Epp Cousins' Day

There are four cousins on my Epp side - and the four of us have countless memories from spending so much time together growing up. Adult life makes it harder to see each other as much as we'd like, especially without our kids to interrupt and distract us from conversation. So, a Cousins' Day was created and we had a blast!

First stop, Aggieville in Manhattan - I'd never been and was impressed. We ate delicious food at Rock A Belly Deli and then we picked up donuts for dessert next door. 

 Donuts and vintage bikes?! Great combo....too bad it was hot and we didn't have time to rent bikes, that would be a lot of fun some other time!

 Prairie Fire Winery was our destination so we headed east out of Manhattan for a while and just off I-70, there it was!

 I'd never been to a winery before. I think I left with more questions than answers, but it was beautiful and interesting and delicious.

 I wanted to know about how to grow grapes and how they go about making wine and all that.

 But we didn't have time to ask all those questions. The woman that helped us with the wine tasting was busy! There people before us and then more people walked in right after we finished.

My beautiful sister, I'm in the background studying my wine list. :-)

They had a wine list, all of the wines in categories and you could taste 5 different ones. 

 The views were amazing and Kansas was having a good cloud day.

On the way home we stopped in Abilene and I bought an antique kitchen scale. I was pretty excited - and I've even put it to good use already when I made applesauce last weekend!
I'm hoping Cousins' Day becomes an annual event. :-)

Summer Fun

Most of this post is about our mini-vacation to Kansas City. But I found just a couple photos of the boys at the Canton Rodeo and had to include them. This group of five can find trouble but they usually just have a ton of fun together.

 Plus, sometimes Levi gets lucky and gets to ride a horse!

 Ok, on to Kansas City! The Flint Hills and the big Kansas sky are always a treat, especially since we've had good rain and the grass in the Flint Hills is green. :-)

 We got to our hotel, got the boys in the pool, then back out of the pool and off we went to watch the Royals!

 We had good seats, in the shade, the only thing we could have used was a breeze. Regardless, it was great!

 The boys got treated to all sorts of expensive food. Noah is genuinely interested in baseball - Levi is just kind of interested in baseball. Food helped to keep his attention.

 Lucky for us, Uncle Andy and Aunt Lia from Chicago joined us! Obviously, they didn't know I was taking this picture - but look how attentively they're watching! :-)

 There were a lot of runs scored during the game, but unfortunately the Royals lost.

 The next day we all went to Worlds of Fun! Andy taught Noah the tricks to driving the antique cars. Levi thought it was fun to just bump and bump and bump along the track. Noah was frustrated that he didn't drive it perfectly smooth. That's a pretty good example of how different their personalities are.

 Bumper cars were fantastic. Noah was in it for a couple of good crashes and (once again) Levi was in it for the crashes.

 We lucked out with a relatively cool day, the high was only 82 and the park was not very busy. We had to do some waiting, but it could have been a lot worse.

 Noah mostly hung out with Ben and Andy doing big roller coasters. Levi, Lia and I stayed together to explore the kids area. Levi loved it!

 In the warm afternoon sun, the misters we found felt amazing. And they made our faces look cool too.

 I don't do rides. But I love a Ferris Wheel.

 Levi and I got great views of the park and the city from up there.

 Noah did this ride twice! 301 feet up in the air and spinning in a circle!! I about had a heart attack just watching him from the ground.

 For lunch we ate a picnic lunch out in the parking lot, and for supper we grabbed a pizza and ate in our hotel room. The view of the Royals game was a bit different that night - but still cool to be able to hear the fans cheering from across the road.

And just like that, vacation was over!

Sun and Flowers

There's nothing like a homemade slip-n-slide in the backyard on a hot summer afternoon, is there?!

The fun didn't last as long as I thought it might, but they sure laughed hard and played hard while it held their attention.

The flowers out in the garden were shining bright the other day. Some of my giant sunflowers are finally blooming!

This zinnia is growing away from the others, in the middle of the walking path.

Mr. Wilbur is a constant companion when we're outside. He usually has to stay outside of the garden because he has no regard for plants. He just walked/runs/jumps on them. But he seems to enjoy running circles around the outside of the garden fence.

Wilbur and 2" of rain

Meet Wilbur, the newest creature to join our farm! He's an almost 8 week old German Shorthair. So far he's stolen our hearts and we're proud to say we've kept him alive for five days. 

 Ok, we feel like we're good at keeping our pets and farm animals alive, but he's the youngest dog we've ever owned so it feels like we're back to the first nights of being new parents. This guy cried and cried out in his kennel the first couple nights. Thankfully, he's toned down the crying but he's never too excited to go back in the kennel. :-)
Today it rained...and maybe I hadn't paid attention to the forecast but I had thought it was supposed to be hot and sunny today...and instead it rained almost all day. I'm not complaining - now I don't have to water my garden for a week or more! YES!! Plus, a bunch of rain means there's water to play in on the farm!
The boys went out to see how much water there was and they were excited to fill us in on the details when Ben and I walked up.

 Wilbur was NOT sure about the water. He walked in the shallow water for a little bit and then got back on dry land.

 Then he stayed just along the edge for a while...

 curious but worried.

 The boys were all in - soaked from head to toe and loving it.

 The beans growing in the field right beside the water seemed to be enjoying all the life-giving rain they got today.

 Back to the water...

 (this could be my new favorite photo of these two)

 There is not shortage of intensity between them when they play.

 Plenty of competition and aggression (too much, most of the time).

 And then Wilbur suddenly ran into the water - he was too excited to play with the boys to stay on dry land!

 Soon he began to whimper and then got out, but the boys were eager to give him lots of praise for getting in the water.

 After Wilbur shook himself out and rubbed his belly on the grass for a while, he joined the boys again for a little bit.

 And just as quickly, he got back out again.

 Wilbur shivered and shook and then shivered some more until his coat was mostly dry. Poor little guy sure gets cold fast!

 After being cooped up inside for most of the day it was fantastic to spend some energy outside!