Blessings to DC!!!

 Cool new Air and Space Museum...this is Joey and I with his favorite plane in the background.

 Tommy and Amma and Deborah. Amma had surgery so she is riding in a wheel chair.

 I think he is going to eat me....Jake and I with the Discovery Shuttle that just did a fly by a few weeks ago. It was still all dirty from being out there in space.

 Jake and Marie and their boys checking out all the awesome planes. Seriously a cool set-up at this museum.

 Deb, Mom and a fuzzy baby. Can't tell which it is from this photo. Maybe Greg.

 Papa enjoying some snuggle time.

 Tommy and Joey. These two are so cute! Favorite trip memories have got to be when the impatient plant flew over the fence from the neighbors house and landed in Jake's yard. (Tommy was over there playing with a transformer and I guess the transformer beat the plants because two containers were toppled over and impatients were flying everywhere!) Second favorite moment was walking into the room Deb and I were bunking in and seeing/smelling/inhaling the red dust which was everywhere. The boys had used the air mattress blower to blow Deborah's red protein powder mix into the air. They were dancing around in it reveling in the coolness. It still smelled of red cool-aid the next day when I left. At least it was a delicious smell. Oh I was just going to give two memories but I can't leave out the moment when Tommy grabbed the hose and started spraying Jason and Marie's uncle Robert who were cooking the shishkabobs on the grill. The "men" screamed like little girls and started calling for Marie. I assessed the situation and ran head-long right at Tommy, (charging Rhino style) and took him down. He was a little surprised to no longer hold all power in the situation. It was a hot day and the soaking wet skirt and sweater felt nice. In hind sight we all should have run through the sprinklers. Tommy did have the right idea, it was hot!

 Here is our group....we are purposely trying to confuse all genealogists with this photo. Jason on the end is my brother-in-law and Jake's friend, Jake and Marie are holding the not so happy to be in the photo Joey and Tommy, Amma and Papa are holding sleepy babies, Greg and Will, Deb is in the red and I am next to her, Jozsef and Sadie are my brother-in-law and niece....(Hollie his wife was out of town.) So this mixed up bunch were proud to represent Jake's side of the family at the twins blessings. It was a beautiful day and he gave them beautiful blessings. We are so happy to welcome these two sweet boys into our family.

Here they are Greg and William. William got his hearing aids in this morning actually and had a big happy grin to share with the world! They are teaching him sign language as he can only hear on his own just the lowest of frequencies with one ear, the other not at all. With his hearing aids he will be back at normal hearing ranges. So grateful for modern miracles!!! What a miracle that a 3 month old can now hear when before he could feel the noises around him but not hear them. Amazing. It is a good time to be alive!!! Look at his cute happy face. It makes me cry just to think about how his world just opened up to him.

And so it begins....SUMMER!!!!!

 My sister Deb brought these awesome Venus viewing glasses. We missed it as the sun went behind a cloud but we look all glowing and cool in the light of the sunset.

 Ali has discovered the fun of the puppet show window in the basement. We had the performance of Jill and the Beanstalk tonight because she couldn't locate her boy doll. Max from the wild things was the stand-in giant. She did a great job and Carter made a fine director. He was in charge of introducing her to the audience.

 Byron picked up this slack-line on the Internet somewhere. We are having way to much fun trying to learn how to balance on it.

 I am all sorts of sore today but I am not sure if it is from the slack line or from adding my additional vegetable gardens that I put in yesterday.

 I ended the night with the high score of 6 unassisted steps. I guess I will be joining the circus soon.

 Carter ever so gently helping Ali across the line.

 Ali and Ty have taken to sleeping in the hallway now that it is summer. I make them sleep in their real beds when they have school in the morning. Ali asked if it was time to sleep yesterday because she was excited to go to bed in her "summer bed."

 They did manage to pick the absolute hottest place in our house to make their summer beds. The hallway upstairs gets about zero air conditioning. In the rooms you can close your door and trap the cool air inside but in the hallway it is just too hot for me.

 I have once again encroached on my neighbors property. (I love my neighbors) I have added those two vegetable bed boxes and three rows of strawberries. They grew them in mounds like that on the strawberry farms in CA so I thought I would try it. We have had loads of strawberries this year and are loving them. I am hoping they like their new homes.

We have been watching this show about the homesteaders in Alaska who do everything for themselves and it got us to thinking...could we live a self sustained life? In an effort to learn more about putting up veggies and preparing for winter I have added more than just peas and tomatoes to my garden. I have in the past been a terrible harvester. It's the growing that I like the most....not so much the processing of what you have grown. But I am going to learn how to do it all just in case. I found onion seeds on the top of my onions from last year yesterday. That's because I left them in the ground all winter and they already flowered this spring. Oops. I dug out the old onions about a month ago and left them on a rock. Yesterday I found them all dried up and their flowers had seeds inside them. Now I know how to get onion seeds. Of course gardening works best when you use the produce you grow so I am going to research on how to store up the food I grow so we can use it throughout the year. Sounds like a good plan, right? I have a lot to learn. I would also like to know how to re-germinate everything from itself. Like those onions. How to harvest seeds that you can store for next year. Well, this is my goal for the summer anyhow. Grow my garden and replant seeds next year from this years garden. We will see if I can make it work or not.