Strawberries, Baseball, and Concrete

The summer has been flying by so quickly.  The weather for the most part has been beautiful.  Toby doesn't tolerate the heat well, and for that matter neither do I.  So, on the really hot days we stay in the house in the wonderful air conditioning and thank God that we have air conditioning, and that someone had the brains to invent it! (Truthfully - I do!)

Grandpa Holt had a great idea of making the kids hand prints in concrete squares.  I was really excited about this: A) because our kids are growing up way too fast; B) I had wanted to put their hand prints in the concrete of our drive way when we built the house, and that never happened and C) it's a great decoration for our landscaping.

All the kids helped!

All the boys helped mix the concrete together, put their hand prints in, and then we put marbles or small glass jewels to decorate them.  Their names are in them too - they turned out great.  Here is the finished project.

Toby has also been playing baseball with the Miracle League.  They've had a great season - tied every game ;)!!  One of Toby's doctors even came to the game with his family.  He's been a part of Toby's care team since he was about 6 weeks old, and we are very thankful for his great doctoring that extends beyond the walls of our children's hospital.

In June the three boys went to Vacation Bible School at our past church in Hilliard.  It was right at the time that strawberries were ready for picking.  So, one day on our way back home, Caris and I stopped at Jacquemin Farms and picked.  The strawberries were pretty large, juicy, and oh so yummy.  After we picked the bucket I brought from home, we went back and picked several pounds more - about 15 in all I think.  Caris didn't pick much; she tasted a few, and then spent some time ripping the leaves off the strawberry plants (don't worry I reprimanded her to stop as soon as I figured out what she was doing).

I went home that day and spent several hours washing berries, freezing them, and making freezer jam.  They were very tasty!  I'll update more soon about our summer - much more to add later.