Chapter 38

Tire Swing Fiasco

Let's just say I was inside the farm house when this story occured.  Otherwise I think I'd have had a heart attack.

Eric and the kids picked a really high branch to hang the tire swing from. The only problem?  Eric is deathly afraid of heights, as are most of my kids.  

Only one child is brave enough to climb that high:  BETH.

Eric and my dad got this old rickety ladder out of the shed.  It's an old wooden extension ladder that was rebuilt by my grandfather years ago.

Eric told me later he was seriously thinking through all the scenarios of how he would try to catch her when she fell.

I'm so glad I heard about it later.  :)

Yay for Beth!  Everyone gets to enjoy the tire swing now.  (and NO, there are no pictures allowed of ME on it.  But it's fun.)

You might want to get Beth's autograph before she becomes famous! :)

Beth has been checking out Lee Hammond books from the library since we lived in Muscatine.  She asks for them for Christmas and the ones she owns are well used and tattered.

Earlier this summer Beth discovered that Lee Hammond lived in the area.  She found an email address on one of her books and just decided to email her.  To her surprise Lee emailed back and invited her to the studio!  Even more surprising was that it was only 5 miles away from our house!

Beth fit right in.  Lee has lots of furry friends...

While we were visiting I asked Lee if she taught classes for kids.  She doesn't BUT she said Beth could just join an adult class.  In fact, she had one coming up  that was a week long intensive that ran from 9 am - 5 pm.  

Hold your horses.  (HA!) I have seriously been praying for almost 2 years for a way for Beth to be able to take an art class or have some kind of art instruction or some way to nurture her God-given gift.  This is one of those HOLY COW, WOW GOD moments.  Isn't it just like God to answer a simple prayer with an unfathomable answer?? This was way beyond anything I could've thought up.

So, at the end of July Beth took an art class.  She got up hours before the class started each day.  She was beside herself with anticipation. She took more showers and brushed her teeth without being told.  :)  The week was truly a gift.  

And her art work flourished.  Lee took a natural gift and fine-tuned it into an amazing art.  Beth did several drawings from photographs.

(her pen name is Vrenith Sylversmith...clever)

There's more but these are all I could find on E's iphone files.  

I am so thankful for this answer to prayer!

Peacefulness

We are taking some time at my happy place soon for a little outdoor work and some refreshment. It is so peaceful there. 

It's a really great place to meet Jesus. (not the cows...) :)

Alex takes hundreds and hundreds of pictures whenever we stay for more than 10 minutes.  She loves it there too.

My kiddos roam the acreage.  They love the outdoors.

SEE??? Don't I look happy here??? 

The tire swing - which is the kids' favorite city toy - has been transplanted to the farm.  Now it's there whenever they visit, not sold with our house in the city.

It's a great place for teenagers learning to drive.

But the BEST part of the farm?  The sunsets (and sunrises!).

Blogging and Randomness

I've been missing from the blog world.  

We are preparing for a big move...our biggest yet.  

But we've been preparing for this one for 6 years.  So we're just about ready.

Our house is for sale.  One car sold, one to go.  Everything we own is pretty much up for grabs. (except for the kiddos!  Oh, and the Chevelle.  We all know that I would be sold before the Chevelle. HA!)

Last week at co-op the kids' assignment is to write a 5 paragraph essay on a childhood memory.  No one could think of one!  

They went back to my 2006 blog and laughed and laughed while they read all the things that happened they had forgotten about.  

My kids were pretty naughty creative when they were younger.  I told Alex it would've been more her than Lucy if I blogged in 2003...or 2002.  But in 2006 Lucy was a pistol.

It made me remember why I blog.  I love to write down the story of my kids...the story God is writing in our lives...the funny and the ugly.  Because I never want to forget some of this stuff!  

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Some randomness:

Alex's herbs are doing pretty well.  Not too bad for patio plants.  We really miss the lush soil we had when we lived in Fruitland where things grew so out of control.  

Our first watermelon of the season...but it was picked early.  It wasn't feeling well.  Small and pretty but it tasted kind of yucky.  

We have cucumbers coming out our ears.  Manny (aka eldest daughter with a pen name) blogged about what she's doing with some of them here.

Some dinner guests from last weekend...

I think this was on Father's Day...via iphone.  ;)

a rehearsal dinner (aka night out for the momma and daddy)

Our favorite little Mennonite cafe close to home...

Guard Dogs

Look how mean he is.  :)

Go get 'em!

