June, part the second- Vacation!

On to vacation!  Since we weren't sure if/when we'd be building this summer we didn't plan to take a vacation with just the kids.  Instead, I looked for some things to do before and after Wyss vacation.  We were heading to the Ozarks so our first stop was at Dickson Mounds.  None of us had ever been before, Bob is interested in pre-columbian history, I am interested in all things native American, plus I haven't met a museum yet that I didn't like.  :)  (It's hardly a vacation if you don't go to at least one museum! My children don't agree, but I'm pretty sure they'll thank me some day.)  

We drove through Emiquon to get there, all of the water was very different from our usual cornfields.  The kids liked the observation deck.

They did not let me read all of the signs in the exhibits, but I will survive.  They really liked this interactive kids play setup where they could build their own Mississipian village.

Perrin said his favorite part was the eagles eating the fish.... the display at the front door of course. 

We visited the three archeological dig sites that they have preserved and then everyone was hangry so we chose our route towards Missouri based on the nearest fast food.  So we can now all say we have been through the 'Purple Martin Capital of the Nation.'

I was supposed to bring garlic bread for supper that night but we were behind schedule, of course.  We pulled in at 6 and handed the bread off to Michelle who had the oven in her cabin preheated, waiting for us.  

Breakfast on the deck.  Perrin stuck his fork through his donut like an axle and ate it like that.  😜  

The Braker girls brought hair tinsel, and my cousins brought nail polish.  Certain of my girls were so excited. ha.  We don't usually go in for such vanity here. 

 It was a bit of a rainy weekend so the kids spent a fair amount of time playing mario kart.  

Kate had a birthday and she graciously shared her presents. 

Talking farming before devotions. 

The kids loved the pool.

It rained all day on Sunday... people showed up to breakfast in garbage sacks and ponchos.  😂  We had some guests from neighboring cabins for vacation church. 

The weather kept saying it was going to clear off, but it didn't.  I took kids swimming in the rain while we waited.  

They really wanted to go on the boat and it was only drizzling so Abby and Tyler agreed to take the kids out.

They tubed for a while in the rain.  The lake was so calm!  Usually the Ozarks is full of boats and super choppy but we saw only 2 or three other people out.

 Tyler and Abby want to teach their kids to ski, and it was perfect water for learning.  I made my three older girls try it too and they all got up! (I'm so proud.) 

 

Long ago when I learned to ski on Lake Barkley, KY, I remember we jumped in, Uncle Randy tossed us skis and the rope, said 'lean back and keep your skis together,' and off the boat went.  The girls don't know how good they have it; Tyler got in with them, helped them get skis on, held them straight in the water, grabbed the rope, and helped push them up when the boat took off.   

It was drizzling through 4 kids trying skis... and then we saw lightning, so we high tailed it back to the dock and the other kids tried again the next day.

Waiting for supper is hard on vacation. 

The kids learned how to play 'never have I ever.'

Mr. Buster and 'Thalia my friend!'

Another rainy day at the pool. :)  

Emmy had 'jump off the dock' on her vacation bucket list so I jumped in with her.  Perrin and Miri were not so sure about it.  Once we jumped once though, he wanted us to go in again.  

Waterlogged and happy kiddos.

The kids were not excited to go home.  We stopped at the resort office and they had kids T's on clearance and we came home with three. "So we can remember." 😜😂

It was a good weekend, though I don't feel like I got to spend as much time hanging out with people as I would have liked.  The rain and watching kids made it hard.  The 39th annual was successful... on to the 40th!  (Crazy!)

On the way home we stopped in St. Louis at the Arch.  Perrin would have been content watching the cars on the highway from the walkway. 

One of them must have felt nervous, because I didn't tell them to hold hands...

Perrin refused to take a picture with his sisters, so we tried a girls picture.

And a guys picture.... except Miri jumped in and Perrin refused to do that either. 😑

There's a museum under the Arch... the kids were thrilled. hehe.

We didn't take the tram to the top.  We weren't sure if we were going to make the stop at the Arch until that morning, and we would have needed to get tickets in advance.  Maybe sometime we'll come back when everybody is old enough to enjoy it?  

We made it home safely, just in time for the green beans to be ready.

Also just in time for the power company to trench up a long forgotten culvert under our neighbors driveway. 

Somebody liked the tracks left in the dirt.

He wanted to help smooth things out so bad.  :P 

Unfortunately Miri, then Cadence spent a day and a half each on the couch with a post vacation fever, threw up once and were fine.  *sigh* 

I have been putting off potty training because it's miserable and I.just.don't.want.to.do.it, but it's time.  So we tried undies for a few hours on the 4th of July (Independence Day!).  It went as expected.  'Twill be a long slow slog, but it must be done.  

Bob stayed home with Cadence since she still wasn't feeling well, and the rest of us went to Ron and Kary's for fireworks.  Perrin headed straight to the pirate ship playground. 

