Summer Trip wrap-up

With Rachel here and the projects, cooking, and little outings that we're busying ourselves with, last week allowed me no blogging time.  Now that Greg's family is here in Texas as well and our household has swollen from 6 to 10 people, I really have no energy or time to properly catch up on the Pennsilvania half of our trip.  I've got everything organized in Flickr sets, and the entire trip gathered into one collection, but I'll share just a few last shots here... (I so prefer to blog in the moment -- catching up is so difficult to write about when there are so many things happening right now.)

On one of the last days of our trip, we went to a Cooperate Challenge race that Greg's dad Pete was competing in.



As we were watching the racers go by, we noticed a familiar hulking figure tear by:



...Strangely enough, with no number pinned to his chest.



(On the 2nd time around, he tore off his shirt and carried it for the rest of the race)

And here comes one of the LEGAL racers...


As it turned out, Caleb had arrived at the community college to work out at the gym, and saw a race lining up right outside the doors.  So he decided to work out by racing instead.  Apparently, even if you're a huge guy with no number, no one will notice if you just start at the back of a crowd of 400 racers.



Had he been a registered racer, he would have placed towards at least the top 10 or 15.  Go Caleb!  ...I think.

On Friday, the day before we headed back, we headed out to Fireman's Field Days in Greg's hometown, for some good old fashioned country fun: a little bit of rain, lots of sweets, and plenty of penny prizes for the children.  The night ended with glow sticks and fireworks.  A lovely ending to our road trip.



















For more pictures of our trip, click through to our Summer Visits Collection on Flickr.

Back in Texas, and a visit to the dairy farm

On Saturday morning we packed ourselves into the van and headed back to Texas.  After two days on the road, we pulled into our little neighborhood late last night.  This was one of our best visits with family ever, but it's so good to be back in our own beds!  We brought my littlest sister Rachel back with us (she's 13), and we are planning all sorts of crafting adventures for this summer.

Today we went to the fabric store to stock up on supplies for some of our projects:



So much fun!

For the next few days, I'm will be blogging the rest of our Pensilvania trip, and then it'll be back to the usual Life In Texas stuff.

One of our children's favorite things to do when they're at Poppy and Nana's house, is to go to the dairy farm up the road.  They love playing with whatever new batch of kittens happens to be around,




petting the calves,






watching the cows get milked,






and, most importantly, jumping on the trampoline in the haymow.






Farms can be a pretty exciting place!

Walk in the woods

On the Poppy and Nana days of the week, often Pete will just come and get the children since it can be difficult for me to procure a car for the entire day.  On the days that I do go out there, I often just do my thing at the house (knit, spin, read, rest), and the kids go and do all of their favorite things outside.  A few weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to see all of the cool things that they do, so they took me on the full tour (as you'll see in the pictures, my little sister Rachel came with us that day too.

We took a walk on paths that Pete maintains through the woods near their house.





We checked out several of the sturdy bridges Pete has built over each spot that a stream crosses the path.






We stopped at several blackberry patches.




Andrew in a sluice pipe.


Cute little chocolate lab puppies.











Tiny kittens at the barn.








There is a big trampoline in the hay loft over the barn.  (And no, I didn't jump on it myself -- but it was fun to watch everyone else!)




And then, just for Greg/Daddy, Andrew and Elijah would like to show this picture of "the thing that shoots balls" in the hay loft:



(NOTE: most of these pictures taken by Nana/Jill)

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Helmet heads

These pictures are from Tuesday, spent at Poppy and Nana's.  I think there was some sort of a fashion statement being made with the helmets.




On our way home in the car, Andrew was commenting on how the trees looked brown.  "That's because the sun is going down," he explained to me.  Then he thought about it for a minute, then said "It's just like a fist-fight.  'You're goin' down, boy!'"

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