Week ending 6-26-22 Girls at camp, us at home

 This was a pretty laid-back week except that our water heater is leaking and animals were getting into our garden and trash and bugs were eating our fruit trees. I miss the older kids being here to help problem solve. Alexis went to camp on Tuesday and Kaitlyn on Wednesday. They went to a place on the NC/TN border and really enjoyed white water rafting, hiking, cliff jumping, etc. When I wasn't thinking about missing them or the problems we were having, I enjoyed the nice weather, getting lots of lesson plans done for next year, and just hanging out with the kids at home.

Monday: When I told Talea to put the clothes on the couch to fold she got them out of the dryer and plopped them on Thomas. She and Andy thought it was hilarious. 

Tuesday: After dropping Alexis off at a church in Pilot Mountain for her ride to girls' camp at 7am, I decided to hike for a few hours. I did 4 trails: Mountain-4.3 miles then Grindstone-2 miles to Knob trail-1 mile, then Ledge Spring trail-1 mile then back to Grindstone for the 2 miles back to the parking lot. I got turned around a couple of times and backtracked and also went out of my way once to get service so in all my app said I went 10.75 miles. Yay! All by noon. I was hoping to be sore the next day but I wasn't. I had a great time all by myself and can't wait to take some kids next time.

The freeway going towards Winston-Salem.

A group of rockclimbers I passed.

Wednesday: Dropping Kaitlyn off at the church for her very first girls' camp. She was really excited and it was a lot easier for me, being kid #6 than it was when I dropped Kylie off.

I took the 4 little kids to the park and bookmobile. These 2 begged to go to the park and then when we got there they played in the car. Go figure. I guess they were playing some traveling game. They did ride bikes for awhile and play on the playground.

The bookmobile driver, Gayle, always has fun games for the kids. Here Talea does a shark game.

Makenna

Madalyn needed me to get something out of her room and I noticed her wall full of pictures Talea had drawn her when she was here.

Doing an excavation type activity that Gayle gave them.

Friday: Tilly looking cute after a swimsuit bath.

Most of our trees don't have apples on them but this one does. Yay! I hope the deer don't get them.

Our kitchen table was being used for puzzles, art projects and my lesson plans/books so we ate lunch outside. We had great weather this week. 

I enjoyed watching Sam and Andy cut this cardboard painted picture into a puzzle. It was Andy's idea and he recruited Samuel to help him cut it.

Kaitlyn (left) at camp. A leader sent these to me.

About to jump off the lower part of the rock.

Picking up the girls at church. 

I don't mean Alexis picking up the little girls, I mean us picking up Alexis and Kaitlyn when camp was over.

Kaitlyn.

I wish I had a picture of Alexis and Kaitlyn together because in both of these pictures they look so similar with their green shirts and braids.

Our first pumpkin. Makenna is my top garden helper so I let her be first to write her name in it.

Our second pumpkin. I think this one will be mine. :)

What we gathered today: Our first zuchini (besides the one the raccoon ate), potato, plums, and blueberries. We also picked the first blackberries but ate them. We're having a lot of trouble with animals so I hope this isn't all we get but we get a bounteous harvest this summer.

Week ending 6-19-22 Seminary graduation, YM camp

 A pretty boring, laid back week. Thomas went to YM camp Tuesday through Saturday. The little boys did a summer school camp from 8-2 each day. The girls and I worked in the garden a lot (animals still digging it up) and read. I did a lot of lesson plans for school starting in August.

Last Sunday: Seminary graduation. Left to Right: Bishop, Alexis,  Alexis' teacher Angie (seminary is at her house), another girl in our ward who graduated, her online teacher, Bob. Then Sonia, the co-teacher to Angie. Both of Lexi's teachers are amazing and super sweet. Way to go to be a 4 year seminary graduate and straight A student!

Monday: Heat wave came through and their bedroom was 100 degrees so they moved out to sleep by the window unit.

Tuesday: Thomas helped me put up some window tints to try to make the sunroom cooler. It's so hot with all those windows we can't use it all summer.

Dropping Thomas off at the church for YM camp. They went to a place near Asheville, NC and had fun rock climbing, boating, white water rafting, and hiking.

These are the only pictures his leaders sent me, but it looks fun!

Wednesday: A bird in the playroom. We'd just been working in the garden where animals had eaten our plants and dug them up. We also flicked beetles off the grapes into bowls of soapy water as they were eating all the grape leaves. We came in hot and worn out from this animal invasion. Then we find a bird in the sunroom! Later we caught a mouse. It just doesn't stop!

Herbs I was drying and putting in ziplocks for later use.

Saturday: Kait is always willing to mow our huge yard and give all her younger siblings rides.

Samuel playing soccer on a beautiful Saturday night. After a week of problems like animals getting into our garden, fruit trees, garbage cans, and kitchen plus hot weather and no a/c, I just wanted to move to the city. But having cool weather come and watching the kids mow and play outside in our beautiful yard it made living here worth it.

