Trees weighted down with apples that are sweet but with a hint of tartness.  Offered for free to anyone who’s willing to pick.  Oh, yes!  You bet I’m interested I was so thrilled to hear from my cousin about apples that were free for the picking.  So this week our family loaded up and headed for the golf course where the trees are located.  In about an hours time we had over 400 lbs. of apples. A “sampling” of our bounty. The best apples are always the ones out of reach, right? The boys didn’t let that stop them and up they scaled the tree. Audrey was able to reach a few by herself. Ever…

Yesterday, the last of my house guests left.  We had a such a wonderful weekend with friends and excellent anniversary meetings at our church that blessed everyone. We had a pot-luck at our house on Saturday so there was lots of preparation for that.  A large event is good for us to have once in a while because it helps us stay on top of the yard work instead of neglecting it. With my boys and Russell working around here it felt like we had our own yard maintenance company! Zachary himself spent almost a week getting things in order. Some of us had it easy. On Saturday we ended up feeding almost 200 people. The…

My two oldest boys arrived home Tuesday. Finally! Seth was gone to Ohio for 2 months and Zachary to Manitoba, Canada for 6 weeks. They both flew home on the same day with connecting flights in Minneapolis. Neither one knew the other had a layover in Minneapolis since we had purchased their tickets here at home. Russell arranged for them to be on the same flight together and to even have seats right next to each other. How could it go wrong you may wonder… Well Seth, our firstborn, acts like a typical firstborn! We had already imagined that he would be one of the first on board and we also…

Come with glee to this late morning tea… Hibiscus will be hot At 11:30 on the dot So pick up the phone and reserve yourself a scone Tropical is the fare Can we hope to see you there? Saturday we hosted a “Tea in the Tropics” tea party.  Serenity started this tea club a year ago. The way our tea party club works is every 2 months a tea party is held by a different member of the tea club.  Of course, moms are an important part of all the behind the scenes planning and preparing. 🙂 Some activities we did at our tea party were tissue flowers for the…

Russell’s oldest brother turned 50 this week and so we celebrated with the family. Being the helpful souls we are we gave him a cane to help him out in his grand “old” age. The traditional birthday cake in my husbands family is angel food cake, topped with whipped cream and served with berries.  Berries make anything taste good!  God’s candy, my husband says. Audrey was in to picnics this week.  She took her dad one day and then she had another one the next day. I joined in on that one.  The spot was really pretty cozy.  It was like a little hideaway with only one opening.  And it…