Canning Day

My good friend Kristina and I started a tradition last year that I hope lasts us a lifetime. Our yearly strawberry jam canning day. It's the one day out of the whole year that we devote entirely to canning. I seriously had so much fun last year and have been counting the days until we could get together again. 

Paul took over kid patrol for the day and I arrived at Kristina's house at 9:30 am. I open the door to my car to get the supplies out and....CRASH....an entire box of freshly cleaned jars smashes all over the driveway. Oops. Totally not a good start. Then Kristina looks in my car and says, oh no, that's not enough strawberries. Strike two! ahh....I couldn't believe it. Luckily her wonderful husband came to our rescue and drove out the 126 to get double what I had bought. 

Ok, so once we got that mess cleaned up and the right amount of strawberries, we got everything in the house and then didn't waste any more time. All day long we are washing, cutting, smashing, measuring, boiling, organizing and steaming (thanks to Brooke's LIFE SAVER steam canner. I totally owe you Brooke. We LOVED using that thing. Seriously! It was awesome.). We had a definite system down and we didn't waste a moment. In total I think we canned around 100 jars of jam. 

We chatted, laughed, ate, chatted, laughed and ate some more. The strawberries were heavenly they were so good. 

Paul came over with the kids around 3 pm. They ran around and played while we finished up. Then we got pizza for the kids and yummy Pico Rico Mexican food for the adults. I think I pretty much inhaled my burrito it was SO good. 

Thanks for the wonderful day girl! And a special thanks to the amazing husbands/dads we have. Without your help there is no way we would have been able to accomplish what we did! We are definitely lucky gals.

We knew it was time to call it a day though when someone ended up hurt. Sorry for the shot of blood dripped on the back patio, but it makes for a good story. Brandon fell and hit his nose pretty bad while playing swords with the Daddy's and Nicolas. It was quite bloody. After that, we got our stuff all gathered up, said our goodbyes and headed home!

Whew! I'm exhausted. (I think Paul is too).

These photos are all courtesy of Kristina, because I of course forgot my camera....again!