Playing with cousins.

The kids' 2nd cousins, Jack and Ben, from Wisconsin visited us for a playdate. As you can see in the picture, the boys played dress-up with the girls and they all had a ball!

Grass for the Horses.

This is my breakfast plate...I convinced the girls that I cooked some grass to eat, and they thought maybe their horses should eat it instead of me! It is actually shredded, fried Zucchini from our garden. We've had a fairly productive garden this year, better than last year anyway. I'm thankful for anything I can get put away for the Winter months. Yes, there is "grass" in the freezer for Winter soup!

This and That....

As most of you are too....we are full-fledged into Summertime! I can't believe how fast time is going, as school peeks into the schedule in a mere 6 weeks! Afternoons at the pool, ice cream cones, Smores over an outdoor fire, watching movies in the air-condition, and baseball games top the list of our current "to do's".

This picture says it all...these two are quite the baseball pair! Josh is helping coach Caden's 9 year old All-Star team and they are just too cute! These weekend tournaments have kept us hopping and one more to go!! Let's just say....the girls in this house are ready to say Bye, Bye to baseball for the Summer! However, I am proud of my "Hill" shirt--see 2nd picture!!


And the girls love their brother!!


Happy Summer! I hope your days are full of sunshine and smiles!

4th of July Weekend

We had a full 4th weekend. The business was closed Sat-Mon, so it was nice to have Josh to ourselves. Lets see....what all did we do?

A trip to the Iowa City Farmers Market to see my brothers Aronia berry stand(http://aronialife.com/). We picked up some yummy, fresh fudge and a bag of kettle corn made from home-grown popcorn. It was really neat to see my brother in action promoting his Aronia products.

We attended a 75th birthday bash for Josh's Grandma. It was a great time of hanging out with family. Yummy food, fireworks, and each family made Grandma a stepping stone of which I took no pictures (sorry!). It was so neat to see each family personalize a stepping stone design and to see the kids make their own creations and best of all to see Grandma's smile...she LOVED it!!! Josh's Grandma Eunice is so special to us!

We slept to the bullfrogs and owls hooting in the back pasture. We wanted to camp, but thought it'd be much quieter (and easier) in the back pasture than to go to a campground. We spent two nights with our kids sleeping in tents. We made smores, caught fireflies, watched several fireworks displays in the distant sky, Josh cooked us his famous campfire breakfast, TONS of quiet family time...and there was a barn to set the tents inside when it rained :) and Caden's dirtbike to ride home if we forgot something. It worked out so well!


We picked the first round of green beans in the garden! And the 19th Zucchini!

We made a trip to my parents house for a 4th of July supper and watched more fireworks in the distance. My kids said, "Can we ever go to the fireworks up close?" haha...they are so deprived!

Lots of dirt bike riding, naps (in the house, not in the tent!), hanging out under the shade trees, and praising the Lord for this great country that we live in.....that pretty much wraps it up!

So, today we slept in till 9:00 and laundry tops the list of "to do's"!