Pears, Computers, Swimsuits, and Cats

Pears

"Family Home Evening" pears

The last can of pears, with all
 colors added together, ended
up "camouflage" green.

 The two boxes of pears Mark brought home were green on Sunday and ready to eat on Monday.  And ripe pears don't pack well in school lunches.  While the kids were at school, one box became 14 quarts of ordinary canned pears, 10 quarts of Pear-Pineapple Syrup, and two batches (with some garden berries added), of PearBerry jam.  By 5:00, Denise was exhausted!  So when everyone returned home and had finished up dinner, it was time for our "Family Home Evening" activity.  Of course, with Mark thinking he was in charge, production moved to the back porch (even though it was dark) and the food dyes came out.  In no time at all (okay, over the course of "many" "exhausting" hours--descriptors added by Luke), we had 30+ more quarts packed and ready to process.   Beautiful, yes?  (By the way, photos taken the next a.m.)

Computers

The new computer arrived on Thursday and Luke set it up.  This picture does not quite show that the monitor is HUGE--the better for watching Netflix movies, my dear!

Swimsuits

Marta had a water polo tournament this weekend, and is shown here sneaking in her "day of rest" before another crazy week of seminary, water polo, and school.  (Those things on her lap are swimsuits.  I count seven.  Why does one girl need seven swimsuits?)

Cats!

You can see the bottom of the bed here on our sleeping deck.  Last night at about 10:45, Mark had just settled in that bed to enjoy the stars and half-moon when he heard a noise and looked up to see, between the fence and the tree pictured here, a mountain lion strolling along the ridge.  There is a gap between the ridge and the deck, but it's easily "leapable" for a large, limber predator.  Belle, our domestic cat leaps it all the time!  Mark didn't call through the window to me to let me in on the sight, imagine that!  Belle stayed curled  up at Mark's feet all night long, but while we think the chickens were locked up, there was one missing this morning.  Hmmmm. . .   (Our large feline visitor could well be the one whose photograph was in this week's paper, linked  here).