Early this morning, all the boys were dressed in their swim suits and had their fishing poles and tackle box ready to go.  It took me a little longer to get a lunch packed and every else organized.  They were chomping at the bit when I finally popped out of the house with my arms full.  Justin wanted to fish first because he thought the fish would bite better when it was cool.  It may have been cool somewhere in the world, but it wasn't cool where we were today and the fish weren't biting.  Justin had a new pole that he was getting used to and J had inherited Justin's old pole and he figured out how to cast it pretty quickly.  About a half hour into the baking fishing, J pulled in the first fish of the day - a minnow who just happened to get a hold of the hook.  He was excited about catching a fish, but it flopped just enough that he couldn't hold it for a picture.

Jeremy claimed the minnow as bait, but it didn't make the melting fishing process any more successful.  It got warm enough that the worms began to crawl out of the worm box in an attempt to find some relief in the lake.  I guess they thought they had a better chance of survival in the lake as fish food then they did in a box on a sweltering dock.  There was one fish that decided to take the bait instead waiting for the worm escapees and Jeremy pulled a little fellow in.  We didn't want to fry him on the dock and his journey through the air was brief.

After an hour and a half of roasting untangling lines, I could tell that I was getting some a lot of sun.  Since the boys were making lunch noises, we headed for the van where our lunch was cooling its heels.   As soon as the last bite was swallowed, they were ready to head to the beach.  Did I have my umbrella?  No.  Do I have one that I didn't take? Yes.  The boys happily marinated in the lake while I fried sat and watched.  J was happy to play in the shallows until Justin invited him into deeper water where Jeremy and Justin encouraged J to swim between them using the skills he had picked up in swim lessons last month.  As I was approaching medium well, I had to put an end to their fun before I went past well-done and dried out.  

When I left home this morning, I couldn't find my flip-flops so I spent the day in tennis shoes.  I've been laughing at my white feet and pink legs all afternoon.  I think I got my fair share of vitamin-D today and we all had a good time.

Yesterday, the boys were eager to get out in the woods and work on their fort.

Justin headed out early with a handful of tools and then came back for his boombox.

When Jeremy and I got there, the woods were full of Veggie Tales singing but we had to turn them off when we needed power tools since there was only one plug on the extension cord we were using.

It took a couple of hours, but we finally reached a place where we could say, "the fort is done."  The boys did some more work on the ladder and added some hand grips while I tried to organize everything that needed to be put away.  When the nail box and the screw box were both empty, they had to quit.

I thought it would take them several trips to carry all their supplies back to the house, but they decided to work smart and together were able to carry everything except the ladder in one trip.

As excited as they were about finishing their fort, they were even more excited about celebrating adoption day.  After we picked up J for the weekend, we stopped to get pizza and ice cream for our annual celebration.  For some reason though, none of the boys wanted to finish their ice cream until after they had opened their gift.  Justin was pleased to find a CD that he had been wanting and had it playing before everyone else had left the table.

Jeremy picked out his gift this year.  Dean gave him permission to chop down a tree in our yard and he went right to work after breakfast this morning.  It may take some time for him to get through the tree, but I'm okay with that.  It will keep him busy until it's done.

Even though J doesn't have an adoption day to celebrate, he did get a new set of cars to play with.   They've already driven several miles and even took a bath with him before bed.

With so much to celebrate yesterday, today seems quiet, but the boys are happily playing and working and I'm enjoying the day.

Thanks to the generosity of friends, the boys have had a trailer full of old decking and other lumber sitting in the back yard for the last three weeks.  Since I wanted to make sure their bedroom was finished before we went on to a new project, we just let it set.  Yesterday we backed the trailer down the lane (I'm getting better at backing a trailer as I age) and unloaded all the boards and plywood near the boys' chosen spot for a Tree Fort.  They showed me where they wanted to start building and nailed up one board between two trees and got excited about their new project.  There's just something about handing a boy a hammer and a few nails.

