Strawberry Picking in Rochester

The only thing better than going to a strawberry festival is going to a strawberry patch to pick my very own strawberries to be awesome and make my very favoritest strawberry jam!!!

Luckily during our very busy time in Rochester we were able to take a morning to go to Burch Farms and pick some strawberries! Terrisa, Hannah, my Mom, Aunt Gail, and I went and it went way faster than I thought it would.

The empty patch that was ripe for the picking.
Don't they look delicious!!! We picked about double this amount. We had lots of jam to be made so we had to pick a ton.
They were so delicious some of us couldn't help but eat as we picked. I caught Terrisa stealing a taste. That's what you are supposed to do when you are picking isn't it?
Take note that Hannah is wearing capris and jacket....and this was in the end of June! How ridiculous is that? I wasn't complaining though I much prefer having to wear a jacket and be able to go out and pick strawberries than to be at home in AZ with triple digits and having to stay indoors or in the pool.

Mom and Aunt Gail hard at work. Aunt Gail is definitely more experienced than the rest of us. She picked way faster than us AZ peeps.


I'm not sure why I decided to put them on my head. It made it easier to carry I guess.

Some of the strawberries were really juicy and they stained our fingers. It was tasty trying to get the stain out.

They had the coolest scale to weigh and charge us for the strawberries. I heart vintage stuff.

Now it's time for the jam making party!

We all took turns smushing up the strawberries. It was so much fun!
Aunt Gail and Paisley watched while we worked. That was until we needed Aunt Gail to show us what to do next.
Couldn't you just drink that right up? I was really tempted to. We did have extra and saved it to put in out lemonade at my Grandma Warren's house. It was so delicious. Heather even added fresh basil for her and George. (They had tried it at some restaurant in CA and fell in love with it.) I was too scared to try it. I love both strawberries and basil, but I will keep them separate for now.
It was intense waiting for it to come to a rolling boil. We didn't want to mess it up. Hannah was patiently waiting for her cue to pour in the sugar and take over stirring.

After the jam was all mixed and ready to go we had to can it. This part was intense, we had to make sure everything was perfect so the jars would seal.


There is the final product (upside). We left it upside down for awhile then flipped it to get it to seal. If I remember correctly all of our jam sealed properly. We ended up doing about 30 jars of jam! If you are on my good side you may get one as a gift.

Thanks Mom and Aunt Gail for teaching us how to make jam. It was tons of fun and it is delicious!!!

Strawberry Festival

A while back I randomly looked at the local section of the Arizona Republic and the front cover had an article about a Strawberry Festival up in Strawberry, AZ! Everything about that just sounded like awesomeness! I love festivals and I love strawberries so I convinced my friends to make the drive up with me. It was slightly disappointed because they didn't really have a ton of strawberry stuff...not even a single strawberry jam...but there were a lot of vendors with crafts and jewelry and such. It was just nice to get out of the heat and walk around outside in beautiful weather with friends.

It took us awhile to find the strawberry stuff but we finally found it and got some yummy treats. Liza and Ryan did a strawberry float.

And I got the chocolate covered strawberries....

....and the strawberry shortcake. They were both delicious.

There was this random crazy dressed man walking around and he decided to jump in our picture.

Strawberry was such a cute small town and we had a lot of fun. I am determined to do more stuff like this, to just get away and relax and have fun with friends for a day. It is so much fun to do and these are the times you remember with friends.

Disneyland Again!

I am finally back to blogging.....again. Sorry I am not very good at this whole blog thing. I try, but I always find something else that I need to do and push this aside. I will try and be better though.

Almost two months ago I went to Disneyland with my little sister Hannah, her boyfriend Jeremiah, and one of my best friend's Kimi (who has never been to disney before!). We drove from Phoenix to Irvine to stay with Heather and George and along the way we found this amazing jerky place! Haha it was funny because there was sign after sign along the freeway for Daniel's Really Good Fresh Jerky. How could you not stop for the awesomely named jerky place and as promised they did indeed have really good fresh jerky. We were a little disappointed though because we didn't get to meet Daniel himself.

Jeremiah displaying our really good fresh jerky. My favorite was the Teriyaki Turkey Jerky. I suggest you stop in there if you are going between Cali and AZ and try it. It is worth it.

Saturday we went to Disney bright and early. We wanted to get in as much time as possible since we wanted Kimi to get the full effect and be able to do as much as she can.

This is one of our new favorite things to do in Disney, the animation studio. It is on the street on the way to the Tower of Terror. You can learn how to draw a Disney character and see how animation works. It is so much and something new to do since we have done everything there about 20 times.

I love these chairs...I'm not sure why I just do.

It was so much fun to go and visit Heather and George and get to introduce Kimi to Disney! Hannah and I got a four day pass so we will be back this summer for sure.

Promise to keep to better updated!