Fresh Squeezed...

There are few smells more delightful than that of an orange blossom. I remember my husband and his family raving about the orange blossoms in March and how wonderful they were, yet I couldn't understand their excitement of it all...until I moved here. Let me tell you, the blossoms are as wonderful as everyone described. (unless you're prone to allergies and then they wouldn't be nearly as delightful!) We have 12 orange trees in our yard and the smell starts to seep in through the doors and windows. It's fantastic and we'll enjoy every minute of it for almost two weeks. The kids don't fully appreciate the blossoms, but they appreciate the oranges. Yesterday they spent the majority of the morning and early afternoon outside picking oranges and making juice. It's quite the process for such small hands!

They used the slide as a ladder moving it around to all the lowest hanging branches. After picking the oranges, they would peel them. (It would've been much easier to cut them but that would require a knife and adult supervision. This was a kids only activity.) And then the squeezing began. They squeezed for hours for a good size cup of juice for each of them. The one time I went to check on them, Hallie was hard at work with a nearly full cup of juice. As she squeezed her hands as hard as she could I could see the juice running down - flavored with the dirt from her hands. I was sad for her as a good cup of juice was ruined. I helped her wash her hands and suggest she start with a fresh cup but she refused to let go of the cup she had already filled. She drank it, dirt and all!

Being the wonderful wife that I am, I warned my germaphobe husband of the dirt infested orange juice popsicle his daughter had saved for him in the freezer. We convinced her that it would be a special treat if she ate it. She jumped at the chance and Steve was able to dodge a dirty bullet!