It's a Small World after All.

Today I was looking through some pictures that Zoe took with her very own digital camera. Yes that is right our little girl has her own High Tech Sony digital camera. You maybe wondering how this wonderful event happened. Well, earlier this year when we were getting the garden ready for planting Zoe was helping Dad with the rototiller. It was a great photo opportunity so, I ran inside and grabbed our camera. See? Isn't that a great picture?

I discovered the camera was too large to fit in my pocket and allow me to continue working so I set it down. Now, I am sure many of you have just had the, "oh, no" reflex that I should have had. We continued our work and headed inside. The next day were were so glad we had gotten so much yard work done the previous day because it was pouring rain. Not our normal Northwestern rain but POURING...for three days straight. After our little rain storm had subsided I was on my way to the mail box and discovered our camera resting comfortably on the wet grass. "Good one," I thought to myself. I brought the camera in and, to no ones surprise, it didn't work. I took it apart hoping that it may dry out. When Greg came home and I told him the news he was not worried about it...after all what better way to get a new camera. We got our new camera and had a lot of fun playing with it (the zoom is awesome!) After a week or so I saw our old camera laying there in pieces and said, "What the heck. Let's see if it works." And it did. We thought (briefly) about returning the new one but decided the upgrade was good. The old camera had been through a lot and we had had it for a long time. It has been a lot of fun to see what a 3 year old takes pictures of. She has taken a number of pictures I think are really good.

We have also discovered she loves feet! She takes pictures of everybodys feet.

Family Fun!!

Today we went down to Seattle, to Merriann's brother Martin and Sister-in-law Susan's baby shower it was pretty awesome to get to see everyone. And the landed ton of really good stuff for the baby.
Like Mark from California whom we hadn't seen since before we got married. We hope that next summer we will be able to go down to his neck of the woods and visit. But who know what the future holds.

It was equally as fun to see the next generation of the family playing and having fun together.

Our Mud Monster

Isn't it great when your kids quickly find the closest mud and jump right on in. Here is our own daughter in all her glory. Mud and all!!

Zoe was playing in the muddy mole hills, while our friend Nathan and his trusty tractor helped us till our garden left from this summer. It is good to have dear friends with REAL POWER TOOLS.

Gym

Today we went to our first gymnastics class. She liked the trampoline the best but it was hard to get a picture of that. In this picture she is on the balance beam stepping over the pumpkins. (She's in the pink shirt).

Mom, I Can Fly!

"Mom, I can fly!" exclaimed Zoe from the living room. As I came around the corner she was jumping on her trampoline saying, "I'm flying, I'm flying." It took a minute to fully grasp what she was talking about as she kept pointing at the TV and jumping. She could see her reflection in the TV screen and her hair was in pig tails, flapping like wings. (getting a picture of this was not an easy task). Later that day she also discovered her pig tails make a Mikey Mouse shadow when they have a bit of a fro going on. Needless to say she has not wanted her hair style changed for a couple of days. Pig tails are wonderful things.

Apple Cider Day

Today we went to Sm'Apples in Lynden and picked 107 pounds of apples. Most of them were Jonagold, but some were Gala. We went last month and picked about 55 pounds of Gala apples. We juiced most of them and froze it until we had other varieties of apples. We juiced enough apples yesterday to yield about 3 gallons and added our frozen juice to reach a whopping 5 gallons for hard cider. The kitchen was filled with the wonderful smell of fresh apples. The remaining apples 50 or so pounds will be used for apple pies, apple butter, apple sauce and whatever other apple recipes we find to freeze or can. We were so excited to find a large stand up freezer at a garage sale and we have waisted no time in filling it up.

And yes, juicing in this manner is more labor intensive and time consuming than an apple press. But we are done for this year and are continuing to keep an eye out for an apple press for next year!

Pumpkin Patch Party

We celebrated Zoe's 3rd birthday with a trip to the Stoney Ridge Pumpkin Patch. It was so awesome. We started the day at Stoney Ridge then came back to the house for cake and ice cream.

Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday!

Well, this probably won't be a very interesting first post but I'm dying to put something up.I'll write more later. It's is starting to cool down now and the days (and nights) are again rainy here in the Great Northwest.

We've spent the last two days canning produce from our garden. It has been mainly pumpkins, zucchini and the remaining tomatoes.

And yesterday I think I have cut the yard for the last time this year Yeahhhhh!!!! Last night we built our first fall fire in the fire pit.

Oh one last thing everyone in our house is excited about tomorrow birthday get together to celebrate Zoe's 3 birthday (which was today be the way).