Summer 2010 Update #3

The last couple months have been a bit of a whirlwind and as much as I thought things were going to settle down, they really haven't....and with the upcoming holidays, I don't anticipate that life will slow down too much, but I'm back!! I've decided that I'd like to cut back on blogging, though, so you probably won't see posts as often as I had been (before the break), but I am hoping to have something up at least once a week.

So, for the summer update! WAY back at the beginning of August, the neighboring town had one of my favorite groups perform at their Music in the Park, so I made sure to take the kiddos and we thoroughly enjoyed them! (The group was Three Men and a Tenor for those of you who may have heard of them.)

The following day the same town, that had the music in the park, had their Art Fair. I made sure to get some kettle corn while I was there (it's the best!) and my brother's friend was doing a book signing for his newest book, Michigan's Mysterious Lighthouse. It was a beautiful day and there was some truly amazing art there!

The 2nd weekend of August we had a birthday party to go to for my friend's little girl who turned 4 (she's also Morgan's best friend.) I also got to see her new little baby who was only a couple weeks old, then drove to see my other friends' new little one the next day. That Sunday we picked up 2 more calves, too, so that weekend was a weekend of getting my baby fix! ;-) It also ended with truck problems...with our brand new truck...but it was a fairly quick and easy fix...thankfully!

Two weeks later was another birthday weekend with my Aunt's surprise birthday party and Blake's birthday. (They share the same birthday-kinda cool!) Plus we went to Rich's old fire department's pancake breakfast that Sunday and followed that with his fire department's picnic....it was in the mid 90's that day and I really didn't need to eat anything! LOL!

Speaking of fire departments, Rich's burned an old house which I got pictures of, but on my dad's camera :-/ Then a few weeks later his old department burned a house that was on his grandma's new property and Rich had the opportunity to help with it!

This is the house being burned on the family's property. Rich is the one with the yellow helmet.

Watching the fire was so interesting! And the darkness in the picture is from the thickness of the smoke!

Rich is on the nozzle spraying down the tree to keep it from burning.

Family picture :-)

Labor Day weekend was a little more relaxed and on Labor Day we had a picnic with the family. The weekend after that, though, we had a wedding to attend. The wedding was Friday afternoon, so we dropped the kids off with my parents', who were going camping, then carpooled with Rich's parents and some family friends. We stayed that night, came back the next day and ran up to where my parents' were camping to get the kids....a lot of time on the road! The wedding was fun, though, and the kids had an awesome time with my parents' attending The Thumb Octagon Barn's Fall Family Days where they got to milk a goat, card wool and have it spun to bring home, make greeting cards using dried & pressed flowers, take train rides, pump water at old-fashioned pump and lots more! (I'm thinking I'll have to go there next year-sounds awesome!)

Rich and I ready for the wedding! Had to get a pic of us, since we don't dress up often :-)

The newlyweds :-)

A quick pic of the Octogon barn...we drove by since Rich had never seen it before.

Morgan started preschool the following Monday and has been LOVING it! I take her to school in the morning, so she doesn't have to ride the bus with the big kids and she rides the bus home right before lunch. It was a tough decision to let her go, but now that she's going I know we did the right thing :-)

Rich took a couple hours off to drop Morgan off at school with me on her first day...another family pic.

The next weekend was the fireman's memorial festival and the weekend after I had another Girls' Night Out with the girls from high school as well as an open house for a couple who is expecting their first in October. (SO many babies!!) :-)

In between all that I've picked, husked, hung, dried and shelled my popcorn. I ended up with a gallon bag full even though I cut back! I made sure to get them done asap this year and only lost a little bit to the chipmunks who decided to infest our mudroom (they are quite cute little pests though!) I also got 42 quarts of tomatoes canned and 14 pints of salsa...so far....all the tomatoes are picked (due to a frost threat) and I'm just waiting for them to ripen. The garden is basically done for the year-the only thing left out there is our pumpkins! :-)

The kids and I have also been working on several activities/crafts/projects that I hope to share with you in another post....this one is long enough! ;-)