Hart Happenings

 Hello all!

So much has been happening in this family!  Congratulations of the highest order to the Flakes!  We are so excited for them and anxious to meet little James.  He is a cutie.  I especially like the picture of him where he looks like an old man.  As for Rosie's hair.  I guess we'll just have to accept that it is a force of nature.  Wish we were closer but you probably don't because we might not be able to restrain ourselves from smothering those cute Flake kids and their parents.

We have been deep into canning and school stuff.  It was a blast a couple of weeks ago to have Dad come up with jars and lids (do you know how hard it is to get canning lids these days?).  Ruth brought over some peaches, I added some pears, and we went and picked boxes of apples from our neighbor's orchard.  We canned every last piece of fruit.  It was INSANE!  All hands on deck -- all day!  The kids were troopers, Dad is a canning pro, Ruth managed to keep an eye on everything, even my in-laws pitched in and cut up bushels and bushels of apples.  We had my stove going, Ruth's and my camp chefs fired up, and they kids were blanching peaches, straining the apples into sauce, and hauling jars back and forth.  It was a day to remember and we all took bounty home; such a fun memory!

The boys have really enjoyed some of their recent activities.  Jack just wrapped up his first middle school soccer season playing for Taylorview middle school and had a great tryout for spring club soccer and made it onto the Premier team.  We are really excited to watch him keep honing his skills!  Ian and Peter have had a great experience participating in the local Opera performance of Hansel and Gretel.  It was spectacular!  They played the kids who had turned into gingerbread people by the witch.  It was very opera and so well done.  Ian is currently in rehearsals for Elf: the musical which they will performing in November.  

Our studies have been so fun.  We are reading Little Britches and the boys love it.  We tend to get sucked in reading and then we forget some of the other things we have to do.  But it is SO GOOD!

Anyway, my laptop is going to die.  Hope all is well.  Must post now.