Summer Time :)

I can't believe July is almost here. I just realized winter was over a few weeks ago...or at least it seems like it. Last night I was at water aerobics at our pool and one of the ladies told us that we might have 3 more months for the pool to be open. Isn't that crazy? Only in Tennessee (and a few other states, haha), would the pool stay open until mid-September. The weather was unusually nice through mid-June, which meant it was too cool to go to the pool. Now that it is 101 degrees outside, it's perfect weather for the pool. Hopefully we will go more often now, if only my eczema would cooperate! The summer has been full of craziness it seems. What summer isn't? We made our annual trip home to Indiana in May. We've been to a number of splash pads around town. Each time we go, Hannah seems to become more brave! Yippee! The same goes for the pool. She'll "swim" in the baby pool by pushing her body up and kicking her legs/crawling around in there. When we grab and throw her in the big pool, she kicks her legs and moves her arms like a wild woman. It's great. I think she's finally getting comfortable with the water. This girl was born to swim! Well, at least she was born in water. Haha. We are thoroughly enjoying the fruit and veggies of the summer! Our CSA is up and running, and so is our neighbor's patch of garden. It seems that our neighbors are giving us fresh produce weekly. So far we have received berries (blackberries, blueberries, raspberries), potatoes, squash, and we refused some cucumbers last weekend. We have our full share of cucumbers! I am planning on making a cucumber & tomato salad tonight. Oh Romanian, those are your only salads. Actually, I think our entire dinner will be veggies tonight. I have also been overwhelmed with potatoes. Anyone have any good potato recipes or creative ways to use up potatoes? I already had a ton of them and a friend gave me half of her bag of potatoes because they are going out of town. What shall I do!? Last weekend was our 2nd annual block party cookout. Last year, we invited all of our neighbors who we could see from our house. It was way more of a success than we thought it would be. God definitely blessed our meager efforts to bring community to those surrounding us. We were amazed that the neighbors to our right, who have lived here since the 60s, and those to our left, who have lived here for 12 years, had never met. This year, not as many folks came, but those who did seemed to really enjoy it. It seemed like everyone was more comfortable with each other, even just having interacted a couple times. I have learned that even if I say, "please bring a side" I really need to specify a SIDE and not a dessert! We provided all the burgers/dogs/buns/drinks, etc and just asked people to bring a side. We had one family bring 3 sides (thankfully!) and everyone else brought dessert or fruit. I decided not to worry about it this year, since it worked out pretty well last year. I guess they will learn, if one year all we have is dessert and no sides :)