Day 213: Glacier National Park

A single photo, or even a hundred, could not capture the staggering beauty of Glacier National Park. What a perfect, beautiful day.

Day 212: Road trip

"There's something exciting, leaving everything behind.There's something deep and pulling, leaving everything behind. Something about having everything you think you'll ever need sitting in the seat next to you..." (Opening lines from our favorite road trip song, "Another White Dash" by Butterfly Boucher)

Day 211: Packing

We have a pretty small car for the trip we are about to embark upon. Our vehicle seats six people, but with very little space for luggage. We have been determined to travel light and have packed all the clothes we need for a month into these three bags. We'll see how this goes...

Day 210: Timbers fan

Johnny has had the great privilege of going to see two Timbers games this week with his friend Daniel. The team isn't doing particularly well right now but Johnny really enjoys watching the soccer.

Day 209: New sunglasses

Just in time for our trip...

Day 208: A new skill

Noah is extremely pleased that he can now swing all by himself.

Day 207: Gladiolus

We don't have as many flowers in our garden this year as I would like - we will have to do better next year - but I love the color of this gladiolus that Anna planted in the spring.

Day 206: Half way there

Back at the end of April, I resolved to lose thirty pounds. I am trying to do it gradually, so that the weight stays off, and I have been using a couple of great apps that help me count calories and track my exercise. I am very excited to be half way to my goal!

Day 205: Soccer, at last

After YEARS of waiting, Noah is finally old enough to play soccer. In preparation for being on a team this fall, he attended a soccer camp with his brothers and sister today.

Day 204: Marshmallows

Something new today: a friend's son has numerous allergies which prohibit him from enjoying most desserts. For his birthday today, he REALLY wanted s'mores, so I made grain-free "graham" crackers and honey marshmallows. I have never made marshmallows from scratch before and was especially thankful that they turned out well, since the kids had broken my candy thermometer and I had to guess when the honey was at the right temperature.

Day 203: Onesies

Today was the third baby shower in four weeks - another wonderful gathering of delightful ladies from church to celebrate a lovely mother-to-be and her baby, due in September.

Day 202: Ice skating

Daniel and Anna earned free passes to go ice skating through the library summer reading program. Daniel, as usual, took to it immediately and was practicing spins on the ice within an hour. Anna was more cautious but enjoyed her time with her daddy.

Day 201: Blueberries

The kids and I picked blueberries today - here is Noah with his bucket.

Day 200: Harvest

Remember this? Today Noah harvested the fruit of his labors. Delicious!

Day 199: Studying

A big feature of this summer is the preparation I am doing for a new job which starts in August, teaching a Latin 101 class at a local university. I am so enjoying it!

Day 198: Trout Creek again

It's Johnny's turn to go to Trout Creek Bible camp and we were thrilled that he was able to have the same amazing counselor that Daniel learned so much from earlier in the summer.

Day 197: Halloumi

Daniel is a very picky eater but a marvelous chef, so I am trying to help him expand his repertoire by trying new things. He was very eager to try out a new kind of cheese and loved the fact that halloumi doesn't melt when sauteed. The big breakthrough however was the accompanying sauce that he made and ATE, with roasted tomatoes and red onions.

Day 196: Sweet Caroline

I hosted another baby shower today, this time for a baby recently adopted into a wonderful family at our church. Anna was pretty excited to get to hold Caroline.

Day 195: New hair cut

Boy, I find it hard to take a decent self-portrait, but I am very happy with my new hair cut.

Day 194: View from Tom, Dick and Harry Mountain

My friend Allison and I went hiking with seven kids today. It was an exhilarating seven mile round trip past Mirror Lake (bottom right hand corner) and up to Tom, Dick and Harry mountain, a ridge from which we could see six snow-covered peaks, the closest of which was Mt Hood.

Day 193: Bible study in the park

To change things up a bit in July, we decided to move our Wednesday evening Bible study from my living room to a local park. This month, our group is doing some Bible overview to prepare for reading "The Bible in 90 days", starting in September.

Day 192: A summer of the Beatles

We have been listening to the Beatles a lot recently and Daniel decided he would like to learn "Strawberry Fields Forever" on the piano. After his lesson today, he is adding "Hey Jude" and "Come Together" to his repertoire.

Day 191: Cherry orchard

The kids and I spent a marvelous morning in Mosier, Oregon, east of Hood River, picking cherries that are both delicious to eat and gorgeous to look at. Johnny did a great job up a ladder, harvesting fruit the rest of us could not reach.

Day 190: Water guns

It's that time of year...

Day 189: Berry picking

It is a great family tradition to go berry picking in the summer. North West berries are gorgeous and we picked pounds and pounds of delicious raspberries and marionberries this afternoon. Pies and jams are in our future!

Day 188: Pesto

Daniel, our Italian chef, harvested his basil today and whipped up the best pesto we have ever tasted.

Day 187: Planning our road trip

Only a few weeks until our big road trip and we are enjoying planning our adventures across the country and back!

Day 186: Happy Fourth!

We spent a lovely Fourth of July with wonderful friends at the Pearson Airport in Vancouver, WA. I LOVE fireworks!

Day 185: Family Hike

After picking up Anna from camp (she had so much fun!), we drove further down the gorge for a gorgeous hike to this beautiful waterfall.

Day 184: Mt St Helen's

We can see the south side of Mt St Helen's from our house but we love to drive around to the north side and see the spectacular view of the impact of the 1980 eruption. The boys and I had a wonderful day trip with friends from church.

Day 183: Off to camp

I took Anna to Trout Creek Bible Camp this morning for her first overnight camp experience. She is thrilled to be going with two of her friends and we are confident the three of them will have an amazing time!

Day 182: Diaper Cake

Today we had a baby shower for my dear friend Emily, and another dear and creative friend made her this wonderful diaper cake.

Day 181: Beanbag toss

Vacation Bible School Day Five. Noah and his friends really enjoyed this game, even though the other team won.

Day 180: Making lanterns

Vacation Bible School Day Four. Another day, another great craft project.

Day 179: Sand art

Vacation BIble School Day Three. The kids loved today's craft, which was a great sand art project.

Day 178: Snack time

Vacation Bible School Day Two. Anna and her friends take snack time very seriously.

Day 177: Vacation Bible School

It's Vacation Bible School this week - today was great fun and a wonderful start. I took dozens of photos but it is hard to choose one that captures the day. In the end, I picked this one because I love the girls' focus in this race, which was one of the outdoor activities.