Back to the blog!

Well, here I am with a little more extra time on my hands and although I am still a bit under the weather, it feels nice to be honest! Sewing is my first crafting love and to have time to sit with my 3 girls to sew on Saturday fed my soul I had unknowingly sapped though furniture. The September sale was our last sale at Good JuJu, KC. August 23rd my step-dad, Denis, passed away suddenly. We returned to Kansas after the funeral so that we could hurriedly do our  JuJu thing and all the while I felt incredibly guilty leaving my mama. So, as any daughter should, I am headed back to Tennessee today to spend about a month on the family farm with my mom. However, I haven't completely hung up my Sanford and Son days, I still have a space at the Lawrence Antique Mall. That space will be less demanding of my time and it is closer to home.

This extra time has opened space in my day to talk more about our Rein Family lifestyle, which is near and dear to us. We have lots of people that are curious about our journey to the health first lifestyle we now lead. We are always inclined to openly share our triumphs, failures and ultimately the set backs that come with such great change.

Peace, happiness and wellness to you!

Louise and Clark, and the rest of the Rein clan

Smoke Alarm Scare

Okay, on a more serious post, it's more like a FYI: 

At 3:30 yesterday morning the smoke alarm goes off with 2 serious beeps, mind you its not the change my battery kind of annoying chirps. Clark and I bound from our bed at the same exact time, zip downstairs at record speed to start the inspection process despite not smelling smoke or seeing fire. We live in a centennial home that was built in 1910; the old gal sometimes gets cranky and sometimes just has a sick sense of humor nevertheless, still somewhat panicking, we race through the house feeling for hot spots in the walls checking room after room again and again and again. We even checked outside, walking around the outside to see if we saw any sign of smoke or fire. Past experience has taught us fire is nothing to mess with and to be extra cautious.... 19 years ago Nov 3rd we lost a house to fire. Thankfully no one was home at the time. The real fear of the danger and the sadness of losing everything never leaves. Tonight, thankfully, we find no smoke or fire but upon close inspection of the culprit alarm I see a recommended replacement date of 10 years. I'm happy to report the detector lived a long life of 10 years, 1 month and 13 days.

who knew?

I will certainly be visiting the local store to buy replacements for all the old alarms. It is a widely seen campaign by the fire departments recommending changing the batteries during daylight savings time which is coming up Nov 4th. I think it is also a good practice to inspect the unit along with taking time to clean the dust off and out with a good shot of compressed air and replace those outdated alarms if need be. I had no idea that there was a life span on a smoke alarm, I doubt many do.  To take extra precaution we held a family meeting to go over fire safety and evacuation routes to refresh and hopefully improved any holes we may found in our plan.

To healthy, happy, and safe living! Cheers!

Destination the Ozarks

Today held a trove of adventures. It was a day that has long been awaited by Ragan, to her it seemed like a lifetime but in reality it was less than a month. The weather was supposed to be a sunny and bright fall day, a perfect day to set a course to the middle of Missouri to the Ozarks, so said NOAA but someone missed reporting the thick, heavy, gloomy clouds that hugged the ground the entire day. Ragan rose at 7am ready to go.... note this is the equivalent of dawn to her.  The rest of us were not as eager to rise and shine. It took about 30 minutes to get the blood flowing then it was peddle to the medal because we were running behind. Destination: the Ozarks. A sweet little 7 week old lemon colored female Bassett Hound puppy was waiting for Ragan.

In true Rein family fashion we loaded the van seeking adventure along the way.......minus Elizabeth and Derek, sadly both had to work; oh well, the show MUST go on!

First thing that caught our eye was a gas stop in Missouri....holy cow gas was only $3.39! Here in Kansas we have been paying $3.49 plus. I later saw gas down the road for $3.28! Seeing gas cheaper always makes me reminisce of the days you could pay a buck twenty for high test gasoline....today if I filled my van with high test it would probably don a pink tutu and dance down the road like Fred Astaire.  Moral of the story is to always try to buy gas in Missouri.