He would have stayed there all night, but he did come watch fireworks with me when it got dark.  

They do not know how to play pool.... it's always a late night when we stay for Root Beer floats.

We were all healthy enough for the Koch waterfight!  

Perrin was grouchy and really wanted to swim in the splash pool for the water slide. And wanted squirt guns.

And then he was just done with being wet so we went back to the barn and he happily played with cars. *sigh*

Until it was time for ice cream.

Our contractor wants a small shed on the property to lock up tools so Bob has been building it in the garage with lots of helpful helpers.  (It's mostly level in the garage and if you run a fan and crack the door to the house it's tolerably cool in there.)  Most of the pre-punched holes didn't line up, of course, so it was a process.

Of course we can't park in the garage when there is a shed in the garage so that is slightly amusing.  

So yeah, damped sine curve.  So far we've needed to up our septic capacity because we put a closet in our office (that only has three walls) because if it has a closet it's a 'bedroom.'  And the county didn't like our joist/truss plan, and they sent the permits to the wrong contractor (similar name), and filled the permit out wrong, and, and, and all of these things cost more money so I'm afraid when we get to the fun part of decorating it's basically going to end up being a boring builder grade box.  😜 Oh well.  We're in it for more bedrooms and the location and not the aesthetics, right?  

Blessings. 

June, part the first

When I go so long between blog posts, I forget things.  Oh well.  I'm getting old and my memory is slipping already.  

We didn't have much of a pool for a while.  I think we maxed out the turtle. 😄

Turkey Fest weekend was busy.  We ate turkey twice and Cecily and I did our civic duty and made sandwiches.   

We only took three kids to the parade.

The other two wanted to march in the band, which I love. Emmy carried the banner with a friend, Cecily played her flute.

Perrin was excited to see a green tractor.  The ratio of green to red tractors is far too small.  😋

 Perrin and I tagged along to the woods one evening during VBS. Bob wanted to mow a few spots and Perrin wanted to visit 'his' landing.   

It requires a bit of bushwhacking this time of year, but it's worth it. 

It's not a problem.  I can quit.  haha.  Actually, between finding a few last antique fixtures and taking advantage of Memorial day sales, I have enough decorative fixtures for the new house so I have to stop collecting. 😕

Swimming lessons always start off chilly and by the end of two weeks we're baking on the pool deck. 

I only had to take two kids this year- the older two watched Perrin at home and it was So.Nice.

We picked wild black raspberries and made jam, which I love.  And made another trip to the creek.

I ran out of canned tomato sauce.  Last fall when I was tired of canning and had run out of jars I put several bags of whole tomatoes in the freezer to deal with later... fully intending to make sauce out of them.  Well..... now it's June and much later and I finally made more tomato sauce. Eight more quarts worth. 😆

We heard that the price of Anderson windows was going up at the end of June so we needed to order them asap.  I took all of the kids along with me to the showroom, which also had a bunch of doors set up in a circle.  (It's a house! Lets open them all! and then slam them and pinch fingers and run around and be loud.... sigh)  

This was an exciting day! We have a well!  It's 183' deep and pumps at 30 gal/min.  It was blazing hot that afternoon and you can't really see much so we didn't stick around very long, but it looked like David was working hard.

Bob and Collin planned an activity night for their Sunday school class on one of the hottest, most humid days of the year.  First activity- build a boat out of cardboard to race across the pond.

The three teams had very different approaches.

Lynelle and I both though Bob and Collin's design was going to do the best. It was definitely the most engineered.

Finished products.  They voted that Collin had to race Cecily and Jared.  Cecily's boat got her across the lake totally dry, Jared's wasn't buoyant enough and was dead in the water, Collin started off strong and then slowly started to sit lower and lower in the water until he was swimming.  It was great. 😆 

They also played water balloon battleship over the propane tank, water balloon 500, and most of them jumped in the pond with their clothes on. Then we ate supper inside, and played four on the couch.  They didn't seem to mind the heat, and said they had fun.  :) 

Uncle Ed and Aunt Peggy were in town from CA and we met up with everyone for an indoor picnic.  It was too hot to want to be outside. We celebrated Cadence and Logan's birthdays while we were together. 

Hot afternoon story walk.

And then Pinky's. The cones were a mistake because they melted so fast in the heat the girls couldn't keep up.  It was a sticky mess.

Buster brown grudgingly used a spoon.

We celebrated Cadence's birthday a few days early because we were planning to be on vacation on the actual day.  She didn't have a strong opinion on her cake, so we decided on Stardew Valley because that is what she begs to play on the computer all day every day. 😜

Nine years old.  Already. 

She was pretty gracious sharing her new axolotl kinetic sand.  

First he didn't want me to put anything in his 'cation bag, then he was mad he had to sleep and not leave right away.  Three is... fun.

Blessings.