Simply Living This Mommy Wife Life: June 2014

The boys have really been enjoying the hot weather lately. Yesterday, my friend, Kristin, brought her three kids over to play in the water with Gav and Owen. They all had a ball (well all the "big" kids did, baby Otto got to watch from his stroller!) but I forgot to bring my camera out so I don't have any pictures (aww man!). This afternoon, Gav wanted to go back out and play in his alligator pool so I decided to get some pictures this time! Recently, I have been working on using my camera only in the manual mode. I'm not really sure why it has taken me this long to take it off of automatic, but it has been surprisingly easy to learn to shoot in manual! I put it off because I thought it was going to be super complicated and when I would read about how to shoot in manual, it all seemed so confusing. About a month ago, I read an article on Pinterest that explained it in really simple terms and it all finally clicked! I have been shooting in manual ever since! I know I probably still have a long way to go and a lot more to learn, but I have really been pleased with the quality of photos I have been getting! Today, it was fun to play with my camera while the boys played in the water. The running water really made the resulting photos neat!

Check out that beach body!

I love the way this photo turned out!

Owen ate a rock, so Gav, being the good big brother that he is, helped him get it out of his mouth!

Just loungin' in the baby pool.

I was saying "Smile for mom, Gav!" and this is what I got!

Kern Family Orchard is such a neat little place about ten miles from our house. It's a family farm and the four daughters (they range in age from high school to college) run it as a business. They have asparagus, strawberries, blueberries, apples, peaches, raspberries, blackberries, and pumpkins (I may be missing a few of their crops), and the girls also make their own line of goats milk soaps and lotions. They also have chickens that lay eggs, goats that they milk, and have recently bought some cows they will raise for meat. We absolutely LOVE going there and purchasing their fresh produce! They are a very neat family and the girls are sweet as can be! They are a Catholic home schooling family and you can tell that they have raised their girls to have a good work ethic. If I could just move to their farm with them, I totally would! I dream of having my own chickens, cows, and space to have a huge garden. While I'm waiting for this to happen (ha!), I will just have to be happy that we have a place so close that we can purchase fresh, quality produce and other goods from. This morning, we made a trip out to pick strawberries and were pleasantly surprised to run into our good friends from church! It's always fun to go out there, but it makes it even better when we have good company. We picked two big boxes of strawberries that we will enjoy fresh (as long as they last before molding), and we have already begun to freeze the rest (we love them in smoothies). Fresh picked strawberries blow the store bought ones away, in taste and price! I looked at Walmart today and a pound of strawberries was $1.70 and we paid $1.50 a pound (you pick or you can pay $3.00 a pound for berries that the girls pick and sell in their store). You really can't beat a deal like that! We really enjoyed our morning at the orchard and are enjoying our fresh berries this afternoon! If you live in the Hillsboro area, I highly recommend checking out Kern Family Orchard throughout the summer and fall for excellent fresh produce!