The Joys of Summer: Family, Fun & Sun!

Whew! June flew by like a whirlwind! Where has the summer gone? It is already July and in just three short months, we will have a new addition to the family. Poor baby, your room isn't even a room right now but more like a storage unit.

The first of June Daniel worked at Bonnaroo, selling ice and hanging out with hippies while Kate and I spent the week with Brian and Jen and the kids on Signal Mountain. There's just something special about having cousins nearby for your children to grow up with and Kate loves her cousins, especially Robbie!





After Bonnaroo we had Vacation Bible School at church, and I taught the 2 & 3-year-olds again, a position that I vowed last year NOT to take again because I think it requires a patient, creative person, someone I am not. Somehow, though, I managed to find myself there again. Don't get me wrong, I do love the children but you can't get a child that age to sit still in a chair for more than 10 minutes and our classes lasted for an hour! Needless to say, we played a lot of games, blew tons of bubbles, and chased a lot of balloons every night!

After VBS we headed to Charleston, SC, for a week at the beach--Folly Beach, that is--with Daniel's family! What a welcome respite from all the running around of the previous weeks! I wasn't sure how Kate would take to the beach: she hates anything dirty on her hands, and I didn't think she would like the sand. Boy was I wrong! She loved playing in the sand with her other favorite boy cousin, Zach (she has a distinct preference for boys), and couldn't get enough of the "ray-ray" (the ocean). She would drag Daniel and me out as far as she could into the water and waves would crash all around, knocking her down, but, undaunted, she got back up and forged onward. Definitely a beach baby!











We also did a fair amount of exploring downtown Charleston: visiting the Market and the beautiful old churches with their centuries' old graveyards as well as eating a good deal of seafood, probably my favorite part of the trip. Daniel went fishing a few times and we ate fresh shrimp, redfish, grouper (one night I ate an entire fish, minus the head, and I think I scared Daniel's brother by doing that.), flounder, and Mahi-Mahi. Yummy!

After being gone for a week and battling a sleep-deprived 20-month-year-old, I was ready to come home. Now we are getting back into our old routine and returning to our mundane but happy lives at home. I have always been a homebody but being a parent has really made me even more of one. As much as I love to travel and see new places, my house is my favorite place to be.



Thank you, Lord, for giving us all these exciting and fun opportunities, and thank you for the sanctity of the home we have where we can always find rest and comfort from our busy lives.

The Farmer's Market & the Tidwell Garden

This morning Kate and I ventured out to the Farmer's Market here in Rutherford County at the Lane Agri-Park. We usually go on Tuesdays, but last week there were only a handful of vendors and very little produce offerings. Fridays are definitely a much better day to go! Today, there were three vendors selling grass-fed, organic beef; one selling grass-fed beef, chicken and pork; one selling goat cheese; and numerous vendors selling a variety of "in season" fruits and vegetables including beets, sugar snap peas, green beans, Early Girl tomatoes, lettuce mixes, squash, onions, carrots, and leeks. Plus, there are Amish vendors selling jams, jellies, relishes, breads and other pastries and farmers selling beautiful flowers, herbs, and other plants. Needless to say, Kate and I had a blast and learned a lot about the items local farmers are growing and producing here.

Today, we purchased three Early Girl tomatoes that will be ripe in a few days (DELICIOUS!), two Zephyr squash (beautiful, yellow and green-colored), a lovely red cabbage, and a tub of herb-flavored goat cheese made in Franklin, TN. We spent a little more than we would at the grocery store, but I feel good knowing the veggies are all organic with no chemicals and locally produced. I would have bought more produce but I won't be home much this weekend.

I plan to purchase most of our produce at the Farmer's Market until our garden yields its surplus of squash, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers. Here are some pictures of Daniel and Kate watering the plants in our garden. Kate is such a cute little shadow who spills more water on the ground and herself than on the plants, but we believe that her involvement in gardening will help her learn about produce: where veggies come from and how to grow and tend them. Such hands-on experience will help her develop an appreciation for what farmers do and hopefully one day she will grow her own veggies.