July 2012

Freckles

Lost on a beach. Who wants to go back to school? Not her.

Family Reunion

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Every other year the Smiths have a family reunion. It is loads of fun and so nice to see all the cousins reconnecting. This year we spent a few days in a lovely cabin in the West Virginia mountains. You might think July in W. Virginia would be full of bugs and death heat. You would be wrong. This area was chosen for its cool weather and after the heatwave everyone lived through, West Virginia was nice and cool. 78 was the average temp. I know! Unbelievable. We went tubing down a river (so fun), had a Frisbee golf tournament (surprisingly fun), and spent a painful hour on the back of a horse (the kids were in heaven).

There were also less idyllic situations. Like the mouse droppings found in our beds and the hide-a-bed which was “a torture device from hell”. Oh yeah, and that time when everyone took a turn being violently ill. I do believe we got what is commonly referred to as the cruise-ship-epidemic. There were 22 of us and only 5 didn’t get ill in some manner. People were fainting! It was crazy. My family was strangely healthy. We were under suspicion for a while. Then Zach and I got a taste of it… thankfully not too bad.

While everyone is together I try to photograph the crew. This year was a bit difficult, since there was always someone sick. I stuck to individual photographs, and I forgot myself and Zach. Oops. I should have at least gotten Zach. Me not being photographed is pretty common. Oh well. Here’s the gang:


Peach Fuzz

This summer we moved from our favorite neighbors and our beloved home to a new house. We are getting to know our new neighbors and are hopeful this will be our home for a very long time. We gained a new house and acquired a little orchard. We have two peach, two apple, two plum and two cherry trees. This is what ripened first:

Little tiny peaches which will fill my little tiny freezer until I can acquire a large one. They were a great color for about a month and we decided since the birds were eating them, it was time to pick… a month before any of us thought peaches should be ripe. I’m hoping the next time we get peaches, we will have figured out how to make them grow bigger and sweeter. Not sure if that is possible. We’ll see.