June Tradition

We went to my mom's house to make strawberry jam this morning, just like we do every year in June.

This year, the girls were really able to help with every step of the process - washing and de-stemming the berries, measuring the berry puree and the sugar (!), stirring, and pouring stickily into containers. They loved it, especially once Jemma got over the fact that I was making her wear a big, old t-shirt and she "didn't look cute!"

The best part of the morning, though, wasn't even the jam-making or the playing or the lunch we ate with my parents, but the part where, after lunch, the girls wandered into the front room where my parents keep a bunch of books and got out the ones that they love. Some of these books are ones my mom has gotten at garage sales, but some are from my childhood. Some have my name or my brother's printed neatly inside the front cover. So while we were clearing up, Annie sat down with one of those, a Halloween story called Popcorn, and read the whole entire thing. My parents stopped what they were doing and stood in the doorway while she read. She turned page after page, looking up through her eyelashes every few seconds to see if we were all still listening. We were.

Then my mom sat down with them and read Go, Dog, Go! and Johnny Appleseed and Snuggle Puppy and Ira Sleeps Over until it was time for us to go.

The girls are resting now and I am crossing my fingers that at least one of them naps because tonight we're headed to a Whitecaps game, and if they are hanging in there, and if they are very lucky, we will try to check "fireworks" off our Summer List today in addition to "make strawberry jam" and "go to a baseball game."