Ag Report

But first a word from our sponsor, Baby Teeth: Try to leave home without them. At 4 am Evie woke up and wiggled her tooth out. She was disappointed to find out that the Tooth Fairy had already made the rounds through Indiana by that time. She is going to try again tonight. As for the rest of those baby teeth, they should be gone before school starts in two weeks and that should make corn on the cob really interesting. (By the way, the scrape on her nose is from the bottom of the pool when she was doing backwards underwater sommersaults)
On to the Ag Report. It's hotter than an oven out here. Today, our thermostat said 108. The plants are loving this heat as long as I remember to water them.

Some of the killer tomato plants. This one is just starting to ripen. Our friends should have a good crop next week!

I had to take a picture of this poor pepper plant. Until this year, I have had pretty normal pepper plants that yielded 3 or 4 peppers and even then, they weren't much to get excited about. This poor plant has 7! and they could all be picked any time!

The killer tomato swarm. I may take a break from the yellow pear salad tomatoes next year as they seem to just grow out of control and try to smother everything else around them.

Our new tree is doing ok. Can you tell that we are watering it? The rest of the grass has gone dormant. Please don't tell Jim it's dead or he will freak out. Our water bill doesn't need that kind of drama.

And this year's grand experiment continues. The hops plant is about 8 feet long and has wrapped itself along the fence. If you look closely, those little spiky things are the flowers. We are hoping that it matures enough to send Uncle Mike down in TX some of them for his home brew.

While the kids were away...

As you may have figured out from the last post, the kiddos were at "Grandma Camp" for a week. Don't feel sorry for us parents. After spending a grueling weekend at the pool and local brew pubs, Jim and I flew off to Minnesota. Unfortunately, he had to work during the day. While he was off bringing home the bacon, I kept myself busy. I saw a movie, shopped, visited friends, and treated myself to a trip to the Aveda Insititute. As I was laying there during my facial (which was quite good), I felt a little guilty. Then I reminded myself that this only happens once every 7 years or so, and I decided to relax and enjoy. It was great to be back. The weather was unseasonably cool. Jim and I ate dinner on or near a large body of water every night. Our flight was even delayed so we went to dinner at a former favorite Japanese noodle shop. Good times all around.
And the children? Well, for 4 days in Ney, they visited cousins, swam, played at parks, ate ice cream and played lots of Legos. A mid week transfer to Grandma and Grandpa Taller happened in Bowling Green. In Cleveland, they visited, checked on gardens, hiked, visited nature centers, picniced, and visited the Kiddy Park that Grandma and Grandpa went to as children. A good time had by all.

And normally, after an intense week of fun, they are wrecks. But this time was different. They were good all week until Thursday when being cooped up inside just got the best of them and the whining crying business finally came out. Not too bad.

Finally! Evie looses a tooth!

Just when we thought Evie might go off to the second grade with all of her baby teeth, one started to wiggle, then another and another. In all, three were wiggly in our family pictures. I told her that she needed to keep them until the pictures were taken. Well, an entire month and a half later, she finally lost one! We had just handed the kids off to grandma and grandpa Seibert for a week of "Grandma Camp". They took the kids to Sauder's for a fun fiddling day and some exploring. While Evie was on the train, the tooth wiggled right out.
Mr. Train Engineer, you need to drive a little slower if you are knocking a kid's tooth out!

Now is that one happy kid or what? She has two really loose ones that could fall out anytime!

Swim Team

We finished up another season of swim team here in the neighborhood. Evie did a great job competing in lots of relays and all the strokes. Annalise was asked to return next year. She couldn't quite pass the swim test two weeks in. I'm happy to say that she will blow them away next year because now she swims like a fish. Here's a group shot of some of the kids on the team. Because we have a shortened summer, we have lots of vacations to deal with. This gives most kids a chance to swim lots of events.
These are just the 7 and 8 year olds. There were 21 girls!!

Evie getting ready to swim her leg of the Medley relay.

And she's off! We hope she decides to swim again next year because she is a great swimmer!

So this doesn't have much to do with swim meet other than we were at a meet when her loosest tooth started to bleed. The tooth filled up with blood and turned black. Gross. It needed to come out soon!

Evie must be part human, part shark because her permament teeth are coming up behind her baby teeth!

Happy Fourth of July!

