August 2017

It seems like August is when my garden put production into high-gear this year. But, gardening wasn't the only thing that happened!

We snuck in a family golf outing to Hesston one evening.

 It seems that every year I mix more flowers into my garden and they always bring a smile to my face.

 We borrowed some goats this summer to eat weeds around the farm, for the most part they were pretty amazing to have here.

 I went through a phase of having tons and tons of cucumbers on my hands.

 Noah participated in his first junior high activity by playing drums with the school band in the Threshing Days parade.

 And then both of the boys walked through the parade as part of the Bethesda Home Junior Volunteer group.

 New Year's Cookies in August are always a treat at Threshing Days!

And we still spend a good chunk of time each year looking at the tractors, watching how farming used to be done and admiring the wonders of modern farm technology.

I think the older the boys get the more they appreciate how hard farming used to be!

 See what I mean about all those cucumbers?!

 Then it was time to get our school supplies organized. Thankfully, the boys are old enough they pretty much took care of this mess on their own!

 

 These two are such buddies and are a lot of fun to watch grow up together!

 Noah put together another Emma Creek Golf Tournament. If I remember correctly, the boys actually tied!

 First day of school!! 4th grade for Levi, 6th grade for Noah.

 Last year, my garden did not look this good in the middle of August. Last year was no fun to garden, but this year certainly made up for it!

 Our okra went nuts in August!

 And more cucumbers...

 We had an open house at Levi's school and this piece of artwork was hanging on the wall.

 Thanks to Ben's mom, I have this lovely new sign hanging in my kitchen!

 I get help with canning only when it come to smashing produce through the food mill. :-)

 We went to Wichita to go swimming with Erica and Rylee at their neighborhood pool.

 For a number of weeks this summer we raised rabbits...and then at the end of August we released them into the wild. Levi was not happy about this....not at all...but Ben and I were certain we weren't interested in having these rabbits multiply!

Family Vacation

Our family vacation to Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp in Colorado started off with a brief tour of western Kansas. While Ben was busy with some basketball officiating stuff in Dodge City, the boys and I explored the Boot Hill museum.

We had a great time...except the boys decided they would NOT have enjoyed the Dodge City jail back in the day.

Levi enjoyed his sarsaparilla outside the saloon.

And the gun fight at noon was pretty dramatic!

From Dodge we drove to Garden City, spent the night and then headed west for camp!
Right away the boys were eager to take grandpa and grandma down to the pond to explore!

We helped Tom bring the llamas in for night - they graze during the day but get penned up at night.

We hiked up Old Baldy the first day - quite a steep climb but totally worth the effort!

Then we got to enjoy a relaxing afternoon at camp. So peaceful and lovely.

I joined Noah and his buddies for disc golf - turns out I'm pretty terrible at it. But the kids were all super kind and encouraging.

Then we learned about the spruce beetles that are plaguing the trees around camp....interesting to learn about their techniques for combating the beetles and also appreciate the intricacies of nature.

We watched as the boys joined in the fun of Capture the Flag.

Hike 2 took us up Raspberry, the trail led us through some lovely meadows,

and there are actually raspberries growing at the top of Raspberry!

That afternoon Tim got busy fishing.

And during the evening free time we kept busy inside while it rained.

White bread with honey and jam....what's not to love about all that sugar?!?

Hike 3 for Ben and I was Ice Falls.

That afternoon Levi showed off by climbing up the face of Monkey Rock!

I found raspberry plants to photograph while he was getting ready to go...

there he is! It was an odd feeling to watch my "baby" climb up a rock, but he did so good!!

And clearly, he was pretty proud of himself!

Levi practiced all week for the boat race. Literally, he practiced all week.

And he won!!

Then Ben and Levi participated in another race,

and they won too!

Hike 4 was Pikes Peak. Levi stayed back with grandpa and grandma, but Ben, Noah and I hiked the whole thing. We started out at 6:30 in the morning...

and enjoyed beautiful weather as we made our way through the trees,

and meadows - the wild flowers were REALLY showing off this season -

we made it to treeline and kept going...

saw a bit of snow,

got above the clouds,

And then Levi joined us! Tim and Sue drove support vehicles so they met us when we got to the road.

Levi hiked with us for a while, but he hurt his leg slightly so the next time we saw Tim and Sue he hopped a ride with them. Then at the top he was waiting for us on the boulder field!

It was a wonderful hike!

That afternoon was another boat race - this one with boats made from items found in nature!

Levi was pretty excited for this race too, but the results were not what he was hoping for!

The final morning of camp we enjoyed amazing cinnamon rolls (the food all week was so very good!!!), we packed up all our stuff

said far well to grandpa and grandma and hit the road!