Groundbreaking

 The week of conference week was busy.  There were peaches to can, house to clean for overnight company, food to make for the conference, tea party to prepare for... why is so much of my extra stress self manufactured?  ha.
Cecily was super helpful all week.  She did all of the laundry for me, folded all of it, and put most of it away.  And then when she didn't have anything else to do she tidied.  Which is great, but our pen and pencil cup did not really need to be sorted... 😜 (It got to where the rest of us would set something down and she would put it away.... we weren't done with that!  haha.) 

The mousies invited us to a Brambly Hedge inspired tea party.

 

The girls helped get ready for it, and made name cards, charcuterie, lemonade, and Emmy spent hours setting up and photographing little scenes.  

Bob got roped in to setting up outside. :)  He's such a good sport.

Perrin likes snacks.

Say cheese of me!

 I dug out my Mom's little china tea set, and china cups a friend passed on to us. 

Perrin wanted to drink out of the tea set cups..... that required a lot of refills...  Also, none of the local grocery stores had macarons in stock, and my last minute attempt to make some were so-so.  

Duck, duck, mouse! 

Bob and I were registration co-chairs for the conference.  Brent and Janelle did most of the work; organizing spreadsheets, printing and stuffing lanyards, etc.  We just got to be the smiling faces who checked people in.  I was signed up to wait a table Wednesday evening and Bob was checking in Elders.  They didn't end up filling my table, so that was an easy shift... and we got to eat supper together without a bunch of distractions... date night at the elder conference. 😆 

Thursday evening the Sunday School did a program for the Elder's wives so all seven of us went for that.  The kids did great, Perrin was even singing along to his new favorite song, 'I shall not be moved.'

Friday evening we were both at the registration table.  I enjoyed seeing all the people, and we got another really good meal.  (These things always remind me how lackluster my cooking is.) We got to keep Jason K. overnight, so that was fun.  

We had to be at church really early Saturday morning and I had not slept well. The house was hot, Perrin would not go to sleep until late, I kept waking up.... mur.  But we made it to church a little bit after 6:30, and I found the Dr. Pepper in the volunteer break area.  We left our kids sleeping, breakfast out, the coffee maker on, and car keys for Jason.  Haha.  I was very glad we weren't keeping a total stranger, since we probably weren't the best hosts.   We did not stay for the conference itself, so we got to see the parking lot completely full (and the grass full) on our way back to our van.  

It was a good week.  I enjoyed the statistics they sent out and could add that my kids ate 4 frozen pizzas, two boxes of mac and cheese, and drank two 2-liters of pop while they were fending for themselves.  Also, Bob wore all of his white shirts, and all of his black socks- including his McGrath Law socks. 😂

We had just a few days before school started again.  I had most of the supplies bought, but it was a little bit of a scramble to get them sorted.  It was hot and we were mostly couch potatoes soaking up our last days of freedom.

The Brakers had the cousins over to slip and slide. 

And swim. And eat popsicles.

It took the little two a while to work up their courage, but they ended up loving it.

Mr. Perrin found some trucks, of course.

And then the good times were over and back to school they went.  mur.  I don't like setting an alarm.  So far they are glad to see their friends again, but nobody is excited about homework.  😋

I got invited to a murder mystery dinner.  I was supposed to be a Danish art dealer in the 1940's and the costume suggestion was 'low cut evening gown.'  I have no evening gown, but I do have a velvet beret that was my Grandma Schlipf's.  Emmy told me that 'it's not giving art dealer.'  Oh well.  It was a fun evening and thankfully I was not the murderer.  😁 

Perrin has been waking up and going to bed at inconsistent times again.  I don't know if it's because school started, or what.  Some days he sleeps through the girls getting up, some days he's up with them.  Then he's tired and falls asleep mid afternoon and won't fall asleep at bedtime.  It's frustrating.  He was pretty out of sorts the morning of his first day of Sunday School and it didn't go very well. Then we found him like this after church.  *sigh* 

So.  Conrad found a different foundation company that could get to us sooner, woohoo.  But then 'we'll dig on Monday' became Wednesday became the next Monday at the latest... yeah...  But they actually started digging on Monday!  There was great rejoicing!  

Mom and Dad came to check it out and Perrin had Dad building a house with driveway rocks. 😊

We all came back out after school.  

I was worried about deep holes and fearless kids, but since it's a new old house that will sit up out of the ground a bit we aren't digging quite so deep. (And I'm not so nervous.) 

Slightly damp clay stains so badly.......  

Excavators are the coolest things ever.

This is the second crib mattress frame our kids have bent by jumping on it. fkjdjf So we took it down and now Perrin just gets a mattress on the floor.   

Such a helper boy.  I'm really not at all sentimental or sad to be taking the crib down- it mostly just makes me think of not sleeping and exhaustion. 

Another trip to check on dig progress.  :)  

And my onion peeler helper.  

So many pictures of a big hole in the dirt. Sorry, not sorry.  

I've been fighting the dishwasher lately.  It turned pink, I bleached it and turned up the water heater, it got better, then one of the spinning parts came off and the pink came back.  Soooo I ordered a new part and bleached it again.  I really, really, don't want to have to call a repair guy or replace it.  #stubbornwysswoman  

They have named all of the different peaks of the dirt piles.  

Perrin likes this construction stuff.  We went out Saturday and a couple of guys were there working on footing forms.  "Oh! They forgot their top clothes!"  (aka shirts.... bottom clothes, top clothes, it cracks me up.)

So fun to see the blueprints come to life!

Now that we have a large dirt pile, Dad brought out my very own excavator.  Grandpa W made us one for our sandbox when we were little, then he made one for each of his grands individually. It's been in Dad's shed, since it would not fit in our tractor tire sandbox in town. 

