Mother's Day Take II

This year for Mother's Day, rather than a wrapped gift, I told the Crew I preferred a fun activity, out-and-about, together. We decided on a historic tour of old mansions. We envisioned it a little different than it was--hard wooden seats in a hot bus with iffy a/c and a very determined 80-something gal who only took us to the homes of people she knew personally. 

We thought maybe we'd get to go in some homes or at least be allowed to speak (nope, against the rules!) Oh my goodness, we laughed so much on this tour. "I know you can't see the house, because of all these giant, old trees, but I've just GOT to tell you a story about it." Us: looking at foliage and sweating for two hours. Lol!!! 

We were practically contortionists, bending and twisting, ducking and peering, trying to catch a glimpse of the structures our guide (when she wasn't giving driving directions through the microphone to our incredibly patient bus driver) described. At one stop, the bus pulled up right in front of the biggest oak tree you've ever seen. It was perfectly framed out the window of a younger couple who got the giggles, the silent giggles. The guy took a picture with his phone of the tree. Idk hashtag:best tour ever . . . hashtag:such a beautiful house . . . hashtag:did I get on the right bus? All you could do was laugh (very quietly ;) 

We actually did learn quite a few interesting facts and we did see some pretty cool mansion exteriors. I didn't realize so many famous people lived in this area in the days of old (many of them unhappily with tragic ends, but you know, they were here). As it turns out, the a/c above the kids worked perfectly well and they were cool and contented throughout the ride. Oh and we all had our picture taken for a magazine; I guess we'll have to keep a lookout for it, if only I could remember the name, ha!

After the tour, we took our Easter gift card from Grandma J to The Olive Garden for dinner. Even though it was before 5 p.m., there was a line and a wait! Super weird! We were all so hungry that when we did get seated and that meal hit the table--no photos were taken--just this waiting in the hallway pic of the kids (Caelan chose to sit by us) beforehand. 

I would say, it was a good Mother's Day celebration, gotta love the laughs!

Summertime Take II

Appropriately, a production, which may or may not include "takes" is part of this blog post! Once upon a time, our girls auditioned for a theatrical production in a musty, old, falling apart theater. But then the theater moved to a freshly renovated location within a former brick warehouse. But then . . . pandemic, so all the productions came to a halt. And then, theater came back! One of the young ladies in our youth group happened to be in the show. Interestingly, she was the cookie-making mouse in the very same church Christmas production in which Brennen starred many years ago (I'll see if I can find a photo)! 

The new theater space is way snazzy! We were super impressed and thinking what a fun place it would be for special events, dances, etc. Oh, so back to the show--it was super well done, and really funny, and all kids under the age of 18! My Crew recognized a bunch of the song and came home singing, "If I were a rich man da-da-da-za-dinga-za." Caelan knew the lead guy character (pictured in the masked photobomb below) from the dances she attended at the Catholic school in recent years. Overall, even though we had to sit in separate rows for social distancing (I ended up sitting with a family I've had in youth group at two churches :), we had a great evening out at the theater--and finished the night with a big old rainbow stretched across the sky :)

Brennen in red, mouse in green apron--I know I have a better one somewhere :) Five years ago!

Other summer stuff--finishing math. Graysen wore out his first laptop, and then inherited Caelan's when she bought one for school. Muriel stepped on it and snapped the hinge shortly thereafter. Now the left side of the screen is blank, so he mostly watches school videos in a minimized window on the right. It works . . . sort of :)

Next up, an increasingly frequent summer visitor! My cutie nephew came to play while his dad enjoyed a night on the town with dinner and dancing. We did our best to run the energy out of M's almost-four-year-old battery--baby chickens, more baby chickens, bubbles, up the hill, down the hill, back up the hill, on the plasma car, around the neighborhood, up the stairs, down the stairs, little man was busy! Eventually he settled into some light reading (Caelan's senior year book) and showed Brennen every picture that Brennen was in :) The next day, while my bro's sweetheart was running a race, the father-son duo came to hang out with us. Most of my Crew was at work, so my bro and G$ and Mr. M went to the bounce park. They jumped, they danced, they burned off some energy. Good times!

Another summer activity, youth group! There was a movie night recently and sludge wars (basically a food fight with the slimiest foods you can imagine) before that. I've noticed Brennen keeps popping up in the background for his own photobombs . . . Graysen might also be adding some comedy to my otherwise lovely photos, ha! (I actually only took the sunset one :)

One of the summer fb silly things, turn yourself into a cartoon character. We didn't actually post ours anywhere, so we'll share them here :) (I only end punctuate with smiley faces in the summer :)

When the dogs don't get fed until waaaay late, they don't mind eating side-by-side. Awww, friendsies!

