The Last Hurrah

It really doesn't take much to make Gabriel happy -

He had friends -

And more friends -

And more friends - I never counted how many kids were here. I'm guessing around 40.

There were plenty of burgers from the grill, lots of chips and dip, some awesome fruit kabobs that the girls and I made all afternoon (and I didn't take pictures of) and cake and ice-cream.

This is Gabriel's last weekend at home. It's exciting to see him venture out into the world, but kind of bittersweet. Julia starts crying every time he tells her that he is moving to Colorado. It's also going to be very hard on Elijah, who just isn't old enough to understand it all yet.

Party's On

The sickies are better; although Elijah did start the nasty "Tori" cough last night. Although I had smothered his feet in Vick's, I still had to break down and give him "real" cough syrup; after that he settled in between JD and I and slept all night. I wish I had a picture when I awoke in the night to him perfectly up-side-down with his feet on the pillow. Whatever, it was still the best night of sleep I've had in a week.

So, I have things to do for tonight's party. Teens don't seem to be very good at RSVPing so I don't know if we'll have 30 kids or 60 kids, but it'll be fun either way. I'm preparing food for the masses (with Moriah's help - she's my best kitchen help.)

We are off to Food Lion for the grape sale. Pictures later.

Today's Count

Today I took Alyssa and Julia to the doctor. As I suspected, Julia also has strep throat and Alyssa has an ear infection. Julia woke up telling me that her "throw-up" hurt; it cracks me up how she can hear us all say throat over and over and continue to call it her "throw-up." Either term, she was right. I don't know what to do with Alyssa's ear; it has been infected the majority of her 11 years on earth. She has gotten tubes, they've taken out the tubes, they've paper patched it and skin grafted it. It remains infected no matter what, poor kid. It's really helped to not do swim-team this year, which just means that it's at an infection level that she lives with instead of causing her extreme pain. We've been to two ENTs, it's just frustrating that nothing has cured it!

JD did the afternoon soccer run and Aldi shopping for me. I have 1,000 things to do for Gabriel's party on Saturday. It's hard to believe that he heads to Colorado a week from tomorrow.

I'm glad I'm getting all this sickness nonsense out of the way now, so we can all be healthy all winter :)

Sick Count Rising

So, we had such a good run going - no one had really been sick since last fall. That ended yesterday when I took Tori and Elijah to the Doctor. Tori had been running a fever off and on for three days and Elijah for one. So, Tori has a sinus infection and pneumonia, while Elijah tested positive for strep. Julia woke up with a fever today, so she has an appointment tomorrow morning. Since it's been soccer camp this week, JD has gone in to work early and come home early to take care of the cute little sickies while I make the trip "to town" every afternoon.

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Speaking of soccer camp - it's sponsored by a local church and run by a Brazilian soccer team. The amazing thing I found out today is that they come every summer as a mission trip. You got it, Brazil is sending short term missionaries (who play soccer, do worship and talk through translators) to America. What does that say about the current state of our nation? As a whole, we have declined to the point other countries are concerned about us!

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I haven't taken my camera to soccer yet, so instead you get a view of the barn complete with nice green grass, thanks to all the rain we've had lately. As a bonus, it's mowed, thanks to Elijah's new love - the little, orange tractor.

Lazy Days of Summer

Since we have started school, it kind of seems that summer is nearing its end. I guess that's a negative of starting school early, because I much prefer a long summer and a short winter. Honestly, it's so hot now, that they wouldn't want to play outside during the day anyway, so this should allow us a break when we are having perfect fall weather.

No one could swim for over a week because the pool steps broke and we had to order new ones. They were happy campers when the pool reopened! This shot may be the only time that the kids get their Dad in the pool this summer.

Elijah only enjoys the pool if no one splashes his face; which is difficult in this size pool, with this number of children. A bigger pool is on our long-term want list.

Tori has turned into a good swimmer this year; I'm planning on her swimming on the swim team next year.

Julia thinks she swims better than she actually does. She dives and "swims" and never wants to wear her swimmy vest. It's kind of nerve-wracking to watch!

Check out the fit of those goggles; I should send it to Speedo to see if they want her for a goggle add.

The boys started soccer camp tonight. I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived at the location to find out that it was inside and air conditioned.

Since Last Weekend...

Life has been so busy; so busy that I never got to blog my last weekend post. Last weekend, we went on a spending spree - it certainly didn't appear that we are Dave Ramsey fans. The truth is that we had delayed certain purchases until it was just time and had to be done. The good news is that there were no credit cards involved! The biggest purchase was the lawn mower that JD has sighed and walked past all summer long at Lowes. The grass had gotten to the point that I really couldn't keep saying, "we don't need a mower, we barely have grass," so JD got his mower. (See the grass?) He took Elijah on the trip to buy it and Elijah couldn't be more thrilled to have a new, orange tractor!

The next purchase was a car for Alei to drive. Before you are too impressed, let me state that the mower cost considerably more than the car! Alei isn't to impressed with it's station "wagony" appearance, but it came from a friend and was a great price. Of course, it needs work, but JD has proven himself in that department over and over.

We also purchased four picnic tables from the Boy Scout jamboree. Once they use the things, they sell them at great prices. So, we got two tables for the front area and two for the backyard. It will be nice when we have group functions, which we love to host!

(We also bought a new grill and some over-priced knives, but that would be just embarrassing to admit, so I'll stop now!)

We actually completed our first week of school this week. It went pretty well, although I still need to order some curriculum. Somehow, the day is full even when we only do 1/2 of the work, that always concerns me. It overall is just going to be so much easier this year with Elijah and Julia two and four instead of one and three or zero and two!

