Hello August!

August is here and that means we only have a few more weeks left of summer and then fall will arrive.  School begins this month.  Tomatoes and cucumbers will be harvested!  Sunflowers will bloom!  We are now reminded to make the most of these summer days before we set alarm clocks and go back to packing school lunches.  August is here and we hope to make more memories in this warm weather month!

 

Freddy's is a fun place for us to grab some food and fries over the weekend.  We like it here.  The kids all met at our house and we went for burgers and fries and off to mini golf.  Gunnar had the smallest golf club I ever did see and we laughed as we all tried to get that free game on the last hole.  Nobody was able to hit it in the small hole but we have a blast at Village Greens!

Mike and I planted a row of zinnias behind our house and they are in full bloom right now!

Jeremiah and some of my brothers and dad went to the cabin to work.  

Hadassah and Gunnar hung out here!  He loves this yogurt smoothie!

Austin pulled out the onions from the garden and I got them washed up and ready to use in canning and cooking!  The dill is also nice in the garden right now!

August will be the month to do all things summer before September comes because then we think all things fall!  We will have a few more pool days before school begins!  Let's make the most of this summer while it last!!!!!

Good bye July!

We decided to have Christmas in July and listened to Christmas music at home and ended the day in slippers and watching the Grinch!  It was great!

 

I keep watering the garden each day with the sprinkler and it's paying off!  The cucumbers and tomatoes are looking great!  

I was looking back at some old posts and we worked hard over the years to make this garden space nice!

This little guy is so much fun!  He's dressed in style by "Nun Nun"!  Gunnar is saying more and more words and calls Austin "Nun Nun"!  

Austin helped pull out all the onions from the garden!  

Mom and Dad are moving off the farm and we have been helping them clean out the attic, the barn, the closets, etc..  My parents invited all us kids down on Friday night to take whatever we wanted or could use!  We also celebrated LaVern's forth birthday and Wyatt's tenth!

I can hardly believe that July is coming to an end and August will begin!

Boys camp week for Austin!

 Boys camp ... I'm so proud of Austin going to boys camp!  It's for five days straight and it's packed full of things boys love to do!  He was so excited to go again this year!  I was really hoping that Adrian would be in his cabin.  Denied but they still got to see each other a lot all week!

He packed up a suitcase of clothes and a sleeping bag and pillow and got on the bus and rode to camp!

It was so quiet at our house all week with Austin not being home!  Ashlyn and I went to Goodwill one day and it's packed full of Christmas things!  We found us some treasures!

I was asked to help in the dining room on Thursday and I was happy to be there!  Jeremiah and Hadassah are one of the camp directors and they are there all week long.  I couldn't wait see Gunnar and Austin again!!!  Everyone is having the time of their lives!!!!

I helped set tables for food.  Serve food.  Clean up after the food was eaten and then reset for the next meal!  It was fun!  Some of the boys got to fish and they had a lot of fish to eat for lunch that day!  It was delicious!  I helped with breakfast and dinner and decided to stay for supper and help with the derby race later that night!  Austin looked so tired on Thursday morning because they didn't get to bed till late the night before.  But he was having so much fun and happy to be with Adrian at derby night!

Each camper makes a race car and on Thursday night, they race the cars to see which car can race the fastest!!!  Austin's was the pink one.

I came back home Thursday night so impressed with all the good fun things happening at camp.  Austin looks tired and I know he will be ready to come back home but he's doing just fine!

I picked up Austin and Lena's boys and brought them home.  Hunter, Adrian and Austin were falling asleep on the way home and their bodies are tired but their hearts are full!

I dropped off the boys and went straight to the laundromat to wash all his clothes!  Austin was so happy to be back home and take a shower and relax!  We switched Austin's bed with the bed Matthew used to sleep in into his room while he was away and was so glad to sleep in a bigger bed!  He was tired and fulfilled!  

Christian camps and counselors that take time to make young boys one week in the summer so much fun is a huge gift!  Austin loves it!  They have bible hour, bible memory, tons of activities, rope courses and zip line and swimming and good food and lots of dirty laundry at the end of the week!  We are so richly blessed to have this opportunity for Austin!  Thank you to all those who made this such a fun and safe week for so many boys!

Belmar Beach Day, NJ

We decided to take a beach day with cousins at Belmar Beach, NJ!  We started off early with the Canadian wild fires making our skies foggy!

We ate a delicious breakfast when we were almost there!

Everyone helped carry something as we walked to the beach!

 

These boys had so much fun in the ocean and digging in the sand and finding clams!

And Gunnar was along to and didn't have a nap all day long but did great!!!!

We grabbed pizza just off from the beach.  Ashlyn is doing gluten free, dairy free, grain free for a few weeks and this was challenging to her because she wanted to eat this or something fast too.  She's doing really well with this and under a nutritionist watch.  We are hoping it will clear up some headaches, give her gut healing and clear her acne skin!

Beach days are so fun and we came back home tired and sandy and sun-kissed skin!

Summer days of July.

 We are having some bad thunderstorms!  When we were at the cabin, a bad storm went through our area and many trees are down and people are out of electricity.  We only had a branch and many little sticks to put up in our lawn from the storm.  But with the unsettled weather, comes some rain drops at the ballgames!

We are picking many blooms from the garden!

And Mom and Dad are moving off their farm into a small rancher home and so the process of moving things out of the house has started.  I wonder what we will all find!!!!

Looks like old photos.

And I finished this book and it's an inspiring read!  You should read it!

Look at this baby dear that is suddenly turning into a toddler!  Oh how I do love this grandson so much!

And there are baby ducklings at the park that I see when I walk there!

Sometimes I like to take a walk outside and see how our property looks like in the dark.  We use the back porch as a living room every single day of the week on these nice summer nights!  The little play house looks cute in the garden!  And the cat has such a good life here.

I was invited to a garden party with my Mom and sister.  It was so lovely!!!!

I cut the lettuce from the garden!  This is one vegetable that I love to eat but this is a lot!  I'll have to give some away!

We watched Toy Story 5 as a family and loved it!  Night's like this are so fun!!!!!

And Gunnar was giving us kisses when it was time to leave the pool on a hot day!

The cornfields are growing all around our property!  I love the summer skies!