Westport and Grandpa!

Last Monday was just about as perfect as a day can be. We all piled into the Pilot and headed for the beach. School started for everyone else last week so we had the beach to ourselves. We were all happy to have Grandpa Done here for a visit. Grandpa=Fun. We made sand castles, found jellyfish and shells, buried our legs in the sand, thought we were being killed by a wave that knocked us down(OK that one was Jairus but he recovered quickly), threw a lot of sand, drove on the beach and scared innocent seagulls, saw cranberry bogs, ate at a wonderful little restaraunt called Bennett's, broke a glass, ate an "adult meal" and had generally had a beautiful day. Thank you grandpa!

Canning Week!

Canning week. In a strange and twisted way I look forward to it all year long. I never work quite so hard, or stay up quite so late as I do this week. I'm never quite so tired or frazzled as I am this week. But I never feel quite the sense of fulfillment as I do this week. And even though the kids complain here and there I think they feel the same way. Hard work makes you feel good, it gives you confidence. Both Marley and Townsend made comments about how fun it was and how they loved it. Even Ephraim got in on the green snapping and corn husking action.
This year Sarah and I drove to Yakima on Monday, loaded up her van with probably 1,000 pounds of produce and then got to work on Tuesday. Thanks to Sister Moore we got 400 pounds of corn for free from the WSU fields in Puyallup. This year our family did 40 quarts of peaches, 15 quarts of pears, 65 quarts of green beans, 85 quarts of tomatoes and we froze 25 quarts of fresh corn. It all tastes so much better than the store bought stuff.

Here's our pile of corn husks.

Pretty tomatoes.

Corn huskin' tickle fight.

Fruits of our labors.