Camera Woes

I love my camera, and I love taking pictures. When Tyler and I were working like crazy; living in a shoebox apartment; and both going to school: He bought me my first SLR camera.  It was a wonderful surprise and delight. We used that camera up North multiple times and I loved the challenge of finding the right light and learning the art of photography.  We now own a digital SLR and the challenges have changed (carrying the camera with a front pack on, and holding children's hands is rather difficult).  Yet in all of this change my desire to take great pictures, and photojournal our adventures, has not waned.  Unfortunately, though I view my camera as a household necessity, it is not used often enough.  The lack of my camera usage is a sad thing for me. It has been a gradual decline, but still a decline and I mourn the loss.  I am continuously asking myself: Why is this happening? 

I have learned that the more children you have; the harder it becomes to do more than just keep them alive.  As a result, when our family goes somewhere we are so busy trying not to lose someone that we repeatedly keep leaving the beloved camera in the car. This happened last weekend and I was disappointed, to say the least, at myself.  After multiple days of rain Tyler and I decided to make the most of it and take the boys on an adventure.  So on Saturday we loaded up the old SUV (a bit of a gas hog, but I am not embarrassed: Jesus saves, not carbon footprints), and headed down to the Children's Museum in Portland. What a great time we had with the boys.  There was a lot to discover and learn about, and best of all you can do it in the rain. After a few hours playing in a tree fort, climbing a wall, milling some wood, fixing a car, and milking a cow, we headed to the Apple store. Tyler and I are big mac fans and should finally be able to replace our 9 year old mac this summer. After a nice cheap dinner we all headed home content and tired. What a great thing to do on a rainy day! If I had a car during the days I would definitely invest in a membership so that during these weeks of rain we would have somewhere to go to release the pent up energy of little boys. 

Alas, as the title states I have no pics of the museum because I left the camera in the car. I suppose making sure that we didn't leave a child behind was more important. 

Backyard Treasure

Growing up my mother loved lady slippers. As in the flower, not footwear. I don't really know why, they are rare and we had never seen more than a couple each Spring and she just loved them. Well, because of this I grew up looking for them, and now I love seeing them. When I see one I call the boys over and we all admire the beautiful little wildflower like the rare commodity that it is. This Spring were we in for a surprise...

It has become almost a daily ritual for the boys and I to take a walk to what I have been calling the fruit tree grove.  I have been designing a fort for the boys in my head lately and on the way home we decided to come back through what used to be a trail and try to find a fort spot. I walked off the trail a little in search of a small group of the perfect trees (who wants their fort right on a trail anyway?).  While meandering through the woods I came across a lady slipper. At this point I stopped and called all of the boys to me and we all stood admiring the little lady. We continued on and not 30 seconds later found another one. By this time we decided to count how many we could find and were all randomly walking carefully among the bushes to find the pink little flower. We found multiple flowers, and a lot were in little groups of two or three. When I say multiple, I mean we stopped counting at 38. Yes, 38 lady slippers. I don't think that I have seen that many in my lifetime, let alone one area. In fact, one spot right next to our yard in the woods by the hammock had 6 lady slippers. By the time we were finished this little walk I could stand in my yard, turn, and count them. Needless to say I couldn't wait to call my mother and share with her the news of our little backyard treasure.

Can you  find all 6?

Maiden Voyage 2009: One to Remember...

The ice is gone, the sun is out, and the garden is planted! I don't know why it takes us so long to get to this point every Spring, but when we finally reach it we are glad that we have persevered. Maybe we should turn Simon's Maiden Voyage into a celebration of the end of planting season, because that seems to be when it happens. Once our Spring chores are finished the first thing that crosses our mind is taking our beloved canoe out for a test paddle. Tyler and I purchased Simon before we had children and although our canoeing availability has declined our desire to get out on the water has not. This year, Elijah and Andrew were at grammy and grandpa's house so Tyler and I swooped up little Josiah and set off for a quick paddle around Androscoggin Lake. What a beautiful day it was, and the water was incredibly warm. In fact, we brought all of the boys back the next day for a good swim. 

Liberty joined us in the canoe, and Tyler and Josiah took a few minutes to fish. Unfortunately, every time they casted Libby got all excited thinking that someone had thrown something into the water for her fetch. We had to keep telling her no, and although she never stopped getting excited about the casting, she didn't jump out and tip us. I had left my dry box for the camera at home, so if she had tipped us you can just imagine how mad I would have been. I probably would be posting a dog for sale instead of sharing our adventurous day. Liberty did mange, however, to get the lure to Josiah's pole stuck in her tail. I would have thought that would teach her to stay more still in the canoe, but it didn't. How anyone could call a dog smart is beyond me. More of clueless comedians if you ask me, it was definitely good for a laugh, although it was my favorite lure. Tyler got it out when we got home so my lure is saved!

You can just see the little green lure stuck on her tail. I could not get her to keep her tail still long enough for a better pic. Sorry.

Thus, the first canoe adventure of the year has come and gone as one to remember.

Sowing Season

Planting season is here! What exactly does that mean? Besides meaning that I am scrambling around making sure that the plants are all coming up and preparing for freezing strawberries and making jam, it also means that my time is limited to post. I must apologize for two things I suppose. 1. The lack of posting. For the summer months at least posting on the blog will be less than "normal"; 2. The lack of controversial topic. I know how much you all like it when I make you mad. 

Anyway, for this post I will keep it "light and fluffy" (kind of like eggs).  We have now planted all six of our fruit trees, along with 18 strawberry plants, 2 grape vines, and a bunch of veggies in the garden. I am praying that these plants flourish into many blessings for friends and family alike. 

Here you can see the strawberry plants in the foreground and the mac trees in the background. Do you not love my round hay bale that Ali's father gave to me? 

Here is the entrance area to the tree grove. The two trees on the side have some support for the grape vines that we want to train to grow into a sort of archway. I am delighted that this dream is coming to fruition (no pun intended), and am anxious to see what the Lord has next for us.