The chickens decided to try a new trick--see that nest? Clear in the back? BEHIND the nesting boxes, in the far reaches of the dog kennel coop? Ay-yi-yi . . .

And then there's whatever this is . . . (Brennen ;) . . . the summer selfie smolder?? :)

Here's a fun summer activity . . . say fresh sushi three times fast! And then ask yourself, why would a store sell sushi that wasn't fresh, was it necessary to put it on the sign? Does that mean at sometime their raw fish dinners were not fresh? Hmmmm . . . freshushi, fresooshi, fresssoooshie . . .

Summertime

The girls had all this musical equipment in their already squeezy space. We decided to move the collection to the classroom (now the classroom seems to have shrunk!) Can you believe all these black cases? Why not some variety and color? I think there are a dozen in this picture and we just attained another bass and another amp. Good gravy, Marie that's a lot of strings!

Well, it took a few weeks, but we finally got everyone home at the same time to celebrate our delayed last day of school ice cream celebration . . . three weeks late and after 9 PM, but it happened! :) Brennen and Caelan are completely done. The Gs have math (and Graysen has Spanish, shhhhh don't tell him, he doesn't read the blog :)

One afternoon, three of the kids were home, so we went on a shopping excursion (I needed to replace the broken glass in the graduation frame, for one). Caelan wanted to buy hair lightening stuff and a hula hoop to train Muriel to jump through. We decided we didn't have as much time as we first thought, so skipped all the rest of the errands and came home so no one else would be late for work. This summer schedule is a doozie! Oh, but Muri caught on pretty quickly that if she jumped through the hoop, she got a treat. If she walked around the hoop and looked longingly at Caelan, she did not get a treat :)

The summery outfit below is one the many gift card purchases Caelan has gotten to make off her graduation gift receipts! Her first romper (well, probably not the very first because I dressed the girls in these types of things as toddlers--but her first grown-up romper :) Graysen went on this particular shopping excursion with her. Sibling summertime bonding :)

And speaking of summertime bonding, these four loaded their bikes (which are mostly fixed now, except Caelan's needs work) and we drove two cars (we really should get a bike rack) about 20 minutes away to a big old bike trail. The kids've been asking to ride it forever! Brennen rode part of it with a buddy who lives alongside it, but he's the only one who had any experience on the trail. G$ liked the offshoots and came back with mulberry stains on the back of his shirts from some of his "mountain" biking. I sat in the car and caught up on my Bible study and a couple of other books I'm reading. So many at the same time! I can't seem to finish anything. But, when they finished their ride--I was their in the air-conditioned vehicle. We popped into another local ice cream shop (we'd only been there once before, a couple years ago with our NGFs) and then Brennen drove us to drop off eggs to our egg family. I didn't realize the bag I grabbed at random (actually didn't know we even had a bag from this establishment) was from KFC, but found it pretty funny and perhaps ironic packaging in which to deliver eggs.

Another summer project . . . planting some love from Caelan's graduation party . . . I'm not great at getting things to grow (just ask the palm tree in the corner), but hopefully some of the seeds will take!

Do you see the little bunny nibbling near the chickens? Isn't it fun that creatures who aren't in each others' food chain don't mind having dinner together? :)

There's that hat I mentioned in a previous post :) Quite the outfit, right?! ;) Talk about summer style!

While the other three were working, Buck and G$ took Buck's bike for a ride on the acclaimed trail. They went about 5 miles round trip (whereas I think the kids did 8 on their first trek). Actually a few days later, the boys had a campout at their buddy's house and, sleep-deprived, met us on the trail behind his house. My NGF and I walked for two hours and the kids rode bikes and walked and talked, discovered some animals (one very not alive), and did some seemingly dangerous climbing over the edge of an old trestle bridge. It's all good, the worst we got was bug bites. So many bug bites. Oh, but Buck loved his bike, loved being able to ride again like he used to as a mountain kid with a mountain bike, just on less mountainous mountains ;)

I have more summertime pictures, but they are on my phone and it is plugged in upstairs where I should be sleeping. So, I guess you can stay tuned for Summertime, Take II! :) I know, it's crazy exciting :)

Project Updates

We had the opportunity to serve a former military couple who graciously sold their home to our youth ministry intern and her husband (who is the media and tech intern) at what the young couple could afford, rather than what they could have gotten from their home in this crazy high sales market. I thought we'd only be there an hour or two, but quickly discovered they needed to basically start from scratch in getting their home of a decade emptied. The girls aren't pictured, but, until they were due at work, they helped pack boxes and Gabby drove to the church to get dollys (dollies? someday I'll look that up) to help with heavy moving. I was impressed at the strength of our boys/young men who were able to carry appliances through the house, down the precarious steps, up the very steep ramp, and into the back of the extra large moving truck!

