Going to see Grandma!

Hi all! We are going on a little trip come Sunday. We will be traveling up to Winnipeg to see our family and to renew our visas on the way back. I am excited! I'll get to see my littlest niece that I've never seen yet-for real! I will be sure to post some pictures once we are back and I've caught up with all my work. Which might not happen for a while, because the garden is starting to peak! Yesterday I picked 4 cabbages, dug out a whole row of carrots, picked and canned all green beans, picked cucumbers, and put straw around the watermelons. And now I have sore muscles in my legs...sigh.

But, before we go on our trip, we have a picnic coming up at Daddy's workplace on Saturday, which is tomorrow! That will be a lot of fun too, especially for the little ones.

We'll be posting more fun stuff in the near future here! Hope you all have a good time! I have work to do, and I better get my behind moving here, if we are to get ready...

My Baby!

Well, I guess he's not so baby anymore. I decided its time to show more pictures of him. He has really been starting to do all sorts of things at 9 1/2 months. A bit slower than the other two, but he does things eventually.

Here he is wearing shorts that belonged to daddy when he was small! They are a bit too tight already, but I had to put them on him to see how it looked... Interesting, right?

He has discovered the register where the cold air blows out, and he just loves sitting there and marveling at it!

He loves green onions from the garden. Unbelievably much! I love his baby breath smelling like onion!

Here he thinks he is big, and I guess he is.

Beautiful Iowa

Yesterday my "Iowa" attitude became a bit more positive. Or how do I say it... You see, I still miss our old Tennessee home a lot. So far I felt like there is nothing to do around here that can even compare to all the fun stuff we had available at our fingertips in East Tennessee. (Sniff sniff.) I had heard people say that Lake Iowa is a good place to go, so that's what we did yesterday.

Plus I had promised the children this summer I would take them swimming, and I had yet to fulfill that promise, and there happened to be a beach at the lake, so...

...this was much better. They got to build sand castles with daddy; were able to chase butterflies; Daddy started to teach them how to swim. And there was lots of space, very few people there.

The water was amazingly warm, unlike the Canadian waters I remember. I was not prepared to swim this time, but I think next time I will! Timothy seemed to enjoy standing in the water and I think he would enjoy sitting in it too.

We had a lovely little picnic in one of the shelters. It was gorgeous. The area is very wooded.

Now, I can't wait till someone comes and visits us again! We'll take you there! Well, that depends on when you come, that is....

Kittens, anyone?

All we wanted was to get Jessica 2 young kittens to replace her two that had gotten lost several months ago. So how did we end up with 5?!!!

First of all we went to Grandma and Grandpa Bs to pick up two little ones.

Then we found out they were hard to catch and so it took us a while to get two, but since they were not exactly the ones she wanted the most, Daddy figured let's just get a third and have an extra one, should we lose one, or two...

You never know when a coon or coyote will decide a kitten is an easy dinner, or when one is stupid enough to wander onto the road and get run over, so a third did not sound like a bad idea... ...until it turns into a fourth, and a fifth kitten, that is!!!

Two nights ago in the middle of night Jessica came to me and said, "Do you think the kittens need anything? I hear them meowing and meowing." I mumbled something like, "No, I'm sure they're fine. Just go back to sleep. Check on them in the morning." Soon I am awakened again, this time by a meowing kitten. I get up, switch on the porch light, and look for all three of them, but they are fine. Then I hear that sound coming from outside. Must be stray cat, I dismissed... Until next morning when we heard that meowing again and we went and checked; sure enough, crouched by the wood pile is a furry little kitten.

Just look at it! Scared, lonely, needing attention... Who else but Jessica can give a kitten what it needs?! Their mama of course, but no mamas around here except my little girl.

The next morning I thought I had heard another sound from outside, but I thought, surely not! But yes, among the woodpile, another little kitten! Same size, different kind though. Now who can just dismiss the pitiful cry of a lonely hungry kitten that has somehow lost his home... So, we take it in too, feed it and love it. Well the children do, that is. I don't like cats. Never have, never will. But I can put up with them for my children's sakes. It makes them happy, and we need them to catch the mice around here, so yeah, I can put up with them.

Now, what do we do with five kittens? I have to stretch my dollars as is just to buy food for us, let alone for a family of kittens! There's Smokey, (guess which one's Smoky!!!) and Rosie, Sally, Simba and Fluffy. They are kind of cute now, aren't they though?.

It's Independence Day!

And we found out just how patriotic Americans really are. It rained and was chilly, but that didn't stop people from going to the town square to enjoy the parade. This is the first time I have seen rain on the 4th of July, but then, I haven't been to that many parades either. People wore coats and sat under umbrellas, but had fun! And the children sure didn't seem to mind; they got candy and toys, so what else matters?! We were a few of the fortunate ones who got to sit against the wall and partially under a roof so we stayed dry and had as good of a time as possible!



That's my timid boy Joseph in the black coat. Notice the rain dripping from the roof.

Hmm, where is the candy going to come from now???

(This one's for you, my friend -and namesake- Annie)

These two just seem to stick together, which I am very thankful for.

That was our 4th of July fun, and it was fun! Different than usual, but fun just the same. Of course, I hope next year it doesn't rain...