Emmy definitely pushes me to cook/bake more things than I'm naturally inclined to... aka, I'm lazy. She wanted to make a blueberry pie, completely out of the blue, and we happened to have blueberries and I had some pie crust in the freezer from goodness knows how long ago. She also decided that she liked it, so I didn't end up eating the whole thing by myself. woot woot.
We made it to lake day... for as much as they talk about the lake being "icky" it sure is hard to get them out of it when it's time to leave... it was a lovely day to be outside, cooler, nice breeze, they were almost cold out on the water.
My uncle Ed was here from California for a cousin's funeral. We all met over at the Lake for a picnic that evening. "Little" Logan is trying to catch up to Miriel in size.
Cadence and 'Jack-e-boy.' :)
Bob's group at work had a picnic at a park along the Illinois River. While we were waiting to eat a barge went by... it was very exciting.
The girls and some of the other CAT kids were playing down along the shore. I was kind of a spoilsport but they were collecting "sea glass" which, to me, just looked like broken glass (and there was a lot of it) so I suggested they go play at the playground.
Bob supervised while I made several bathroom runs. Why are the bathrooms always soooo faaaarrr from the playground?
Little Miriel is such a trooper and just chilled in the stroller and took a few cat naps.
She's usually completely lacking in attention and stimulation and is completely bored and lonely... or something...
Saturday evening we decided to use our summer reading pizza coupons. We obviously don't take them out enough because they were soooo excited to be eating INSIDE a restaurant it was almost embarrassing. The plan was to go to the splash pad at the riverfront park after supper; then a small thunderstorm came up and it was still drizzling slightly. We checked it out anyway- they weren't interested in getting (more) wet.
They were more interested in the deck out over, and into, the river. The water level is still high, apparently.
I made a little bit of progress on my miniature greenhouse kit. It had been a while and there's much left to do.
Had to document the "Eiffel tower" they built out of duplos- it's taller than Cadence.
So our refrigerator has been dripping inside, down the back for a while. Every so often we'd find a little bit of water on the floor underneath it. I googled possible causes and solutions and never got around to trying anything until I discovered late Sunday night that it was dripping down through the floor boards into the basement. Yay. So the next day I pulled everything out and unplugged it and let it all warm up to see if one of Dr. Google's suggestions would fix it. It didn't. Which is a bummer, but then Bob suggested replacing it and putting it down in the basement and letting it drip/die a natural death down there.
I, of course, am not going to turn down a new fridge- an ice maker! second fridge in the basement! This is all fine by me... so I measured it. We have 65" under the cabinet. Cue foreboding music...
I didn't plant many green beans this year and they have slowly been producing. We had enough to do a few pints and little miss Cadence was my most willing helper with the most unorthodox snipping method.
She's basically a real life doll for them. Poor kid.
We picked up a serendipitous Varage Sale find on Tuesday! Their very own play McDonald's kitchen! haha.
The girls and I went back to re-attempt pictures for Cadence, and we did Miriel's 3 month pictures at the same time. It went much better the second time; so much better that I upped the reward for good behavior to Happy Meals at McDonald's! And then we went to an appliance store. They weren't exactly bad... just imagine three excited girls opening every. single. refrigerator. door. In a refrigerator show room. Repeatedly. While I tried to talk to the marginally helpful salesman. I started feeling slightly worried as we walked around the room and all of the refrigerators were just a little bit, or a lot bit too tall for our opening. I can buy a 64" fridge... but it's narrow apartment size and only 14 cubic feet inside. I want at least 18 cubic ft, like our current fridge. Boo.
We went home empty handed. And I measured the opening three more times. And railed in my head against the inch of space that was lost when previous home owners laid hardwoods over the original floors. I could get a big fridge if I had that extra inch!! So I suggested to Bob that we could just cut the hardwoods out under the fridge... hehe... don't worry, he said no.
We've reached the point in summer where they aren't super excited to go outside. The novelty of sunshine has worn off... so I had to make them go out and play in the sprinkler and their little pool.
An evening walk in the cemetery... We were so excited this spring when they laid down a lovely new, smooth, asphalt base. It was perfect for small wheels! Then they came back and tarred and chipped over top. (Why??) And there is waaay too much chip/gravel on top. Now it's almost too hard for the girls to ride their bikes on, sad news. We are hoping that when they have to plow snow this winter it pushes all of the extra loose gravel off.
Emmy took a bunch of pictures of her toy set up one morning.
We went to the farm to do corn one afternoon. I'm so glad Miriel is so chill. It's probably the reason we are all coping so well. Mom helped me do 20+ full pints of corn. Bob texted to ask if he could invited Dang over for supper... sure, why not, I had a beef roast in the crock pot and plenty of sweet corn, what could go wrong.
Come to find out, it was Dang's Birthday. And we got home from the farm kind of late, and supper was kind of very late, and the rump roast was slightly dry, and there was no dessert in the house except boughten cookies. AND then I looked out and they were out picking my green beans.... poor guy, what a birthday. I ran to Pinky's and got everybody ice cream for a snack, so that maybe slightly redeemed things.
We met Mom and Lena at Summer's pool on Friday. Cecily's swimming has improved enough that I let her swim sans life jacket. Summer's pool also comes with the perks of visiting her kittens and goats... it was a fun afternoon.
On Saturday, after spending insane amounts of time online looking at refrigerators and finding nothing that would fit, I went to another appliance store. This time the salesman was much more helpful, although not able to solve our problems. He told me that manufacturers are moving toward making refrigerators bigger by going taller, because for most kitchens it's easier to replace a top cabinet than mess with the opening width. Remember our lovely 1960's built in place solid wood cabinets that are all one piece and not separate cabinets? Yeah, me too. Soooooo.... at this point the only realistic way to replace our refrigerator is get a carpenter to completely rebuild the cabinet over the fridge. And replace the cabinet doors that I just replaced. I think I'm going to see what it will cost to repair the current one. mur. So much for my dreams for a basement fridge... I should maybe look into used refrigerators too... but I'm afraid longevity would be the same as repairing our current one and doesn't solve the problem long term. *sigh* #olderhouseproblems
My Dad has 81 first cousins. Most of them live in Iowa, but there are a few in Illinois. All of Uncle Andy's boys were going to be in town together for the first time in years so they rented a lake house and were kind enough to invite some of the other local Metzgers for supper Monday evening. Russ brought his two grandkids with him from Colorado- they are more my younger cousins ages. I took the girls over to swim in the afternoon and they talked Carli into taking them on the paddle boat.
Cecily went down the water slide over and over again with Katy. Carli, Cliff, Tate, and Gabe were a little bit more adventurous. Emmy eventually worked up enough courage to go down the slide; Cadence got pushed off the edge when she wasn't expecting it and refused to go down it again.
After supper the fishing poles came out and Ron, Matt, Nathan, and Gabe fished with the kids. My girls didn't end up catching anything, Gabe caught a few that they admired. From a distance. Hehe.
Once again, Miriel was a little trooper and chilled in the stroller and endured being held by people. The girls were having so much fun it took a while to leave. I had to laugh, when I went to say my goodbyes, they were cutting off and putting up the leftover sweet corn ears that my parents brought for supper... only at a Metzger party...
Summer seems to be going by so fast. School starts next week already, sad news. I don't like getting up in the morning and I'm not looking forward to it at all. I think the girls are excited, for the most part. We'll see how the adjustment goes.
Blessings.
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