Quick post before it's July!

We can't believe that July is already upon us! While there hasn't been anything overly monumental going on in our house, we'll give you a recap of June and share a few pictures while we're at it.

June is, of course, the month for strawberries. The kids and I ventured out to the patch on our own one Friday and were actually relatively successful. We picked about 13 lbs of strawberries before heading to a park for a picnic and some lunch. We got enough to eat, make our jam, and a strawberry pie, but it wasn't enough to satisfy our appetite. So, the following week when Grandma Meinhart came for a visit, we went back. This time we picked closer to 18 lbs of berries along with a few pounds of peas. The kids did well again, but were pretty busy doing lots of other things than picking berries (stopping for drink breaks, practicing their baseball swings with umbrellas found in the car, and taking "rides" in the car by themselves). At least they pretended to help pick peas long enough to get a picture. Of course, when we were done we had to stop at the park again to play and have a picnic. I think we might be establishing a precedent....







The week of Grandma's visit was also the week Jon officially opened the pool. Being that he had one year of practice under his belt, he felt that it went much more smoothly this year. Although we were surprised to find that there were hundreds of tadpoles in the water that had collected in the pool cover. We did catch a few and are happy to report that they are still alive and appear to be doing well...at least to our untrained eyes.

The kids have already really enjoyed the water, as evidenced by the daily requests to go swimming. Marie happily paddles around by herself while Joey is not quite as sure of it. He always says he wants to go in, but then spends a lot of his time on the deck throwing the pool balls into the water...or over the deck fence. He does get a kick out of jumping into Jon's arms...and it must be Jon, I haven't yet convinced him to jump to me. Jon just has to be careful to watch him all the time because as we've learned it is not a prerequisite that Jon actually be looking before Joey jumps!



We were so glad that Grandpa Meinhart was also able to make the drive over to Michigan for Father's Day weekend. He had been working in the Chicago area that week and drove over (through the big storm!) on Friday night. We were without power a good part of the day on Saturday, but we didn't mind too much. Uncle Mark and Aunt Sarah came over and we were outside flying (mostly watching Mark fly) Mark's kite. Marie sure got a kick out of "helping" to fly the kite. Jon was able to pick up the technique pretty quickly, but as for me...not so much. I'm just glad I didn't break anything.




If you look very closely, you can see the kite at the very top of this picture, near the center.

The rest of the weekend, we visited and just enjoyed the company. As usual, there were many requests for Grandma and Grandpa to read to the kids...at least it gave us bit of a break!




We had a fun and interesting outing on Sunday, but that is worthy of it's own post, so stay tuned!

We've also been keeping up with the garden so far. Everything is planted as of this week...the last crop of green beans were put in just a few days ago. Just at about the same time that we were getting the first new beans off of the earliest plantings. We've also had some spinach and rhubarb and just cut off the first head of broccoli. So far, things are looking promising. Hopefully, that will continue. Marie has also been enjoying the various flowers around the house and likes to pick them to "decorate the house."


We do have one big announcement and that is the arrival of our newest little nephew! Thomas Jared (TJ) was born on June 17. At first, Marie was quite heartbroken that he wasn't a little girl, but we are happy to report that she has made a complete turnaround and is now very excited about going to visit Uncle Joel, Aunt Jenn, and baby TJ. Congrats to the new family!