Another Family Day

We had a busy day today. The day started with us heading to my husband's place of employment. Once a year his company, Nexteer (formerly Delphi) hosts Family Day. It is the biggest family picnic we've ever attended. Lunch is provided as are carnival rides, face painting, and cotton candy.

Both Peanut and Sweet Baby have never been very brave when it comes to carnival rides, but this year they both decided to try the swings and enjoyed them. Here Peanut is as we are waiting to lift off.

While there, they were giving away free balloons and it reminded me of one year in elementary school when our class each wrote notes and attached them to helium filled balloons. We let the balloons go and waited to see if someone would find them and write back to us. We were tracking how far the balloons traveled. I mentioned that to the girls and Sweet Baby asked if we could do that when we got home. So, her and I sat down and wrote her note. She thought she was supposed to write on the balloon itself, she did not understand the directions at first. It was so cute to see her balloon read, "God love you, if you get this, write me back."

Here she is, getting ready for the launch.

And, watching it go..Isn't that a beautiful sky?

After the launch the family sat down to can pears together as we listened to some Adventures in Odyssey. We got LOTS of pears from my father in law's small orchard - as well as apples. We will do applesauce next week, more pears and peaches when they become ripe. We have a couple pear trees, an apple tree and peach tree in our backyard. The whole idea of canning is not my idea. We never canned anything when I was growing up, but my husband's family did canning. Canning is something we have done the last few years. We usually do applesauce and pears. We have done pickles before and this year are doing our first few batches of green beans. I enjoy doing this with our girls because I truly feel this is a lost art. I was thinking of the fact that not to long ago, families did this every year, on a much bigger scale than we are - even though we did 20 quarts of pears and will more than likely do 20 more before we are done!

If nothing else, it just provides more opportunities for us to hang out together as a family.