Summer Fun

We have been enjoying our summer to the fullest. Here are some things we have been up to lately.

Here is Ruby all dressed up in a dress from Great Gramma Finney, and that enormous hairbow from Aunt Karie (who is engaged now, I might add! So now we will have an Uncle Andrew!).

After church we went to the Butte Folk Festival. It was great! Lots of music, perfect weather, lots of food, lots of weird-o people watching, and to top it off, it was free!

Here we are enjoying some tunes:

The stages were really cool - especially this one, which was the main stage. Butte has rich mining history, and so it was under one of these giant miner-thingies. I can't remember what it's called right now. It would lower the men down into the shafts, and bring them up again. Terrifying if you think about it:

Enjoying a gigantic fried potato string - one of those things that tastes good going down but makes you feel nasty after a bit:

One morning last week Steff called and asked if we wanted to go pick strawberries at Rocky Creek Farm. Of course! We only picked for 30 minutes and got plenty (although we're going back this week!). Here is a portion of my pick:

Steffany doing some serious mashing to make jam:

The finished product. I measured wrong so it's a little soupy but that's okay:

Every day is a good day to be a dragon!

Yes, this is a columbine in my yard. I honestly don't remember planting this thing. It must be some strange hybrid:

All of a sudden the strawberry patch in our garden is ripe and out of control. We have been picking and eating strawberries almost every day. Here is our biggest pick so far:

The other day the kids requested I take their picture because they wanted to hug:

Ruby disappeared and came down dressed as this:

My good friend Andrea came to visit on Friday and here are all the kids lined up. We had kids at pretty much identical times. :

The sparrows better watch out at my house. We have declared war. They are nasty birds, and they pecked to death the birdhouse-full of baby tree swallows outside Jason's office. They are trying to do the same thing to our swallows here as well. And the swallows are starting to panic and dive-bomb anyone who goes on the driveway. I think they feel threatened. We have frequently seen a few sparrows harrassing them, and standing on their house. Not nice.
Jason's out in his jammies trying to take out some more: