Lucky 13

August 1st was our 13th wedding anniversary. Thirteen wonderful years with my best friend.

My mom was visiting from Indiana, so we left the kids with her and ventured up to Kings Canyon National Park to hike to Mist Falls. The hike totaled 9.2 miles, mostly flat with a 600 foot elevation gain at the end, but it wasn't bad at all. Every bit of the hike was beautiful. So I got to spend the day with my most favorite person doing one of my most favorite things! I am a blessed girl!

This is our drive through Sequoia National Forest.

Now for the hike

We reached our destination: Mist Falls

Lunch, not a bad view

We walked a little closer to the falls and sat on these rocks for a while. It was quite loud with the water raging next to us, but so relaxing. We had a huge snow pack this past winter and now it is all melting causing the rivers to rage, which is both beautiful and dangerous.

We drove home and found our kids had made a shadow puppet show similar to what Paige and Clay learned about in Williamsburg. So that was our evening show after a pizza dinner (one of my favorites) Anniversaries look different now that we have kids. I look at them (the kids) and think of how they are one of the many benefits to marriage.

I think God for our marriage and Jathan's godly leadership and love for me!

Fruits of Labor

Our peaches are coming fast and furious. I am determined to allow as few as possible go to waste, however, it is next to impossible to keep up with them. I took a few days off of climbing up into the tree picking the "just starting to get soft" peaches and now I am in trouble. Now many are in the "eat me this moment" stage. So back at it I will be. I love our peaches, and most stone fruit in general, but as far as growing, the citrus is much easier. They will last many, many months on the tree and even on the ground for days provided they stay dry. But not so with stone fruit. You better be ready, because when they are ripe, you only have a couple of weeks and then they are gone. They have either fallen to smash on the ground or our friendly neighborhood birds have pecked away at them all. Maybe friendly isn't the word to describe the birds. The other day while up in the tree, one was squawking terribly at me. I felt like I was in intruding on its space until I reminded myself that we were the ones that pruned the tree this winter and thinned the fruit one by one this spring. We are also the ones to rake the leaves in the fall and pick up the fallen fruit in the summer. So I do believe I have every right to be in the tree picking its fruit!

Our raised bed garden on the side yard isn't doing too bad either. Mix tomatoes and basil from the garden, garlic, cheese and olive oil from the farmers market and some lavash bread from Trader Joes and you have a pretty tasty lunch!

I hesitated about putting a garden on our side yard by the street. I wasn't sure if our neighbors would appreciate the look of it. But I found it to be quite the opposite. Every time I am out tending it or picking something from it, if someone is walking by they comment about how much fun they have watching the garden grow. I have conversations with people I have never met before because of the garden. So it has been a blessing.

We are using the abundance of peaches to make more contacts with neighbors as we have been delivering fresh peaches to most all of them. Jathan and I realized and are convicted that we have not been using the opportunity we have in the neighborhood for the gospel. So that is going to change. The peaches have helped us open the door with communication and now we are working on more intentional contacts. You can pray for us if you think of it.