Summers end

The week after vacation was full of catching up and weeding and doing corn...

One afternoon Emmy insisted that they needed to have a party with lemon shakeups for a snack.  "I'll do it all, you don't have to do anything!"  Except make the shakeups.  :P

I saved tin cans so that the girls could try making tin can lanterns like the pioneers.

It was harder than it looked.

Some needed more help than others- this one neeeeeded me to hold the nail and I'm not sure how my fingers survived.

We used their home dipped candles inside them.

Quick trip to the farm to get some sweetcorn... which she insisted on eating on the way home.  haha.  Dad let the girls pick a few ears too, which they loved.

They were super excited to shuck corn and were strangely disappointed to discover that grandpa had shucked it in the field for me.... and nobody wanted to help get the stray silks.  *sigh*  I shall remind them of that this winter when they are complaining about the ones I missed ending up on their plates. 

So usually if I do corn at the farm Dad picks two seed bags full and Mom helps and we split the corn.  I'm not sure what I was thinking bringing home two bags full just for us..... it ended up being twice as much corn as I usually freeze.  :P  And I was very tired. 

In this years episode of garden misadventures, not only did Bob plant a "sweet" pepper variety that turned out to include serrano peppers (even hotter than jalapenos), I planted watermelon seeds TWICE.  And grew cucumbers. *sigh*  So we had a bunch of cucumbers that nobody really wanted.  Bob suggested I make sweet pickles, which is fine, except that we don't hardly eat pickles and Bob can't eat anything raw.  A lot of recipes for sweet pickles just sealed the jars with hot brine (since the pickling is what preserves them) and don't fully cook the cucumbers...  but then I found my Great Grandma Carrie's sweet pickle recipe in ye old Lester Cookbook.  :D  

 

 Lots of ingredients I don't keep on hand- alum, oil of cloves and cinnamon.... ha.  Also I am not even a quarter of the homemaker she was so I used my food processor to cut very imperfect slices and did not core them. :P  But 11ish days, and much complaining about the "horrible" smell from my lovely children later we have 3 quarts of sweet pickles that no one will probably eat. At least, if it takes us 10 years to get through them they'll still probably be good. 

The older three got to go to kids night at church and were soooo excited about it. They brought back some cute pens and some interesting wood creations.  :)  (somebody donated a fortunes worth of scrap wood...)  

One super hot afternoon I burned the stick pile and the girls helped me cook supper over the fire. 

We made beef stew, corn bread, and then Emmy insisted on making pigs in blankets (not very pioneer like, but whatever). 

The stew turned out fine, we burned the cornbread pretty bad, and the pigs in blankets didn't really cook through (hooray for ovens).  It was all edible though, even though everyone else refused to eat the cornbread because it tasted like smoke. 

Bob's Grandpa Beutel died early the morning of the 7th.  One of the best parts of marriage is the bonus grandparents. I'm thankful we don't have to say goodbye forever.
 

 Sunday was a long day with church in the morning, then visitation in the afternoon.  The girls went back to our house with Grace and Eden for a while before supper at the church. The funeral was Monday... as an introvert all of the people and emotions really exhaust me so I definitely needed a nap.   

Also, our kids are weird but they help to keep the mood from getting too heavy around here.  Discussing how old Grandpa was- "wow, he was really old!  He must have been really good when he was a kid! (In a "that your days may be long on the earth" sense)  Other child- "it's so hard to be good when you have 3 annoying sisters!"  

Loud whisper as we walked into the visitation- "will the carcass be here?"  hahahahaha ummmmmm I hope no one heard that!!  

We missed part of my families staycation, but we met everyone at U. Roy's pond Monday evening.  The kids swam and fished.

Emmy was not so sure about fish at first. :D

 But she just kept catching them and catching them!  She says she counted 15 and I believe her- I've never taken that many fish off of hooks before in my entire life.  Not that I fish much.  

Cecily caught quite a few too- this one was one of the bigger ones of the evening.

 Cadence caught one too!  She wasn't as interested and was off to the playground. 

 

 Miri just watched. She couldn't decide if she wanted to swim or not so I just let her run around in her diaper.

 Mom wanted to take the kids to bicycle safety town even though it was going to be super hot.  We joined them for awhile.  The girls liked it but wished it wasn't so hot. :) We spent the rest of the day at the farm swimming in the cow tank with cousins.

 They had "The Nutcracker" at full volume one morning and were acting it out.  :D 

 Cadence is starting kindergarten....  aaahhh.  But that means we get to go shopping for a first day dress and she gets to graduate to a church purse- no more toy bag!  She is, um, interesting to shop with.  She has to touch everything and wants one of everything and this is why I never take them shopping.  haha.

