Summer Play and Work...

My cousin, Virginia, visited for a few weeks and stayed with us some!  Virginia is very talented at the piano and Carter LOVED for her to play (so did I :)).  Here is Carter playing along! 

Another cousin of mine, Kate, got married!!!  Here are Aaron and Carter playing in the grass at the wedding...Carter was hot so we took off his shirt.  I can't believe I don't have a photo of him all dressed up!!  He was wearing a little white button up shirt and I tied a ribbon around his neck like a tie....he was so cute :) ...maybe someone else got a photo??

Carter loving on my cousin's fiance, Cori!

Spreading the love to Virginia and Ayda!

...and CeCe!

My cousin Tara and her husband Steve and their son Caden (5 weeks old!) AND my Uncle John all stayed with us for the week after the wedding!  Steve and Uncle John re-built a deck for us!!!!  Awesome.  :)

Finished deck!!!!  We have hung out on the deck nearly every night since it was built!!!  THANK YOU everyone for working on this project!!!!

Carter playing with his second cousin Caden!!

Carter 13 months, Caden 5 weeks!  Already good buds!!  Carter went around talking about "Baba" all week!

Three generations celebrating Mark's (Aaron's dad) birthday!

Driveway improvements!!!

Now, instead of the driveway forking it will only go to the left.  On the right we will plant a berm and when you come down the driveway you will not be greeted by all of the sheds and our piles of mulch, rocks and dirt....instead, you will see the awesome Blue Ridge Mountains and our pastures/cows/pigs!!  We also created a "farm entrance".

AND we added a much needed culvert to the driveway to the cabin.  This was the pressing reason to initiate all of this change.  Michael T. (my brother) did all of the driveway and culvert work!

I got to work on the excavator too!!  We nearly all of the stumps out of our pastures!!!!  YAY!!  Now we can bush hog when needed and we'll re-seed and get everything in good shape... then.... more cows!!!  Ivywest Farm is coming along :)

Aaron's job was to grade the areas where the stumps were removed and to carry off the stumps to their new resting places. 

My sister, Lauren, visited and here she is reading to Ayda and Carter!

All the while the garden has been growing and growing and finally producing!!

The scale has gone around twice...so 13 lbs. of tomatoes... the first picking :) :)  They FINALLY turned red!!!

Here is a small picking of cucumbers... I am up to my ears with cucumbers!!  I have already canned 22 pints of sweet pickles, 8 quarts of dill pickles, and I have another batch of about 15 pints of sweet pickles in the making!!  Not to mention the about 35 lbs of cukes I've given to my Mom to pickle!  Not pictured are all of the green beans, potatoes, and jalapenos we've been enjoying :)  We got a few squash and zucchini's, but the plants died due to ANTS burrowing in the roots :(