Small-town excitement

We live in a small town. The last time I posted about small-town excitement it was because a house was coming down our street. Not much happens here in Stevensville, and I’m not complaining about that. Crime is minimal, Main Street almost rolls up the sidewalks by 9pm, and as my friend Jill recently said, “the interesting thing about living in a small town is when you don't know what you're doing everyone else does.”

Today (this whole weekend, actually) has been exciting! Blacksmith Brewing Company has put on a Summer Fest. We haven’t been able to participate in all the festivities (although I’m hoping we can go enjoy a bit this evening), but we have gotten to see the exciting part – hot air balloons!

These were floating over our little town this morning…

It’s time to rush off to Nana’s for the yard sale, but I might be back with more photos later!

It’s been too long

I haven’t posted blessings in forever and a day. I need to post some blessings…

I love this man. He’s smart, funny, thoughtful, sincere…did I mention that I love him?

 

Funny words from this little guy brighten my day. He comes up with something funny at least once every day. Today it was “my body says it wants to lay down with you because you are cuddly and soft.” How can a mom resist a plea like that?

 

I live in a really beautiful place. Now that the old maples across the way are gone we even have a view of the mountains from our dining room. I was noticing this morning how peaceful it looks when I look over the rooftops and just see the trees and mountains.

 

I love singing with the Praise Team at our church. This video was shot with my cell phone during a Sunday morning rehearsal/warm-up.

 

I really enjoyed our whole camping trip, and I’m looking forward to doing it again soon, but this was my favorite part. The kids were in their sleeping bags, we had a nice fire, and Ken and I were both contentedly reading by the campfire (until I got up to take a picture).

A fun thing to do…

I was just reading one of the blogs I follow – Complete Organizing Solutions – and she mentioned that she had been challenged to share a photo of “Right Now”. I liked the idea, so I did it too! Except that with my family it was necessary to take a few photos to see what was going on right now. (By the way, these are completely unedited. All I did was use the Polaroid plugin for Live Writer.)

Don’t miss out!

There’s a great giveaway going on over at Organize With Julie! Don’t miss out! http://organizewithjulie.blogspot.com/2009/06/still-wishing-that-it-was-all-made-like.html

Our first camping trip of 2009

We had a great time! We spent 2 days at Charles Waters Campground in the Bass Creek Recreation Area. We didn’t do any hiking this time, but it was nice to just hang around and enjoy God’s creation.

One of the things I love most about taking the kids camping is that they are forced to use their imaginations. My boys do not have much trouble doing that even at home, but when we’re out in the boonies, they take it to a new level. They had a great time hiding in their secret hideouts, sneaking up on each other, and exploring the “jungle.” They also had a great time climbing the “mountain” (a rocky hillside), although Caleb now calls it the “Slippy Mountain” because he discovered that sliding down the mountain face first is the fastest way down, but it’s not fun.

Felice and her family came out to have some fun with us in the wilderness – a brand-new experience for all of them! I’m so glad they came out and tried on the great outdoors! Another family – the Brush family – also came out to make s’mores with us. It was such a fun evening with 13 kids running around, and marshmallows sticking to everything.

We didn’t see a whole lot of wildlife – I can’t imagine why we never see all the animals I know are out there…it couldn’t have anything to do with a passel of noisy children, could it? We did see a lot of squirrels, insects, birds, and even a snake! Oh, and you’ll see the dragonfly in my photos – he(?) seemed to pose for me – instead of flying away when I got close he stayed put until I was all done and had put the camera down.

It was a fun, short trip, but I sure am tired.

Here are some photos from our brief adventure…

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An awesome site!

My beautiful friend Julie sent me to a fabulous site today. I have stolen several not-so-free minutes to browse through MomMostTraveled today. There are fabulous giveaways like this one – Feelin’ Groovy – and great articles like this – Sensory Processing Disorder. Take some time to check out this wonderful site!