Memorial Day

We had a nice quiet weekend for a change- after the last three weekends and all of our summer plans coming up, we decided to do pretty much nothing. 

Nothing other than watering the landscaping and garden twice a day... I'm tired of hauling the hose around, it needs to rain.

Monday morning Cecily and I walked down to the park to the Memorial day service.  It was nice;  then they fired the guns.  I forgot about the guns.  They're loud and poor little miss was very startled.  The first volley she jumped (and I quick covered her ears), the second her little lip started quivering, the third she whimpered a little and then it was over.  Poor girl- I thought it was hilarious.  

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them. ~For the Fallen, Laurence Binyon ~

Landscaping!

Thursday night our landscaping crew showed up!  They made pretty quick work of the boxwood bushes.

Then the rock removal... 

To quote my brother, with whom I now wholeheartedly concur; "I generally do not look kindly on those who turn to rocks as a low maintenance option."

Sharon and Rustin worked on the new brick edge.  (we used less than half of the stack of bricks... )  We ran out of mortar halfway through, so Sharon and I finished it up yesterday.


Hooray for new plants!  I just hope I don't kill them!

This picture just makes me laugh. 

We moved the rocks to the side of the house where nothing grows but weeds.  Not sure if the path will stay or if we'll just do rock.  I kind of like the path and we have tons of patio block to reuse... but it's not super level... hm...  we shall see.  

Then I fed them because I can not help myself.  It's in my blood.  And I'm sooo thankful they were willing to help!

Anyway, before and almost after.  I haven't ordered any mulch yet, I honestly didn't think we'd get this much done in one evening.  Shows what I know.  And that I hate using the phone.  *grin*  

Here's little miss wearing Young Matt's sunglasses while destroying my dollhouse catalog.   



Blessings.

Farmer Girl

They're dropping like flies

So last week was busy again.  I feel like I drove around a lot. 

Friday I went to the farm and dropped off Cecily and borrowed the van, headed north to Paul and Jean's to pick up their play gym (thanks!  and thanks for Kayla's bitty baby!), then drove home and unloaded the play gym, then back to the farm to get little miss and watch Fred and Troy cut down a tree. 

Saturday we went back to the farm for lunch with Lena's family.  Aww, they're not even looking at each other....  hehe.  We got fabric samples so I can make little miss a dress for the wedding.  Hooray!

Ooooh, and Wendi-with-an-i called me in the middle of lunch to tell me she's engaged.  I feel so old.  I told Bob that, "everybody's engaged but me,"  he just looked at me funny....  hehe.

Saturday evening there was a dinner for G and G Koch's 70th wedding anniversary.  Cecily and Hanna playing together...

And then Sunday was church, of course, and Clayton's graduation party in the evening.  Rita and Karen and some of my cousins were there- it was good to see them all.  Rita brought little miss her very first Vera Bradley purse.  She chewed on it all night, so I think she likes it.  Auntie Shelly needs to send me the pictures on her camera...

So after all that, Little miss and I slept in Monday morning (and she proceeded to stay up until 12:30am last night.  ugh.).  We were kind of lazy all day.  Rustin and Sharon and Matt came over after supper and did some prep work for our landscaping.  Then we went to Pinky's for ice cream where we met up with Greg and Mary and crew.  Good times.  

Blessings.

I've got my pack on my back

I've been slacking on blogging lately... o well. 

Last week I was pretty busy.  I helped Kelly paint Wednesday all day, Thursday I went to the farm and picked up camping gear and a trunk load of perennials from Fred and Di's, and Friday I helped paint again in the morning and then we went to Starved Rock that afternoon. 

I don't know why, but my brothers like to call with big news when we're camping.  This time, Matt called to say he was engaged as we were loading the car...  floored would be an understatement.  Anyway, I was slightly flustered and we were in a hurry so I didn't get much more than her name... I suppose I should have called back on the road but by then I was in no state emotionally to talk on the phone... poor Bob.  :D

We had beautiful weather Friday night.  It was our sort of annual Koch cousins camping so Dale & Meg, Jon, Mike, Kevin, and Josh were there too.  

They are all camping experts so we had really good food over the fire...

Little miss liked camping, I think.  She was happy the whole time and slept the whole night.  I slept pretty good too, but I also heard some people yelling at some noisy campers, the guys chasing away a coon and coyote from our food, Dale and Jon scrambling to get their rain fly's on their tents before it started raining.... hehe.  Quite the night. 

There was a slight letup in the rain while we ate our yummy pancake breakfast.

Maria was cracking me up... 



We had to pack up all our stuff in the rain.  Ugh.  Wet tents are the worst.  And since we were already wet we decided to hike in the drizzle.  It rained last Koch camping too.  I don't like camping in the rain. 

Little miss liked the backpack we borrowed.

We don't look like we've been camping, do we?  Hehe.  Hooray for the soggy, greasy look.  

There was actually water running in the canyons!  I've only ever been to Starved Rock in the summer or fall when everything is dry.  So pretty.

I was jealous of Maria- I love to go barefoot in puddles.  Or streams.  

 Then we came home and unpacked our wet gear.  And Cecily wiggled out of her car seat and fell off the table... I found her on her back on the floor... minor freak out.  And then I called her doctor and got a long list of head injury symptoms to watch out for that all sound awful.  happymothersdaytome.

To top it all off I looked in the church book to see how old Lena is.... poor Bob got his shower interrupted twice when I discovered that she's younger than Michelle, and then again when I realized she doesn't turn 18 for two more weeks.  *Blink*  Haha.... and then I did talk to Matt on the phone and he got to listen to me freak out and give him a hard time about being a cradle robber.  I'm excited to meet her this week.  Shelly and I can give her all kinds of inside info on what living with Matt is really like- poor girl can't have any idea what she's getting herself into.  We're kind of a weird family.

He's totally twitterpated already and it's going to be really funny. 

So to make a long weekend longer we went to W-ton today for church and mother's day festivities at the farm. Tomorrow I'm going be lazy and do laundry... wet smoky laundry.  Woot woot. 

Blessings.    

Bricks

So no offence to my older readers, but I've come to the conclusion that there should be a maximum age to purchase bricks and pavers... they card for spray paint, why not for landscaping materials? 

Before.  Hopefully there will be a pretty after sometime soon. 

This is what we've dug out of our front landscaping...

Pretty sure these are supposed to be for patios.

 They had patio blocks laid flat with two layers of bricks glued (not mortared) on top... and then a second row of perpendicular patio blocks sunk behind that.  Yeah.  Overkill much?

And I've gotten about halfway through digging out the bricks on the side. 

Before- all brick.

My mom came over Thursday afternoon and helped keep Cecily occupied... she got to help dig too.  We're planning to reuse some of them for a new brick edge, and our neighbor wants some to build a fire pit, but we still have waaaaay more bricks and pavers than we need. 

Little miss and I went for a walk the other night and stopped to talk to Beulah.  Must have tired her out. 

I set her in the sink so I could do my hair and she could talk to the baby in the mirror.  She got the faucet handle to turn slightly, hence the wet spot on her pants... hehe. 

Blessings.