Weekend Happenings

Friday afternoon I took off with 5 other lady friends from church for a weekend away in Kansas City. We stayed on the Plaza and spent all our time eating, shopping/looking, eating some more and hanging out at the hotel pool. I only took a couple photos...but this is from the fondue restaurant we enjoyed. It was a fabulous, nearly 3 hour long meal at The Melting Pot.

We came home on Sunday afternoon and then we (and a few more friends) got together (along with our families) for a 4th of July gathering on Monday evening.

Mysteriously a container of gold glitter was spilled in the basement...the only story we could get from the girls included some kind of trap/deterrent to keep pesky boys away from them. It cleaned up pretty easily...but when you get 19 kids together you never know what might happen.

Here are most of the 19...

Boys with red cups and fireworks...looks like trouble to me...

Shari grows some amazing flowers and has a wonderful, ever-expanding garden.

I'm not much for patriotism, but I had to snap this photo with this particular color combination - it was the 4th of July after all.

The boys got some pretty good baseball in. Levi and Noah both hit the ball but I think they were just about the only one's out there that didn't really understand the rules of baseball. But they had a great time anyway.

Jenna was not pleased with the loud popping sound from the firecrackers...but after she got some ear muffs she seemed to feel a little bit better about it.

Levi didn't want anything to do with the fireworks but the rest of us enjoyed them until after 10.

And then it was time to get ourselves home!

Swimming Lessons

Noah and two friends took swimming lessons together last week. Levi was signed up to take lessons but...well, Levi wasn't willing to participate.

Levi spent the first day playing with the toys while safely sitting on the pool steps.

Noah's teacher, Andre did a great job with three little ones.

It was H-O-T, hot!

The week started with getting their faces wet and blowing bubbles and ended with jumping in

and swimming (or at least kicking) to the steps! That's what I call progress.

Potato Harvest

Saturday morning we went to Great Grandpa and Grandma's house to dig potatoes! The boys helped plant the potatoes this spring and now it was time to harvest!
The basket was heavy!
It was great to relax for a bit and visit while we watched female Oriels feed on meal worms.
It was a ton of fun to dig potatoes! The boys loved watching for potatoes as Lee dug them up and then pulling them off the roots and dropping (or throwing) them into the basket.
We are blessed to have Ben's grandparents near us and in good health. Lucky for us, they shared some of their potatoes with us!

Creek visit

Playing at Sand Creek, near Bethel, is one of the boys' favorite activities. We hadn't been there since winter, so all three of us were antsy to visit again.

The boys had fun finding tadpoles, throwing rocks, climbing the banks of the creek and exploring nooks, crannies and holes.
The boys did some "fishing" with sticks and caught some huge "fish" or blobs of moss.
We also did some jack hammering with a piece of metal we found on the bank of the creek.
It was refreshing to spend the morning in a space where we felt alone under a canopy of trees.

Wheat Harvest Finale

***Formatting error - for some reason far beyond my understanding, the formatting of this post is not correct.***

The last evening of harvest lasted longer then we thought it would, but in the end Grandpa got all the wheat cut. We got to the farm and ate some pizza just about as fast as we could so we could get in on as much of the last wheat field as we could. We shnarfed down our pizza, gulped some water and got on the 4-wheeler....just as it started to sprinkle. Rain!?!?! What!?!?! The sun had been shining all day. We went out to the field (within a 1/2 mile of the farm) and Noah got in with Austin and Levi got in the combine with Grandpa. Then is rained harder and eventually the guys stopped and we all went back to the farm. What a bummer!

But, that gave the boys time to hang out with Austin while he ate his pizza supper. It happened to be a pizza kind of night on the farm I guess. Seeing Austin eat pizza reminded the boys that they hadn't eaten but a couple of bites of their pizza earlier. So, they got some more and they had a little pizza party on the tractor.
Thank goodness Austin had his jug of water along!


In addition to being time for wheat harvest, it's also time to double crop soybeans into a lot of the cut wheat fields. Ben planted beans on Wednesday and might do more in the next couple of days.

The sun came out and before we knew it, we were headed back out to the field on the 4-wheeler.

It was a dusty/dirty faced night, no doubt.

The Burkholder's came out to see the last hour of harvest. We walked through a field to explore along a creek bed but the mosquitoes and poison ivy made us cut our exploring short.

But, in just about an hour the field was done and wheat harvest 2011 wrapped up.

Short, but oh so sweet

Tim and Sue were here for 2 nights and one day and while it was a quick visit we were thrilled they drove the extra miles to visit Kansas. Lucky for them, they also got to get in on some wheat harvesting.

Tim and Sue both grew up on farms so harvesting is not a new experience for them. The use of a stripper header was new though. Dad took a bit of time to stop the combine and visit with them about the header and how it works and then Tim and Levi rode along for a while.

Cousin Austin continues to be a highlight of harvest for the boys. He's been driving grain cart during harvest and the boys just about fight over who'll get to ride with him first.

Eventually, we went to the farm for lunch and then Noah gave Grandma Schrag a tour of the farm.

We were blessed with a fantastic Brazilian supper on Monday night at Tim and Laurie's house and then on Tuesday morning we told Tim and Sue farewell.

Below are some random harvest photos.