Around Here Week 25: 06/18-24

 A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this moment. 

photo cred: Kitty

photo cred: Abba

photo cred: Onara C

photo shoot & cred: Gemma Rose

photo cred: Uch

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 263+ hours (of 1000)
Up 27 hours this week: at the farm, on the baseball field, mowing grass, and at our mini vacation with family. I mowed the path behind our house and along the tree stand, so Grey and I took the babies for a little walk where we found interesting bugs and smelled all the flowers (Reddy is the most observant hiker we have always pointing out lovely little things). At one point, I was holding a hickory nut that had a hole in it that we found way back at the start of the walk and we were looking at a big ant mound on the ground. I kept noticing ants on me and was like - what the heck is going on!? Here, the hickory nut had ants and ant eggs IN it. Grey was dying laughing and said, "Mom! You took them into another universe from how far you carried that nut on this walk!" 

Reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Gosh, so good. I don't even know what to say other than I am fully invested in this character and rooting for Demon with all my heart. 

Loving on these sweet baby goats. They are honestly so stinking precious. Hickory (black&white) is very sweet and tender and Juniper (brown,black&white) is so adorable but a little more shy and ornery. 

Spending Father's day at the Que with our Adams family. We picnicked, kayaked, sat around the fire, and enjoyed each other's company. It's been a minute since I've seen my nephews and I was so happy to squeeze, snuggle, and be silly with them. How incredibly lucky I was to get my dad and how lucky our kids are to have him as their Chum. Love you, dad.

Thanking my husband for being the most rock solid, decent man of a dad for our kids. Best thing I could ever have done for my kids - making him their dad. Happy Father's day, B. You kill this fatherhood gig.

Digging trenches for the basketball court drain pipe. Yay for dirt and mud and mess, hah. Not even being sarcastic - it means progress being made and the kids loving hopping in and out of that thing! (thanks Pap for coming by and working on it while B was at work! xxo and thanks Kev for letting us borrow the digger!)

Smiling about Rusty & Violet's special day with Kitty where they got to go up in an airplane! Kitty and her Millhouse coffee crew had the most fun day planned and Rust and Vi had a blast. Rusty even played prankster and pretended to pass out on the way up (!!) After the plane ride, Kitty took the kids back to her house for slime-making and snack (honestly, best day ever).  

More smiling about Grey's special day&night with Chum. This hike and camp out in the woods has been on their to do list for the last few years and they finally made it happen! Grey and my dad hiked back near my parents house (like way back; miles up and down mountainsides) and then set up a little camp, made a fire, cooked hot dogs, fished along the river, and then slept in hammocks at night while the coyotes and racoons scurried about them. Basically Greyson's biggest dreams all come true. Grey had an awesome time and Chum did too - but it was rough on his already bad knee especially after playing pickleball earlier that day (hah! retired life is everything apparently). Thank you Chummie for giving this core memory to my Booboo. 

High fiving Violet after she reported that she rode ALL the rollercoasters and 'big' rides at Idlewild when she spent the day there with her friends Evaley and Bria for Ev's birthday. (thank you Cable family for taking her!) 

Downtown hopping on Wednesday when Grey had a dentist appointment (all good!) While he was in the chair - the rest of the crew spent some time in the children's section of the library. The kids love the library (the books! the toys! the puzzles! the kind librarians!) Then we stopped to get Grey's hair cut at Ambitious Cuts while the kids shot mini hoops and we got to catch up with Lamont. And then finally we celebrated the summer solstice with a stop at our favorite local ice cream shop: The Silver Bell! It was a busy afternoon, but felt good to get out and about with the kids.

Collecting eggs - we are getting almost a full dozen a day now that we switched to a local feed mill for their food and also that we know where they are laying. They have 3-4 laying spots to check each day: the coop, the goat house, the hay shed, and the feed shed in pasture2. Lol, it's like a little Easter egg hunt, but the babies love helping to find them. 

