatting, playing cards, helping her in the garden, baking and whatever else she was up to at that moment.

Des Moines was a fun stop on our way back home and brought back a ton of childhood memories. :)