An hour or so after we started, the current homeowners ordered pizza, so we got to take a lunch break and hear a bit of the vision this newlywed couple has for their first home. We also drank fizzy water, which does not quench a legit thirst (but the neighbor handed ice cold KS water over his fence, so we stayed hydrated that way :) Actually, the weather was excellent for a moving day. Although we've been getting the 100 plus scorchers like the rest of the country, this day was oddly in the mid-70s. Perfect!

Eventually, due to the high quantity of work, and the low quantity of help we set up a bucket brigade style line to move things out of the kitchen. The pool table professionals were down in the basement and we had to leave truck space for their big piece of the puzzle, so it only made sense to rest a bit and work smarter not harder ;)

As we packed a lot of stuff (I think we counted 24 chairs for the two people who were moving) into a truck, I had several conversations with the young men helping with the process. They agreed that having lots of material possessions, beyond what we need, can be a burden on ourselves and others. An interesting lesson for young, mission-minded fellows to learn. Especially our friend from China who is wrestling with God's call on his life. He sees possessions as a hindrance to going anywhere at anytime to serve Jesus. We had some good talk time on the truck between deliveries from inside the house (he and I became the arrangers and pilers of goods).

The Crew did come home with a few "treasures." Brennen was given the sweet hat pictured below, and the boys cleaned that middle eastern sword which was given to the home-owner-to-be (much to his delight :) Graysen received a giant mug and was reminded that God does big things, and also a pair of 3D glasses to remember to see the world through a different lens--the way God sees it. Gabby came home with bass guitar and amp, which she hasn't set up yet. I don't think Caelan or I brought anything home, although she did drive her brother back two days later to pick up a bunch of wood for his treehouse. Oh, and also the kids went back the next day to work on scraping and repainting all the chipped trim and basement walls as one of the many hoops the young couple had to jump through in order to secure their loan.

In our other serving location, we spent a couple hours making progress on our pastor's coop. We got *most* of it stained (although we still have more to do), we got the water bucket hung up, and Buck and Brennen built the hay storage bin (for nesting materials, which have been laying out drying, and getting soaked by these crazy random rainstorms lately, and then hopefully drying again). We need to go back to saw off the screw points, which are super sharp, finish the stain, rake the hay, and then we're pretty close to being done. 

Caelan gifted them the storage shed for chicken food, etc. Buck found these pallet tops (?) at work and, as no one claimed them, grabbed a bunch. They're really cute! I might try to make one into a pot rack for our kitchen :) Also, manufacturers don't make stain the color of the roof piece . . . that's the color they advertise the stain covering, but there is no way this stain is going to turn the old wood the color of the new wood. So, maybe we'll paint it to match the little prayer retreat house our pastor's family also has on the property? I'm not sure, but you can see how things are looking so far!

And their babies are growing! They are super skittish because we do not hold them enough. One escaped the other night and Brennen and I chased it around the garage for about 30 minutes. They are fast, but so delicate, it is hard to just pounce on them to get them back in the coop. The little hairy-legged dark brown eggers are kind of hilarious looking right now. They are just about to exit cute chick stage into that gawky half-feather, half-fluff stage which is not cute at all, ha!

But, I write all this to remind that we can tithe our income, but we can also tithe our time, our strength, our youth, our skills, our intelligence, our work-ethic . . . there are so many ways to serve others and it is fun to help!

Father's Day

Father's Day for Buck started with a fun card from G$ that showed him ramping the new (to him) mountain bike we collectively got Buck as a gift. Buck loved it! 

The boys and I had nursery and Sunday school at church, so the girls (or at least Gabby) watched church at home with their dad, because he didn't get much sleep the previous night and, of course, had to go to work. Caelan joined the boys and I for the third service, but Gabby was sound asleep on the couch when we got home (she's been working quite a few extra hours).

After church, we loaded up the bikes (not Buck's) into two vehicles (because we don't have a bike rack) and the four kids checked out a neat trail that we've heard much about--it used to be railroad tracks, but now offers walking, jogging, and bicycling options. I sat in the car in the air-conditioning, because I don't have a bike. It is possible that I also included this information in another post . . . especially since I don't see that I've put the pictures of that event on this post--which makes sense as it is not directly related to Father's Day although it did happen on Father's Day :)

Before Buck arrived home from work, G$ decided to put up some decorations-which Gabby personalized! And Caelan decided to make his favorite tuxedo brownies (cream cheese layer on top of Ghirardelli brownies)--which Gabby also personalized! (the red is strawberry puree, the lettering stood up, except the brownie was still warm, so it didn't for long :)

I would offer more details, but right now they are escaping me. It's 3:45 in the morning and I can't sleep, so I thought I'd take a run at catching up the blog. The kids love their dad and their dad loves them. Mix in some love for and from Jesus and I'd say we've got a pretty good thing going.