June happenings around here.

First swim of the year
A silly little mouse I knit. He's hungry!
and he thinks he likes soup!
We had a party for Sarah's end of the season in golf.
Amy's team won the league championship! Wowsa..a great first year of organized sports.

A few pictures of fun.

I've already picked 3 zucchini from our garden. This is the first from last week.
We got a package from Zappos!
One hot day we went strawberry picking with our friends, ShaLynn, Chas and Baby Euin. Lots of fun and good eating!

The land r*pers were here

About two weeks ago we moved the front bushes over to the garden area to make a little boundary, of sorts. I actually thought to myself, "This will be ok, because they aren't ever going to build on those lots. (Our house is the only one on this cul-de-sac; precisely why we bought it. We were told the other lots had been deeded back to the county and were not to be built on since they were declared as wetlands). The next day I awoke to the sounds of a backhoe working. By 4 pm, the entire lot was cleared, and by 4pm the next day, three more lots were cleared as well. While I have adjusted to it now, the whole process made me ill. The birds flew around frantically all day. The squirrels were totally freaked out. I literally begged the workers to save the three trees along, but not on, our property line. I went so far as to take them cookies, even. Those trees were spared and I hope that the builders will assume they were meant to be. The kids lost their giant sand pile, the woods where their fort was, and where they played for hours at a time. Nothing has been started yet, but we now know that four new homes are slated to be built on the empty lots. This doesn't make sense to me, when there are empty houses that have yet to be sold and the housing market is a mess.

Take that, rat/black/racer snake!

This afternoon Sarah asked how I was going to water the garden if I was too scared to go out to it. I replied "We'll just have to tough it out and do it." To which Amy answered under her breath, "You'll have to tough it out." (I love that the girls are getting older and have a great sense of humor). So.....Theo and I braved the garden today, armed with a broom and the water hose. No sitings of Mr. Snake. I made up my mind not to let it deprive me of my garden. I have been so happy going out to check it every day; I can't let my fear ruin that. But when we're in Iowa next time, I think I'll purchase a new ice chopper.

Big discovery in the garden

last evening I went out to check on my beloved garden. I was greeted by half a dead rat with acmpanying blood trail on the front step. (Thank you, Sunnie cat). I proceeded to the garden, knowing I could take care of the rat later. We collect the AC water in buckets, so I first went to get that, turned around to dump it on a tomato and found this:







...my legs went NUMB. I was frozen to the ground (yes, because I am absolutely terrified of snakes). Then I realized it could still. be. around. I ran back to the grass, not thinking it could still be THERE, too, dumped the water on a little bush and ran to the house, nauseaus. We have confirmed sightings of Copperheads in our neighborhood, so I convinced Theo to pick it up with a stick and put it in a box. We took it to Amy's game where I knew a native could identify it. They did. It was a black snake or a rat snake or a racer snake (Oh yes--I would race if I saw one!) and harmless. Um....yeah.....it's pretty harmless to someone not like me, who had to get my blood pressure under control after seeing it. It scared me how utterly terrified I was.

When we got home, the kids stretched it out to see how long it was.(Too long). It is now in a box in the garage for Matt to see when he gets home. The snake identifier said to leave it in the garden (yeah, right) and birds would take it for nest building. Um....I'll put out some yarn for the birds, thankyouverymuch. Oh, and notice that Marty is firmly on my side about all of this. He wouldn't touch it.

Sunnie, the rat-killer, was not impressed with it.
Oh, and the bloody rat is still on the step. I haven't been able to go out yet. I'm wonder how this is going to effect the garden if I can only look at it from the street.

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.