Family Fun Summer Adventures...

(There are a lot of photos in this post, but not as many as I think there should be. :) )
Where did the summer go?!  Wasn't yesterday Memorial Day?!  Labor Day is coming up in a few weeks?!  WTF hommies!

We have had a lot of family summer adventures this year.  Here is the litany of traveling, adventures and daily living we have done since Memorial Day and some photos to go along with each adventure.

Over Memorial Day weekend we traveled to Rapid City, South Dakota to celebrate our nephew Grayson's high school graduation.  It was a packed weekend.

Between Memorial Day and our next traveling adventure, we had Vacation Bible School, which was a blast, but a very busy week.  The Monday after VBS finished, we got on a 6am 1-stop flight to Boston to spend the week in New Hampshire visiting my sister and her family.  We stayed with my parents in a one bedroom condo in the White Mountain region of New Hampshire.  We were there from June 23rd-June 30th.  We traveled around the White Mountain region and took side day trips to the beach in Maine and Boston.  It was an awesome trip!!  It was hard to come back to Fairfield after that.

After we returned from New Hampshire, etc... we had two days to do laundry and repack to go spend the 4th of July with Jason's family at Fresno Reservoir.  I went up a day later because I wasn't up for going on Thursday.  I drove up on my own on the 4th and we left on the 5th because Jason had to be back to preach in church on Sunday.

After the 4th of July, we actually had a couple of weeks where we just hung out at home and got back into our normal routine.  July 17th-20th was Fairfield's annual town celebration, Swim Days.  It was a busy weekend but we didn't do any traveling, just stayed in town and participated in some of the activities that weekend.

The following weekend, July 25th and 26th we traveled to Bozeman, MT for a wedding Jason officiated over.  Bozeman is about 3-3.5 hrs away from Fairfield.  After the wedding on Saturday we had to head back so Jason could preach on Sunday.  It was a very quick trip and the wedding was lovely.

We had one day to do laundry and clean the house before my parental units and brother arrived for the week.  They were here from July 28th - August 4th.  While they were here, we went fishing in the mountains on the Sun River and also at Pishkun Reservoir.  We also drove down to a place called The Gates of the Mountains and traveled up the Missouri River on a tour boat.  During that time we celebrated Preston's 2nd Birthday too.  A lot happened that week, a lot!  Lucky for you, blogger isn't allowing me to post any more photos, because I would have posted a lot more.  Anyway....

My family left us on the 4th of August and the next day we headed up to Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp from August 5th-8th.  It was so much fun.  Now, here I wish I could post more pictures because I have the cutest picture of Preston with his friends Hannah and Harper.  Boo blogger...BOO!!!

Now we are home for a while.  I am traveling to Minnesota by myself on the train at the end of the month for 6 days.  It is the only time I will be able to get there for the rest of the year, so Jason and I made it happen.  My mother-in-law is staying with us during the week while she does her radiation treatments in Great Falls and she goes home on the weekends.  I have a lot of cleaning to do before she gets back on Monday.

I guess I answered my initial question, Where did the summer go?!  It flew by while we were traveling, adventuring and living daily life.  It went away in the blink of an eye, brilliantly away.

VB's Hunt for Silver Linings

To piggy back off of Megan's idea of seeking the silver linings, I thought it would be a healthy and inspiring activity for me to try to see my own silver linings. Today I am home at my family's house trying to purge belongings I love and became very upset upon shattering an antique mirror I was going to sell today. Still really rotted about it...so trying to focus on good things might help heal this cutting experience.

I can see the ocean from my front door. It's interesting to watch the change of the sea depending on the weather. I also like to watch the sunset over the ocean. Very vivid colors. I have taken many photos of the sunset here (so does my husband, here's one of me).

I have been learning about wild harvest - foods that grow in nature that one can pick and eat. We picked wild blueberries and the freezer is filled with them. We also picked chanterelle mushrooms and made amazing cream of mushroom soup. Here is the recipe on a blog I like, "Hunter Angler Gardener Cook" We actually made this a couple of times while we had fresh mushrooms. We tried to dry the surplus but they got moldy almost right away. Suckfest. 

Along with this theme, I learned to fish for the first time ever. Here, the regulatory agencies open the fishing season to everyone for 2 weeks to fish without a license. It's called the food fishery. You can catch 5 cod fish per person per day with a max of 15 fish per boat. We took advantage as many times as we could find a willing boat owner. Our freezer is still stocked with ocean to table fish! Here I am with one of my larger catches. Pretty impressed with myself that day. 

I am also grateful for the freedom to work on creative projects and the leisure/desire to cook complex foods. I have been focusing my creative efforts on avant garde jewelry-making (my jewelry projects can be viewed here: facebook.com/yazberryfashion ) with found, vintage and new materials, painting and refinishing small wooden projects and have recently been exploring the local past time of rug hooking. I find it relaxing and satisfying to work on something that could be useful. Here is a jolly picture of my progress so far on my first hooked rug. I made up my own design. 

Right now, these are my silver linings. 

GOAL: Focus more on the silver linings and less on the loss of: belongings, social interaction and feelings of accomplishment. 

BREATHE....