Cherries!

Josh and I were so excited to get to spontaneously go pick cherries last night with our good friends Matt & Jana, and their two sweet girls, Claire & Kalea. Not only do we love cherries, but we also love their company! We were on our way home from Cannon Beach (super fun getaway I'll blog about soon) when we decided to pick cherries. My mom already had the kids (thanks mom!) so it made it more possible for us to really focus on getting as many cherries as possible. The kids would have loved it, and loved the open orchard, but I don't think it would've been possible for both Josh and me to pick with Benjamin running loose, since it wouldn't have been safe for him to be in the back of the truck, which is where we were picking from.

The kids, all three, helped me pit the cherries today, bag them for the freezer, and put them on the dehydrator trays! So proud of them for working hard with me! (We started bright and early!) And at Selah's request we also threw a few bananas on our dehydrator trays, which she and Jude cut all by themselves! Dehydrated bananas of course make me think of my Grandma Gayle. <3 I love that Selah loves them too.

I sure love that sweet girl there!!
Here are my iphone photos:
Beautiful orchard! Ah, loved being out there! Of course the evening light was just beautiful and I couldn't help but think about how fun it would be to photograph families, or cute kids on wood fruit crates & old quilts out there, or in any orchard. :)

Josh standing on the back edge of the truck... Matt would drive the truck under a tree and then we'd all pick from the back bed of the truck. There were some hay bales in the back, too, that we would stand on get get even higher. Then once we had that portion of the tree picked over, Matt would move the truck to the next part of the tree and we'd pick it clean. These no-spray cherries are such a gift. Josh and I picked about 40 lbs.

Thank you for such a fun night, Matt & Jana, Claire & Kalea!

I can't help but notice how tired I'm looking in photos lately... yikes! Photo on right: Jude taking a turn with the cherry pitter. He did really well with it, but just didn't last very long since I can imagine how tiring it would be for a kid. But I was so happy he got right in there to help me!

Jude taking a turn slicing bananas and making a token silly face. And here Benjamin is flipping lights on and off - cheap thrills. :)

Selah's silly face too...  ;)

Jude creatively made a happy face out of his slices, and Benjamin helped me load the pitted cherries onto the trays. We'll be so thankful for these all year long!