The 5 of us again

My parents brought M back in time for 4th of July. He was excited to be home, and his brothers gave him a very warm welcome.
Since my dad loves berries and picking berries, we took advantage of the berry festival being held at Smith Berry Barn on the 4th. We picked lots of berries, ate lots of berries, sampled treats from their gift shop, and enjoyed the festival. There were 2 bands who took turns playing. G loved getting out on the lawn and dancing it up. A couple had brought 2 of their Alpaca's and yarn from them. I resisted the urge to buy any. *Round of Applause!* But it did make me want to live in the country even more. Alpaca's are amazing and sweet animals!
That night, we sat out with our neighbors and enjoyed a wonderful fireworks display put on by C and J, our neighbor. C and G had a lot of fun buying lots of fireworks. I can't remember just how many we had, but it was lots! I'll post a picture as soon as I get it off the camera.
Mom and dad headed home Saturday night. We had fun with them. I bet it's a bit quiet at their house now! M is adjusting to being home. G is adjusting to not being the #1 kid around too. It's hard all around, let's face it.
The meat market called today, too. I ordered a side of beef awhile ago, and it seems my name has made it to the top of the list. I guess I need to have some people out for dinner in an attempt to clear enough space in the deep freeze for roughly 220# of meat! Sign up below? I'm excited though, it should work out to just around $2.50/lb for local, grass fed beef, cut and wrapped to order. How cool is that? It should save me a small fortune, really.
I also am heading out next week, I think, to pick berries. I'll dry and jam most of it. Probably won't freeze a whole lot. LOL And, I'm intending to spend some time preserving veggies this year. I want to can green beans, salsa, lots of pickles, ketchup, and all kinds of dried stuff. I got the dehydrator re-screened, and I'm excited to use it. The kids like dried stuff, it takes up almost no space, and I don't have to watch it like a hawk while it's drying. Perfect.
Oh, and the Hogwarts stuff. So, we were rather surprised. M really didn't catch on the fact that it was pretend. But he was really excited about it. But C felt we needed to tell him, so this morning we did. I told him he still needed to do the work, and he was even more impressed that mom had gone to all this work. But by this afternoon, when I finally got him to sit down and do the first 2 assignments, he threw a fit. Only over the writing one though. So he pitched a fit on the couch about how it was pointless, and boring, and stupid, and not even real. I am proud of myself for keeping my temper. After he was done ranting, he headed over and wrote down one more word combination, cleaned up the mess from planting ginger, and went outside to play. Crazy kid. Or could that be crazy mom too?