They wanted to build the whole thing in one day, but waited until this morning to really get going.  I worked with them until around 11:00 when I realized that I hadn't taken any pictures yet.  I found them hammering happily and using about twice as many nails as needed for the job.  

They were happy when I handed them each a drink and took a break while talking about adventures they could enjoy in their fort.  They asked if I would bring them their lunch in the woods, but I told them I'd just call when it was ready and left them smiling and hammering with the ladder placed so they could get down when they heard my call.  When I knew that lunch would be ready in about 5 minutes I stuck the school bell outside and gave it a good shake.  Five minutes later, they hadn't arrived so I opened the door again and rang the bell.  As soon as the bell quieted, I heard yelling.  Lots of yelling.  I think I even heard one boys say, "call 911".  I didn't hear any screaming or crying, but it did sound like they needed help so I put my shoes back on and headed down the lane.

The smiles were gone and the accusations were flying.  Some un-named child had knocked the ladder down leaving them stranded up in the air on a half-finished floor.  They weren't in any danger but they were afraid to jump and were feeling quite abandoned.  After the ladder was repositioned and they were back on solid ground, we had lunch.  With a heat index of over 100 today, I told them they shouldn't work this afternoon, but I can tell this is a project they'll want to keep working on.  And building a permanent ladder is the first thing they want to do.

We had made plans to have J with us for a long weekend, but when I went to pick him up our plans changed slightly.  His older brother G wanted to take us up on our promise for a visit sometime and he had his bag packed.  We didn't change any of our activities, but we did add one more boy to everything we did over the weekend.

We joined most of Dean's family in the mountains where J was proud to show that his fear of the bear is lessening.

On Saturday, we traveled to Lancaster where we combined playing tourists with a visit to Dean's grandparents.  

One of our tourist jaunts was a trip on the Strasburg Railroad.  Our car was coupled to the engine and the boys got to watch the coupling and uncoupling. 

When we reached the furtherest point of the run, the engine uncoupled and moved to the other end of the train.  This meant that we had one very noisy leg and one quiet leg.

J's face reflects how we felt about our ride through the picturesque Lancaster countryside and how all the boys felt about their weekend and all the activities.

Three weeks ago, this is what the boys' bedroom looked like after we had removed all the furniture in preparation for a makeover.  Even though most people didn't realize it, the wallpaper was covered with flowers.  After we got the painting mostly done, we decided that we should do the floor as well, so out went the carpet and in went more hours of labor.

We snapped this picture yesterday right before we started putting books back on the shelves.  That in itself was a big job, but by bedtime all the furniture had been replaced and Jeremy and Justin were more than glad to return to their own beds.

Normally such a job wouldn't take three weeks, but there were other things that had to be done.  Swim lessons ate up every morning for two weeks. (No pictures, but all three boys had a great time.)

J found a dollar and traded the privilege of buying ice cream for a fresh haircut.  Jeremy had been wanting to see what he looked like in a Mohawk, but it only lasted long enough to take pictures.

Justin decided to get in on the haircut action and cut his own hair one evening.  He did a great job with a little help from Jeremy and I didn't even touch the clippers.

He was also intent on shooting squirrels and managed to shoot one (once with a pellet gun and once with a camera).

We also made a trip to Pennsylvania where we had a work day for Dean's parents, celebrated his dad's birthday and 15 cousin birthdays.  I kicked myself several times for forgetting the camera, but we did have a good time and got a lot of work done.

Now we have a little time to breathe before we start school (still haven't ordered the books) but we'll probably tackle a few more smaller projects before we ease back into our school schedule in early August.

A little bird has discovered how to get inside our birdfeeder -and leave when he's done.  I don't know why, but we've seen it more than once.

Justin had fun drawing dragons.  When he draws them on the whiteboard, the only way to preserve them is to photograph them.

We spent some time in Virginia Beach where Jeremy worked on developing his own language.  He wrote his own name, Papa, Mama and Justin in the sand.  I haven't checked to see if he would write them the same way today or not.

Justin wrote Grandpa and Grandma in the sand.

We were out on the beach for sunrise and the light was perfect.