 Miriel was very sweetly carrying around her dolly: "Don't worwy.  I gotchu." 

 I maybe got myself a new shirt.  :P

 So we've had a box of 'face paint tattoos' floating around and they all decided they needed them on one day.  And then promptly decided they didn't like how they felt and tried to take them right back off again.  Poor Cadence scrubbed and scrubbed and then I scrubbed...some of her skin off.  ooops.  People kept asking at church how she hurt herself.  :P  She didn't, I'm just a bad Mom.  

Last night we dug potatoes.  Considering how many rodents we've, um, disposed of this summer there wasn't a ton of damage.  We still didn't get as many nice potatoes as Bob was hoping for.  haha.  I'm more of a it's fun to grow things and eat our own produce but other than sweet corn I can survive on boughten produce kind of gardener so I'm not too disappointed. 

 I never got around to thinning the carrots so it was fun to see how many actually grew and weren't super tiny!  Miri is super helpful in the garden. Or something.  She was wading through the tomato plants and got thoroughly covered in yellow pollen and picked a bunch of green ones.  "I pick it! Mato!"  

And tonight we went to meet the teacher night and we have to get up for school tomorrow.  Mur.  Where did summer go?  I am not a morning person and I do not like alarm clocks.  But they are super excited and a little bit more structure is probably good for all of us.  

Blessings.

Wyss Vacation version 35

The week before vacation is always exhausting... I am definitely ready for a vacation after getting ready for a vacation.  :P 

So when we were at Braker's Market Emmy spied some cherries that she really really wanted because she wanted to make a pie.  So we learned how to pit cherries (with cake decorating tips! because I don't really like cherries so I don't own a cherry pitter.)

Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy boy, Billy boy?

Of course it was also the week that the green beans decided to explode.  Huzzah.  I also helped pick Mary's bean patch so I had plenty of green beans to freeze.  Miri was super helpful and insisted on standing on my lap to snap beans.  "I help you" "I pick it." 

Squeezed in a few minutes of learning and chopped up some old candles, melted the wax and learned how to dip candles like the pioneers.  :)

Who needs a double boiler when you've got a tin can.... haha.  Actually I didn't want to clean wax out of anything so we stuck a wick in the leftover wax in the can and now we have an emergency tin can candle. 

Cecily got to go swimming with Kenna on an overcast day... everyone else was very jealous.

Green beans.... and more beans.  Does any one else get all philosophical when they're labeling bags/jars with the year and wondering how many more years they'll get to label produce?  Or am I just weird?  

Emmy got to go swimming with Eva one afternoon and everyone else was jealous. 

And then finally the day they've been talking about for months finally arrived and it was finally time to go to AUNT RITA'S HOUSE.  haha.  My apologies to Sunday school teachers and dental hygienists and neighbors and friends and the Schwann's man who have heard all about Aunt Rita's house.  :P  We made it in time for supper and then the girls got to swim!  They were so excited about the pool. 

So much jumping in and flipping off the board.

Rita has a big house, but it's not big enough for all of us, obviously.  So we got to sleep at their old house (they still own it and rent it to a church family who were gracious enough to move out for the week).  Ned was there!!  This is Bob and Ned trying to boost the wifi signal so that he could teach zoom violin lessons to his students in Singapore.  hehe.  Really late at night and early in the morning.  Nothing like falling asleep and waking up to the dulcet tones of the violin....

Rita's playroom is also amazing.  The girls think the two story playhouse is pretty cool.  You have to climb the rock steps to get into the upstairs, and slide down the slide to come out. 

And there are dolls, and trains, and duplos, and, and, and.  Pretty much one of everything. 

We spent most of our time in the pool.  The shallow end is really cool- it's only about a foot deep and it's perfect for little kids.  Emmy and Cadence both improved their swimming a lot over the week.  It helps to have 'great-aunts' and 'great-uncles' who give impromptu swimming lessons.   (Uncle Paul and Aunt Kary are technically my Dad's first cousins, so I have no idea what their relationship to my kids is... 1st cousins twice removed?  That's insane.  We'll stick with Aunt and Uncle.)

Watching some Olympics...

Everybody needs a Kandace in their life.  She came over to "the old house" to help me get the girls through the bath tub on Saturday night.

Sunday morning I remembered why I usually do all of the packing for the girls.  They did a lot of their own packing this time- Cadence pulled out two LEFT shoes.  They were both white but....  her only other options were tennis shoes or grungy flipflops.  sigh.  She wore the flip flops to church.  At least it was Leo...  haha.  Also they all wanted to sit with me by Gideon and Aurelia, and Parker wanted to sit with us too and then Shelly had to take Elodie out and I realized that I was alone on the bench with 7 small children.  Haha.  Somehow they managed to not fight and were relatively quiet.  :P  Michelle and I must look more like each other as we age.... her residents thought we were twins... and several people at church mistook us for each other.  haha.

