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. 

Hurrah for the flag of the free...

Doo-doo-doo-doo-doot-doo...
One of Cecily's current piano songs that is stuck in my head.... including the piccolo trill.  woot.  Hooray for marching band and patriotic songs.

Technically, I am a millennial. However, I'm an elder millennial and prefer the term "Oregon Trail Generation."  Not only does it fit- I definitely had an analog childhood and digital young adulthood, but it is the very first computer game I remember playing in school.  My fourth grade teacher had two apple computers in her classroom and I loved it when I got to play Oregon Trail.   Nowadays, you can find anything on the internets including good old OT!  So we introduced the girls.  They liked it, which I love.  Although, I forgot how completely traumatic it is when you name the people in your wagon and then it pops up on screen "Cadence has been bitten by a snake." "Cecily has dysentery." "Emmy has died."  hehe.  Cadence was crying real tears every time somebody on our virtual wagon had a mishap.  :P

Way back in June we had a couple of cool days, and it was too cool for lake day.  Soooo... when you have a 75 degree, low humidity day in June, what else is there to do but take the girls to New Salem!  (I mean, I have no desire to sweat.) (#sunbonnetsoptional.  :P )

They were intrigued/horrified by the stack of corncobs in the outhouse. 

The blacksmith was working- I told Dad I found his retirement volunteer opportunity!!  If he ever retires.... may I direct you to this fine piece of literature written by none other than my brother... 

Horses!

Miriel did great- although she kept trying to climb out of the stroller while it was still moving.

Playing with pioneer toys.

Signing our names with quill and ink in Mr. Lincoln's store.

We had a great time.

Cadence is a nichtsnutz. She would run ahead of us into buildings, ducked under a barrier and was halfway up the ladder to a loft we weren't supposed to go in... sigh... but then she cozies up to the statue so sweetly.  :P

New boxes of chalk call for lots of new pictures on the driveway.

Unicorns...        

Titanics...

There were leftover craft kits at the library and we brought home three to make calm down jars and a fish catching game. 

We celebrated Cadence and Logan's birthdays at the farm before Kandace and Carli's testimonies.  There were presents!

And a cake!

Then we left 8 kids with two neighbor girls for the evening.  haha.  I don't think they were too crazy.

Sunday we went to w-ton for church for the first time in years I think.  I mean, I know we didn't go at all in 2020 so....  eesh.  It was good.  I forget that some places take a summer break from Sunday school so that was a lot of church for the girls and they were having a hard time sharing Grandma.  But we made it, and they're baptized.  

Cadence wanted an  Octonauts cake for her birthday, so we started with a cute sea creature cake...

...and added Octonauts!

She was pleased.

More presents!

And a trip to the pool.  :)

How is she five already!?

So, third grade usually does a big pioneer unit and they have a special Pioneer Day and it's a big deal and lots of fun.... and they didn't get to do it this year.  Sad news.  So I asked her teacher for some ideas to do over the summer, hence the New Salem trip, etc.  Anyway.  I taped out the dimensions of a typical covered wagon, and then we packed the toy chest trunk for Oregon.

They did remember important things like clothes, and the Bible, and cooking utensils.... but they tried to sneak in a few lot of toys too.  :)  (I stuck in Gma Beutel's tea service, and my Grandma's embroidered tablecloth... it's kind of crazy to look around the house and think about what I would take if I only had a 4'x18'x2' space to pack it all in.)

Then of course they had to take it a step farther and build a covered wagon.  *sigh*  At least they had to clean it up in time for supper so we could sit on those chairs.  :D 

Story time at the park one Friday evening. 

We heard lots of sirens... so of course we checked facebook.  We could see smoke and here loud pops.

Ambulance chasers....  hehe.  We really couldn't see much better than from our yard.  A storage unit full of vehicles caught fire- lots of black smoke and explosions.

