Happy Birthday

Today is Drew's b-day. Can't believe my little boy is 11.

Wow! how time flies! Army tank cake...
and a new "BMX" bike

weekend fun

Alysha had a tournament this weekend, the team got 4th place, good job!we enjoyed a picnic lunch
relaxing after lunch
Sunday Trevor chose Chinese for lunch (for his b-day) and Alysha "thought" she didn't like Chinese food, here she is eating with chop sticks and enjoying the food :)

chop sticks can be used for "other" things too

something new

I'm trying this "video" thing. I didn't know that I could only do horizontal video...sorry! We had been at the ballpark all day so the boys were creating their own fun, they found this little hill and started rolling down it!

party time

Trevor had Sean and Isaiah over today for his belated birthday party. They had a great time swimming, jumping on the trampoline, playing capture the flag and being "Super Heroes". "Lego Man" baseball player cake

berry picking

It all started this morning at 7:00am, the kids and I went to the neighbors to pick berries.

1-1/2 hours later we had picked 8 buckets. The kids did a great job helping, but they were ready to be done. By 11:30 the kitchen was all cleaned up and 19 quarts of berries were in the

freezer.

picking

stemming

chopping

washing

Happy Birthday

Today my little boy turned 8, sigh... where has the time gone? I remember so vividly when he made his grand entrance into the world, seems like yesterday.

new shirt and shorts from
Grandma B. Thanks!
dart "Nerf" gun and "Gerber"
(multi-tool) from us.


swimming at Adam's

water

Does anybody have gopher wood? We are thinking about building an ark. We have never seen the water this high, I can't believe how much it rose during the night. We had to prepare the basement just in case the water starts to come in (I pray is doesn't) So, now we are getting ready to head to Grandma's again.


the meadow and driveway

the driveway, notice how high
it has gotten since yesterdays blog

the backyard

this was taken last night,
our neighbor called this morning and
said our mailbox and the bridge is all
under water :(

a dirty ride

Well, it was a very dirty ride home on Wed. eve. At 5:00 pm we left for ball games, so we took the 4-wheeler across the rode so we would could go thru the field to get home that eve. Darrell took Alysha to Mattoon and the boys and I went to Arthur.
We had to take the long way around to get home because the water was up over
the rode in front of the driveway. So, the boys and I got on the 4-wheeler at approx. 8:15 pm
and started into the field. Within a 1/4 of a mile we got stuck, real bad! I pushed and pushed, Drew manned the wheel and Trevor was standing to the side and praying, finally after much pushing and mud up to, well pretty high (we were having fun), we finally made it out, called Darrell and told us a different way. So we stopped to ask the neighbors permission to use their field lane and the lady said "I never could understand why you built your house in their, I would get the 4-sale sign out." I smiled to myself and left. Sorry this is the long version. By this time it was getting dark and I wasn't sure where I was going, so we kept following the tree line and were getting into more water, now it wasn't funny anymore. I finally stopped and called Darrell again he told me to go back to the van, so we went flying thru the field with mud and water flying everywhere, I was not going to get stuck again, by this time I didn't care if we got more dirt on us or not, and I had the thoughts of going into town and buying a 4-sale sign. Well, we made it back to the van and headed to our safe haven, Grandma Beachy's house.

muddy boys...

it will probably never be the same again

muddy feet

water level on the driveway

summer time

It's officially summer at our house, the pool was setup today!
The kids helped and we had it all put together in about 25 minutes.
However, we don't have any water in it yet.
The kids are excited about playing in it. For me,
it will be a while before I even think about getting wet.



Tonight we built a fire and roasted hot dogs and the
boys did what they love to do, play with the fire.

fire pyramid