Uncle Fred, can you talk like Donald Duck?? 

Peaceful evening by the river...

Playing some Switch with the Stieglitz kids and Aurelia.

Miri was pretty content to hang out with me and do puzzles in the living room.

Rita lined up food from really good restaurants all week.  We ate really well, as usual, and there were even cupcakes one night. So messy. 

Gideon and Aurelia brought bikes so even the garage was fun at Rita's house.

The kids all got to go tubing with Ron one afternoon!

It was the 35th year, so we made shirts.  I made shirts. And I was getting to be good friends with customer service at CustomInk.  haha.  The front had Psalm 61:5 on it and the back....  hehe.  It made me laugh.

Dad didn't get to come, but Mom came for a few days. 

We weren't all there on the same days, but I think 57 out of a possible 100 made an appearance this year.

Emmy and Troy up on the swing just chatting.  :D

Hanging out with Aunt Pearline and some babies.

I think last year I realized that, oh hey, Gene Stratton- Porter (author of The Girl of the Limberlost, Freckles, The Harvester, The Keeper of the Bees, etc.) lived, worked and wrote in Indiana- ONLY 45 MINUTES from Rita's.  No one else, of course, is quite so nerdy or such a fangirl so I went by myself and had to take a selfie by the sign.  :P  (Dad would have come if he was there.... and maybe Rita too if I'd told her in advance, she's a fan too.) 

Don't mind me while I geek out over architecture and literaryness.... Log cabinish on the outside.

Nineteen teens on the inside with lots of pocket doors and 6 panel doors and wainscotting for days... haha.  She was a pioneer nature photographer and some of her work is up on the walls. 

Besides being a best selling author, nature photographer, self taught naturalist, owner of a broom factory, and master gardener, she also owned a film studio in California (to make her own movies of her books).  The wildflower garden was glorious and full of bees and moths and butterflies.

Massive and long wisteria arbor...

I'm glad I went, I learned a lot and it was really cool.  So cool. Next time you're in Rome City Indiana, check it out.  Also she has a previous house farther south in Indiana, near where the Limberlost swamp used to be, that I'm going to try and figure out a way to visit sometime.  Bob doesn't know it yet... ha.

Oh hello Miriel and Elodie. :D

While I was gone, Emmy talked Mom into taking her "to an antique store" and also a second trip to the candy store in Grabill. 

The 'antique' she picked out. hehe.  Only Emmy.

I think, perhaps, Matt has been here.... we call it Wyss Vacation, but it's really the Wyss/Streitmatter vacation.  And here we have our ancestors, yay, even unto the fourth generation.  From mostly memory (insert eyeroll, but I really secretly love it).

Uno with their second cousins...

Patiently waiting for supper.

One of the girls stole my phone, but this is also a very accurate shot of Wyss vaca life.

There was a pickleball tournament again.  I did not participate, but Cecily and Bob did. And Miriel chased balls, "I got it! Bouncy!"

Cadence is learning how to play poker.  ha.

'Uncle' Ron  and his boat may be the best addition to the family in the last 11 years.... sorry cousins-in-law... 

So somehow Bob and Nathan made it to the championship round of the pickleball tournament...

...and beat the newlyweds.  haha.  Tate and Tamra tried so hard. 

There it is on the board... :P

One last swim in the dark with the lights on!  They thought it was the coolest thing ever. 

It's always a sad day when vacation is over.  Instead of helping pack the van they were chasing the Kaeb's cats through the landscaping. 

While we were packing up and getting ready to leave, we heard that Tate and Tamra were in a bad accident.  They had gotten up really early and left before the rest of us, so we were all still in Leo... eating breakfast and loading up.  Ugh.  Not a fun way to end vacation.  Initially we heard they had hit a semi head on and there was an ambulance involved, then lifeflight.  Miraculously, they're both alive and the truck driver is fine.  Looking at pictures of the car I don't know how. (Even accounting for them having to cut up what was left of the car to get him out- that seat is BENT.) Tate got the worst of it and he's in a lot of pain, poor guy.  It felt a little weird to be driving home on the same road, I'm sure we all prayed harder and drove more carefully than usual.   

The girls were of course un-phased.  They were just really excited to get to eat INSIDE a McD's.  haha.  They did really want to send Tate a card though. 

 So now we are home again, trying to get the garden under control and working our way through a weeks worth of produce.  Woot.  And trying to ignore the fact that school starts very, very soon.  mur.

Blessings.