Over (the) hill and Under (the) hill and a few points in between

The first half hour to hour after school is just loud and chaotic at our house.  😜 One day I had procured some second hand clothes for Cecily to try on... she couldn't care less so everyone else decided to model them.

And Emmy is learning the trumpet now (which I love).  It. is. so. loud.  😆 Perrin thinks it's the best, which I also love. 

Bob and I both turn 40 this year.  He's already over the hill, I'm still under the hill.  We thought it would be fun to split the difference and have a birthday party for ourselves.  Well, I thought it would be fun- Bob just humored me.  haha. So we invited a bunch of people starting with family... and cousins and potluck and, and, and all of the sudden the invite list was really long and there were still people we would have liked to have invited.  If you've ever told me you read this blog I probably wanted to invite you.... as it was I think I counted 80 people (lots of kids!) who were able to make it that night. 😋

We had several weeks of great weather.  Bob mowed the logging trails, Marv mowed the clearing for us, I had the community center reserved just in case it rained but I really didn't want to use it.  I baked a bunch of cake because I like cake.  The fourth chapter of The Hobbit is called 'Over hill and under hill' so I made a Hobbit hole cake to make the whole thing subtly hobbity. 😊  

I was obsessively checking the weather and after weeks of dry, clear, hot, sunny days.... Friday had a chance of rain.  *gah*  I was not happy and so nervous.  The chance kept getting smaller, but it was still there.  Bob was more optimistic than I was, and we loaded up the van to set up in the woods even though it was cloudy and sprinkling. 

Mr. Perrin is such a helper boy.  He happily picked up walnuts and put them in the bucket.

The kids were so excited.  Oh, and check out the porta-potty.  I had never rented a porta-potty before. 😂

It was raining on us and the sky was completely cloudy and I was a wreck. I didn't know what to do- move it to the community center? Hope it would clear off? How late in the afternoon do we make the call? Emmy later: "Mom was panicking."  

Bob and the kids just calmly went on putting together benches... I thought this was an ingenious idea.  Bob attached a 2x10 to 5 gallon bucket lids and the lids snap onto the buckets.  Better than hay bales and it ended up costing us about the same as renting chairs would have cost.  The buckets are still usable and they don't take up a lot of space for storing!

It stopped misting so we decided to just tough it out in the woods that night and hope it dried out a bit. And went home for supper and a second load of party supplies.

Look at that blue sky.  Cadence: 'Aunt Lori said that her grandma said that if you can see a patch of blue as big as a mans britches it will clear up and it did!'  😋

Over the Hill and Under the Hill. 

I was glad when Mom and Dad showed up to help in the last minute chaos because I am not good at this hosting thing. 

And Jake and Rach came from Iowa! 

So many family and friends. 

And future neighbors...

Mom and Michelle took over the cake and snacks so I could circulate.  😆 I'm an introvert though, so I kind of just wanted to stand back and observe everyone.  😁  A few of our U of I YG  friends were able to come and I feel like I didn't hardly have enough time to catch up with them, and not enough time to talk to anyone, but it was so good to see everyone.  

Perrin and Thalia were having a blast with the ice in the cooler... I don't remember who sent me this, but apparently they were being hilarious.

The older girls spent the evening tearing around in the woods and playing games in the clearing.  Miri stuck a little closer.

So fun.

... a beautiful night under our very own party tree.

We got everything packed into our two vehicles somehow and were home and unloaded before 10pm.  I was so tired. 😝
More people brought 40 themed gifts than expected, and we didn't really have a plan for opening them at the party so the kids helped when we got home that night.  Such a variety- 40 suck(er)s, gag gifts, 40 vintage sewing things, 40 board game accessories, Ali Baba and the 40 thieves picture book wrapped in 40 year old wallpaper, vintage books, toilet paper, various candy, dead flowers, droopy balloons, etc.  So funny.  

So if that wasn't enough excitement for the weekend, we spent Saturday at the farm.  My mom has been putting a Work Day on her Christmas list for a few years now and we've never done it until Michelle took the initiative and organized it!  We had a late night so we showed up late.  I dropped the kids off with babysitters at Nathan and Michelle's house and the rest were already hard at work at the farm. 

