Friendly Reunions!

We were so blessed to have the Beutler ladies come over for a visit. It had been 7 long years since we had seen each other. During the visit, Amy and I realized that we have known one another for over 20 years! Where do the years go?

Tessie and Laura had so much fun together!

They seemed to enjoy meeting the farm animals

Peeking at the baby bunnies

 

The last time we had seen the Beutlers, Katie B. & Grace were babies!

 

Tessie loves the baby filly

 

 

 

It was so fun to see these guys together again. Amy and I always enjoyed taking group shots of them when they were all young. She and I shared a love for scrapbooking back in the late 90's..

 

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The Seben Children

We were so excited to hear that our friend Jake Sebens was home for a visit from Belize. Grady was driving that day so he was able to meet us at Burger King in Chehalis on his way back from Seattle. We had a wonderful time of catching up with Jake and two of his sisters who came along also.

 

Grady pulls in. It was a blessing that he was able to meet us too..

 

We were so excited that Jake had remembered to bring us the Belizean ricado and Marie Sharp hot sauce! :-)

                               
                                                                             Group Shot!

 

Family Fun & Fish Fry!

This year we were able to take advantage of Oregon's free fishing day. Anyone, with or without a license was able to enjoy fishing around the State for free! The Kings had heard of a nearby stocked pond at a hatchery where they were allowing visitors to come and catch a limit of 5 trout per person, young and old. It was a pretty hot day- maybe 96 degrees out!

We enjoyed the only shady spot as we looked on

 

 

We watched the bigg'uns swimming in and out of the culvert. The biggest fish were smart and stayed in the middle of the stocked pond

 

Ashley was the first to catch her limit! The locals  who were also fishing kept saying things like "that girl over there caught ANOTHER one!" It was hysterical. Everyone in our party agreed that we all had such great success catching fish because of the specialty power bait that Ryan had brought.

Very serious business!

Jonathan King throws in his line.

Even Mandy caught fish! Grady was teasing her that instead of reeling them in, she liked to 'beach' them and then have Rye take care of the rest for her!

A rare sight- Amanda holding a F I S H

Even little Laura, with the help of daddy, caught a few!

Rye was the go-to guy- all around the pond you could hear "RYAN!" He would run off and cut lines, bait hooks and help reel in.. he loved helping all the kids

He was quick to get his limit

Little Matthew King caught the biggest fish of all!

After Grant caught his limit he helped Joshua King

It only took about 2 hours for most everyone in our party to catch their limit!

Time to head home to gut and bbq some fish!

Becca King tells a whopper!

Reliving the exciting catches of the day!

Some of them were enormous! All together we caught around 50 fish

Joshua King shows us some prize trout

It was a blessing to see the older kids gutting all the fish

Some were prepared for dinner that night and many were bagged for the freezer

After Jeremy King put some wood into the BBQ, Ryan helped keep an eye on the fish while it cooked/smoked..

It turned out DELICIOUS!

We all decided that fishing in a stocked pond was the quickest, most fun way to take little kids fishing! Thanks Ryan for helping all the children!

Grant and Timmy were such a blessing to the younger children too. What a fun day!

Has it been 9 years? We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends in the King Family. We have had so many fun adventures together.. this day was no exception! :-)

Summer Fruits

 

The four older children blessed the family by picking nearly 100 lbs of strawberries at a local U pick farm. We spent a few days canning and freezing delicious sun ripened berries. So grateful!

  

We also picked up 20 pounds of oranges and made a few batches of marmalade

Ryan and Grant made three raised beds for us out of some materials we had laying around

Here the girls plant some herbs

The tomato plants are getting bigger!

In addition to the veggies we are anticipating from our raised beds, we are also receiving lovely organic veggies from a local farm where some in our family are working weekly. That has offset our lack of space and variety here at the rental.

One of our favorite dishes currently is roasted veggies~ we just chop up the carrots, beets, turnips and onions and put them in a 9x12 pan with olive oil, salt and pepper. Simple but oh so yummy!