Kaitlyn blowing around the garden area.

Makenna and Anderson raking up some grass clippings and putting them on the garden.

Talea dancing around the freshly mowed grass. The lighting is bad but it was beautiful dark green grass and light blue sky and temps at 70 degrees with no humidity so it felt great.

When I finally put my tools away and went inside I found these 4 poring over the lawn mower book to see how much you have to weigh to get the seat to trigger the mower to go. If you get off the seat or don't weigh enough the mower won't go. Kaitlyn is a fantastic mower but the other 3 look forward to when they weigh enough to mow.

Week ending 6-12-22 Goodbye Maddie and Spencer, garden work

Not much happened this week. Just dropped Madalyn and Spencer off at the airport on Tuesday and worked in the garden a lot. It felt quiet and lonely with the 3 big kids at home. The 7 younger ones just hung around playing and reading. I did a lot of yard work and painted the little boys' room. 

Monday: We used to keep our compost bin here and threw our pumpkin in it last fall. Now there are about 30 plants growing from its seeds so I had to thin it. I threw away about 15 and moved 10 and kept 5 in this spot.

Moving 10 plants to this field by the garden. Hopefully they grow well here even though the soil isn't the best.

Our garden boxes this year, looking better than they did last June 6. We hadn't even closed on our house but we went and bought some plants and planted them. A lot of the boxes sat empty all summer and filled up with weeds. This year every single box is full and we had to put pumpkins and watermelon in the field beside the garden.

First little kiwi. I really hope they grow and we get to eat them. Too much of our food here goes to critters, bugs, diseases, and frosts. Last year there was a late freeze before we moved in and killed all the kiwi, apples, plums, and most of the grapes.

Madalyn took over the reading spot with her suitcases--packing 3 to go to Nauvoo and 3 with her stuff to be stored in the shed.

Playing football during an MTC break.

Tuesday: Anderson pulled out his first tooth!

Talea talking to Madalyn while she goes through some last things in her room she shared with Alexis.

All packed and ready to go to the airport! Three suitcases are Madalyn's and 2 are Spencer's.

Spencer and Maddie chatting all the way there. It's 2.5 hours and since I'm smaller than they are, I got chosen to squish with the 7 kids in the back.

RDU's fancy parking garage

It was fun being at the back of this procession of 9 kids and 5 suitcases as we found the right terminal. Can't believe I'm going to say goodbye in a few minutes.

Checking in.

The goodbyes begin.

Talea and Spencer. When he gets home she'll be 7 years old or almost. Crazy!

Madalyn and Samuel

I wonder how tall Thomas will be in 2 years when he's 16.5.

Alexis cried the most. She's so close to her big sisters. She wrote to Kylie every week on her mission and wrote to a lot of her companions too. She tries to keep a missionary schedule and studies her scriptures an hour each day. She loves going out with the sisters and wearing dresses. If they changed the missionary age to 16 she'd be the first one to submit her papers! She's ready to go.

They've had fun sharing a room again the past 6 months that Maddie has been home.

One last picture together. I still can't believe they got their calls the same day and leave the same day. I'm thrilled for them. They love being in the same MTC district (8 sisters and 4 elders) and getting to eat meals together, attend the temple, be in the same classes at the MTC.

There they go!

After they went through security we saw them come around to the gate. Out of all the gates, we could only see 2 of them and 1 of them was theirs! So we got to watch them get on their flight too.

Watching them get on through this window.

Maddie turned and waved one last time. They're both going to be awesome missionaries and I can't wait to hear about their experiences.

Thursday: Sam, Andy, and Tilly play cars in the dirt. We had 70 degree weather all week, just right for playing and working outside every day.

Friday: An animal pulled up all our pepper plants!

A few he dragged to a different garden box and the others he left lying by their hole.

This happened 3 nights in a row and each morning I had to go replant them. I hope he's done messing with our garden and the plants can begin to grow.

First itty bitty zucchini on Andy's plant. He planted all the zucchini seeds and is in charge of the zucchini bed.

First carrots. They're a bit bitter though.

The pepper box is first. Behind it is the herb box. Behind that is lettuce, arugula, spinach, and garlic.

Tomato box. I planted them all from seeds directly into the bed and I'm happy that so many of them came up. I had to thin them quite a bit.

First tiny pumpkin or gourd. This is the one growing out of the old compost pile so it could be any of the weird pumpkins and gourds we threw out last year.

Saturday: We went to a Seussical cast reunion at a friend's house in Ararat. We don't get invited over to people's houses very often so it was a lot of fun. The weather was perfect and it was wonderful to socialize and relax.

Thomas trying the slack line.

Makenna

Samuel

They had a beautiful view of the Blue Ridge Parkway.