Berry Picking

We finally arrived home from Vermont tonight! It is so good to be back after a really nice trip - home can be sweeter after being away. In between catching up on the laundry and going through everything, we have a lot of pictures to get up on the blog.

On Wednesday, we went berry picking for our favorite - raspberries! We enjoyed them the rest of the week, on cereal, in pancakes, and just by themselves.

Emma really, really wanted to get her hands on them - maybe next year!!

In Vermont

We arrived in Vermont Saturday afternoon for vacation and visiting with the Vermont Dunphys. We've had a good time so far, but the weather has been cold and wet! Sunday was cold and cloudy, yesterday was pretty nice, but today is in the low 60's and drizzling.



Shelburne Farms was beautiful yesterday. Emma loves being outside, especially in the Baby Bjorn, and she got to see and touch some animals.
Like this lamb

And of course we've been sailing. Emma's life jacket is actually Martin's from when he was little!

Its a little big for her, but she seems to enjoy being out on the water.

Will post more pictures later in the week when I have more time.

The tomato plants

From the ashes of disaster grow the roses (tomatoes) of success!



Remember how my tomato plants were ravaged during our crazy hail storm? Well I am pleased to say that they have really come back to life! I had four plants, all with blooms on them when the hail hit, and only one retained any blooms after the storm.

A few weeks ago they looked like this:
(three plants in the long planter and one in the large one)


All the plants had flowers, only one showing tomatoes so far though

NOW:

I can't believe how much they've grown! I'm really glad I took that picture a few weeks ago to compare.

I don't think that I've ever really seen a plant grow the way it looks on the package, except for these tomatoes. They look really close to the picture:

Now we're just waiting for them to ripen!

ps...bonus points if you know the movie referenced in the first line of this post!

Finally! - an update

There is a very good reason that we have not been keeping up on the blog, especially in the picture department - we misplaced the camera TWO WEEKS in a row! After traveling two weekends ago, we couldn't find the camera all week. Finally, when packing on Friday to go away for the weekend again, we discovered the camera in the bottom of one of our bags. In order to prevent losing it for the week. All weekend, no camera, so we were hoping it just got left at home. Monday night we searched all our bags to no avail. One last desperate re-search of the car and TA-DA...it was under the front seat...

so all that to say, we will be stealing some pictures from the weekend from my sisters sometime soon. Here are a few that were hiding on the camera from several weeks ago:

trying on a new hat

and then a fun photo op one afternoon:

from Father's Day

I took this on Father's Day and forgot to put it up. I was getting ready in the morning and Daddy and Emma bonded -- don't they look so much alike when they are sleeping!?!

Play date

Emma really loves playing with people her own size now. Last night we had our pastor and family over for dinner and Emma loved watching (and sort of playing with) their 4 boys.

This morning we were supposed to go over to friend's house to play with their 2 year old boy and Emma's little buddy Madison, born just a few weeks after her. But our builder decided to pave our driveway yesterday without telling us and the car is in the garage, so they came to our house to play! And our neighbor and her son came over to play which made it all the more fun. We really enjoyed it and will have to do more of these play dates!

Backyard entertainment

We have great shade in our backyard in the morning, so Emma and I sit outside some mornings, which Emma loves.

She watches every car from one end of the road to the other.

And she talks all about it!