They had taken a bunch of old electronics out of the attic, and the boys were sorting things, and I mostly just geeked out over the old family treasures that are up there.  Like Grandpa and Roy's baseball.  They would re-sew the cover when it ripped because it was the during the depression and they couldn't afford to replace it. 

Grandpa Carl's letterman sweaters from the 40's.

They moved a few pieces of furniture up.  The stairs make a very tight turn under the roof so it requires some creative maneuvering. 

My grandpa sold fire alarms for a while in his younger years and this was his demonstration case.  All of these are on the walls in the farm house too... 😊

Bob and Nathan worked on repairing porch screens, the fence got painted, a couple hard to reach windows got washed.

We picked the kids up around 2:30.

New porch and pole lights...

And they started cleaning out the barn a bit.  It hasn't been used for animals in a while and Mom wanted the haymow access to be cleaner for the kids.... fewer dead cat skeletons, etc.  Jake actually found a catfish skull in the pile of old straw! 😂

Dad had some extra sand a few weeks ago so he just built the kids a sandbox. It's in the same spot as the one we had as kids, minus the fence.  :)

Painting the old wood shop garage might have to go on the list for next time...  When my Great-grandparents built the farm house they tore down the old house they were living in and used some of the lumber in the new house, so they lived in this garage for a while.  Right next to it is the half quonset hut my Great-grandpa designed and built... incidentally the only style of 'shouse' I'm excited about.  

It was super hot but the kids didn't care.  Perrin liked the little tractor (it had a remote control so an adult could drive it around!) until somebody drove him into a bush.  😂

We celebrated Liezel's birthday after supper.

Fed the cows.

And picked grapes. 

Mom and Dad also showed us their Alaska pictures.  😊

It was a big day.
Sunday evening I took the girls to the Chili supper.  After two days of being outside a lot Bob was stuffed up and running on benadryl so he decided to stay home with Perrin. The girls made me go on the hay rack ride.  It was on the warm side but it was a beautiful evening.

This week was supposed to be quieter.  Monday afternoon puppet show...

Tried our neighbors recipe for grape pie.  It wasn't bad, though I was skeptical at this stage!  It called for some of the skins to be put in with the pulp and the texture of those was a little weird. 

My big helper was handing me tools while I replaced the ice maker water valve and line.  (It worked! No more leaks and we have ice again! Woohoo!)

The pie tasted like grape jam in pie crust with some chewy bits from the skins, not bad, but not my favorite.  I don't love grape things anyway.  :)

One of our friends from UIYG texted early in the week wondering if their family could spend Friday night at our house before a conference at church.   I said sure! and then promptly panicked because we rarely have overnight guests and I wasn't sure how to make it work.  We decided to just give them all the bedrooms and camp out in the basement.  The kids were soooo excited. 

Matthew and Alicia and kids showed up around 9, so we didn't have a whole lot of time before we had to get all the kids to bed... ours settled down pretty quickly, except for Perrin, of course. 

And I'm getting old because a therma-rest plus feather mattress pad still felt like sleeping on concrete. 😂 It didn't help that Perrin was next to me and kept waking me up and rolling over and kicking me.... woot.  Not exactly restful.

The kids stayed at our house during the morning.  We had some fashion design going on.

And they raked leaf paths for the gator and had a little town all laid out.

Board games...

And some Mario Kart, of course.

We sent them off to Greg and Mary's after lunch and we headed to Wyss cousins night! Day. Quest. Thing.

Nathan and Michelle live on a hill and set up a slip and slide.

They kept sliding into the grass, which turned into mud.  ha.

Certain of my old married mature and responsible cousins *cough* Kray, slid down on his feet and almost ran into the lake before he got his feet under control.  😂

Kids in the sandbox.

After they got the mud hosed off, the kids went in the 'cold tub'.  Cold because the heater's not working.  🥶

Supper was haystacks, a Wyss Vaca classic. 

Good times.

And great people.  I am very biased, I'll admit it, but I do have some pretty great cousins and I very much appreciate who my 'little cousins' are growing up to be. 
Then church today... it was another big weekend and I am just tired.  So when Perrin insisted that his firetruck shirt was pants this afternoon we just went with it.  😂

Blessings.