Grateful for the sweetest ladies at Brandon's office who threw him a farewell luncheon and invited our whole family. Miss Joan made pot roast, mashed potatoes, and roasted brussels sprouts. All the ladies brought desserts and they set up a huge table in the admin office basement like a feast! They have all been so kind to B and our kids over the past 7 years that he has worked there; offering them snacks and hugs when we visit and during their online learning through the pandemic. Our whole family has been so blessed to know you all. 

Worrying about all our animals. With the mini getaway scheduled of the weekend, I started feeling anxious about leaving them all. Miss Emma was going to come take care of everyone (and she's amazing) but we had Polly who was suffering with mastitis (gave her an injection on Friday), two more pregnant goats, Bullet and Trixie who are so old, Osa who still likes to chase chickens, chrysalis who were soon to burst into butterflies, and rain/thunderstorms in the forecast for the entire weekend. There were just so many things that could possibly need support or ER attention that my kindhearted husband said he would commute to the VRBO house (1.5 hours one way). He was able to take care of all our animals/house/land/random issues and still made it out to do some family vacationing too. (thank you B, i love you.)

Adams family mini getaway to Farmington, PA. My parents, my sisters, their fellas, my nephews, and our gang stayed in a VRBO house near Ohiopyle for the weekend for our annual big family trip. Uch makes the meal plan and grocery lists (thank you!) Aunt Kitty has fun things planned during our downtime (like yoga and dance routines and funny card games), Chum organizes the ping pong and cornhole tournaments, and Abba and I hold babies and take pictures. All the fellas do what they can in between to carry heavy stuff and make us laugh with their silly side comments. It is a big house full of all the people we love best sharing food and laughs. We lounged on the beautiful double deck, splashed in the creek, and played so much ping pong (Grey is obsessed). The hot tub was a hit, Kitty and the kids learned the whole choreographed tik tok dance to Upside Down (check out her instagram to see the results!), the kids dyed their hair with kool-aid (pro tip - use boiled water!), had a scavenger hunt around the house, and we all shared so much yummy food and snackies. The big kids wanted to play Werewolf (the story telling game) every single night, so while I put the babies to sleep (and got in some reading!) the big kids laughed hysterically and then got spooked each night before bedtime (LOL). I know these big extended family vacations will be something that lives in my kids' childhoods for ever as a place of so much safety and laughter. I am so very grateful for that. 

Getting in my first mile of 40 with my mumma! For my upcoming 40th birthday, I have asked people to walk 1 mile with me (for a total of 40) as they are someone who has walked through the last 40 years alongside me in life. I was really adamant about my mumma to being my first mile, so we made time together at the vacation house to get one in. Thanks mum, for walking this first mile with me and my very first moments in life with me - and all of them in between! love you so much, xxo.

Feeding all the wild things when we visited Hovatter's Wildlife Zoo in West Virginia while on our mini getaway. It was only a 40 minute drive, so we snagged our kids and headed down (except Grey who stayed back and fished with Uncle Kevin). It was a really nice zoo (so clean and decent) and we had a great time visiting with the animals and feeding most of them. The kids loved the parakeet experience, we got to see a white Siberian tiger, a peacock all peacocked up (lol), and I loved the wolves. I could not stop laughing at the goats literally riding on the turtle shells....so I guess now we should add turtles to our goat pasture! 

Sporting with two summer league basketball games for Gemma. Grey had a double header city baseball games a summer league basketball game. Brandon played in our Roxbury volleyball league double headers by himself (he had to leave after 1 of Grey's baseball games) and then I loaded up all the kids and took them home for dinner. 

Making Copycat Olive Garden chicken and pasta, Korean beef with green beans & broccoli rice bowls at home. For the Que Father's day picnic I made Caprese pasta salad and Lunch Lady Brownies and for the family getaway I made cowboy cookies and fruity pebble muffins to take and for dinner while we were there I made haluski, buff chicken dip, and chocolate croissants.