End of July

This summer our church has been having a bbq once a month at different family homes. We went to our friends' Josh and Jessica's bbq and had a great time. They have a HUGE tree house in their backyard that they built. It has all sorts of cool things like ropes, a slide, and a rock climbing wall. Josh and I had to go up there and check it out. The kids loved playing all together for hours.

This was our view looking down... I wish I had taken an actual photo of the tree house. It was impressive and really cute! I also wish I had taken a pic of the ten kids that were up there together.

We had our friends, Eric and Amy, and their girls, over for dinner last week and had Matt, Gina, & Nora over too. Caleb joined later. We did a Hawaiian dinner theme and loved everyone's company. We roasted s'mores and enjoyed the fire until it got dark.

Eric and Amy are Matt and Gina's old neighbors and we were amazed at dinner as Gina and Amy told of all of the things they have in common! They both went to private Christian schools in the same town growing up but didn't know each other. They each married their spouses on the same wedding day (different years), wearing almost identical dresses and carrying the exact same flowers even in the very same colors! And they all bought houses on the same street. :) The list goes on and on, but what a sweet what a friendship God has given them. And we all go to the same church.

My mom took Gina and me to a Beth Moore women's conference last weekend and it was really good!

We stayed overnight in Eugene, along with my mom's friend Carleen, and her sister and daughter. Our group had a lot of fun together. Lots of good conversation and laughter and prayer.

Over 3,000 women attended the conference in Eugene, so we went a little early to get good seats.

Here's a photo my mom snapped. I loved that it was all about Jesus! I'll have to write more about it in another post.

When I got home our family went over to our friends' Paul and Stephanie's house and had a great dinner. We adults played some fun games and the kids played outside, picked blueberries in their backyard and played video games.

Speaking of blueberries, a couple days after that we went blueberry picking at a farm near our house. Gina organized it with our friend Amy and we all had a great time! Thank you Gina! The kids and I picked 10 pounds even though we were trying to not pick too much, since we already had some blueberries in the freezer. We mostly wanted them for fresh snacking. And boy have we enjoyed them! I love to eat them frozen with chocolate chips, too - yum!

Love these friends.

We've had a pretty busy summer so far, and this week we said no to everything in order to have every night at home and just rest. And it's been wonderful! And needed. I've gotten to read a ton, and bake zucchini muffins and waffles using garden produce, and the kids have played for hours on end outside. We're looking forward to watching the shooting stars that are suppose to be overhead this week. It always feels so good to slow everything down and just relish in the little things, like time and space to breath.

The kids have been swinging in the hammock all week, swaying under the oaks in our side yard, listening to music or Adventures in Odyssey. I even served them waffles and juice out there today. :)

The chickens were roaming in the grass nearby.

Let's get a closer look at that poof...

Remember my cute little chick, Penelope?

She turned out to be a rooster.

Ben wanted an up close shot...

Here's to the lazy days of summer!!

(After all, school starts next month and Christmas is in less than 150 days! Yikes.)