Patience and Peaches
Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a safe and happy Fourth of July! I know it is always tough when it falls in the middle of the week, but hopefully everyone found some time to spend with friends, family, and some good food. We have been busy the past couple of weeks as usual. The weekend before this past one we traveled to Raleigh and Dunn for some family time and had a great trip. Friday night we celebrated Annie's graduation at the Durham Bulls game. I wish I had some pictures to post but it was 105 degrees, we were all sweaty and hot, so we decided to skip the photo shoots and just enjoy each other :) The next morning we got to meet Sara and Britt for some breakfast and then we had a very important task to accomplish! James wanted Mason to have a newborn ECU hat to wear in the hospital and so far online he hadn't found just the right one. We went to Crabtree on Saturday morning and visited the Alumni Store and James found exactly the hat he wanted Mason to wear. I won't ruin it, I am sure we will have pictures when he is wearing it...but it is super precious and something he will always have from his Dad. After that we ventured off to Dunn for the night and we got another very important task accomplished!
On Sunday morning I got an awesome surprise. Randy and Claudette have a peach tree in their yard that produces the most amazing peaches every summer. Well, the past two summers as James was training and we were between homes (boot camp and Pensacola!) I spent lots of time in Dunn which means I spent lots of time eating very fresh and delicious peaches and in very large quantities. (Probably my favorite fruit ever.) Obviously, this summer I wasn't in Dunn to enjoy the peach tree and was pretty salty about it. I attempted, I think twice, to buy peaches at the grocery store and was never satisfied. So imagine my happiness when Claudette informed me one of her friends that she teaches with actually has a peach orchard. What?? So we set off on Sunday morning to go pick peaches. And oh did I pick lots of them.
I was in absolute heaven. There were so many peach trees and we filled up lots of grocery bags full of them. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with all of them until Gina that owns the orchard told me you can slice them and freeze them and they will keep up to a year. I seriously thought I was going to die from peach happiness overload. Fresh summer peaches all year long? Yes, please. I was nice though and delivered them to neighbors and friends. But, when Randy and Claudette came up to Norfolk this past weekend they brought me even MORE peaches that Claudette had gone back and picked so I am stocked. I have so many peaches and am excited about cobbler, making baby food, and just pulling them out of the freezer whenever I want and tasting a fresh peach.
So, if you are a peach lover like me, and you know somewhere that you can get amazing fresh peaches, slice some up and put them in your freezer to enjoy later in the year. Some articles I read said you can sprinkle sugar (or a substitue) over them for a preservative, but I opted not to on most of mine. Mainly because they are already so sweet, but the peach juice acts as its own preservative so it will hold texture and taste. Now if only I could figure out a way to freeze Watermelon I would be set.
I was 36 weeks Saturday so here how big the monster has gotten! My next doctor's appointment is this Friday, and it will be my first check to see if there has been any progress. I have had a few contractions here and there but other than that it has been pretty quiet on the Mason front. I'm just hoping he is head down - everyone keeps asking me if he has dropped and I haven't the faintest idea. I don't see how he could drop anywhere but out, he has no room left. Hopefully I can answer that question for you in an update Friday, so stay tuned!
Granddaddy helped put the stroller together and the
carseat! It had been waiting in Dunn since we couldn't fit it in our car after the couples shower. And we even got the carseat put in the car and ready for his arrival! Can you tell once again that this is something Dad picked out? The stroller and carseat are purple and black. I hope Mason does like the Pirates. I know until he has an opinion of his own he doesn't have much of a choice :) It is very weird driving around with that thing in the backseat, but it is one more thing off the checklist! Thanks to Granny and Granddad Hardison for the stroller and carseat! It looks pretty awesome!
On Sunday morning I got an awesome surprise. Randy and Claudette have a peach tree in their yard that produces the most amazing peaches every summer. Well, the past two summers as James was training and we were between homes (boot camp and Pensacola!) I spent lots of time in Dunn which means I spent lots of time eating very fresh and delicious peaches and in very large quantities. (Probably my favorite fruit ever.) Obviously, this summer I wasn't in Dunn to enjoy the peach tree and was pretty salty about it. I attempted, I think twice, to buy peaches at the grocery store and was never satisfied. So imagine my happiness when Claudette informed me one of her friends that she teaches with actually has a peach orchard. What?? So we set off on Sunday morning to go pick peaches. And oh did I pick lots of them.
I was in absolute heaven. There were so many peach trees and we filled up lots of grocery bags full of them. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with all of them until Gina that owns the orchard told me you can slice them and freeze them and they will keep up to a year. I seriously thought I was going to die from peach happiness overload. Fresh summer peaches all year long? Yes, please. I was nice though and delivered them to neighbors and friends. But, when Randy and Claudette came up to Norfolk this past weekend they brought me even MORE peaches that Claudette had gone back and picked so I am stocked. I have so many peaches and am excited about cobbler, making baby food, and just pulling them out of the freezer whenever I want and tasting a fresh peach. 
So, if you are a peach lover like me, and you know somewhere that you can get amazing fresh peaches, slice some up and put them in your freezer to enjoy later in the year. Some articles I read said you can sprinkle sugar (or a substitue) over them for a preservative, but I opted not to on most of mine. Mainly because they are already so sweet, but the peach juice acts as its own preservative so it will hold texture and taste. Now if only I could figure out a way to freeze Watermelon I would be set.
As for other news, we won't have much around here. We had an amazing weekend with Randy and Claudette in Norfolk, they left yesterday afternoon. They got to see the USS Roosevelt and then we took them on base to see all the other ships in the water. We ate lots of good food including BBQ, ice cream, wings (I am going to walk Lilly as soon as I finish this blog post to walk some of it off, ha!) and of course took Randy to get some oysters Saturday night. My sister had a birthday on Saturday and this is the first one I haven't celebrated with her at the beach in years, so that was definitely sad but I hear Dad took very good care of her and her friends and they had a great weekend. Happy Birthday Annie!
On Friday afternoon I was outside and James snapped a belly pic for me.
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