Pickles!

We have had such a huge crop of cucumbers from our garden that we needed to make pickles to preserve them.  We made refrigerator pickles last summer before we took our canning class, but this summer we were able to can our pickles.  It was a good thing too because we ended up with 12 pint jars of pickles!  We have so many more cucumbers coming in that we'll probably be able to do a few more batches before the summer is over.  It is definitely work to process everything and go through all the steps of canning, but there is such a feeling of accomplishment and pride to know that you grew these cucumbers and now you're making your own pickles and canning them!  I hope to give some of these pickles as gifts this Christmas and it's so nice to give gifts that you've created/grown/etc. yourself.

Getting ready to start processing the cucumbers.

Our 12 pints of pickles!

Katie's Baptism

My friend Amanda and I have worked together at two different libraries and it's been great to see her daughter Katie growing up.  Recently Katie accepted Christ as her Savior and wanted to be baptized.  Amanda told me that when she asked Katie who she would like to invite to her baptism service she asked her parents to invite me and Chad.  That meant so much to us that she specifically wanted to invite us!  Katie is such a sweet little girl and has wonderful parents who are great examples to her.  Here are a few pictures from her baptism service:

Katie was so small it was hard to see her from the church!

I borrowed this one her Mom took from behind the scenes.

4th of July

The 4th of July has become one of my favorite holidays.  The Harrisburg 4th of July activities have really grown over the past 10 years and for at least the past 8 years we've been going to the parade with our friends Becca & Jason and Kelly & Paul - and now their children as well.  This year Jason is working for the Harrisburg fire department and got to park one of the fire trucks near us and had a 50 foot American flag hanging from the ladder!  So, it wasn't hard to find us at the parade this year!  Here are some pictures from the parade:



Another 4th of July tradition for the past few years has been a birthday party for our friends Becca & Jason's kids Braden and Katie. Braden's birthday is in July and Katie's is in June, so they do a combination birthday party for both of them on the 4th of July. Even though we're probably the only people at the party who don't have kids we love hanging out with everyone and enjoying both the kids birthday and the 4th of July. This year I forgot to bring the kids gifts to the party (they don't usually open them at the party, but I still felt bad forgetting.) so we brought their gifts over the next day and got to see them open them and play with them for awhile. Here are some pictures from their birthday party:


Last year we were able to watch the Harrisburg fireworks from Becca and Jason's house, but this year they changed where the fireworks were shot off so we couldn't watch from their house. Chad and I decided to walk down to the Harrisburg park to watch the fireworks. The festivities have grown so much that it's pretty overwhelming with the huge numbers of people at the park for the activities and fireworks. One the one hand I'm glad that the Harrisburg 4th of July celebration has grown, but on the other hand I kind of miss when it was smaller and less crowded. Here are a few pictures of the Harrisburg park festivities:

More Garden Pictures

Our garden is doing really well this year!  I really think having a few trees removed and working on the soil over the past year has made a HUGE difference.  We are getting TONS of veggies from the garden!  Here are some pictures of the garden in late June: