Lemonade, Sprinklers & Other Random Things...

What summer is complete without your own lemonade stand?  Our neighborhood has an annual garage sale (which we did not participate in...I am a consignment shop/donation girl now).  Caleb and Josh were pretty sad about not having a garage sale because that was always their chance to sell lemonade and cookies.  Well, that did not stop Caleb.  He got some neighborhood friends together and they made their own stand all on their own.  The only thing that I helped with was making the lemonade.  They did it for two days and had so much fun!  Don't you love the clown costume that Josh came up with?  That really got the cars to stop!   

We have had lots of BBQ's too.  Even pitched the tent in the backyard for a little camp out close to home :)

Lots of sprinklers and slip-n-sliding too!

I made a scavenger hunt for the kids one afternoon because they were getting bored.  I try to have a few ideas in mind if I hear the dreaded "B" word!  If they don't like what I have to offer, there is always cleaning or weed pulling!  I am real good at "helping" them find something to do!

Or...there is just lots of relaxing and goofing off in the backyard!

Baseball...

To be honest,  baseball almost didn't happen this year.  Caleb had second thoughts about the whole idea.  He LOVES soccer and tennis.  He just "likes" baseball.  We found out that he actually LOVES playing games, because there is an audience, but he doesn't like practice all that much! 

Sounds totally like Caleb...he LOVES an audience!

So, we explained that practice makes perfect (or something like that) and that someone will never improve at anything without a little practice.  So, he decided to play this year and had a BLAST!

He has had the same coach for the last few years and he does a great job motivating the kids and pushing them without discouraging them.  That is a fine balance and he does it well!

We also had a little brother admirer that will most likely start playing next summer.  Our evenings are already so busy when it is baseball season with just one playing.  When we have two going, it will most likely be an every night event.  Not sure I am all that excited for that to be honest!

Caleb's team was the featured team one night at a Pheasants game, so it was fun to play around on the big field and to watch a game.  They even had a really nice fireworks show at the end.

Here is a little video of one of Caleb's hits..

So, how does your garden grow??

Ours is growing quite well...thank you!  We decided to wait until our Rapid & farm trips were out of the way before planting our annuals and vegi garden this year.  We were not in the mood to inconvenience our neighbors with watering and didn't want to risk not having our seeds sprout if they were not watered each day.

So, we got home from our trip and went to the nursery to put in our garden plants.  I might wait until June each year...all the vegis and flowers are on sale and even 1/2 off :)  I knew with the raised bed garden, it would be fine to wait that long.  It really heats the roots up well in this box.

The boys helped me plant carrots, beets, swiss chard, cucumbers and cilantro from seed.  We packed them in pretty tight, so we will see how they all grow.  I figure this year is an experiment in our new raised garden anyway!

After that, we planted jalapeno peppers, bell peppers and tomatoes.  We even put in a lemon mint plant for iced tea!  Yummy!

Of course, there had to be a little wrestling while I was finishing up :)

This is how it looks about 3 weeks later!  We have had really warm/humid weather this last week and things really took off.  I looked at the garden about 3 days after taking these and the cucumbers  doubled in size and you couldn't see any dirt around the beets & carrots anymore.  I had to pull a few cucumber plants out and I put up a fence around them so that they would not take over the garden!  They can climb all they want along the bunny fence now too.

We have already had some of the "sugar sweet" cherry tomatoes ripen and Josh ate his first tomato without having a fit...mission accomplished ;)  He was frantically looking all over the plant for more, so I may make him a tomato lover yet!!

Thanks grandpa Bill & Grandma Ingrid for helping us build our garden!  Looking forward to your visit in August when we can sample some vegis!

Memorial Day Farm Visit...

We arrived in Aberdeen on Memorial Day and went straight to the cemetery to meet up with Jon's family.  This day is always tough...remembering & missing those we love.  AND, being thankful for the time we have with our loved ones that are with us now.  This day is always a good reminder for me to really cherish the time that we have with one another :)

So, we did just that...enjoyed our time with one another!

Doing a little wrestling...

Playing some cars with Grandpa...and jumping on him while he tried to take a little nap!

Lots of games...like UNO & Bananagrams...

Catching a little froggy friend and making a  home for him...

Finding a butterfly with an injured wing and trying to nurse it back to health. 

Lots of time was spent at this great little park, otherwise known as Grandpa & Grandma's backyard :)

Swinging until our heart was content (or dad's arm was tired)...

The next day we were "off to see the wizard" at Storybook land!

Caleb just finished reading the book on our trip to Rapid and we watched the movie at Gma's house the day before, so the boys were extra eager to see the park this time with the book & movie fresh in their imagination :)  Cassidy came along too!

I took a picture of Caleb with this little munchkin when he was about 2 yrs old, so whenever we return we have to get a picture to see how much Caleb has grown.  He was holding his thumb in the original picture, so I had him do that here too!

So, we followed the yellow brick road to visit the scarecrow...

the tin man...

the witches castle (the lion was out for repairs apparently)...

and of course, Dorothy's house!  They simulate a tornado in the back of the house  and once was enough for Josh.  He eagerly waited outside for Cassidy & Caleb to go through it again and again!

There was lots to see and do around the park...Jon and I and Caleb  were munchkins too I guess!

We always have to take a quick ride on the carousel.

And stop for something cool to drink :)

This was our last day at the farm and what better way to burn off some energy before a long ride back home...jumping on the hay bales!

We had a great long weekend and now we are looking forward to some time at home for the month of June.  On the agenda...planting the garden, baseball, VBS and camping!