Little Free Library

 

David wanted to get me something special for my graduation gift. After much thought I decided that the perfect gift for a newly appointed librarian would be her own little library.

We ordered a kit from LittleFreeLibrary.org.

It came preassembled and I got to decorate it and make it my own.

It took me a while to pick our a color scheme and design...but finally settled on one!

 

I actually had fun painting it!

Since our house isn't on the sidewalk side of the street we decided that the best place to put our new little library was up our neighborhood's swim and tennis club. This way it would see a lot of foot traffic and hopefully share lots of books with the neighborhood!

We had some good little helpers install the post and library!

A few weeks later the vinyl signs I requested from a friend arrived!

I think they put the perfect finishing touches on the library!

I am so excited to share this with our new neighborhood and the boys and I check it often to see what books have been added and which ones have been taken. 

This new librarian is happily managing my first Little Free Library!

Spring Tennis

 

Finley was able to play on two tennis teams this past spring for our tennis club at Ridgewood.

He was on a Friday night Gate City Junior team and a Saturday Junior Team Tennis team. 

When the matches were at home we felt comfortable enough to bring the boys along to watch! Well sort of watch...lol!

 

Finley has really improved so much and is even playing up at the 14 and under age division for both of his teams.

His Friday night Gate City Junior team finished in second place out of 10 teams and only missed first place by a few points! Finley went 13 - 4 playing both singles and doubles.

His Saturday team had some tough competition and they finished in the middle of the pack, 5th out of 9 teams. He went 1-2 for singles and 6-3 for doubles. 

At the end of his Gate City league they had a singles tournament for their top players. Finley got a tough draw and lost in the first round 6-4 in a super tight match! His friend from Ridgewood Finn made it all the way to the finals!

Finley plans to do a few tennis camps this summer and hopefully play in some more leagues. We love watching him learn and grow and seeing him improve so much!

We are so grateful for this outlet for him since he did remote learning all year. He has made some great friends and we love being a part of our Ridgewood tennis community.

 

First Time Pickers

 

It is finally safe enough to start taking the boys out and about more and just in time for strawberry picking!

Now that we live on the other side of town, we decided to try out a new strawberry farm closer to home.

We went to Freedom House strawberry farm in Summerfield and you can either buy pre-picked or pick your own.

It had been a little cooler lately, so picking took a little more time to find the best and ripest strawberries...but they still tasted delicious!

 

The boys really enjoyed helping us pick berries!

And I was surprised they didn't try to eat more! I eventually had to encourage them to try them out and taste a few. 

We definitely missed the farm animals, ice cream, and goat feeding from Ingram farms where we went before. Freedom house was simply strawberry picking and nothing else to do or see there, but we still had a good time and got some great strawberries.

We ended up buying some pre-picked strawberries to go along with what we picked to make freezer jam. When we got home we realized we had way more than we needed so gave some to a few neighbors! We made three batches of freezer jam and are hoping this time it will last us for the entire year! I'm so glad we were finally able to take the boys strawberry picking!