Apparently I only have time for regular blogging while on vacation. Or maybe I only think there's stuff worth blogging about while on vacation. But here's a little about our regular summer days this month...
June and Huck are good buddies. She watches out for him (read: gets extremely anxious when he's doing anything remotely close to something she thinks he shouldn't do), and has fun trying to make him laugh or keep him entertained.
There's been a lot of laying around. This is pretty much the view I wake up to every morning. But hey - they're getting along and at least for this brief moment entertaining themselves pretty well without undue messes.
Brenden is finished with his baseball season now. He really came into his own as a great hitter and strong thrower.
As much as baseball takes over your life (and that field couldn't be further from our house), we genuinely enjoyed spending the evenings watching the games and getting to know the really nice parents on the bleachers. Everyone was so encouraging of each others kids and equally un-concerned about our not-so-impressive record, as long as the kids were having a good time.
Brenden had a few good injuries to show for his season -- this one was a twisted knee on a slide to home plate. Also getting hit by wild pitches is pretty common in the kid-pitch league.
Huck figured out how to climb up the stairs, but refuses to try to go down just yet. He sits at the top and whimpers until someone gets him. That seems like a pretty good solution to me.
Of course the most exciting thing about June 2010 was that the Earnests came to town. They sure bring a party with them wherever they go. I was particularly struck when I walked down to find this scene in the kitchen at just how many kids we have between us and how much work it is to feed them.
Annee did a much better job chronicling our time together on her blog, so click on over there for more details. But suffice it to say we were busy and well entertained with hikes, swimming,
boondocks, plenty of eating out,
snow cones, crafts, backyard baseball games, and lots of plain old hanging out. It was fun to have built-in playmates every day. And the kids did remarkably well getting along (well, except sometimes June who perhaps felt a bit threatened by her super-cool older twin cousins who look a lot like her + 2 years and who are so confident and creative and capable).
Grandma & Grandpa Z took the older grandkids to Aspen Grove family camp for a week. Although the kids felt some serious technology withdrawls, they had a really fun time together and talk fondly of fishing, jumping on the beds, nightly ice cream runs, and weird soda mixtures at dinner.
Thank you so much, Mom & Dad, for your generosity and bravery and strength. This was such a special thing to do for and with these kids that they will remember forever. Hope you've recovered.
Annee loves babies. Actually her kids really love babies too. Huck had a serious fan club in town with no shortage of people to hold him, push his stroller, and play with him.
Look at those eyes!
can hardly keep herself away when there's a family gathering happening, so she popped in for a weekend while Annee and Darin were both in town.
She managed to capture Huck's new ugly squishy pig face. This is not an attractive look for him, but he does think it's pretty funny.
After the kids went to bed, we pulled out the Rook cards and played hours of Up. Scott surprised us all with his heretofore secret skills and crushed us all. Ken held up to the initiation pretty well, and quickly got the hang of removing the pile when he plays the 14.
Other activities this month included:
- Scott busy mixing and preparing for the release of his hymn revival project,
The Lower Lights.- Lots of working out and trying to fit the
THF plan into our hectic lives (semi-successfully)
- I've been working with
some great Provians trying to bring some (more) culture and entertainment to downtown.
- Yard update - everything is fully in bloom which is beautiful and exciting but also a ton of work. Lots of pruning and weeding and getting behind and catching up. We got the garden planted finally, and had some beautiful peonies bloom this year. We were excited to see hundreds of cherries growing on our baby cherry tree, until one day when they were all mysteriously gone. Not sure who to blame for that (birds? deer?). We're down to just two apples left on our apple tree, and I'm not too optimistic about their chances of survival to adulthood.
The squirrel has discovered the garage trash can, so if you leave the door up too long you will inevitably come out to find him in there.
- Tonight June was pretending to be Sparky the dog, and tried to bark her bedtime prayer.
Tune in next time for the exciting tale of our extended Wiley family beach week over 4th of July.
