After we recovered from our BBQ on Saturday we relaxed on Sunday. I planned to have leftovers, since we had so many. While we were eating a late lunch after church, our new friends Phillip and Julianna invited us over for dinner. We offered to bring leftover macaroni salad - honestly I'm not a fan of macaroni salad. This one was bought from a deli, wasn't even opened, so we had it for dinner Saturday night. The kids said they didn't like it. I had some for lunch on Sunday, and it was less than desirable. It's still sitting in the fridge. I think I should just throw it out!
So after Timothy and I played a game and Aaron and David did some home teaching and Amy took a nap, we went had dinner with the I* family. She made a wonderful lasagna, and a really tasty herb bread. We enjoyed the time talking with them. The kids asked permission to go upstairs, and they found lots of toys to play with including a lot of stuffed animals, and a lite bright. The boys had a lot of fun with that. Then David found their collection of games, and played Farkle with Aaron and Pass the Pigs with me. Timothy and Amy took turns getting in trouble for jumping off their furniture. Once it was past 8:00 we decided to go home. We hope to have them over sometime soon.
Monday was Aaron's day off this week. We had heard about a couple of blueberry patches in the area, and decided to check one of them out. We called just after 8:00am to see if they were ready or not. They had just opened that morning, so we headed out around 8:30am. It only took a couple of minutes to get there, we picked for about an hour and 15 minutes We would have stayed longer but the boys had swimming lessons. David really just wanted to search the entire farm for the biggest blueberries. He was getting annoyed with a really loud bird when we realized it was a recording, I guess to scare off other birds. Amy mostly just ate the blueberries. Timothy got bored. However they liked that the lady gave them a candy when we weighed our blueberries. We ended up picking 21 3/4 lbs.
After swimming we stopped by Crystal's to pick raspberries. She has told us several times to come and pick. So we spent about 45 minutes picking, and got a few pounds. I had to take pictures when we got home.
The berries aren't huge - but so sweet, and a little tart. Perfect - especially for free!
Lots of blueberries
Even more blueberries!
Look at the size of some of these blueberries!!! (Yes that's my hand, not Amy's)
We froze some of the blueberries. I've filled up 3 1/2 gallon size freezer bags (I ran out of quart size bags). I made some blueberry syrup (just a simple syrup with blueberries boiled into it- perhaps next time I'll juice the blueberries and make real blueberry syrup).
I made some raspberry freezer jam, and some in jelly jars.
I would have made more but I ran out of pectin.
Monday afternoon there was more swimming, and just a lot of playing. That resulted in a lot of cleaning up later. Aaron and I played another short game of the Farming Game, after the kids were in bed.
Tuesday the boys had check ups at the clinic. Aaron had a couple of no shows so he came over and stayed with us until he got a text letting him know they had roomed a patient. It was kind of humorous watching the two MAs tag team getting the stats for the boys. David is 72 lbs, and was very excited to see that he was 4'8" - only 1 inch short of getting out of the booster seat. Yes we are a little strict about keeping our kids safe in the van. Timothy is 60 lbs, and just under 4 feet tall. Both passed their hearing tests - no excuses now, right? David has taken after me and read the row under the red line for the eye test. Timothy struggled with reading the "F" on the last line, but read the others fine. Both passed the eye test. No other concerns so we were done by about 8:30. There was no point in sticking around for 90 minutes before swimming lessons so we went home.
However the kids were pushing and shoving trying to get into the van, and that set off a sequence of events that led to me yelling "shut up" (about the worst thing the kids think I could say). I made them all cry. How did such a good morning turn out so rotten on a 10 minute drive home? I calmed down after I did some laundry. I talked with them and apologized and we got ready for swimming lessons. Things went much better after that. David had to earn all of his computer time back by sorting and folding laundry, reading books to Amy, and playing nicely with Timothy - he got almost all of the time back, somehow he couldn't play nicely with Timothy for even 25 minutes.
I'm still trying to remember what else we did that night. I think we went out and picked more raspberries, and strawberries, and talked with our neighbors who were picking cherries. I eventually had to drag the kids inside to take baths.
Wednesday I attempted to do some shopping in the city before swimming lessons, however it took longer than I expected and we only got to one store, and it was 9:40 by the time we got back into the van - it takes at least 25 minutes to get to the swimming pool from there, and there is construction right now. They were a little late on test day - oops. Then Amy didn't want to sit where I directed her and spent the next 10 minutes complaining that she wanted to sit on the other side of the pool. Probably because she didn't want me to talk to Audra. I eventually got her to calm down when we found her puppy in the diaper bag. After swimming lessons the kids wanted to go back up to the city to go to the other stores, but I didn't want to make the trip again, on the same day. So I suggested blueberry picking again. Amy and David wanted to go, but Timothy didn't. I guess you can't please everyone. We ended up going for about an hour before lunch. Timothy picked for about 5 minutes and then was completely bored, and spent the rest of the time sitting under a tree - at least he wasn't complaining anymore. Amy sat with him for a while. David picked about half the time. Between the two of us (and the 100 berries that Timothy picked) we got another 9 1/2 lbs. Not having Aaron there made a big difference, we didn't get nearly as many. I froze another 2 quarts (I got quart size bags at the store that morning), but we've just been eating the rest - adding them to our breakfast, and snacking on them throughout the day.
Aaron picked a few more cherries after dinner. We didn't get too many because their sprinklers were on next the cherry trees, and the ladders were wet, and not safe to use. It's the tail end of the season, but there are still some good cherries left. They are a little sticky from the juice of other cherries that have been snacked on by the birds. Perhaps we'll get more today or tomorrow.
Today has been pretty normal other than a quick trip to the store after swimming lessons. Amy only took a one hour nap though, this could be a long day. I'd better go play with the kids. I can't believe I am all caught up. I'm sure I'll get behind again, because life doesn't stop. And we've got plenty going on especially in the next few weeks.
