Snapshots of Summer:

 

Part 2

 

July:

Bethany's summary of the month:

The kiddos travel. Come back. And then lazy life begins.

My longer version:

The kids were all home for July 4th...an oddity.

 

Then it was back to San Francisco for a flight to Denver, CO.

 

The three older kids enjoyed another year at Youth Retreat

in the beautiful Colorado Rockies.

 

 

This group of boys sing together every year.

They call themselves The Sunshine Boys.

I think they got that name from the year they serenaded the unlucky staff at sunup.

 

 

This is what happens when your pranking friends get ahold of you and a roll

of shrink wrap. A complete lack of sleep adds to the general silliness.

 

 

 

In the meantime, Tiana was again reduced to the detested status of "only child."

 

She enjoyed another round of swim lessons and made great progress.

 

 

While everyone was gone I packed up the Richard Scarry collection.

It was kind of sad to see them put away.

 

Then I packed up the rest of her books because I decided

 that it was time for a new bookcase.

  A bookcase that leans sideways and has a back that is falling off

 really needs to be replaced.

                                                 So this is what our hallway looked like.

 

We headed back over the water skimming San Mateo Bridge

to pick our big kids up in San Francisco.

 

Then we stopped in at IKEA to buy a new bookcase.

That is when we found out that there were no bookcases to be found at any of the IKEA

stores due to changing suppliers and phasing out their current systems.

So, we returned home to live with boxed up books for awhile.

 

July was the month for new kitties.

 

 

 

I found that the local grocery store carries these gems.

Eating dates takes me back to the winters when Grandma and Grandpa Reed

would come stay with us.  They loved fruit, citrus, and dates so we usually took a

trip to Shield's Date Garden in Indio where we watched the titillating film,

"The Sex Life of the Date."

Or, we would drive 15 minutes to Hadley's to have a date shake and taste the multitude of

samples of dried fruit and nuts. 

 

The outdoor canning kitchen was busy one Saturday.

It takes no time at all to snap 30 lbs of beans when there are six workers.

 

The end of July is when the peaches are ripe.

These are cling peaches that are good for canning.

We also picked some freestones to eat.

 

The days had been 105* or more so we were at the orchard at 7 a.m.

in order to beat the heat.

 

We had our buckets full in no time.

 

Then we spent the rest of the day making a mess in the kitchen.

We had a good time reminiscing, singing along to music, and acting goofy.

 

Jars and jars of the finished product.

 

Fruit leather was made from the left over freestones.

 

So, despite Bethany's description, I think it was a busy enough month.

It was a good mix of busy and lazy and

everyone needs that once in awhile.

 

********************

 

Tiana was at speech therapy and the word that she was supposed to use in

a sentence was, "father." 

The sentence she constructed was, "A father belongs in a family."

Those of you who knew her at two years old know how far she has come

and know that is not really a simple sentence.

It is a statement of truth that has taken her a few years to realize.

Thank you God for the healing that has taken place.