Almost there...said a few hundred times later I scared myself white...well whiter. This was just too funny not to share!....as I was trying to meter my camera I took a pic of a hill with fall color foliage....I glanced at the pic I had taken on my mini screen and it was too dark but I saw a man in my picture! There was no man on the side of the road that I saw nor a car NOTHING! What was even spookier was the man looked like he was dressed like my granddaddy. I double checked the screen to make sure da brain was not malfunctioning, cause that happens you know, and yup, sure enough, THERE STOOD A STRANGE DUDE IN MY IMAGE! Whoa I had PROOF I thought, a real ghost!  So I said "there is a man in my picture! My family looked at me and said "yeah, he was standing on the edge of the road back there." What!?????!

Who stands in the middle of no where Missouri on the edge of the highway?
I still think it was a ghost!

After 3 hours of driving we reached puppy destination! In no time Ragan was swimming in puppy kisses and cute Basset Hound wrinkles. The desire to take home every puppy was hard to resist but resist we did! Only 1 pup made it to the van! Ragan loaded her new baby in the car and proceeded to be stingy with the cuddles.

"Exhibit A your honor" thought Briley.....MOooMmmm!

The highlight of the trip was when we stopped to eat picnic style from the van at a gas station. Who should walk out of the filling station but......Santa Claus! He had the fullest whitest beard we had ever seen. He was in a caravan of RVs! Vacation was treating Santa WEEELLLLL! Of course we did what we do...... ran across the parking lot dodging cars yelling "EXCUSE ME SIR" with Ragan, carrying along her new pup, and Briley in tow we caught up to him. I said "excuse me sir but you look like Santa Claus. We are on an adventure and wanted to know if it would be alright with you if we could please get a picture!" He turned to his wife and excitedly said "I have a photo op", he bent down hugged the girls and smiled so bright...Who needs the sun...gloomy day be gone smiled Saint Nick!

Did I mention that he had a really nice fluffy beard and he really was Santa Claus?

Picnic

Okay..... guilty.....
we were stalking Santa in the parking lot first.

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What's for supper?

Side note: we are originally from Tennessee so we have supper as opposed to Midwest dinner.

Supper tonight was supposed to be lamb with king's meat but my roast was too small so I pulled another from the freezer. We will just have lamb tomorrow night.

Menu was changed to twice baked potatoes. I am posting Greg Patent's video from youtube. My only change is we add a smidgen of bacon. The potatoes are more than enough and it makes a fantastic one dish supper. I love Greg's energy and enthusiasm for food that is why he is a must share. :)

For dessert, cookie cake. I have never made chocolate chip cookie cake before last week. We have always left that to Great American Cookie but the closest is in North KC (which isn't that close). So I made 2 cakes for Ragan's birthday the other day in case I ruined one. I cheated and did not make my own chocolate chip cookie dough because I have yet to find a recipe that tastes as good as Pillsbury. But I did learn something that I think saved me and the cake that I wanted to share.....a technique I stumbled across by complete accident looking for dog biscuit recipes.  Using the flour to keep dough from sticking to every thing always seems to spoil the taste. Instead rolling the dough between 2 sheets of freezer paper saves the day! It was AMAZING and less mess than I ever have imagined! I am posting the video that I found with the technique and a pic of one of Ragan's cakes.

Ragan's Birthday cake made by mom, decorated by mom and dad (mermaid).
Daddy is pretty cool like that. :)

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It has been a long, but enjoyable day. I hear my pillow calling my name. Oh, new puppy does not have a name yet but I'm sure the right one will come along soon. :)

Until next time. Cheers! 

Howdy!

Hey howdy hey! We are the Rein family +1. My husband Clark and I, Louise, have 4 amazing kiddos, Elizabeth (sophomore at KU), William (jr in High School), Ragan and Briley, our 2 adorable little girls. Derek (freshman at KU) is our extra child that followed Elizabeth home 2 1/2 years ago...so we claim him too. We currently have 2 dogs, Caynne, the Komondor, and Bindi Lou, the American Bulldog mix, 3 cats, Castiel, the persian, Pangur Ban, the Ragdoll, and Cutie Pie, Pangur's baby. And 1 Bearded Dragon, Pepper. We make up the Rein Family!

We have some pretty spectacular adventures out and about but it's our every day daily adventures here around home that are the most entertaining. We wanted to share in our blog with everything from supper choices to hilarious quotes to 12am giggles. We will also post how we run a house for 7 with innovative ideas that could be easily and cheaply  implemented.