Blueberry picking

My family LOVES blueberries!! A favorite among us all. I was determined to find a place where we could all go and pick blueberries this year (last year we missed it and we missed strawberries this year). I took the kids to a wonderful you-pick farm earlier this summer about an hour away. (Matt's U-Pick in Amanda, Ohio). We had the greatest time and came home with about 24 quarts of blueberries (the kids were a huge help in picking this many berries)! :) We've eaten a lot of them, frozen some of them to use for our favorite whole-wheat oatmeal pancakes, berry cheesecakes, muffins, and any new yummy blueberry recipe that I'd like to try out this year, and I made some delicious homemade blueberry jam. I love to can! Making homemade jam is one of my favorite things to do and I love to hear the "pop" that all of the cans make one by one after they've been taken out of the canner. I tried a new recipe (less sugar blueberry jam) that used juice and honey but I prefer the sugar jam (a lot sweeter). I also made the best blueberry blackberry jam too (Dakota and I picked wild blackberries all over our land (I love that wild blackberries are so abundanct here)... that was a great time spent with Dakota except for the few thorns that dug into my hands). Picking blueberries will now be on our yearly traditions list because that's a memory I want to make every year with my children! :)

*The bushes were covered in bird netting and the kids loved picking the berries from underneath the netting especially Wyatt. :)

Goodbye Chloe :(

Today was a sad day in the McGee household. Our cutie pie miniature schnauzer Chloe died. :( We aren't sure what happened to her but by the time we found her she was struggling for each breath (very sad to witness a dog struggling to breathe). This morning we thought she was just sick but by the time we got home after running errands in town for a few hours we found her on the brink of death. The kids are very upset and sad. They were so sweet and covered her little grave with flowers after we laid her to rest and I said a prayer after we each shared some favorite memories of her. How much fun she was, the time she killed a groundhog (she's little dog but had a big bite), and how Sweetie our beagle will miss her so much too because they were best friends. We all shed tears over her sudden death and she'll be missed! Rest in peace Chloe! We love and miss you so much already!!

(this was the last picture I took of Chloe. She needed groomed so badly but she didn't mind the long hair look and she was one good country dog!!)

Time to get back to my blog....

Oh my goodness my last post was over 4 months ago. Yikes! The summer has flown by and been a busy one for the McGee's. The #1 highlight of the summer was our wonderful vacation to Aruba! I took many many photos (thousands) but the one above is 1 of my favorites ***plus you'll be seeing it again around Christmas time. ;) More about our vacation in future posts but I wanted to get a quick post in while I have a few minutes so that I can get back on the blogging kick. The kids are up from there rest time and naps so until next time keep enjoying your summer!! School for Dakota will be here in just 3 weeks.