The Collector!

I am sure many of you have heard of Domenic's "collection". To put it in perspective for you:

Yes, those are nearly all of his Pez. Not included in this shot are only the 45 or so that we have deemed as collectibles and have stored away to be kept safe. Funny thing, the hidden ones do not include the 4 sets of collections that he has received, ie. the Elvis tin, the Mickey Mouse tin, or the Star Trek collection. He had those opened and was playing with them before we could even register what he had gotten. No biggy, this is his thing. The bottom pile are his "girl ones." He wanted a picture of them, but didn't want to include them in the big group shot! Oh, and yes, he stacked those up all on his own. This is a regular occurence in our house.

Total tally: 255 Pez dispensers, including 3 giants, 12 fuzzy key chains, and 1 car!

Sweets Candy Factory

We took a tour of the Sweet's Candy Factory for a play group last week. It was such a great experience! The kids thought that their nifty hair nets were the bomb! They loved it!

The tour started out with a video about the candy factory! Some information that I didn't know: This is the only Sweet's Candy Factory in the world, they ship to all 50 states, Canada, and across the eastern countries. When you eat those yummy orange or raspberry sticks, they were made here! Before you enter, you have to check all your bags, remove ALL of your jewelry, and change out strollers for ones that they provide. It was hard for some of the ladies to agree to remove their wedding rings.

We got to go into the the factory and see everything. They have more than 1 million pounds of candy that is stored in a huge warehouse that is kept at 68 degrees (the perfect candy storing temperature!). They start making seasonal candy 5 months in advance, so guess what we passed by? Thousands and thousands of boxes of candy corn, candy corn taffy and devil shaped cinnamon bears!

We got to taste candy at each of the different rooms. Did you know that it takes 9 layers of 2 different types of sugar to cover a jelly bean? And that the sugar must be applied by hand? The jelly bean makers are trained for over a year before they are allowed to make actual batches! We got to taste fresh jelly beans that hadn't been to the polisher yet. They were so soft and chewy, and covered in cornstarch to keep them from sticky to each other. Alexis, silly girl, was the only one to grab a black licorice jelly bean, which I than had to carry half chewed in my hand for the rest of the tour.

We also learned that the molds they use to make the shapes of all the candy is actually cornstarch. I know, it blows the mind, but when you see how they do it, it makes sense.

At the end of the tour you get a bag of fresh taffy in delicious flavors (really, it is the best taffy I have ever had!)

We passed by tons of trays of fresh candy! It smelled so good! You could see the devil shaped cinnamon bears, the regular cinnamon bears, peanut clusters, and more! We had a blast!

3 reasons to Wear Sunscreen

You have got to love the pool and summer, but here are 3 good reasons to wear LOTS of sunscreen!

(P.S. these photos don't even do the red justice!

And yes, we had on some suncreen, just not enough!)

Square Foot Garden

I thought that I would post pictures of our fabulous square foot garden! It is doing so well this year! We have enjoyed fresh spinach salads at least once a week! We also have tomatoes, green peppers, peas, carrots, and yellow squash coming up! It is great to have a place to grow veggies!

Jenny sleeps over!

My sister Jenny stayed with us the other night! It was lots of fun! The kids love having their aunts come over and visit! We watched movies, went to the temple open house, and then we went swimming! It was lots of fun! We were glad to have you here Jennyannifer!!