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.