Cousins

My brother is currently in the hospital in the big city close to us. Which, for him, means he is far from home. The blessing in this? His family has been spending lots of time with our family at OUR house. The cousins have had an amazing summer together and I can easily say that although life with 8 kids under 1 roof is not peaceful, it definitely could not have been any easier than it was. We have sat watching with smiles on our faces as they have played and imagined together. Building forts. Catching bugs. Playing in the "pool"/sandbox. Riding bikes. Picking cherries. Collecting hidden eggs. Playing princess. Playing cars. Eating cereal. Playing Wii. Running races. Snuggling. Laughing. It has amazed me how well everyone has gotten along. No fights between the cousins. Only fun. I thank the Lord for the amazing blessing of wonderful family. Thankful that even though my brother is battling that God has given us a tremendous blessing in the middle of it all.

Fresh

Who doesn't love fresh eggs?? There's just something about walking out to the chickens in the morning, noon, or whenever the mood strikes me, and checking for eggs. There's just something about finding 6 eggs in the boxes in one trip. There's just something about pulling a still warm egg from the box. Or even taking one out from under the poor girl who just wants to sit on it for awhile. 24 Hens. 2 Roosters. Such bliss. Until they get sneaky. The little twits :) I heard a few singing their egg song last week and walked out to the coop. Lo and behold, one of the girls was NOT in the coop. She was in the blackberry bushes. Singing away. Oh, and for those that don't have chickens, the egg song is what they "sing" when they are laying. It's sounds JUST like the cadbury bunny. I walked carefully through the bushes and there she was. The little sneak. Sitting on TWO eggs and working on a 3rd!! I grabbed the two and waited for number 3. She was NOT happy with me! Since then, we have not found anymore in the bushes, but I still check everyday. We had 11 eggs yesterday and have already gotten 6 today... 1 of which is the biggest egg I have EVER seen! Poor girl! Thankful for the chance to raise these girls. Thankful for fresh eggs. Thankful for some yummy chicken... We'll be down a roo soon. He went after Caden last week and I'm not one to tolerate bullies. So, after some friends borrow him to breed to their hens, we'll get to see what tasty home grown chicken tastes like. He sure looks like he'll taste good!

Not Going To Whine...

Just give the facts. It's the end of July. We went camping for 5 days. It's the end of July. The sun came out for 1 half day. ONCE. The other days it did not appear or only appeared around 4 or 5. It's the end of July. I was wearing socks, shoes, jeans, sweatpants, a long sleeve shirt, a short sleeve shirt, TWO fleece sweatshirts and my Dad's snazzy green fisherman's type windbreaker. All at the same time. Everyday. I smelled good. It was cold. We sat around the campfire. All day. We played at the beach.We made smores. We snuggled close. We ate crabs and clams. We woke up to sounds of raccoons. Every night. The raccoons got into our cooler and we awoke to find paw prints there and a loaf of bread gone. The raccoons freaked me out a bit. It was July. We curled up in our beds. Snuggling. Layered in many layers. Laughing that we had also brought shorts to sleep in. We had 8 campsites. 20 kids. 18 adults. The kids explored. Rode bikes. Whined. Played in the sand. We journeyed 15 minutes north to find the sun one day. We enjoyed the warmth of the sun. The kids played in the warm sand. Some went crabbing. Some found sand dollars. We stopped at the cheese factory on the way home. Watching them make cheese and ice cream. Then, we had to try some ice cream for ourselves... White licorice. Cookies and cream. Cookie dough. Peaches and cream. Peppermint candy. Strawberry cheesecake. Coffee almond fudge. Yum. We drove home. Stripping sweatshirts off as we got closer to home. Happy to watch the thermometer climb. Loving the warmth as we pulled into the driveway. Unpacked. Found the camera that had been missing. Made dinner. Pulling meat out of crab legs. Sweating at my kitchen sink. Loving every second of it.