People I Admire #4 and #5

Norm and Ele Hamilton One of the best parts about moving North a few years ago, was being closer to Garth's Grandparents. They have an amazing farm in the middle of the now booming 5 mile prairie. Garth's most fond memories of growing up happened on this farm, and now my kids have the opportunity to experience some of the same things. It is such a blessing.
I admire Norm and Ele for many reasons. There is the fact that they have been happily married for 50 years! They are also some of the hardest working people I have ever met. But the thing that I most admire and want to emulate is their generosity. They are selfless people who are always giving to others. When we threw them their anniversary party, they were uncomfortable having people fuss over them, because they are usually the ones fussing over others. During the summer, I practically grocery shop at their house. Ele has two incredible gardens and she is always giving me what she harvests. They also let us pick raspberries, cherries, plumbs, and apples from their orchard that I preserve and use all year. Ele won't just give me plumbs for jam. . .she will juice them, pre-measure the juice, and give them to me in neat containers. It's those kinds of little things that go beyond simple generosity. Ele spends every Monday quilting with some ladies from church. They donate all the quilts they make. When they learned of Carter's blister issue, they would bring me socks they found that they hoped would be good for his feet. The examples go on and on and they don't just save that generosity for family. I am so blessed to have them in my life and the lives of my children. I hope that I can give of what I have as freely as they do.

Summer Fun

Sometimes I look at my summer photos and realize that the majority of them are on the boat or of the kids playing at the lake. Here is some evidence that we occasionally have fun in the summer away from the lake.
The older kids got to go with Garth to the old car show to visit with one of his customers. He was showing these amazing cars and let the kids get in for a "test drive."

I have fun preserving and using the bounties of summer. These were the most amazing blueberry muffins I made after picking 8 pounds of berries one day!

We spend a lot of time at the farm. Norm has let Carter drive the tractor this year and he even takes his siblings for rides around the property.

We had play dates with friends (the Youngs are of course a favorite!)

There was art camp at the Corbin Art Center. This year they did "Crafts from Around the World." My counter looked like this by the end of the week so we took pictures of our favorite projects, saved a couple and tossed the rest.

Camping

Last summer, I vetoed any camping. I just didn't want to go while we had a crawler. This year there was no excuse. My awesome cousin Kelly planned a "cousin reunion" for a Saturday at Porcupine Bay, the place all of the cousins learned to ski growing up. We decided we would take the kids up the day before and camp.

Mmmm. . . smores!

After some snacks around the fire and some late night cribbage, we all went to bed. As my Grandpa Gleyre used to say, "I have never slept in a tent . . . I've spent many nights in one, I've just never slept."

The next day we had a great time playing in the water and catching up with all the cousins who could make it. Thanks to Kelly for the planning, maybe this will become an annual event!

A Vacation and a Life Lesson

The life lesson? Plans Change. We had big plans for our trip to Seattle to see our good friends. On our way there, we found out Justin was sick in the hospital and we considered turning around and going home but decided to make the most of the situation and go with the flow.
We planned on driving straight through to Seattle. . .plans change. We ended up stopped on the freeway for rock blasting (that started literally ONE MINUTE before we got there) so we danced, and played football and posed for pictures while we waited.

Our plan was to stay with our friends, but instead, we got to stay at her parent's beautiful lake place on Lake Goodwin.

The one plan that remained was a trip to Pike Street Market. We shopped around, had a shrimp cocktail,

some oyster shooters (Garth was the only one), and the kids got to pick out their own dinner for Garth to cook that night.

No surprise, Carter chose Dungenous crab!

We did get to see our friends that evening for an amazing sea food spread from Garth and some fun times splashing in the water.

We had not planned on seeing my brother Jordan and his wife Kailee who live close by but our plans changed and they met us for a really fun day at the Woodland Park Zoo.

They also came to the lake place for round 2 of our sea food cuisine and a little dip in the lake.

The trip was so different than we planned but turned out to be a lot of fun and we were glad to be there to support Heather and Justin and their kids while he was getting well.