During our Costco trip this week, a sweet lady asked to get her picture taken with us! The kids quickly lined up and grinned while her friend took a few pictures of our circus. We ran into her two more times in the store, and as we were checking out, she handed us a couple dozen cookies from the Costco bakery! It reminds me of the words of Jesus, “And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”

To say we had a lot of laundry would be an understatement. The cabin (see trip posts here and here) doesn’t have washing machine. Since we had packed 6 outfits per person – for a family of 9 – we did go to the laundry mat in the nearest larger town. The workload was spread over a couple of days, but we washed 8 sleeping bags, 2 loads of whites, 5 blankets, 5 pillows, 4 loads of colors, and a half dozen stuffed animals! It feels so good to have drawers of clean clothes!

Stone fruit is in season around here, and the sweet peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums, and cherries are on the table in one way or another. We make lots of cobblers in the summer, but this crisp was a welcomed change! It comes together very quickly (I used a food processor to cut the butter in), and we doubled the crumb mixture to have ready in the fridge for the next crisp.

We have an owl in our garden! He’s the new addition to keep away the critter muncha, munchas (ugh!). We’re trying to improve on the long-standing odds of:

One for the blackbird,

One for the crow,

And that will leave

Just two to grow.

with love. Damaris