We served lunch on the 4th of July. Huzzah.  haha.  We knew it would be a small Sunday, but that doesn't really help with knowing how much and what to serve. Poor Bob put up with much dithering. But we made it and we had plenty of leftovers.  (I am Lydiann's grand-daughter:  if you have leftovers, everyone got enough of what they wanted.  If you don't have leftovers, then somebody didn't get enough of what they wanted and that would be devastating.  I am not, however, enough Lydiann to tell the sandwich makers not to put so many in a box so they don't get delivered with the bottom sandwiches smooshed.)  It is slightly gratifying when older people thank you for lunch and tell you that "you set a good table."  (Pride, says my mother.  hehe.)  So I was exhausted and came home and took a nap.

Then the girls have been talking about going to Ron and Kary's for fireworks for weeks... I was not super enthused since it had been a big day already, buuuut.... fireworks, bathrooms, and a place to escape if Miri got scared.

Just chatting with Aunt Pearline.  :)

Miriel was not super impressed with the fireworks.  The first few booms and she said "GO HOME!"  But if I covered her ears she was ok sitting on my lap watching the "balls!"  It was a late night, but I'm glad we went.

To further our pioneer studies we learned how to wash clothes with a washboard!  woot woot!

It was hot and they picked the sunniest spot in the yard instead of the shade, but whatever.

We washed a couple of pair of socks and some washcloths and hung them on the line.

This is fun! Can we do all our laundry like this?    hahahaha. Um. No. No we can not.  :P

Some of my California cousins came out for a visit, so we spent Saturday with them at the farm.  It was raining. Again.  But the hay mow was dry, so we kids went out to play.  This entrance doesn't get used much these days... haha.

Unicorn dresses are not what I would have chosen to play in the straw, but whatever. 

Dad built a straw bale igloo and a tunnel for the kids. 

There was rope swinging and beam sitting. 

I haven't moved straw bales in a very long time so I was pleasantly surprised to find that they weren't quite as heavy as I remember.  That or lifting kids constantly has made me stronger.... ha.  I also don't think I've ever been in the hay mow in a skirt. :P

After supper there were games and perusal of vintage farm aerials... or genealogies? 

The girls learned how to play marbles one afternoon.  Sort of.  I'm a little unsure of the rules, and someone doesn't like to follow rules, and someone was having trouble getting her shooter to shoot.  haha.

Everyone needs to get themselves an Emmy.  "I want to make brownies and I don't need your help!"  And she didn't.  Other than the oven part. 

Tuesday we headed out to meet Mom and my aunts and California cousins at Braker's Market.  The girls wanted one of everything.  Cecily: is this why you don't want to take us shopping, mom?  Yes, yes it is.  There was ice cream.

We like ice cream.

Then I left them to their shopping/ Faire Coffee adventures and took the girls to play with Caleb and Joshua at the farm until supper time since they were leaving the next day. 

Lake day got cancelled due to mud, so on Wednesday it was sunnyish and I took them to Dragonland.  Cecily took off for the slides right away, and "I made a new friend!"  Of course she did.  Emmy: "I talked to her and she has a fake leg."  Um.... ok..... hahaha.  It took Emmy a while, but we did convince her to try the slide once with Cecily.  "Mom, I loved it!!"  So she and Cecily were up and down the slides the rest of the time we were there.

And then I had them check to see if Cadence was tall enough- she was and she was so excited and she loved it!

I never knew who Cecily would come down the slide with next...usually strangers. haha.  (This happens to be a girl they know from school and who goes to our neighbors daycare.)

Miriel and I hung out in the shallow end of the pool and watched all the kids come down the slide. "Splash!" A good time was had by all.  :D  

Marci got a cat recently and now the girls are stalking her.  *sigh*  They watch for her car... "Mom, Marci's home, can I go talk to her?"  "Mom, Marci's in her front yard can I say hi??" Poor Marci.  And poor Luna.  They are overly enthusiastic when they get to play with her.

Summer seems to be flying by and school is fast approaching. mur.  We have a few more fun things coming up though.  And lots of produce.  The green beans are starting and Bob's picking peppers and there are peas.  And I'm feeling very unmotivated to do anything with any of it.  Huzzah.

Blessings.