We celebrated the weekend of the 4th of July in our very favorite way. We just hung around home, watched neighborhood firework shows, grilled, swam, and of course, went to the CarmelFest parade! We had to wait a while for the parade to start so the Monkeys amused themselves.
Annalise wearing her sunglasses like mommy. It was a nice cloudy morning. Perfect for sitting on the hot ashpalt.

Here's our crew on our spot. Notice who decided not to wear patriotic colors

One of my all time favorite entries, the pipers from Speedway.

And the tiny donkeys.

Katie, me and Jim enjoying the morning.

Our friends, Karen and Jeremy. Jeremy sporting the ever classy "hoosier daddy?" T-shirt.

Like every other parade in this country this summer, we had a beam from the twin towers come through.

The Civil war reinactors shoot off a blank of gun powder right beside us. It was loud.

A repilica of the first car to win the Indy 500. The Marin Wasp.

And last but not certainly, least, the Corvette club. Someday, I'll have one of those Mickey mouse hands to wear while I wave at people and then I will have to find a Corvette to drive around. No former Corvette pace cars, but that's ok.

Grandpa's Birthday party day 2

Once we all rolled out of our tents and shook off the effects of the Tylenol pm, things got crazy again. Uncle Kevin! You will ruin your teeth drinking all that Coke!
We tie dyed t-shirts for the gang (and Grandpa's underpants--but you don't want to see a picture of that, do you?) What are we going to do when we get another kid running around this fall?? It's time to finish the basement, Grandma and Grandpa!

We said we were going to have a 6.0 k fun run in honor of Grandpa's birthday. Because we were so full of cake, potato salad, and grilled meats, we never made it. That didnt' stop Aunt Becky and Uncle Bran from going for a short run. They celebrated with a hot dog embrace.

And then things really started getting silly. After I shaved Uncle Kevin's head pretty short (it was time, UK), I gave Uncle Bran a mohawk. All college professors should sport a mohawk.

I think he's looking pretty good, but I heard that Grandma "cleaned him up" before he headed back to Dixie.

Guess who didn't want a mohawk or even to get her hair cut? she needed it though because the pool really does a number on your hair.

In the backyard, we tried to see how many monkeys will fit in a baby pool.

And what's a weekend without some work. At about 9:30 the night before, Grandpa's dead ash trees were cut down by some of the party goers. That just left Oliver with a big mess to clean up the next day. Good thing Uncle Kevin and Grandpa were there to help him.

Grandpa Seibert's 60th Birthday Party Camp Out Extravaganza Day 1

So as soon as we got the Wells family packed up and headed west, we loaded up the station wagon for a weekend of backyard camp out fun for Grandpa's 60th birthday party. Rules were you had to sleep outside, you had to eat outside, and no showering. Fun for all! Sweet G was loving the tire swing
The big kids were all jumping around in this jumper.

Greatest 60th Birthday party Ever!

When things started getting crazy in the jumper, Aunt Becky busted out the MInute to Win It games. Uncle Bran was hard to beat at any game, but Grandma gave him a run for his money with putting penne pasta onto a spaghetti noodle while you hold it in your mouth.

Henro spent some time alone with the leftover noodles.

I did beat most people at successfully getting a cracker from the middle of my forehead into my mouth without using my hands. Attractive and becoming picture of all of us.

Grandma and Grandpa played some corn hole. Go Buckeyes! Grandpa is wearing a shirt that says "60" and is wearing a necklace of 60 washers around his neck. He also received a posterboard with 60 cars on it, 60 ice cream bars, 60 perler bead creations, and 60 mini snickers.

Then the slip and slide came out. fun for all. Were these this small when we were young??

Annalise has been begging me to get ours out. I'm glad she got her fill at Grandma's house.

A picture with the birthday boy. All those extra kids just wandered by. Just kidding. Some of those kids belong to our family friends--the Meyers and the Bockeys. Where were the Coleman kids in this chaos??

Grandpa and his birthday cake--carrot. See Uncle Kevin, we ate a vegetable!

If the carrot cake counted as a vegetable, June had five servings of veg that day. Every time someone new would come around, she asked for a piece of cake. I think she ate 3 before we caught onto her scheme.

Then it was back in the bouncer to work off some of that sugar!!

grandpa didn't bounce because he was pinned under a cute, cuddly baby.

It was grandpa's wish that we all camped out. Even me. So armed with an air mattress and a tylenol pm, we slept out with the lighting bugs and all the passing motorcycles and semi trucks. It was very restfull. Evie and I fell asleep holding hands. that made it all worth it.