fruits of our labor

Yesterday the girls and I went to a nearby strawberry farm and picked almost 50 pounds of berries in 1 hour and 15 minutes! Once home we washed, froze and bagged them up mostly for smoothies and fruit leather. I'll make a small batch of regular jam for gifts since we don't eat much jam and a few jars of honey sweetened jam for us. Hopefully we can go back next week for another 40-50 pounds. We go through about 175 pounds of strawberries in a year but I doubt our freezer can hold that much!

this week

Some fun things to report from the last week or two:

:: Shane won this awesome pellet grill from Coastal Farm & Ranch! He has been wanting a pellet BBQ for many, many years and finally he actually wins one better than he had imagined. I love it too because now I'm off the hook from making dinner for a good while. He's been making pizza, burgers and all sorts of things on it.

:: Our little foster girl (almost 5) also won this month. She entered a coloring contest at the Willamette Valley Fruit Company coffee shop to draw a picture of your mom and her drawing of her mom won! She won a pie which she took to her weekly visit to share with her mom.

:: On Monday Shane and I (oh, and Silas) went back up to Portland for a fun date afternoon. We wandered around the Pearl District, got coffee, browsed books at Powell's and shopped for a graduation gift for his sister. We also had dinner at PF Chang's with a gift card we had and of course dessert from Whole Foods.

:: We're on week two of Bible Bee and are on verse 12 that we're memorizing. It's been hard and challenge to find the hour++ time every day to work on it but it has been so rewarding and already having those scriptures memorized is bearing fruit as they encourage us "to deny ourselves and pick up our cross daily and follow him" (Luke 9:23 - one of the verses we're learning). This is something I think a lot about because as a mother of five little ones and a homeschooling mama I deny myself of much that I would like to do and could do in order to serve Christ through raising these children and teaching them as he has called us to do. What a pleasure and joy it is to know that my work and my sacrifice is bearing eternal fruit.

::We're reading through Heaven for Kids by Randy Alcorn for our morning devotions and we've been talking and thinking a lot about Heaven. Like the book reminds us, isn't it amazing that people spend so much time planning vacations and trips here on earth but few people take time to research and prepare for what the biggest trip of our lives will be? This book is great for kids and there is also an adult version called just Heaven which also is a must read for adults. We also checked our the sweet kids book called Heaven is for Real and the longer paperback version of the same book from the library. This book is about a little boy who died and came back and tells about his visit to Heaven with amazing insight.

::Tomorrow we're heading to Central Oregon for a couple days to stay with Shane's dad and stepmom. We're excited for Shane's sister's college graduation party and to see their horses. I'm excited about having four hours to knit in the car! I'm currently finishing up another Milo sweater for Silas and getting ready to cast on a new fall sweater for West.

a day in Portland

  

Today we decided to be brave and take five children into the big city for the Portland Farmer's Market, the Portland Rose Festival and the Saturday market. We probably walked 3-4 miles today for about 5 hours straight but it was such a fun day.

We parked at Portland State University and first walked around the Portland Farmer's Market held at the park blocks there. We bought some rhubarb and fava beans and enjoyed seeing how much money we were saving because most of the other things there we can get from our own backyard - berries, greens, carrots, peony flowers, home pickled beets and brown eggs ($7 a dozen at the market!). I especially enjoyed sampling the kimchi and the goat cheeses.

After a delicious Mexican pastry from the market we headed towards the waterfront and I had fun pointing out my old apartment building to the girls and showing them my old route to work at a ad agency downtown. We stopped for Yumm bowls and continued the long walk to the waterfront. Once there we watched the dragon boat races, enjoyed chocolate covered frozen bananas and wandered through the rose festival. We also enjoyed seeing all the beautiful parade floats up close. We met up with my sister and walked along the Navy ships which were docked for fleet week and then wandered over to the Portland Saturday Market, a huge outdoor market full of handmade art and other crafts. We ended up in front of the world famous Voodoo Donuts but decided against waiting in the hour long line. For the mile long walk back to our car we stopped at Pioneer Courthouse Square for Starbucks using gift cards we've saved, and at a couple fun fountains and parks along the way. By this time it was 6 pm and the kids were getting hungry so we stopped in a park near the Portland Art Museum and for $6.50 we fed four kids dinner (a shared Subway sandwich and chips brought from home).

Poor little Silas hates to miss any action and he skipped his early afternoon nap so that he could people watch instead. He refused to lay back in his stroller because he couldn't see anything but he finally just couldn't keep his eyes open any longer and fell asleep sitting up once we were almost back to the car.

things from this week

 Blessings this week:

1. Fresh cut peony's and roses from the garden in every room of the house.

2. Getting back into the grove of making our bread again.

3. The benefits of hanging laundry out to dry: forced to slow down a little and a $35 savings in our electric bill every month when we hang our laundry on the line instead of using the dryer.

4. Cooking and eating outside more often than not and enjoying delicious things like this cobbler Shane baked in the Dutch oven.

5. The beautiful new painted porch next door at Mimi's.

6. Foxgloves, bike rides and family walks after dinner.

7. A new book for West that we made using MyPublisher.com. We had two hours until our coupon expired so Mira and I quickly put this ABC book together for West and he absolutely loves it.

Other things happening this week not pictured include starting Bible Bee (the girls, Shane and I will be memorizing 300 bible verses over the summer!) and a kick-off potluck for the Willamette Valley Bible Bee Group, Shane finishing up track season and mostly off work for the next two months, finishing up most of our school work and getting ready to start a crash course in 4th grade physics for Mira, connecting with the foster mom of our little girl and the opportunities to help them build a new life together, our last Rubies (mother-daughter club) meeting - a pajama party!, and encouragement and lifting up from the Lord after several discouraging events over the last few weeks. Although life is sometimes hard, God is always good and we're so thankful for that. Blessings to you and your week!