Since the boys woke me to walk on the beach, they had to pose for more than one picture.

Even though our purpose for going to Virginia Beach was to attend a wedding, the boys were able to get in the water four times in less then 36 hours.

 They came home with a collection of shells and rocks, sandy shoes and tired bodies.  We enjoyed our time with friends and our time with family and a desire to visit again sometime on the off season.

Today we took our last field trip of the year with two friends from church.  Jeremy and Justin were up early and eager to get on the road.  I think that most of the excitement was about being with friends for the day and not the content of the trip.

We were scheduled to see a stage performance at GMU about the Constitution of the United States.  We just finished up a two year study of American History so it tied into our school work nicely.  Since no photography is allowed during the performance, we took a couple of pictures before we found our seats.  

The sculptures in the lobby were different and had to be explored a little.  The performance was well done, and even though it was a little strange to see George Washington playing an electric guitar the boys were able to answer questions when we reviewed over our evening meal.

While we were eating lunch I mentioned the Marine Corps museum and four boys were immediately ready to go.  It's free and right on our way home, so we stopped and spent about an hour there.  

With just a few more days of school left, we'll hit the books hard tomorrow and see what we can get done.  This has been a good school year and just last week Justin declared it to be a "year of improvement."  We're all looking forward to a summer break and another good year next year.

The first year that we lived in Virginia, I almost missed strawberry season.  I grew up knowing that strawberries needed to be picked the first two weeks of June, but they come earlier here.  Last year I was ready, but the patch that I wanted to pick at lost their entire crop to a late freeze.  This spring I've been watching their website and when I called last week, I learned that their u-pick patch was open!

I contacted a couple of friends from church and we met this afternoon with all ten of our children.  The weather was beautiful, the strawberries were large and the fellowship was sweet.

In less than an hour, we had picked as many berries as we wanted to pay for and it was obvious that all the children had been tasting as well as picking.  After we had settled our bills, we mothers visited in the shade while we watched our children play.

Even though I had a willing helper when we got home, it took longer to process the berries than it did to pick them.  

 We've all eaten as many strawberries as we've wanted today and we still have a nice stack of boxes in the freezer that will be handy come winter.  

My mother sent me some more old pictures last week.

These ladies are all sisters.  The one on the right is my great-grandmother, Tena.

This is Tena's daughter, Lydia, and her family.  The smallest girl is my mother, Mildred.

And here I am.  Four generations in three pictures.

For the last two weeks, Justin has been digging worms in the compost pile and adding them to his collection in the fridge.  Each day he's asked when we could schedule a fishing trip and today was finally the day.  The boys got their school work done early, the weather was nice and we didn't have anything else scheduled for the day - unless you count laundry.  After lunch, Justin collected everything he needed, packed a snack for all of us and loaded the van.

We hadn't been at the pond long before it became apparent that the fish were hungry.  Jeremy kept pulling in an empty hook and Justin began to cast in the same area.  I had found a nice spot to sit in the shade but was pulled out of my thoughts by loud shouting.  Jeremy grabbed the net and helped Justin to land a nice-sized catfish.  While we worked to remove the hook, the fish grunted and made distress noises.  Justin really wanted to keep the fish to show Dean, but I was able to talk them into just taking pictures home.  A short time later, Justin pulled in a small blue gill.  The count was Justin 2, Jeremy 0 and I began praying that Jeremy could catch a fish as well.

Justin had one or two fish that he hooked but lost right as he got them to the bank, and Jeremy kept pulling in empty hooks.  Finally he was able to land a small bass and Justin was just as excited as Jeremy.  They both had fun looking down its throat and feeling its lips before they released it.  Right before they ran out of worms, Jeremy pulled in his second bass.  They pulled out some rubber lures and tried to get more bites, but rubber just isn't as good a home-grown worms and we headed for the beach.

The beach isn't open for the season yet, but both boys had fun wading for a bit before we headed home.  As we drove, they planned to dig more worms and to go fishing trip in two weeks.  Whether we go fishing in two weeks or not remains to be seen, but we did have a fun finish to our week.