Cherry Picking

We love cherry season around here! There's an awesome orchard not far from our house and we decided to meet some of my family members there and pick sweet cherries together. Since the weather has been cool around here, it was a perfect day to pick! I'll take cool and overcast on cherry picking days!


Micah was pretty good at cherry picking. There were lots of cherries that were low enough for him to reach. He ate a bunch, but also managed to fill part of his bucket!


Ethan has really gotten the hang of cherry picking over the years--especially the eat one, put one in your bucket system! He loved getting on the ladder to reach the high ones and I'm pretty sure he filled most of his bucket by the end of the morning!

This is my niece, Kathleen. I love this picture because she's so happy to be helping pick! My sister would show her a low branch and Kathleen would pick away. She didn't even eat that many!


This is the whole kid-crew (with my dad in the background). Quite a bunch! They had fun in and around the trees and chattered away to each other the whole morning. Cherry picking is much more fun with a crew!

Last day of kindergarten

It seems like Ethan just started kindergarten, but already he's finished! I made sure I took a last day of school picture so we could see how much he's changed...and he has!


All of the parents were invited for a last day of school picnic where we were entertained by a magician. The kids loved it and he finished his show by making a balloon animal for each of the kids. Ethan wanted an alligator. It was very cute! I was impressed with how many balloon animals the guy made in a row. I was out of breath just watching him!


Ethan and I went into his classroom to gather up his backpack for the final time. I asked him if he wanted one last picture in his classroom and he thought he should have one in front of their main bulletin board. This was the wall where they did their calendar and charts and time and all the other things they do in a kindergarten classroom!


Ethan had a wonderful teacher and teacher's aid this year. These ladies patiently taught my son and nurtured him mentally and spiritually. I thank God that we are able to send Ethan to a school that openly teaches the Gospel and helps him know more about the wonderful world we live in. What a blessing!

The magician made balloon hats for all the teachers. :)

Anniversary Trip

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Enough of you are on my case that I felt I should finally blog. Everyone that asks for posts should at least comment to prove you read when I do post! :) I have a lot of pictures that are fun to post, so I'll catch up and work my way through them. We've been busy over the last two months!

At the end of May, Jason and I took a short trip to celebrate our 10th anniversary. It was wonderful to get away together. We loaded up our bikes and headed to a lovely lake shore town. When we arrived and unloaded our bikes, we were met with this bank of clouds:


Thankfully the clouds didn't hold too much rain and we only had to wait in the van for a little while! We unloaded again and spent the afternoon biking and hiking and just enjoyed the scenery.


We spent so much time biking that I ended up with a major cramp in my leg. I guess someone needs more exercise! In my defense, I don't often bike two miles through sand covered trails. Thankfully an Aleve and a good night's sleep helped and we biked more the next day!


We wandered through a park and down a pier while we waited for the sun to set on the lake. Unfortunately, the gnats were so bad that we had to retreat to the van and watch the sunset from there! We had gnats all over out clothes and had to cover our mouths so the wouldn't fly in. I tried to take good pictures of the sunset, but I wasn't willing to open the van window for a better shot so they weren't all that clear. I did manage a nice self-portrait on the pier where the gnats were not as thick.


I enjoyed hanging out with my hubby--we tried out little restaurants and wandered down trails because we felt like it. I'm looking forward to the next time we can get away together!