Looky what Maggie shot! Last night Maggie shot her first grey fox...and on her first shot! We have two foxes that have become very daring lately. Time to make them go away. So now the fox is at the taxidermy and will be tanned into a nice pliable hide. Maggie goes back to pick it up in one month. She can hardly wait!

Maggie researched how to go about shooting the fox, downloaded 11 fox calls onto her mp3 player, then went out after dark with her Daddy...and 10 minutes later she bagged her fox! She found the 11 fox calls on this free website here. We are so happy for her! Now we have one more troublesome fox.

(Maggie is able to hold the fox with her left hand because that hand/arm is now considered healed...but the fox was very heavy!)

Last weekend we had beautiful weather for two days, so we headed down to Virginia to my parents' weekend home. I always like waking up and going into the kitchen to enjoy the scenery outside their windows.

The house is on a cove, so there's very little traffic.

The weather here has been dry as well. Dad normally plants his garden here, but since they've listed the house for sale, Dad didn't plant anything.

This is the view from the sofa. I enjoy watching cooking shows while doing hand sewing and keeping an eye on the water.

My children had fun kayaking and collecting seashells.

Later on in the day, they went water skiing and jet skiing.
Right before we left Maryland, the girls went out to the berry patch and picked raspberries and blackberries to take with them.

They made delicious pies.

As usual, we ate well while in VA. Amish corn from MD! Tomatoes and corn in VA are very expensive...but the blue crabs are only $50/bushel!!

Dad made a pot of his famous green beans and potatoes.

We nibbled on leftover berries the whole time.

Oops, this pic is sideways. We ate lots of salad.

We loved this dressing Mom served...yummy!

Poor Mike...57 years young and he gets winded after spending the afternoon water skiing! We like to tease him because he has the energy of a 20 year old.

Allen enjoyed sneaking off to the back bedroom to watch the history channel. He learned all about the Masons and their history. I often wish we could get tv for one channel...the history channel. When we were in Texas for 6 weeks, Allen learned all about American History thanks to this channel...and Grandaddy. But he reminded me that even the history channel has the worldly commercials.

Here's a picture. Ruthie cut herself on a shell on the beach. Ouch! It sure hurt! She limped around for a few days but now all is better. I'm putting this picture up to remind me to do an annual immunizations check for our family. We don't do many immunizations, but tetanus is a must. So Regina and Bev, our beloved nurses, we will be down soon!

Just like at home, you never know where everyone will end up sleeping! Allen got scared by all the windows and ended up on the air mattress with Ruthie. In Maryland Allen has been known to end up on Anna's trundle bed. Sometimes I find someone sleeping in the family room on the futon. Whatever it takes!

So we had a great time. I felt badly for Mom and Dad who came home in time to get ready for a huge July 4th picnic. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

I am slowly catching up. We were supposed to go to another part of VA this week to kayak on the Shenandoah River. But the extreme heat and low water levels forced us to put that trip off until September. Mike will be taking our children to the Smithsonian museums while Ruthie remains in hibernation. She's enjoying the summer watching videos and eating snowballs.

Our missionary friends who are living in Kenya, Africa, wrote on facebook today that their current temp today is 47 degrees...the coldest they have ever had during their past 5 years there. Wow!

Keep cool. Many blessings ~ Kathie