The weather is lovely outside, warm but not sweltering. JD and most of the kids have been working outside all day. He is paying them each $1 per tractor bucket load to pick up the stray big rocks. They have really needed to be gathered and the bonus is that they are forming the drive-way up to the barn that we have been planning for several years. Even Elijah was working for a while.

I think that the farm work is so good for boys! James and Ben have more knowledge now of things like gardening than I did a few years ago when we moved here.

My garden has been the high-light of my summer. I'm just so thrilled that it's grown so well and can't wait to double its size next year. We have lots of cantaloupe ripening and they are so good.

I want to expand my cherry tomato numbers next year too. I only planted three plants, but we get a cereal bowl full every day. I never thought it would happen, but Julia actually turns them down sometimes now - I didn't have any idea that she could reach that point! At first, she just hosed them and ate them straight off the plant everyday, but now James and I get some too.

The new chickens I got each faithfully lay an egg everyday, so we are getting at least a dozen a day. Since Alyssa gathered early yesterday and Julia and I gathered late today, we had 26! (Like Julia's flip-flops?)

Julia asked if I could make her some eggs out of the eggs.

Lastly, two of our thirty baby guineas died this week. I have no idea why, but moved the other 28 this week in case it had something to do with the old rabbit hutch that they were living in. They are now inside the coop, separated from the big chickens. They are loud little guys, and really not very attractive, but that's all OK as long as they eat lots of ticks when they get big!

Have a great weekend!

Good Freezer - Bad People

Flashback with me - the year was 1994/1995 and we for some reason ( I don't know why, as we only had two kids and didn't buy meat in bulk) decide that we NEED a deep freeze. After shopping around, I looked in the classifieds and saw a stand up freezer for $20. It needed a $15 thermostat, but for $35 we had a nice, big functional freezer.

So, in the last 15 or so years, we have moved the freezer five times and it has never faulted. Over the years, it was often near empty, but now that I have such a big family and buy meat by the 1/2 cow, it is often so full that I can barely cram it all in.

It's been such a good freezer that I'd recommend Montgomery Ward appliances if they hadn't gone out of business years and years ago! So, what's my freezer problem around here? Operator error -you wouldn't think it would so difficult, but it has been a challenge for us this year!

First freezer crises was the night before our big beach vacation to Charleston. At that time, the freezer lived in the barn and I sent Ben out to put something in it. He came back in and told me, "Mom, when I opened the door, the ice-cream fell out and flew all over the place." That statement stuck fear in my heart, as ice-cream really only seems to take flight when it's pretty melted. JD went to access the problem, and sure enough........someone had left the door ajar. So, the night before vacation, JD and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning cooking tons and tons of meat to avoid throwing it all away. I am still blessed with two enormous containers of pre-cooked steaks.

Skip forward to this morning.... I had plans, I had a lot to do. Thankfully, the freezer now resides in my new laundry room, which is more practical and I can keep an eye on the door. I opened it to throw in a huge bad of chocolate chips from Costco, when I realized that it wasn't cold in there. Upon closer examination, I realized that lots and lots in there had already thawed! I checked the plug, I checked the down-stairs circuit breaker; my conclusion was that the old freezer had finally died. I called JD and left a message with the bad news. Then, I had the incredibly unpleasant job of cleaning and cramming as much as I could that wasn't thawed into the upstairs freezers. After that, I started cooking pounds and pounds of thawed meat. I also prepared big trays of steaks that JD will be cooking tonight on the grill.

When I was nearing the end of my hours of handling bloody meat, JD came home early. Upon closer examination, he found out the the upstairs circuit breaker for the generator, that isn't used yet, but is hooked to the down-stairs circuit for the freezer was turned off. Who would have done such a thing? Me, when I flipped the circuit for our AC that is broken and only turns off by flipping the circuit. Oh, Man!

For lunch we had an enormous pile of barbecue ribs; dinner will be steaks galore.


Anyone know any brilliant ideas for pre-cooked and re-frozen steaks? I sure have a lot of them!

Drive-way Macbeth

It was a lovely night for a performance of Macbeth. It was a simple production with no costumes and only two practices, but the kids did great and hopefully they absorbed some Shakespeare while doing it. Here's Moriah as one of the witches in the story.

Ben was quite pleased to have a stabbing scene.

Alei was deep in lines as Lady Macbeth -

And here's Gabriel, James and Alyssa conversing in a scene. I didn't commit Gabriel to the play in the beginning since he was working six days a week, but he wanted to participate since it was directed by his good friend.

It made good memories of learning with friends; they may tackle another production in October.

Oh Man...

I went to Gabriel's last-ever swim final yesterday; he has been swimming with this swim-team for seven years. I am over-all excited for him to enter his next stage of life, but it hit me hard yesterday when I realized that I just watched his last swim race EVER. I may still have eight kids at home, but it's still a weird and sad phase to watch the first child fly the coop.

At this point, we have 100 things to do before we send Gabriel off on his over 1,300 mile trip to Colorado; Alei is planning on driving with him and then flying home - but they've never been on a road trip before. There are 1,000 things I could be concerned about and it's overwhelming that I have to repeat this stage another eight times down the road! As my husband reminds me, it's one kid at a time, one day at a time.

We are supposed to begin our new school year tomorrow, but I still haven't ordered all my curriculum. I guess I'm starting with what I have and getting my order ready tomorrow. Now we are off to a drive-way performance of Macbeth that my kids are doing at a friend's house.

I Wish....

If I could start over on my parenting journey, but start knowing what I know now, it would be a lot easier. Unfortunately, I only know what I know now by 18 years of trial and error, but it's a nice idea!

There are just days that I feel grossly unqualified for my job.

(Tori racing cars at Chuck E. Cheese - which again has nothing to do with my brief post!)