life didn't slow down in JULY

 

We were excited and blessed to be able to host the Colwell family 4th of July cookout again this year after missing last year.  The weather was perfect and I was mindful that we've never had a year in 11 years of hosting where the weather was bad for this cookout. A gift from God.  Both the weather and time together with family spanning four generations.

NERF battles

Cornhole

Watching and visiting ...after eating way too much good food!

Gramma was so happy to sit back and watch her family!

And the very next day, our family headed to Miracle Mountain Ranch for the week.

The kids had been saving and waiting for a L-O-N-G time to attend these specialty camps.

Grace participated in Horse Mania camp where she ate, slept, and breathed horses!

Nathan participated in the Wilderness Camp where they spent ALL WEEK in the woods!

Matt and I volunteered helping in the operations and housekeeping departments.

We were wet and tired by the end of the week, but so blessed to be part of this week at MMR.

June was a very dry month for us.  And then came July with heavy rains (Titusville even flooded with feet of water flowing through the main streets and closing many roads) and repeated severe storms.  We have lost about a dozen trees (thankfully on the edge of the yard or in our woods) and many branches!

So we've had to put a lot of time into storm clean up.  But we are thankful there was no damage to any of our buildings or our car and the gardens have bounced back after some TLC.

Our produce really started coming in July. Black raspberries. Red raspberries. Blueberries. Squashes. Cucumbers. Cherry Tomatoes. This is my favorite time of the year to eat!

Grace and I got a gallon jar of refrigerator pickles started.

And we took on the project of selling firewood to raise money for our granny in Uganda to have a rainwater harvest system.

My mom had some trees cut down so the boys chopped the wood.  And us girls stacked the wood and made a sign.  We have the wood out for sale at the end of my mom's driveway because she lives near a family campground that is busy.

We are hoping to raise $200 so we can support the whole cost of the water system.

Read more about ROTOM and this project here.