It had a yellow tag with my name on it.  Grandpa used these yellow tags for everything around the farm.  

Everybody needed to try it, but Perrin has claimed it.  ha.

Dad, Matt, and the boys came to see our large dirt piles.  

Already supervising.

It was hot, so nobody was excited to dig potatoes later that afternoon.  And yes, the crabgrass took over the garden and I probably need to use the string trimmer in there again.

This week will hopefully involve canning tomatoes, mowing, and maybe even some concrete!  Exciting times.  

Blessings.

Summer is far too short

The rest of July went so fast. We've kept fairly busy, which is good and bad. 

We got invited to swim at Janet's and they have a cool slide.  Perrin was so excited, until he went down it.  He got about halfway down and realized it was taller and faster than he liked and he was going to land in the water.  He stopped himself right at the very end of the slide and insisted I come catch him. 😂 

Rustin brought a trailer over and they moved the shed out to the woods.

Such excitement.

Michelle and I took our kids to Dragonland one afternoon.  The older ones didn't stop going up and down the slides; Perrin took a while to warm up to the dragon slide... he loved it once he decided it wasn't as scary as Janet's.  

Little stinker is always hungry right before supper.  I caught him quietly tearing off the points of the cheese slices on our subs.  

The kids have been soooo excited for Mini-Wyss vacation. We went up to Grand Bear Resort again.

We went hiking into one of the canyons.

 

 

 

 Perrin managed to get completely soaked, of course.  

 

 

How many cousins can you fit on a gate?

Mini golf always sounds fun, but ends up with a lot of grumpy kids... ha.  And we don't have an Uncle Randy to take us out for custard afterward.  😋

Did I let Perrin eat a 'yunchable' instead of the home cooked meal he would have disdained? Yes, yes I did.  

😊

If you remember, the last time we were here, there was a rather large fire after we left. So we had to check out the progress on the new units. 

Stickers with Grandpa.

Shaun the Sheep...

...and snacks.

Emmy wanted to hold baby Ivan. 

Nathan is great about playing games with the kids.

This was grandkid picture attempt number 2.  Both Perrin and Carl are about the make a run for it.  I don't have pictures of attempt number 1, because I was crouched in the back, holding Perrin up because, 'pictures is stoopid.' 😜

Guess who just helped himself to an open can of soda and poured it down the front of his pj's.  

We went to the water park every day we were there, and I have very few pictures of that.  The kids loved it.  It rained enough that we weren't able to do any more hiking, but Mom and Emmy and I went to an antique store.  And we all made it to the Starved Rock visitors center and gift shop. (Yay polished rocks....)  It was a good time.

It's always hard to come back to real life in the summer.  We dove straight back in to produce, and church lunch baking.  Cadence helped make cookies. 

Emmy made a hollyhock doll wedding.  😋

Conrad's going to be part of the family if we ever get this house project done. One time he stopped by and I had just been in the garden, dirty, dripping sweat, and drinking out of the hose. 😜 Also he doesn't seem to mind the kid chaos.

The sweet corn was ready so we went to the farm.  The kids swam and made boats.

I about sweated to death.  It was so hot. But we got it all done. 

Serving lunch at church just makes me nervous.  *sigh* The kids are finally old enough to be helpful setting up.

Mostly.  😏

Perrin was a trooper Sunday morning.  He is not used to being up so early.  He built a box fort in the corner and kept himself occupied for quite a while.... until Grandma came with her toys.  

We survived, though we ran out of meat again.  adjlksjlkfj.  So embarrassing.  But, to quote a sage, "you don't die that easy."  Anyway, I went home and took a nap and so did Mr. Buster. 

Washing rugs on a hot day.

And washing garbage cans...

... turned into whatever this is.

And then they dragged the pool to the front yard.  The neighbors probably have no idea what to think about us.  

All the lake day people were at 4H so we went to Rachel's pool.  It was another hot, hot day.  So hot that it was almost not even refreshing to swim.  I don't like heat and humidity.

The girls each got to pick a book from the Library for summer reading, and Cadence picked a book about some kids climbing on Mt Everest.  When we finished it, I let them spend a hot summer afternoon watching a documentary about the youngest girl (13 years old!) to summit Everest.  Which led to much talk of climbing Everest, which led to talk of trekking to Everest Base Camp, which led to wondering if Kacie would come with them, and maybe Grandpa too.  These too were occupied for most of an afternoon planning and plotting.

Research.... I was explaining to Bob that you can trek from Kathmandu to base camp- 'no Mom, from Lukla.'  Well, excuse me.  😂 They also weren't sure if they'd let me come along.  

Buster Brown is more interested in setting up monster truck rallies.  

The peaches were in so Mom dropped mine off and brought the boys to play for a while.  Some of them mixed charcoal and water and painted themselves- 'this is the dirtiest I've ever gotten in one day!'  *sigh*

Others of them buried a cicada that met an untimely end.  

When it cooled off a little we had our annual day of whining and complaining about having to pick up the boxwood trimmings from all of three small boxwood bushes.  

Cruising on a summer evening.  

We took trail cams out to the woods... the kids are obsessed with opening the shed lock.  

There are some holes settling out where they trenched the electric lines and Perrin was so enthusiastic about filling them.  :)  

We were hoping to have dug a hole by now.  But the foundation company keeps pushing us out... 2-3 weeks became another 4-6 weeks.  bleah.  It's frustrating.  And hard not to get a little anxious since half of our subs are planning on retiring soon. 😝 And one of our carpenters needs to farm this fall. Also hvac planning has been difficult and the price of that increased, and the septic doubled, and tariffs.  And the whole world's at sixes and sevens, and why the house hasn't fallen down about our ears long ago is a miracle to me.

Anyway.  Blessings.