SUMMER!

I can not express the joy i feel over summer finally being here! today it was like 80 degrees! in upstate NY you have to take advantage of every nice day b/c before you know it they are gone!

we had a great trip to Pittsburgh to visit Megan. we went to the zoo and the kids loved it (mostly) Naomi was visibly shaking when she saw the lions and tigers but otherwise all was well. Judah was mesmerized by the jellyfish! figures. You pay all that money and your kids favorite part is something you can see dead on the beach for free! oh well. it was really good to get away.

it's crazy how expensive things are getting around here. 20 bucks gets us nothing! I try to never worry about money but the way things are going we may have to start. food prices are killing us! not literally of course, we are fine. I can only imagine what this is doing to people in third world countries. but anyway all of this is just pushing me to live more simply. I've started making all of our own bread. I figure if my meme could do it for 12 kids I can do it for 4. It's been going really well and it's a lot easier than i thought. a great place to start is the no-knead crusty bread recipe. You can find it at motherearthnews.com . it is so easy and seriously the best bread ever! also I've started buying in bulk. this eliminates too many trips to the store and is way cheaper. the catch is that you have to really plan and actually cook everything from scratch! i really don't know how those ladies did it back in the day! but it seems like even with all that we still are just scratching by. so what it comes down to is trusting God. the USA may not always be such a prosperous nation but God will still take care of us.

The picture I posted is onr that Josh drew for the Ithaca Pregnancy center. I love it so i just wanted to share it with all you guys!