Various and Sundry

I haven't picture posted in a while, so here's a bunch of stuff, both various and sundry. (Has anyone else seen the very awesome Word Girl episode of Lady Redundant Woman?)

1. Mark's Google job got unexpectedly cut short by 5 months. Apparently this has happened to other people as well. It really stinks. He has been working so hard putting in 30 hours of work a week into that on top of everything else we're doing (I'm married to Superman) to help us save up and also pay down debt. So this really sucks financially. But we're grateful to have had it. And we're grateful that business continues to pick up. The Google gig has been a perfect safety net of income for us while we grow our business this first year (Can you believe we're coming up on our 1st anniversary of our business?!). Yet (dare I admit it?), it's a bit of relief to not have the gig in some ways because we are that busy! And I firmly believe that Superman has to have down time, too, so this helps. He is hardworking and very good at having fun, too. So, it's nice to have fun without the guilt of the work we could be doing (at least on that gig . . . there are always things we can be doing.).

2. We bought sweet corn at a local farm stand today. We're so excited for dinner. Our corn is also coming in and we can pick it soon! YUM!

3. Flowers are blooming. Mom, check out the Azores flowers! Our garden is thriving (well, except something is going on with the pumpkins--I could cry. We use a lot of pumpkins! We decorate with them, cook in them (both dinner and soup in a pumpkin), ugh. Everything is looking beautiful and I feel like summer is flying by WAY fast. *Sniff* My official favorite plant in our garden is the grape tomato plant. We're getting at least 100 tomatoes from it and they all ripen at various times, so it's fantastic--every day we go out and pick daily tomatoes for our salads.

Click to enlarge (and look closely--we have a compost pile!)

4. Since we're doing mini stay-cations this summer (rather than a big trip someplace--we are so doing the beach in September for a few days) to help save money, one of our mini summer treats is homemade ice cream! We got ourselves an ice cream maker on clearance and, OHMYGOSH, it is so delicious! I had no idea what was involved, though. I thought it was like a bread machine (put in ingredients and it'll do everything). Not so! But so worth it. YUM!

Here we are making our ice cream!

5. We all got sick earlier this summer. Our very cool friends came over to sing us a "Get Well Song" they'd written for us. Now who can boast that?

Here are the very cool lyrics.

And here we are being serenaded--very awesome song. We love it!

6. Thing 2 has a very cool friend. He loves to play with him and they both love Legos and Star Wars and can play for hours without a single squabble. Until it's time for his very cool friend to leave. That's when he and his friend put their plans into action and hide and connive and try to trick us! Once his very cool friend starts getting dragged out by his mother, there are generally award-winning performances with lines like, "Save me! Please save me! I don't want to go!" and "I love you!!" and "We've crossed the Rubicon! There's no going back!" (I'm not kidding). LOVE how these two play! (And totally love the mom, which makes it that much better--she. is. awesome.)



7. We had a very nice, if rainy, 4th of July. Check out our beautiful dining room table--so nice to have the space to accommodate so many when you move your outdoor BBQ indoors! (This house has an insane number of doors, I know). Fireworks in the backyard. Great friends and good food. A nice, relaxing day. :)



(Edited to add this picture--not sure how it didn't get in the collage!):



8. Fun summer activities like attending the open-air children's theater to see "The Emperor's New Clothes" one time and "Rumpelstiltskin" another . . .

How good looking is my husband! And how cute are our kids!

and the new Pixar film . . .




Hanging out at a local radio station, seeing the studio, getting free stuff. And eating breakfast at the Cracker Barrel and playing checkers there, too! (I have pictures of this but am not posting them since it identifies the station) . . .



Waking up, reading, and falling back asleep on your books . . .




Studying the fire of London and reenacting it with your own mini-project (we pretty much school year round) . . .



Working on the cool, local reading program that gives you free tickets to HersheyPark . . .

She's getting so grown up! Such a beautiful girl.

Best friends and total goofballs.

Also getting so grown up. Such a cutie!

Enjoying a lovely outdoor picnic that, in one rainstorm, went from this . . .



to this . . .



I was feeling stressed and upset since we'd just bought that canopy for our business (we participate in the local street fairs) and we'd only used it once and it TOTALLY got busted in that storm (it was nuts!). We called the store the next day to ask about replacing it and found out it had been recalled and they were refunding our money! WooHOO!

9. Bug Catching!



Cicadas! We even get to attend a local cicada festival and enjoy a night of the symphony and a night of celebrating the Beatles (the musical group, not a misspelling of the bugs).



I don't have pictures of it on this post but we also catch lots of fireflies!

10. Water (and shaving cream?) fun!



Thing 2 also enjoyed some sprinkler and Lego fun with another friend during that hot, hot day!

11. These pictures don't begin to illustrate our VERY FUN weekly day-long playdates at the park with our most awesome, awesome, awesome homeschool group. A dozen families or so get together and play, play, play ALL DAY LONG. It's glorious.




12. Enjoying the County Fair!



13. More super cool backyard bugs!




14. Summer Library Reading Programs - Book Bingo . . . where you come home with 6 brand new books each plus 2 prizes each.




15. Plain, old, wonderful hanging out at home . . .

shucking corn "because we're farmers"

and working on research for your blogs!