Home Again

It was nice to be back home and get back into our routine, which now included regular harvesting from the garden.  Luke and Jack have been playing with LEGOS like they're going out of style (much to the dismay of our bare feet) and are so obsessed with LEGO Ninjago that we rented the movie from Amazon Prime and they watched it three times in 48 hours.  Luke also brought our LEGO Ninjago book on a hike with us.

This may look like an impressively lush raspberry mini-forest,
but it's actually a bunch of average (or sub-average) bushes that have been
infiltrated - nearly overthrown - by mint.  It takes at least 15 minutes to harvest
1/2 cup or so of raspberries most days.  It's such a chore to get to the berries
that I have to get psyched every time, telling myself that it's worth it.

Whit (not pictured) was celebrating a dental milestone with ice cream
at our favorite local shop and we tagged along.

Ben de-winterized the boat and took 3/4 of the kids
out for a test run one night last week.  It worked!

"Luke, could you put the book away so we can keep hiking to the waterfall?"

We've done this hike several times and I don't think I've ever
captured this particular view before.  That second waterfall
is hard to see from the trail!

Heading back to the car from Upper Falls.

Happy French Toast!

These guys have played together SO WELL this summer.
I wish I could remember exactly what they were saying at this moment.
It was something about the sizes of their respective galaxies.

Jack and Eliza helped me with a couple of projects for the family reunion we'll be hosting soon.  Jack did some cutting and Eliza did some sanding on a set of oversized Jenga blocks we made from leftover 2x3's from our chicken coop.  Eliza also helped me practice Dutch Oven cobbler.