June brought with it more mild temperatures (averaging 62 degrees!) and lots of rainfall. This afforded us time to get some projects completed prior to the scorching dry heat which our region is known for. As you can see, other than some landscaping around its base, our chicken coop is complete and really quite adorable with window box, outside pen, step ladder to the inside coop, as well as a huge rooster flag pinned up inside to motivate my "ladies" to lay more eggs with their poster boy in full view :-) Joe affectionately nicknamed this the "Taj Ma Chicken" and well .... I suppose it fits.
Our field was absolutely beautiful in its full growth, up to my waist and waving in the wind. It's always such a shame to cut it and have it baled, but Josiah's allergies thanked us once it was all over. Joe loves to see a field with bales on it (he should have been a farmer) and so I had to take a picture for posterity's sake. Take notice of the snow still on the mountains in the background. We did pull over 200 bales off the field -- enough to supply our goats through winter and sell to a few neighbors. No profit here ... we're just thankful to call it even on the deal; but it is satisfying to grow our own hay to supply our animals for the winter.
June was horse-riding lesson month. Isabelle was again privileged to learn under one of our horsewomen from church -- a talented young lady just barely 17 but with a gift for teaching and encouragement. Isabelle excelled riding "Sparky" this year -- a 4 year old that was tamed and gentled by her teacher. Isabelle was able to retrieve, bridle, saddle and ride this year completely on her own!! It was amazing to watch and brought tears to my eyes more than once.
My sweet little girl is growing up and loving life each and every day!
God has so richly blessed us with families to walk alongside us in helping our children learn these skills that we are so lacking. Her horse lessons this year were beyond inspiring and were much anticipated throughout the week!
Alli and Isabelle enjoyed riding and galloping through the pasture for their final ride this summer. These are precious memories for my young horse lover.
If you look closely at the picture below, you will see that we, after 10 years of discussing it, finally put new carpet in all of our bedrooms. This was quite a feat - requiring our hiring some young men from our church to move everything out of the bedrooms and into the garage. A day later, they moved everything back in! It was a bit of a mess to say the least, but afforded some great opportunities for deep cleaning as well as simplifying and organizing.In moving the furniture, I opted to put our original cradle (which was used by all of my babies) in Isabelle's room. Without her knowing it, I arranged it lovingly at the foot of her bed with her dolls laying inside - prepared for her to be tickled with her own "baby bed". I brought her in for the final peek, and had to laugh as she instead exclaimed:
"Oh Mommy!! My own HOSPITAL BED!!" Smile. It's official .... the girl was destined to be a nurse. The has the most compassionate and nurturing spirit of anyone I've ever known.
It wasn't long before she had a ziploc bag filled with water hanging from the bedpost, complete with I.V. line (yarn), and I.V. (syringe inserted with a sewing pin). One doll had "yellow jack" and another had a broken collar bone. Since that day, the poor dolls have had a myriad of ailments, broken bones, and near death experiences. Isabelle dresses up in her nurse uniform, keeping the room dark and quiet and studying about herbal cures in her spare time :-)
As a diversion, we were privileged also this June to have the charge of my best friend's children who stayed with us for 4 days while their parents attended meetings in Washington D.C. Having 5 children under my charge did not feel much more different than having 3, perhaps even easier as they entertained and enjoyed each other's company so much that all I had to focus on was keeping them clean, clothed, and fed!
Sarah and Isabelle have been precious friends for many years. It is so sweet to see this friendship develop and mature with each passing year. We will miss them so very much when they move to Australia later this summer :-( We're getting our passports ready!
Of course, no summer break would be complete without the token backyard swim lessons. Isabelle has progressed to being an advanced swimmer with her brothers. As we only swim a few times a year, and usually not in pools but in lakes and ponds, I feel that swim lessons are invaluable and necessary to any good education and character!
Isabelle and Isaac enjoyed doing some interesting tricks off the diving board on their final day.
As it is our intention to provide our family and children in particular with a community of friends, we look for all sorts of opportunities to live out hospitality. We hosted a dessert for over 75 one evening this past month for a pastoral candidate, his family, and several families from our church. It was a great evening of fun for the nearly 50 kids present!
In addition, we hosted our 2nd annual Game Day for young men ages 12 and over with their willing Dads! We filled the garage this day as the boys and men played Risk, Settlers of Catan, and Cashflow -- eating all the food that I continually brought out to the garage!
This is a blessed time of friendly competition and relationship building as they play board games, ultimate frisbee, and ping pong in between trips to the endless pizza and chip counter.
Our side pasture is looking very picturesque with our new drought resistant and allergy-friendly grass, trees, and berries. It gets used quite a bit when we have kids over.
As you can see, Josiah is no longer the shortest!! :-) He's tipping the scales at over 140 lbs and has shot up to 5'7" in one year with still much growing and maturing to be done. God is so good.
July is looking much quieter around here. The boys and Joe, along with Grandpa and Uncle Jeff are heading to Alaska for a week of fishing while we girls are going to enjoy pie for dinner, breakfast on the front porch, long walks, girl movies, and shopping galore :-) Camping is in the works as well as garden maintenance, part-time jobs for the boys, continued karate and violin lessons, and summer learning time. I pray that your summer is joy-filled and warm with happy memories! Blessings y'all!!
1 comment:
What a richly blessed and rewarding summer you have had so far! It is wonderful to see what everyone has been doing. Thank you so much for sharing. We miss you, friend!
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