Yeah.  Right.

Because I should be doing something else.

Have you ever looked around at all you really need to do and felt kind of overwhelmed?  

That's me today.

But tomorrow help is on the way.  One of my bff's is driving to the city to save me.

So instead of really working hard...

I took pictures of all the cool stuff Alex did this last week.

Homemade mayonnaise:

(and quite resourceful to use a pony tail holder) :)

Fermented Gingered Carrots:  

Sauerkraut: 

And we had cucumbers growing at the farm! Hopefully we'll can some dill pickles soon! :)

Pictures...because there's no time for many words :)

Alex takes awesome pictures.

The backyard is flourishing in beauty right now.  

The herbs are looking yummy, too.  Peppermint.  MMMmmhhhh yum.

I like the blooms of the trumpet vine...as long as it stays outside.  For some reason it takes multiple times for little people to remember that ants spew out of these beauties.

Such peace.

My begonias aren't happy this year.  They are not growing very bountifully like usual.  But at least they aren't dead.  They are still my favorite...and my Grandma's favorite when I was little.

I wish Alex would've been along with us in Oklahoma this past weekend.  She'd have loved my cousin's awesome creations that are more than just a garden.  My cousin is a master gardner and I felt like I should pay her to walk through her garden.  I didn't even get a picture of her art!

One more before I get caught by E.  :)  He'll be home for lunch soon and ask me what I've done today. hahaha.

Yum!

While E is in Africa the girls and I are visiting Liberian friends in N KC. Liberian food all around!

The Mountains (again)

Monday we took our time getting going.  We loaded up the Suburban and took some hokey way up to our cabin close to Allenspark. 

Eric doesn't like to view the same route more than once.  He was able to stretch a 2 hour drive to 4.5 hours.  What a gift he has.

I took another nap.  Don't get me wrong...I love the mountains.  But I like to be in a beautiful forest or something, not in a car.  

Unfortunately, in the middle of nowhere nature called.  

We stopped at the local Post Office in Ward and without flenching the woman offered either the porta potty down the road or the "town outhouse" out behind the Post Office.

I'm a farm girl.  I can handle that.

But it was an experience we won't forget. At least my girls won't forget.  :)

We finally made it to our cabin in the woods.  

The campground was complete with a trail around the outer edge of the property.  It was so peaceful up there!

The hammock quickly became a favorite place to read.

We spent Monday and Tuesday at the little cabin in the woods.  We really had no agenda and it was relaxing.

The Mountains (round 1)

While we were in Colorado for that wedding, we took advantage of being so close to the mountains.  We ventured up Mt. Evans on Sunday.

On our way up we stopped off at BeauJo's for lunch in Evergreen.  It's our favorite! 

The only problem with going further up than Evergreen is that I am deathly afraid of heights.  I cannot help it.  It's like a chemical reaction of some kind in my body and I go berzerk. 

Therefore, I was removed from the front seat.  My family claimed it was so Alex could take pictures from the front seat but I'm not so sure.

Jake held my hand and tried to keep me calm.  I think it was a flashback to his childhood.  When he was 5 we had a similar role play on a roller coaster at Lego Land where he had to reassure me over and over that I wasn't going to die.

The scenery was beautiful.  Not that I saw it in person much since my eyes were closed but these pictures are awesome.

This is not a sign you want to see going up a mountain!

I might have said somewhere along the line that I love my family more in the foothills.  Maybe.  

But we'll discuss that in counseling in a few years.

Almost to the top!

The last little bit of the trip is a hike.  It was freeeeeeezing cold.  I was fighting off the puky feeling and Lucy was cold and feelin' the altitude so we waited in the car.  

I am so glad I waited in the car.  I mean, really.  Can you imagine me clinging to that snow for my life?  I would have totally lost it if I was walking behind Jake.

Their lips are blue!

The bravest of the Buller family!

This was a good idea!  Too bad it didn't turn out better...

He's hot.  :) Even in my dad's Farm Bureau hat.

Going down was much easier.  Maybe because I took a Dramamine and slept?

We ate dinner that night with some old friends.  At 8 pm we went to a Starbucks to use wifi and booked a hotel for the night on Hotwire.  We also found a cabin in the middle of nowhere for the remaining part of our mini vacation.

We had a frigid outdoor swim at the hotel just before 11 pm.  Jake came down with a bout of altitude sickness or somethin' and puked his brains out most of the night. These are the things we never want to forget.  :)

Oh the memories of vacation!