July in Grandma's Yard

Watching the bounteous wheat crop turn golden before my eyes...

 Drinking in the beauty of the flowers and plants...

 And watching the raspberries ripen...

What a great week it has been enjoying God's WONDERFUL creation just outside Grandma's welcoming, loving, home!! (When the temperatures come down out of the high 90's, that is!) :)

Yard + Water = FUN!

Park Fun

Before it got too hot out, I took the boys to my hometown's local park today (9 to 10 a.m.) for some fun play time. David and Jay enjoy parks, and it is especially fun to hear David say excitedly, "New park!" in his little 2-yr-old voice.

What these pictures don't show is that they enjoyed finding sticks and drawing lines and such in the gravel sand around the play structures most.  :)  Boys will be boys!

Lake Adventures

Friday morning, July 6th, we made our way to Silver Lake (near Spokane) to my uncle, aunt, and cousin's lake home. The morning started out with Jay and David inspecting a sun fish that had just been hooked by their second cousin, Kurtis. The pliers are there because they were needed to help get the hook out of its mouth.

Then Jay's second cousins allowed Jay a turn at fishing. (Bits of marshmallow on the hook worked great for bait!)

While Jay was busy fishing, this is what David was doing. This boy LOVES playing in the sand!

SUCCESS for Jay! Hooray!! Jay caught his first fish - a sun fish!!

Here is a picture of Jay showing off his prize catch. I think he told everyone there about 6 times each about catching his first fish, showing it to them again and again. PopPop, Jay has caught the fishing bug! (I know that will thrill your heart!)

After fishing (my) cousin Jake took the kids out for some tubing with his boat. (That is Jake there in the sunglasses driving the boat. Jay and David are watching their second cousins being pulled along for a ride on the tubes.) The rest of us enjoyed the beautiful morning boat ride.

Jay commented to me several times, "Mommy, this boat has LOTS of POWER!" :)

We enjoyed one more time at the lake on Sunday afternoon, July 8. Another boat ride happened and Jay was super brave and took a turn tubing with his second cousin Julia on his same tube to keep him safe. (I didn't have my camera with me that time. I so wished I had remembered it to capture him on the tube.) He LOVED the tube ride -- that is, until the pull rope dropped in the water and sprayed up on him and his face. He called it quits then (with a few tears).

Thanks for a GREAT time, family! We had a blast!!

Buck Batchelors

Friday morning, July 6th, these bucks in velvet (we counted 8 total) showed up in my Mom's yard and stayed around for about 30 minutes before moving on. After these pictures were taken we saw some of them eating apples off the transparent apple tree in the back yard. The "biggest" we saw in this group were three point ones.

This post is dedicated to (Matt's) Dad - giving you an early dose of buck fever. ;)

These next few pictures didn't turn out so well since the camera did automatic flash which bounced off the window glass, but it gives you a good perspective of how close they were to the house.