Long Weekends!

I love love love long weekends!  My most favorite time, my most cherished time, is when we are together as a family.  We guard this togetherness, it is a top priority for us!  I love a weekend morning, knowing that we have a whole day to spend together - adventuring, working, playing!

Phil had this past Friday off so we took a drive up to Newberg, to visit a spinning and weaving shop.  I got a pair of hand carders.  I am still waiting for the majority of my wool to dry but I have made a few rolags (carded wool, rolled into a small tube that can be spun).  I am not very good!  I am hoping that practice will bring some efficient and even results!

Saturday, we picked free apples through Salem Harvest.

 
 
 
 

We met friends and the children had blast running through this overgrown, mossy, blackberry filled, muddy orchard.  Paradise for sure! It was a beautiful place.  
 

Apples and our makeshift wool drying rack 

We picked all the tomatoes, onions, and peppers in the garden and made canned salsa.  This will have to be a must do for next year as it has only been 4 days and 2 containers are gone already.  We also opened a can of dilly beans.  That will need to be a priority next year as well.  Sawyer said, "It was worth waiting all those long years to eat dilly beans."  

Phil picked all the grapes and made grape juice.  We only got 11 quarts.  The harvest the last 2 years has been meager. 

Poor sick boy.  We had a planned another apple picking adventure on Tuesday.  I had packed up extra clothes, jackets, a lunch, containers, camera, diaper bags, rubber boots, etc..  Brighton woke up not feeling very well and threw up on the couch.  I cleaned up the mess and put him on a towel wondering if it was just one of those kid sickies that go away a short time later.  He threw up again, off the towel.  I loaded up the car (took me 20 minutes!) and decided to chance an outing but then he threw up again in his carseat before we made it out of the driveway.  Plan B was a movie and a sick bed for Brighton.  I spent the morning trying to keep him on the towel (he threw up three more times, off the towel) and to keep the baby away from him.  No easy task, either one!  By noon, he was hungry and ate an enormous lunch (sandwiches, apples, "juice", water, string cheese).  I was nervous that it would all come up in his bed so I had him nap on a makeshift cot on the floor.  After his nap, he ate hard-boiled eggs, a banana, dried fruit, and more water.  Then dinner.  It must have been a just another weird kid sickie...that lasts a few hours.  

Daughters...I love my little girls (and my little boys, too!).  How lucky am I!!  The Lord has blessed me greatly!
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