Little Bovens: Red, White and Blue!

The Bovens were thoroughly patriotic this week, spending the 4th of July in Berrien Springs. We started the day out right with the firefighter's pancake breakfast, starring Firefighter Bompy. Molly participated in some political activism, riding with state representative Dave Pagel (my uncle!) on his tractor in the big Independence Day parade. We topped it off with some fireworks with Grammy. This was Molly's first real fireworks experience. For a while she said "BOOM!" each time the rockets burst in the air and she said "I'm not even scared!" We had fun picking out what each firework looked like - smileys, sunflowers, rocketships!

Fourth of July means more than parties in Berrien Springs. We almost always harvest cherries on or around the fourth. Friday and Saturday we got on our cherry gear and helped harvest the crop. Dave took his usual place in his fork lift, shifting full and empty tanks from the harvester to the shuttle. Molly and I pitched in by driving the tractor shuttle to the cherry cooling pad, where the cherries get a good cold rinsing before being delivered to the processors. Emily and Bryce were able to pitch in on Saturday too, and with Bompy at the harvester and Grammy filling us with sandwiches, doughnuts and cookies, we made a great team!

Party Zoomers! As part of our Chicago Public Library summer reading program, we're working on some science experiments at home. They're a little young to figure out the jet propulsion idea behind this lab, but we had a ton of fun!