A day with friends :-)

We had a *wonderful* day!! The Gunnels came to visit and sure put smiles on all of our faces :-) We had SO many items on the 'to-do' list and they helped us make short & fun work out of it all!! We started off the day by planting a bag garden over by our asparagus bed. BLACK HANDS were had by all!! The kids planted rosemary, basil and peanuts.... yum!

Lilo and Agnes decided they'd had enuff of black dirt and headed for the cherry trees. We had a very productive conversation about the various colors of cherries----only pick & eat the BRIGHT RED cherries, not the YELLOW cherries hahaha! We picked and pitted a quart or so and then Lilo showed Agnes how to pit the cherries (and then eat them :-). Agnes couldn't be bothered with the pitting procedure..... she just ate the cherries, seeds and all AHHHHHH!

Just as I was about to ring the bell for the boyz to come in from hiking, Isaac came BOLTING through the front door hollering something about things poking him!!! After examining him, I realized he'd been hiking with my good friend Barb..... barbed wire to be exact. Ole Barbie made quick work of his pants and decided he should be wearing shorts. I told him that his mother was going to kill me..... little Isaac assured me that his mom would simply ' knit his pants back together' :-)

All of the kids were good and hot so I decided to throw out the sprinkler and water the lawn :-) The big kids got the hang of it...... the little ones thought I was trying to give them a shower and began disrobing hahaha----I'll keep the X-rated pics to myself hahaha!

"I've had enuff of kids" was written all over Lukes face, hence, I sent him out on the back 40 with a 4-wheeler and fishing pole...... I'll leave it at that haha! At some point during the day I found Brad & Luke absorbed in all of the Wii wiring..... good grief, I can't believe they got it hooked up haha!

What a day..... jumping on the hay rack, chasing chickens, smooching the bunnies, 4-wheeler rides, playing avatar down by the pond, staying AWAYYYYY from the ram.... I think the kids were all pooped, but we sure had a great time and made some wonderful memories :-)

A "Berry" Happy Lilo :-)

Lilo is all in his glory :-)-----the strawberries and cherries are ripe!! This week we should be able to harvest some. Liam has been beating the chickens to the punch in the strawberry patch haha! He gets up straight away in the morning to 'check for chickens' and KICK them out of the strawberries!! Right now, the strawberries are pretty small due to the final frost, but they'll continue to berry into the fall.

Those darn birds are already picking the cherries so I'm gonna pick some pink ones and let them ripen on the deck. I think the winds took alot of the flowers so we probably won't get too many.... maybey a gallon or so.

Pretty soon we'll hafta make a mad dash to the mulberry trees..... they usually ripen right in the middle of cherry picking. If you don't get them quick, they'll fall off. Usually we get 1-2 inch long berries from most of our trees. I have a GREAT mulberry jam recipe that I'll post during season.

The Last Hurrah!!!

The kids did a MARVELOUS job this year in choir. The final two performances brought tears to my eyes..... such beautiful voices. We've been so blessed with talented choir directors who always seem to bring out the best in each and every child :-)

At last years performance, Sean decided to be a showboat and make faces at the crowd (I wanted to crawl inside myself when he did it). This year was a little better, he only tried to 'out sing' everyone. I'm starting to savor his 'antics' lately..... I know that in a short time they'll be gone.... replaced with a more quiet, reserved, 'Seany-Bear'.