It's Summer!!!! and I love Summer! In honor of the last day of June I just had to take the time to post pictures that remind me of summer in the Fraser Valley. First of all, notice that we finally got our new roof this month!! No more water leaking into the living room when we have a bad storm! And for all of you that have visited us in the summer, you can see that the roses are in full bloom...red, yellow and orange!  

Dave bought me this awesome flower basket for Mother's Day this year and it is amazing!!! I keep discovering new plants that are blooming, some of which I have never seen before and have no idea what they are called! The climbing black-eyed susans are new to me, and at first before they were blooming I almost pulled them out because I thought they were a weed growing up so fast! But now here they are....climbing and blooming! 

Nancy and I picked these flowers in our yard and she put together this amazing bouquet! I couldn't believe that everything came from our perennial beds! 

Since this is the first summer in years that we are staying right here in BC all summer, Dave and I decided to plant more flowers for our enjoyment as we enjoy time on the deck....they are loving the amazing hot weather we are having and poor Dave gets up early every morning to water all of them!(I pick off all the dead heads and he waters...that's called divide and conquer!) 

This little man and his pot of flowers greet me by the patio door every morning! 

I love flowers in case you haven't noticed! Our red lilies are almost finished blooming but this week the white lilies opened up! They remind me of the verse in Matthew about how the liles of the field grow and God takes care of them! Thank You God for your amazing faithfulness! 

If you have never been to Abbotsford, you wouldn't know that we are the Raspberry Capital of Canada! And their are raspberry fields everywhere around us! Nancy was sooooo excited to be able to get these while they were here and we had fun eating then, making jam and freezing some for winter!
 

I've already made both Strawberry and Raspberry jam this year...It was fun making the Raspberry with Nancy! We will have to do that again next year! 

Cousins! Thanks Jamie and Megan and Heather and Matt for coming out to Ashley's grad last night.....and Congratulations Ashley on finishing well. High School is finished and you will be off to University in the fall. We are all looking forward to seeing you play Volleyball for Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops! You Go Girl! 

It's at these times when we are altogether as family that we miss you Jody and Darin! It was so much fun watching the cousins enjoy catching up with one another. Stephen and Jessica were sharing teaching stories with Jamie! Hard to believe that they are coming up on their one year anniversary next month! 

Tonight's the big night for Ashely and she will look gorgeous in her beautiful red dress! I can hardly wait to see the pictures!  

To the Fathers in our Family

These posts are a tribute to Fathers everywhere...especially those in our family! Here is a picture of the Father-to-be holding Baby Beck by our front door.....Megan and baby are doing fine and Jamie is starting to get excited too I think! Jamie, I know you will be an awesome Dad...especially since you have had a great role model in your life. Dave, you have been a great Dad to our kids, a caring Father-in-love to our 'Kids by Choice'(otherwise known as the inlaws), and I know you will make a wonderful Grandpa, just like your Dad before you.

As most of you know by now, I love flowers, especially those that are growing in my yard! This is the first year that our orange rose bush is really doing well and I just had to take a picture of these! I had orange roses in the bouquets at our wedding and they have always been one of my favorites! Thank you Dave for taking such good care of the rose bushes! I enjoy them all spring and summer long! 

Since Steve and Nancy O'Bosky were visiting, they were there to take a picture of all of us at Matt and Heather's last night for our Father's Day Dinner. Jody and Darin, we missed you lots! This picture is for you...so you don't forget what we all look like! 

I couldn't resist posting this picture because it gives a great side view of "Baby Beck". Megan has just 9 weeks left until her due date and this weekend it was fun to actually see the little one moving and kicking while we were at the dinner table! Sort of like he was saying Happy Father's Day to everyone there! 

Matt was in charge of the meat! He does an awesome job of barbecuing.....something he has in common with the rest of the Beck men! They do love their barbecues! The moose steaks were delicious! 

Steve and Matt found lots to talk about.....from hunting to cooking deer and moose! 

While Matt was barbecuing the steaks, Heather had everything else under control in the kitchen. This was Nancy's first visit to the log cabin in the woods! 

I couldn't resist taking this picture of one of Heather's plants on her deck! It is unbelievably beautiful and stops everyone who first sees it in their tracks! 

Having Steve and Nancy share Father's Day with us was a blessing! We love you guys!  

Baseball and Other Blessings!

These pictures that I took at the Baseball Diamond are actually a week old, before Dave's Mom headed back to Norcross. She enjoyed sitting with Megan and watching Jamie and Heather play. (Jamie was just in between games here talking to us and Matt was working)

I had great plans to blog them when Dave drove Grandma down to the train station in Everett, Washington later that day, but then life got away from me! It seems to do that often these days. Can any of you relate to that? When you just seem to go from one thing to another and never actually stop and smell the roses. For someone who loves smelling the roses this is almost always a sign that I am running too fast and need to just stop and take a deep breath! So today I am doing that....taking a break in the middle of the day to something I enjoy! Blog!


Some of you may have already seen this picture on Heather's Blog, but I couldn't resist.....she finally got real baseball cleats and they make her feet look even smaller! But they work!


She hits the ball and there she goes! Off to first base on her power cleats!


This was the only shot I actually got of Jamie up to bat....he really smokes the ball when he connects and boy can he run!!! Reminds me of watching Track Meets when he was in school. The coach has to be careful where he puts Jamie in the batting order lest he run over a fellow player in his exuberance to make it home!

So back to my title, what are the other blessings? Those things that we take for granted...like being able to spend time on Saturdays at the Ball Diamond watching our kids play baseball...visiting with Megan and just enjoying God's creation! We treasure those times....and they remind us of days gone by, like the fall Slopitch Season when Jody joined Jamie and Megan and Matt and Heather on the team and we watched all five of them together. This year with Megan pregnant and Matt often missing games because of work, there are only two Becks playing...but we still love to watch! And count our blessings while we do!