Together Again in Heaven: The End of Summer

One of the things that first attracted me to Will - after I noticed his tan and curly hair - was the fact that he makes To Do Lists just like me. Yup, love at first list. So of course we have combined our love of list making and have multiple lists going at all times - a list of what needs to be done on the house, a list for the garden broken down by year, a list for projects I would like to accomplish and a list of the projects Will would like to accomplish to name a few. Each break Will has from work we view as an opportunity to get things done on our lists. Crazy? Weird? OCD? Perhaps. But admitting it is the first step to recovery we hope. To try and avoid our human doing tendencies and concentrate more on just human being, we made a list of fun things that would force us to kick back and smell the roses. Here is our best attempt.

We enjoyed our garden which seems to finally be on auto pilot - all that was really required this month was to harvest the crops and keep the plants hydrated. I did can two jars of dilly beans which is pretty much just pickled green beans. They have to sit for a month before you can eat them though, so I don't know if they are good yet or not!

We were entertained and fed by our chickens. Our head hen has almost given up on escaping the coop to lay her eggs. Here Lucy is below finding her egg, hidden in Mother Superior's favorite spot. Either way, Mother Superior keeps us laughing with her antics.

One of our Isa Brown's laid a double yoke for her very first egg this month and ironically, another chicken laid twins that very same day too! What is the probability of that you wonder? Will is currently crunching the numbers.

Another item on our human being list was to cook, eat and enjoy simple foods outdoors as much as possible. I found some fun books on kids camp foods at the library and gained a lot of other ideas from Pinterest. One sunny morning I decided to make "Sunrise Biscuits" on the grill. It was going to be a family affair and super simple and easy - the recipe said so. And the only dishes I would need were two Ziploc bags - how hard could that be? What ensued was two hours of crying, spilling, squishing and crashing then burning. Long story short you scoop out the insides of some oranges, use the orange filling in the muffins which you mix with eggs, oil and flour in a Ziploc bag. Make sure the Ziploc is sealed before you hand it to your husband though. And of course we were still inside when the raw egg and oil shot out of the bag and all over my kitchen. Not to mention that it was super tedious to scoop out the flesh of the oranges. And finally, they were supposed to be cooked on the hot coals from a campfire and we used a grill instead, which charred and burned the muffins - most beyond edibility. Below are the surviving few of the "Sunofa Biscuit" breakfast.

The girls barely ate the muffins because by now it was 11 and they had filled up on dry cheerios. Here Lucy is below taking a bite for the team.

We tried not to let the Sunofa Biscuit ordeal turn us off from the ease of outdoor cooking and eating and did enjoy a lot of really good and relaxed meals outside with our favorites being a tomato basil pizza on the grill and many variations of meat and veggies grilled on skewers. Emeril has a recipe where you skewer steak, potatoes and portabella mushrooms on rosemary stalks - heavenly! Below Lucy is eating a campfire cone - a waffle cone she filled with banana, strawberry, marshmallows and chocolate chips, wrapped in tinfoil and then grilled. I thought it was pretty good, but the rest of the family seemed indifferent to them.

Also on our list was to play outside as much as possible. Here Lucy is sailing away on her raft to Candy Land. Flower Island is usually her next stop. Will and I wanted to build a play house but money and time led us to this little beauty instead - leftover cedar from our garden boxes, a broom stick and a curtain from Salvation Army that I cut and hemmed on an angle. Thank you again, Pinterest. And no, I don't want to talk about the $3 garage sale children's table I scored and then ruined when I spent $40 on supplies to refinish it. You win some, you lose some, with that Pinterest!

Other popular backyard pastimes included playing car wash...

...being goofy on the slide...

...playing kickball while swinging...yes, the ball hit me so I am out...

...and picking flower bouquets from the yard.

Two frozen yogurt bars opened near us this summer, so sampling both places was also on the list. Lucy approved both places and gave them a spoons up!

We also checked off (a part of our illness - even when doing relaxing things we feel the need to put a check mark somewhere) nature hikes on new trails...

...creek wading by our house...

...and for Will and I, a canoe trip, sans children. It was refreshing and a great marriage building activity as well with Will steering in the back and me directing up front. I'll give you an example, "Oh honey, look at that tree! Doesn't that branch look like an old man sleeping - AGH! *splash* *wobble* You almost tipped us over!" "Well, if you had been paying attention to where we were going I would have known to avoid the rock!" Don't worry, I got him back with plenty of digs about finding the $600 wedding ring he lost two years ago while canoeing in that same creek. But really, we had a great time. The thing I loved most about it was that it was actually a creek in our hometown in the middle of our suburban sprawl and yet it still had an up north feeling and was a great break from reality if even for an afternoon.

We did take a trip with the kids, and visited my old college roommate Erin and her family in Dayton, Ohio. Will assisted them with a patio project while the girls and I toured the town. It was a great trip although I'm afraid Lucy and Emma didn't show too well. Lucy was fighting some bladder issues and was very cranky and Emma popped an eye tooth, a.k.a. her Buckeye Souvenir. But even without these excuses, I cannot guarantee that their behavior would have been better. Either we need to get them out more, or we need to just stay home for the next decade. My friend Erin had spent a lot of time refurbishing her old backyard play house in preparation for our visit and Lucy and Emma were in absolute heaven when they weren't fighting of course.

Dayton also boasted some great metro parks which were all free. We really enjoyed the children's garden which included a maze built out of huge sticks, and a babbling brook and waterfall for the kids to play in. Here Lucy and Emma are below with my friend Erin.

Another picture of the girls at the children's garden, exploring together.

We also went to a splash pad, but the day we were there was kind of chilly so it was more of an adrenaline rush than a relaxing cool down but we had fun just the same!

When we came home from Ohio we hit a fair a couple of towns north of us where we felt a new kinship with the 4H Clubs, now that we own chickens. It was definitely a new perspective and interesting how the barn smell no longer bothered me! Here Lucy and I are below riding the carousel. Will and Emma watched from the sidelines and let's just say Emma was not pleased every time the carousel rotation took us out of her view.

We've tried to stay barefoot as much as possible this summer too. The below picture of our water shoes drying in the sun seems to capture our summer so well - we worked hard, played barefoot and enjoyed each other in the great outdoors...