Summer is Officially Over!

We start back to school this Thursday and Friday so our summer laziness and fun is over. Here are some summer highlights.

Summer is now BEHIND us!! ;)
Playing in the backyard.

Luke's first trip to the dentist. With his bike helmet.

Lots of water fun!

Hanging out with cousins.

Going places...lots of places.

Swimming at TJ's house.

Father's day picnic.

Trying to give Luke away with the free windows.

Visiting with friends.

Vacationing at the beach with family.

Luke getting hooked for the first time.

Going to the zoo.

Watching dirt bikes.

Visiting with family.

Enjoying the sunshine and hot weather!

We have had a wonderful summer. It has had it's ups and downs with the job search, but everything always happens for a reason and eventually works out. We are so lucky to have jobs that allow us to do so much fun stuff as a family.

Garden

I decided to try to garden this year. I avoided this post because I didn't want to jinx myself. But, now most of the veggies are either done growing or doing well, so I don't think I can kill them. I'm not the greatest at keeping things alive, so this year was just an experiment. Darrell came in May with his tractor to till up an area about 12x10 maybe?? We discovered that the spot used to be an extra parking space for my grandpa's old junk cars, so there was an abundance of gravel. You can garden in gravel right? I tried for a few days to rake the rocks out. Then I tried to pick all of them up. I even tried to con Luke in to helping. After about 3 rocks in the bucket he would quit. So I decided to leave the rocks and see what happened. Well three months later, I learned that pumpkins, zucchini, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, parsley, basil, green peppers, peas, carrots, green beans, and potatoes like to grow in gravel. The only things that haven't produced were the strawberries, watermelon, and cantaloupe. Yes, I planted all of those things in that tiny space. We have pumpkins growing in everything, beans growing in tomatoes, tomatoes growing in peas, potatoes growing in beans. It's all intertwined. For the first year, I'm very proud. Overall it's been fun, but more work than I thought. When my grandma lived here, her garden was the size of the entire yard. I think we benefited from what she and her garden left behind because I'm not sure how it turned out so good! It has been fun picking things with Luke and yelling at him not to step on the plants. He's learned the color red from picking tomatoes and occasionally picked up his rake and hoe to help out. So if you need tomatoes, just give us a call. We'll have Luke pick some for you. May

June

I canned these beans!!!!! I also froze some because it's a lot of work to can!!!

August...yikes!

For Kevin

Kevin- They really are working and it's wearing out Mallory!

Notice our mailboxes are gone. There were lots of memories with those mailboxes. I crawled through them everytime I came to visit Grandma. Rocky tried to eat the mailman when he delivered the mail. Now Luke and Mallory won't get to crawl through them. :( It's okay though. It looks good.

Progress

Darrell and Craig have been working morning to night all week on the siding. Our little house is coming along. I'm thrilled!! A few weeks ago they took out all of these old windows. We are trying to make the front porch usable in the winter time.

They spent Sunday and Monday tearing off the old siding.

Craig and Grandpa put new doors on the front and back so the kids could see out.

Darrell working hard.

Kevin stopped by on Wednesday to help they guys build these lovely 'boxes' (????) at the end of the sofit (????).

Our naked house!

Yeah!!! The siding started going on today.

Diva

In recent weeks, Mallory has been picking up bags and tossing them over her shoulder. Anything with handles goes over her shoulder. I figured it was time to get her a purse. I picked one up for 50 cents and she is in heaven. She likes to stuff everything in it, phones, toys, etc. In this picture she had her cell phones (yes multiple phones) in it. I hope this is not a look into our future!!! At one point she had both phones up to her ear, but my camera wasn't working fast enough to get that.