Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day!  We celebrated and honored Mike all day long!  The kids were so excited to give him a Pickle Ball Set!  It's what he requested!  I had full intentions on taking a family photo at my parents later that day but forgot to capture the moment on camera.

We went to church and enjoyed the extra singing about Father's!  We grabbed pizza and wings from Papa Marks once again and came home with Jeremiah and Hadassah here!

After naps and relaxing, my family gathered down at Mom and Dad for supper and for the evening!  It was so much fun!  I love how the older grand kids come too!  Mom cooked a huge meal for us all and then the little ones played wiffleball in the back yard.  Ryan got out the golf croquet game and us adults played in the front lawn.  We almost peed ourselves from laughing and really had the best time!

He's the smallest in our group right now!  Tatum is so cute!

Addison, Olivia and Ashlyn rode the horses in dad's meadow.

Dad's helped play some wiffelball too!

The burn ban is still on because we did have some rain finally but still dry for the season.  Dad had the fire pit covered and Ryan roasted his marshmallow in fashion.  

 

The entire evening was fun!  Thank you to Mike for being such a good leader in our home, a loving father to our children and most of all for loving Jesus!  We love you Babe!  And, many thanks to my dad as well!  Dad has always been a good example to lead in family, business and church!  I was raised well and count it a blessing!  Thank you Dad!

Heritage Days!

Our summer nights are full!  Austin is still playing baseball and the Flames made it to playoffs!!!!

 

We have fresh raspberries from the garden this year and they are delicious!

Our little town has an event every summer called Heritage Days.  People from all around gather for fun activities and games!  Mike was on the board to help this year for this event and he really enjoyed serving with the others on the board and we just had a good old time in our hometown!

Friday night there were food stands open.  We grabbed a bite to eat and then went to Austin's ballgame.  On Saturday, Lena dropped off her children while her and Matt picked out some flooring for their remodeling.  At noon, a helicopter was going to drop candy at the park where Heritage Days was taking place.  We got there just when it was hovering over.  We enjoyed watching the DKer's joggling, the reptile show and then Ryan and Friends.  The sun was warm but a beautiful day to be outside!  

We got to throw our first round of axes!  I needed more force but it was fun!  Mike did well with this but Ashlyn beat us both!  She loved it!

We sat together drinking root beer floats while watching volleyball games.  The park was packed with folks from our area!

Had to get a photo of his staff shirt!  Good job, Babe!

We finished the day with gathering in Matt and Lena's front lawn and watch fireworks!  Jeremiah and Hadassah and Matthew and Daisy met us there too!  This is what summer is all about!  Spending time with family and friends right in our own hometown!  

This is the good life!!!!

mid June.

June is already half over but we made some fresh new memories!  We are in a drought and May is now known to be the driest month since 1888.  That's pretty dry!  We are praying for rain and the day that the Riehl's have their reunion, it rains!!!  No one complained because we all knew it's much needed and gift from God above!  There were a few ballgames still happening between the rain showers and some of the children swam in the small pond.  We ate good food with good fellowship and this is the biggest group of people that I know that work well together, invites EVERYONE to their gatherings and are great hosts!

 

I'm so happy to see the rain drops on my windows!  It got cloudy and moody and we lit some candles and watched it rain!

That morning, the walk in the park was pretty!  We are praying for the rains to come!

We went to the Riehl reunion and then came home a little in the afternoon while it rained.  It gave us the chance to read more of our book and sip some hot coffee on this rainy day!  It's a good one!

We went back for supper!  You can see why!!!!!  Good food and fun friendships are priceless!

June is a month where we start getting some harvest from the garden!  I just love watching the kids and cousins gather in the garden!  Bryce and Zayla picked our first zucchini!  Hunter and Ashlyn love those fresh peas!

I've been faithfully watering the garden with the sprinkler but the rain sent from above, is the best kind!!!!

It's making everything pop!!!!  Thank you, Jesus!!!!

Cabbage is one of my favorite vegetables to watch grow!  Such huge leaves!!!!

The poppies are blowing in the summer breeze!  Celery is ready to eat!  We've still got lots of lettuce!

Green beans are popping throw the dirt!

We planted raspberry bushes last year and we are picking fresh berries this summer!

I'm packing a big boys lunch now!  Matthew is back from Senior week and off to his full time job!

We spend lots of time with cousins!

Summer is full of fun gatherings, friends, late nights and sleep in mornings!

We love summer time!

First week of NO SCHOOL!

 Summer vacation has officially began for us and the first week of NO SCHOOL is already behind us!  Which reminds me to take each day as a gift because summer time always goes by so fast!  

Ill give an update on what we all did since school is out and summer mode is on!

Matt and Lena are buying the home place and it needs much work.  We went over on a Saturday to help and see what's happening.  Mike drove the old car over and Zayla asked for a ride home.  Two girls moved out of Mom's basement and they throw things in the dumpster that we ended up looking through.  The kids had a blast with all the yarn they found.

We roasted hot dogs over there too.

Little Miss Zayla is just so cute!

We are in love with the summer foods!

We are plunging along with our first summer read! We try to read two chapters a day!  The kids sit and listen while I read!

We got to the pool twice so far.  The first time was only for a few minutes because it actually started to rain.  Only a few rain drops but enough to send us to our cars.  The second time, we arrived with the pool crew scrubbing the walks and everyone was out of the pool.  They said someone pooped in the pool and they needed to clean up real well.  We waited but soon realized that it was going to be over an hour before anyone was allowed to swim, so we left again.  We are hoping for a full day pool side soon!

I cut the last of the peony's but this dahlia is making my day!

Last Tuesday, we got about 30 minutes of rain and it was so wonderful!!!!  Any bit of rain is huge blessing right now!  We are in a drought!  We went over a month without a measurable amount of rain fall.  May was the dries month since 1888.  We are really close to six inches below average rainfall for the year and now being in June, we are praying for rain!!!!  We need lots to make up for this loss!  The farmers need rain to have a good, profitable crop harvest!  This rain shower was a huge blessing!

The kids have done some paint projects!

The floors are extra dirty because I'm not the only one at home anymore.  I love it when the kids are home with me but it does add extra cleanups!

We've been faithfully watering the garden and it's thriving!  I just love to see the kids out picking the first raspberries!  We picked four heads of broccoli and cauliflower!  

So much lettuce and more celery soon to be harvested!

I planted a pack of poppies last year and they came up dancing in the garden breeze!  The cucumbers are looking great!  I love these!

We made a Fashion Cents stop and the kids love to shop here!

Mommy D. turned 87 in May and I promised her that we would go get banana splits together!  The kids claimed they never had a banana split, so this was really fun to celebrate!  White Horse Luncheonette served us two big banana splits!  So yummy!

Walks in the park are still happening!  The water level is low because of the lack of rain.

Strawberries are in season and I made sourdough bread once again and we love to spread cream cheese on a piece of bread, add strawberries and basil and drizzle on some balsamic vinegar!  It's delicious!

Because we are in a drought, we also are in a burn ban.  Instead of sitting around then campfire on Saturday night with the Lapps, we just talked together instead of roasting hot dogs.  It was good company.  On Sunday night, we made a s'mores dip to enjoy since no campfires are allowed right now.  Austin and Adrian really wanted to shot a bird, so with the dads near by, they walked out to the fields in search of something to shot.

Matthew is back from Senior week and I am now packing a big boys lunch for his job!  Matthew is ready to start his full time job and really is excited to start life outside of the classrooms!

Summer of 2023 is here and we are excited to make many memories!