Fruitful Abundance

That beautiful season, the Summer.
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light;
and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We already have had such a full fun summer, and yet I have no pictures to share with you. My camera was acting up, then as soon as we got it fixed up Chris and Austin took it to Guatemala.

I plan to borrow one so I can capture a few of our fun times while the two guys are away on their mission trip.

On Monday we got to meet up with one of my most dearest friends and her children, they moved away a couple years back so I only see her once a year. Her friendship is one that is very special to me. We are both like minded so our visits are always very encouraging. She is one of the most calm gentle mothers I know with very welbehaved children and every time I see her I am so encouraged in my mothering.

Then 2 weeks ago I had to say good-bye to another close friend that moved away. That was really hard, we had a wonderful last visit at a local restaurant patio. I think we sat there for 4 hours drinking sweet tea in the middle of a lightening storm. :)

Our garden is doing amazing this year. The weeds don't make it look too beautiful but the veggies and fruit we are getting is such a sweet blessing. I loved sending my five year old out there with my big wooden bowl to fill it up for dinner.

I must say though with all the smoke from the 350 forest fires all around us, it makes it very hard to breath to be out there to get the weeding done. We have done lots of preserving of apricots so far. I had made 40lbs of fruit leather and then our sweet neighbour brought over another 50lbs. We have been eating them fresh made some crisps, and dried some for muffins and other baking.

Chris and Austin have been gone four day now, and I must say I have some pretty great kids that are making this really easy.
We moved my bedroom around and pulled in one of the kids matresses off the beds and made wall to wall beds, so every night is one big slumber party. It's been alot of fun! And even with all of us in one room my little three are still sound asleep by 7:30.
I have been using the quiet evenings to plan out the next school year and think about some of the big goals.
* What are our priorities as a family?
* What are ways we can serve as a family outside the church?
* What are our goals for the school year?
* What can we be doing to build stronger relationships in our home?

Those are just a few things I am thinking about.
I hope to have our fall/winter schedule done before they get home.

I have so much more I could share but my time is up, I need to get dinner prep started. I hope to add to this a little later.