Another Summer Weekend

On Saturday morning Dave took Belle and James and met my parents at the Monastery to work in the garden. My parents are good friends with Father Placid, the guy who is in charge of the gardens, so whenever they have time to help him garden, they get rewarded with lots of fresh veggies and fruits. This time, they came home with a five-gallon bucket of green beans! Which of course meant that we needed to store the beans, so Dave, Mom, and myself spent Saturday afternoon canning the beans. We ended up with 20 pint sized jars, plus about 3-4 servings of fresh beans. I'm going to try to do another detailed post on the canning process of the beans so that the next time we need to can beans I can just reference my own blog instead of having to look it up again!

Saturday evening I took Belle and Russell to the play "Charlotte's Web". Since it was the first chapter book we read aloud together, it worked out great that one of the local theaters was putting it on for their summer play. Both kids really showed an interest in the play and expressed that they enjoyed the play over the movie even (which is HUGE since our kids typically choose a movie over ANY other option!). Belle said several times that she'd like to be an actress in a play next summer (this entire production was put on by kids ages 7-16). She will be old enough next year to audition, but I'm guessing that the time commitment is really big, so Dave and I will need to look into that before we make her any promises! After the play we stopped at Betty Jane's for some ice-cream. The kids were so well behaved at the play, I thought they deserved a special treat!

This morning Dave and I slept in (the extra sleep was desperately needed by both of us - though I still feel like I could sleep for a couple days solid if I was given the chance!). The big kids and Dave played outside in the sprinkler in the late morning and a couple neighborhood friends joined in the fun. After they got tired from the sprinkler everyone came inside to play and then eat some lunch -- at which time we sent the neighbors home so our kids could get some rest.

After naps Belle, William and I headed over to Grandma Hallenbeck's house for a visit. My mom met us there, and we attempted some group shots - apparently the timer function wasn't working though, so we don't have any photos with Mom in them.

I really need to make a point to visit with her much more frequently - she has so many stories to tell, and it's always an enjoyable experience. Dave and the rest of the kids headed to his parents house while we were at Grandma's, and we met them there for dinner. After some brats and watermelon we played x-box for awhile and then called it a weekend!