Summertime Visits

The last week has been full of no set schedule but many visits, similar to our First Lady Michelle Obama’s vacationing in Spain I am sure. Only she has 70 staffers with her and I remain…staffless. 

Instead of vacationing in Spain, we have stayed home and enjoyed our time together as a family in North Dakota. Some of our favorite visits have been to the field. 

Uncle Robbie is always a friendly face to visit in the field. 

My brother Robbie has exciting opportunities ahead of him so if you all could say a few extra prayers for him that would be much appreciated this week. He is a young farmer working hard to land the right teaching job. 

Hunter has had long visits in the field for the past few days, riding with Uncle Jim where he became a combine driving ace. Now he is spending a couple days helping around the lumber yard with Nathan and Grandpa Eldon before he begins football practice on Thursday. Hunter has carved out certain jobs that are his at the lumber yard so when he is not there, he is missed. It is a great lesson for a young boy to learn he is making a difference in a family business.

After Anika Iris had her one year pictures last Friday, we visited our Great Great Aunt Iris, who will be 105 years old later this month. Iris and Anika had splendid fun playing together. Their are five generations from Iris (my late great-grandfather’s sister) to our children. She is a treasured woman that we dearly love. I am so thankful my kids will have memories forever of visiting with her. 

Last night a dozen of my prairie friends gathered at our house for a fun visit with our friend Brenda, who is expecting baby #3 very soon. Our friend Miranda made the fabulous cake complete with chocolate coffee icing and blue fondant. We were trying to convince Miranda to start a prairie cake business but she wasn’t sold on it. My friends and I started doing a diapers and wipes showers for any of our girlfriends having their second or third or fourth child. None of us have exceeded the four child threshold…yet and only one has done that, our courageous friend, Brooke.
So in honor of her third baby, we showered Brenda with diapers, wipes and other baby essentials plus some fun out fits for her baby. We sat together on our deck while visiting, laughing and had some essential girl talk. 

It was a perfect summer evening of visiting.

This morning, Miss E and I are back on the deck visiting over breakfast. Our tasks ahead include going to pick up our “picklers” (cucumbers) that the Hutterites will be delivering to the prairie this morning. Ready or not, I am starting my canning adventure this week. Did I mention that last week I was told I wouldn’t get the cucumbers for two to three weeks so my mom talked me into two lugs of peaches to start my canning? As of late this morning, I will have two lugs of peaches that thankfully need a few days to ripen and one bushel of cucumbers, staring me down, waiting to be canned. I wouldn’t mind if Mrs. Obama sent over a few of her staffers helping her in Spain to help me can on the prairie. 

In between our visiting and canning this week what else will we be doing? I think the above photo best answers that question. Plenty of visiting, enjoying every last minute of our summer fun together, probably making some messes in between and using plenty of Oxi-Clean to clean up after ourselves. But I wouldn’t change a thing about our down time together. No visits to Spain or staff helped needed, our summertime is just the way we want it to be, full of family visits and fun.