Our new front yard has provided endless joys. Here are some photos of a flower crown Greta made and a bouquet of cress! This vase full of this beautiful plant brought me happiness for days!

I love that we live so close to Greenbluff - an area filled with U-Pick farms. This summer we picked peaches (too many!) and raspberries. It felt like a zoo at moments, but dang those peaches were yummy! We all had juice dripping down our chins. I made peach syrup (for kombucha) and I froze some peaches that I'll make into jam when the weather cools.

Also, really taking advantage of my kid photographers!

Towards the end of summer, I feel so excited to make soups and use my oven again! Dinner making this summer fell a little flat probably in part because of my nausea and exhaustion, but also from the lack of oven use! I recently needed an "I still like cooking and eating good food" pick me up, so I made a galette and an heirloom tomato salad and we enjoyed them picnic style in the backyard. Sometimes it feels so good to feel like oneself!

Some more photos of our vacation at Hayden Lake! Conor, Holly and Greta went on a big canoe trip one morning. They packed snacks and covered a good amount of the lake. Conor reported that it was really fun with no bad moments. I hope it's a memory Holly and Greta get to cherish! Our friends came down for a day of play and that was super fun! It was all about hanging out on the beach and playing! We had a couple family movie nights. I finally watched Moana start to finish. That movie choice was inspired by the canoe adventure. My tummy is definitely popping. I'm 12 weeks pregnant in these photos. I've received a lot of feedback about my size from Greta; "oh ya Mom, I can definitely tell you're pregnant."

Sometime in the spring, when I could see that summer was going to be a tad on the disappointing side with zero trips to Canada, I got desperate and booked a couple vacations. I needed something to look forward to this summer! And I'm so glad I did! I book our trip to Banks Lake and our stay in Hayden Lake. We just got home today and we had a really lovely time! The weather was gorgeous and fortunately there aren't really any wildfires this year, or at least no smoke from them (yet). We stayed in a little two bedroom cabin, ate simple food and we were a short walk to the shared beach. The beach was super beautiful. It's south facing, pretty sand and the water is so clear! This was my type of vacation! We had access to a couple kayaks, a paddle board, a canoe and some other lake toys and we loved using them. Swimming out to the little dock was so much fun. I loved watching my girls play on the dock.

Coming back home feels like a downer. It was so fun to play and have so few cares and concerns! I'm so glad we went on this little vacation. Our family really needed it, I really needed it!