June.

 Pentecost ... we celebrated this day of the Holy Spirit coming down to earth and filling believers!  Holy Spirit is still alive and living in our hearts today!  If you believe in Jesus, you have direct access to Holy Spirit!!!!!  Read the Bible for many more details!

We continue baseball season!  Mike and Matt coach the Flames and really loving it!  

Then Mike went to help Matthew's team and he pitched a game!  First time for everything!!!!!

Strawberry season ... The strawberries in our garden don't grow big!  I've tried for years and finally just a few weeks ago, pulled out my plants.  I can buy nice berries from those of you who know the trick to strawberries!  The space in my garden will be used for something else!

Mom came here to help me make five goes of jelly!  Three goes will be gifted to Matthew and Daisy!

And we love this ... fresh berries, basil, cream cheese on top of toasted French bread!  It's delicious drizzled with balsamic vinegar!

And here's the photo of the summer!!!!!  This is why I grow foods and have this hobby!  I want the garden to be a place where the kids can stroll through and glean from the foods!  Picking fresh peas, cucumbers and raspberries is top notch!!!!!

Another visit with Mommy D!!!!!  She was in such a good mood here!  Love her!!!!

Fresh bouquets from around the house have begun!

This is home!  

We talked about our views the other day with Ashlyn's friends and said how we would love to go here or there and visit other places to view pretty views!  It got me thinking and thankful for the views I get to see every day!!!  We are surrounded by fields of corn, beans, hay and wheat!  Our neighborhoods are so beautiful!  We take all the greens and rains for granite.  Thank you Jesus!

The poppies are so beautiful right now in the garden!

We had so much rain in May and now June is a repeat!  The garden is thriving and plants are growing so fast!!!!

This is the first time I put dahlias in a raised bed and they are doing wonderful!

JUNE.

 June is here and it's still wet.  Very wet!  Normally, when school lets out we hit the pools but it's been wet and cool.  We are ready for the summer like weather to arrive!

Something that's been super cool and fun to watch is when Mike helps Matthew's ball team play baseball!  This is the first that they played together after many years of Mike coaching Matthew!

He's still such a good ballplayer!

And we had our first two days in a row at the pool simply to get our skins a little tanned before the wedding day arrives!  It was so fun watching the kids swim and enjoy this beautiful place once again!  We are members and we love it here!

And the food is top notch!!!!!

The garden is thriving in all the rains!  Watching the sun set is so pretty over the garden!

So many poppies!

I planted dahlias in the raised bed that I normally have tomatoes.  They seem to be thriving!!!!

And my favorite things to watch grow in the garden is cabbage!  It goes from tiny to huge so fast!

Hadassah and Gunnar joined us at the pool one day!  Mike was golfing and came to say hello to us!  Just living our best lives being grandparents!

Let's do all of these!!!!

I took a walk around the house and grabbed some flowers in bloom.  I don't think poppies do great in bouquets but I'm gonna try it out!

And I was right.  The bouquet turned out beautiful but the next day, the poppies were all drooped.

The garden at night time!!!!

The girls are off for a bachelorette party to celebrate Daisy and this is my first full day with baby Gunnar!!!!  He did so good!  Hadassah may have been in tears and missing him but he was an angel and I loved every bit of it!!!!!  He's so cute!!!!

This is a busy month for us!  Pool days!  Wedding day approaching!  The big boy will be packing up and moving out.  Ball games are going strong.  Hair appointment.  Nails done pretty!  Dresses mended and hemmed for the big day!  Help Matthew and Daisy with house projects.  Rehearsal.  Rehearsal dinner.  Lot's of big changes are coming up.  Lord help me!!!!!

Sports!

 We love sports here in our family!  The boys are playing baseball and Mike is helping both teams.  For Austin, he plays in a church league and loves it!  If it's game day, he is waiting for the time to head for the ballpark all afternoon!  Mike helps coach and is the team pitcher!  In the lowest bracket in this league, a dad pitches to their team.  Mike is the Flames pitcher for every game!  

Matthew is playing slow pitch ball one night and fast pitch on another night.  Mike was asked to help play when they need a fill in and he's been playing left field and loving it!  Both Matthew and Mike are enjoying to finally play some baseball together!  It's been years of Mike coaching Matthew in the younger days and now they get some games together!

Ashlyn began quads volleyball at LBC!  Going into high school sports, this is excellent practice for these freshman girls!  

What a view!  I said we remodeled the house almost ten years ago that there will not be balls in the living room.  That's not true and it's OK!

Ascension Day happened and we read the Bible verses talking about Jesus ascending into heaven.  I cannot imagine all the questions and thoughts that the disciples would have had when they saw this!  Jesus will come back again for his church, the bride, some day soon!!!!

 

Summer starts slow and wet.

Lazy rainy days and no school has the kids looking for things to do.  I'm ready to take them to the pool or just spend some sunny days around the house!  We always have that first week of no school to be the week of changes, sleeping in, late starts to our day and late nights.  It's an adjustment for all of us but we did fine!  Because of the rains, I didn't walk at the park so I slept in too!  I found this puzzle at a thrift store the other week and Ashlyn and I devoured it on one of the rainy days.  We also started our summer reads with Huckleberry Fin!  Ashlyn baked some cookies to pass the clouds away!

 

Both Ashlyn and Austin need some kind of jobs this summer.  Sure they will help me here at home and I do hope to have their help with the laundry and house chores but they need more!  I need to get creative with our time this summer!  Drawing and coloring is something fun to do while I read aloud to them!

Spending our days here at home are a dream come true for me!  I dreamed of having children and spend days at home working in the garden and playing games and doing puzzles together and here I am!  Living out that dream and I want to treasure it!

The kale is ready in the garden and we had leftover sausage from the cabin, so I made Zuppa Tuscana soup for supper!  Yum yum!

And Lena gifted me a dahlia plant from Briar Rose Greenhouse the other week and it's blooming non stop!   After picking some berries and seeing the sun shining in the evening, the flowers looked so pretty!

I sure do love summer time and we are looking forward to days poolside and getting our first tan lines!  The smell of fresh meadow tea has arrived in the kitchen!  I'm looking forward to many ballgame nights and watching the Phillies on the back porch on warm summer nights!  I hope the vase in my kitchen remains full of summer blooms!  Mowing the green grass and even pulling the weeds are all a part of summer chores!  Summer is always full of late night and sleep in mornings!  We are extremely blessed!