summer love: campfire love

Learning to love my video feature on my camera.  In my other life I am a cinematographer.

I love that you can hear the adults discussing a crossword problem in the background. Whenever we go camping we find ourselves around the campfire with a good crossword.

Bean is obsessed with smores. It is her reason for living when the campfire is lit. I cannot even eat my dinner in peace because of her impatience.

I also feel the need to clarify that the sassy girl she is channeling is not her norm. She only surfaces whenever the camera is in her face. Well, maybe she comes out more often. Lord help me. If you listen carefully you can hear my muffled guffaw.

Anyway...

Summer for us = one good camping trip complete with smores and crosswords.  (Even if Queen Sass emerges around the campfire.)

friday summer love: summer camp's smelly success

We picked him up on Sunday after a week away from us at summer camp.
He and his buddy didn't shower, brush teeth, change underwear.
He had a blast.
You cannot imagine what it was like for me to open his duffle bag in the laundry room
and be greeted with the smell.
I actually chuckled.
Apparently he wasn't trying to impress any of the girls.

friday summer love: visiting old friends

This past week we visited old friends.
She walked amongst them, giving each a name, greeting them with a pat-pat.
I do believe this is becoming her favorite summer destination.
Mine too.


p.s. I can' believe how much she has grown in the last year.
Next year she'll be as tall as her friends!

summer love: a blue sky and a pink hat

Just a little bit of our day yesterday.
Yes, it was this beautiful.
It was a day to wear your pink hat just to celebrate all that blue.

Happy Summer Love Friday.
T

a berry good time

At the berry picking farm you first must weigh your empty berry basket, after which the farm worker takes a piece of masking tape and marks the bottom of the basket so that when you return with your load the worker can subtract that amount from the total berry weigh-in.

I joked with Bean that we needed to weigh her before we began picking, mark her bottom with a little piece of masking tape, and then sit her on the scale when we returned to weigh her berries. It was an act of great will for her to not munch her way through the berry patch.

We found a life-sized strawberry ripe for pickin'....

Adding to the stash...

"One for my basket, and one for me."

Gotta wear the appropriate shoes...

This is the apple orchard you can pick apples in during the fall. 

The light in there was so beautiful I was crying for a chance take my camera in there.

Waiting to be weighed...carried to the car. Officially hers to eat as she pleases.

This is the fourth year we have kicked off our summer with berry picking and every year my son
is Mr. Intense about it. He is the master berry picker and makes sure we have enough for cobblers and pies. Can I tell you that in just the last four days I have eaten so many berries that Bean and I have a rash? Happens every summer and then our bodies adjust.

Here is the berry pickin' gang. Note the child second from the right. She's mine.

I love summer simply for the fruit it brings. Don't you agree?

summer love berry bus

Just a little snapshot of one of our annual summer kick-off traditions: pik-yor-sef, and et-yor-sef berry pickin'.

This is week two of my summer love series. Fridays, a few photos of our summer fun, few words.

Stay tuned for more summer love berry bus photos on Monday. (Oh yes, there's more evidence of eating before paying.)

Have a happy weekend!
t

linked: sun (and popsicles)

Happiness is: holding your very own orange popsicle. 

Wait. Better yet, happiness is: the summer sun, kissing your very own popsicle.

Happiness is also: having a friend who will hold your purple popsicle 

while you retrieve a bowl of pretzels.

Happiness is: summer + sun + friendship + popsicles. 

This week I had the honor of choosing the linked up theme with my linky friends Michelle and Stacey. I made a quick decision to honor the start of summer with the theme of "sun" and then I proceeded to spend a week and a half of not capturing it. What was I thinking? What I was not thinking was that "sun" is kind of an ambiguous theme and so I every time I set out to capture it I came home with a "sun fail". Then Michelle announced that her pictures were ready and blog post was written (teacher's pet) and I was beginning to wonder how I was going to pull off this assignment. There was a moment when I considered emailing the gals to tell them that I had failed to complete the task that I had assigned. (What a geek.)

So with some major resolve, I brought my camera with me to Bean's art class/swim time and attempted my sun thing one. more. time.

And then...........some magic happened: the popsicles came out.

And the sun arrived to kiss them all and christen them as the true beginning of summer.

And I snapped away.

And I exhaled in relief.

And now I can say that happiness is: completing my linked up "sun" assignment with seconds to spare.

Now go and visit Michelle's June 16th blog post for her sun goodness. (click here)
And Stacey's June 16th blog post too. (click here)

I am eager to see how they interpreted the "sun" theme!