Piano recital

The girls had their piano recital last week and won first place in the "Hear the Rewards" program. We are so proud of them--not because of the trophies, but because they work so hard at their piano lessons. We have NEVER had to remind them to practice, and the piano gets played 5-6 times a day. Lovely!
PS-I think they look so much alike in that second picture--I usually don't notice it.

Rosary Group

Once a month we meet with a group of Catholic families to pray the Rosary and eat a potluck meal together. It is always a fun night with lots of kids, good conversation, and laughter. Below are photos from the April meeting.

Lots of kids makes for lots of noise and they have so much fun. It's the best kind of noise!
Of these six guys, Matt will be the only one left after mid-June. Three will be deployed (please pray for Charles, Mike, Phil,and their families), one moved back to his home state, and one tranferred to DC. We will lose 9 kids, and some great friends. We look forward to Rosary night with much anticipation every month; it is awesome to pray with so many like-minded people.

Checking in

Wanted to post some new photos tonight but they aren't on the computer yet. This after i lost the camera, yet again. it turned up in the van, thank heavens. I don't know how to upload on this camera, so I'll have to wait until Matt returns later this week.

We planted part of our garden yesterday. It was truly wonderful to be in the dirt again and planning some canning in the future. I am down to 4 half pints of pizza sauce, so I guess we aren't going to make it until the next harvest and will have to eat (AACKK!!) store bought sauce. A tragedy, for sure. I try to can at least 26 half pints in the fall to use on Friday pizza nights, but this year I didn't have enough tomatoes, even though I had to buy them at a roadside stand. Not this year, I hope!

Matt built (he's getting pretty skilled with the saw) 6 raised beds and we purchased--yes, purchased--dirt for them. Our yard is sand. The kids have dug at least a foot deep in places and there is no dirt to be found. But this dirt is beautiful. I find it insane that we paid good money for dirt. The truck driver no doubt thought the kids and I were whackos when he saw us each pick up a handful, bring it to our noses, and breath deeply. It was so sweet! Surely this will be the most expensive garden we have ever had, even topping those $90 peaches we had one summer when I bought the canner and a peck of peaches, only to get 2 jars canned. We savored those peaches.

It has been hot here, the last week or so, but cooled down nicely tonight so I sat out on the side walk for a while and I SAW FIREFLIES! The first ones I've seen here; we had assumed they didn't live here since we hadn't seen any the last 2 summers. Crazy happy, I was.

Gosh, all that and I ate DQ twice this weekend. Life isn't so bad. Hope yours is going well, too.