You know it's pretty bad when I have to read my last posts to know where I left you guys off at. As the title of this post says life just keeps rolling on; just at a faster pace then I want.
The rain finally let up enough here to get things planted. The kids and I made a trip to my parent's for a planting marathon. We had just enough dry weather to get everything in and it was growing fine last I heard. We have strung more fence at the farm since the last post that was a second trip out to the farm. We always have a great time whether we are working or playing.
The rain kind of took a nose dive in July, but this week we have gotten some. Just yesterday and last night our some was quite a bit 4.7". It had been a few weeks before that without anything, but the hose going on the garden. The garden is doing great as you can see by the picture. The recent rains have made things perk up again. We have got green beans, zucchini and beets in the freezer already with more to come. Salsa making should start up this week and more green beans are coming toward the end of this week too.
A1 has started working at her Dad's place of employment for the summer crew. They are a few weeks behind due to the cool weather in July(this is what saved our crops from drying up). She has also started volleyball practice for the JV team this year and been practicing her driving every chance she gets. She is pretty whipped some days when she gets home. Last night she climbed in bed and was out around 7:30pm. She slogged through the fields in the hot humid weather for the morning and then followed that up with 3 hours of volleyball practice. Her Daddy and I think this is good conditioning for volleyball for her.
A1 has also celebrated her 16th birthday since last posting. That was a huge thing around here. She had a volleyball sleepover the night of her birthday so the Big Party couldn't be the next day so we ended up having it just last weekend at the pond at Andy's Mom's. Everyone had a great time. There were about 50 people who could make it a little more then half were kids. Only a few more weeks, probably, until getting her license and she is good to go on her own. For me this means I don't have to drive to and from volleyball practice! Her only disappointment for the summer so far has been the fact that she has quit growing as documented by the measuring on the post. She had 4-H and got one of her projects done. Her sewing project got an Honorable Mention. Pretty good for the 1st year! It looks really cute too! The URI that we all got didn't keep her down quite as long as it did her brother this time.
A2 has had a big summer! He is now as tall as A1 was when she was just 14 1/2; he is only 12 1/2. He went on his first mission's trip this summer and had a great time. He stepped out of his zone and lead devotions for his work group. Got to do some construction and came back more confident in himself and what he could do and what he had learned. Guitar lessons are going great! I have to peek in to see who is playing the song so I can tell if it is him or his teacher playing. The highlight of his summer was going on his first flight though! He flew at the local small airport with the Young Eagles group. He was able to get in a plane that only took one person and actually got to fly the plane. He is definitely hooked. They have one more Young Eagles flight days this year yet so it is on the calendar to go. He already has worked 3-6 hours on the classes they can get online and I just got that all set up for them the middle of last week. He has helped out at home a lot this summer with the yard, snipping the green beans and going to the grocery store with me, just for the company. It has been really nice. His other highlight is the bee hive that we now have. All of his fun reading this summer has been on bees or on flying. The bees are for fun and will now be used for 4-H too. That URI for A2 kept him down too long to get his projects done and be able to get packed for the missions trip. I told him not to worry about it, there is always next year and we will get registered earlier which would be a huge help.
Together with the youth group activities they stayed busy. They had quiz team finals and then on to quiz team internationals where their rookie team-the team they are on came in 2nd place. This got them some scholarships to Bethel College if they attend there. Yeah! Great job everyone! One of the Sunday night events was crud wars. That was interesting to see the pics of. I put the "Breakfast Slide" pic below. They throw all kinds of breakfast stuff, including eggs and milk on this plastic thing and then you have to slide through it. Disgusting as far as I'm concerned, not so much for the kids.
I have been busy keeping up with them, running to volleyball and guitar, running wires for computers and getting things loaded like they need to be, planning for school and getting things done in the garden. I have learned that I love having them home more then being gone. I still like my occasional time alone, but weeks with everyone gone were really, really quiet around here. My thyroid levels have been off still and we made another tweak on it in July. Hopefully this will be the last one and it holds up when I start working out again.
School is scheduled to start next Monday, but I may push it back one more week so I can get that final tweaking done and things entered into HST+. We'll just play that by ear until later in the week. I want to peek at a couple of things and how they line up to see if it would be better to wait another week. We are not doing school on 1/2 day Saturdays this year.
That is how things have been rolling here and they just keep on rolling. I have in my schedule for school to work out during PE with the kids and time to blog so maybe, just maybe I can keep y'all up to date better this coming school year.
