Berry Picking

We went strawberry picking this week and ended up with 12 quarts! Sara very much enjoyed eating them as we picked. Believe it or not, I got every stain out with OxyClean spray. I highly recomend it.
I made 2 batches of freezer jam, 2 pies, froze several bags for smoothies and still had lots to just eat. It took me the whole day to wash them.

The Carpenters

Just to give everyone a little persperctive into what we have been fighting, this is a carpenter bee. He is dead, resting on a badminton raquet. That's how big they are. Nasty. A friend of Jason's told him that he grew up with carpenter bees and loved hitting them with badminton raquets, so Jason thought this was a great idea. It actually proves to be very effective in killing them. At least my badminton set is getting some good use now that I don't have my friends to play with.

Jason's biggest project before starting work next week was to reshingle the garage roof. We finally were able to get the carpenter bees under control enough to do the job.
Lucky for us our next door neighbor, Elwood, is a retired roofer. He let us borrow tools and walked us through the whole process.
Looks great!! Now it's time to paint.
This is our house without the carport in the way. Lots of landscaping needs to be done!

I can't beleive month has gone by since my last post! I guess we had a lot going on. I finally have internet now, so I am back. Jason graduated from medical school!! We are very happy to have school behind us forever. Now we are living in PA and working hard. Jason doesn't start up at the hospital until the 26th, so we are trying to fix up as much in this house as we can. The girls are really enjoying all the extra space. They are all four currently sleeping in the same bedroom because we have to finish the basement to get a third bedroom, but in that one room they still have more space to move around than in our previous home. It's so great!!

We are homeowners!!

We closed on our house on the 30th of May and spent the weekend cleaning the place out. It wasn't pretty. Jason even had to remove a snake skin from the wall. The square footage is double what we are living in now, so that is a huge bonus, and Tricia will be glad to know we removed the carport the second day there, so now we can actually see the house. Here are some pictures I took while we were there. The clematis is just huge and beautiful and the girls are holding some pink peonies from my very own bush.