A Birthday Outing

Lots of picture sharing lately... Annie and Andrew are down south right now visiting friends, so this helps them keep up to date with us.

Stephen turned 19 yesterday... he shares the birthday with his horse, which was born on our farm. We got our work done early, then they went for a ride to commemorate the day. After that, we headed to a new lake for a little birthday outing.

Singing in the car on the way there... course.

  Always fun to check out a new body of water... this one was super warm and shallow.

  A family picture, minus Annie and Andrew.  
  Some playground fun.


Oh Michael...

  Dads playing with Donna on the playground brought back floods of memories of being 7 and playing with him and my other siblings at various parks and playgrounds... his input was always the best part of the outing. :)

  Oh Michael...

  Was a really lovely day...

  ...and a really lovely lake.

    The younger kids went fishing...

  With SteveyJ's help...



  Nothing caught though... too shallow and warm.

  A picnic lunch of cold pizza.



  A swim and some sunbathing...

  Then we walked over to the tennis courts.



  Steve's pretty good, but Dad is very good. (Dad won.)

  I was killing Theresa until she 'remembered how'.

  Then she finished me off pretty good. :P

  Boys played football on the baseball diamond with Kady.



  Oh Michael...



  Then we drove a few miles down the lake to check out another park on it.

  But it was getting late...

  ...so the girls played on the playground instead of swimming again.

  A really lovely day was had by all...

  Thanks for sharing it with us! :)

County Fair!

We've been going back and forth between rainy and hot weather, but Sat. dawned just perfect... perfect for going to our little local county fair! :)

  Mom was asked to give a spinning demonstration. Donna and I tagged along.

  There were several cool demonstrations going on...

  I was thrilled to find this woman weaving on an ankle loom... something I've researched and wanted to try for a long time! Looks like so much fun. :)

  Old fashioned saw-milling...

  And grain processing...

  Algomah Acres was there hand dipping a set of candles behind their table.

  ...Which they then offered for sale (hanging upper right).

  A whittler was offering some carved goods...

  And I found several of the entered exhibits interesting; the quilts, knitted items, paintings and flowers all struck my fancy and then other pieces of craftsmanship, like a handmade instrument and this match stick eagle, were pretty amazing too.

  And this nature-made cabin which won grand prize...

  I thought a lot of it was interesting, but Donna was pretty bored with the exhibits and demonstrations...

  So I brought her over to a bouncy house they'd set up for kids... unfortunately, she was too shy to go into it by herself. She's too used to having an older sibling go with her I guess.

  I do think she regretted it though...

  But she had fun in the barns... we had to keep going back to those. ;) She wanted every animal to "come home with us!"  Patting a pig was a thrill and she badly wanted us to bring home an alpaca. "We can just bring it home and then make a pen for it and it can be mine!" :-P

  These boards were fun, especially after petting pigs. :-)

  Thanks for dropping by today!

Mary has a new little lamb!

 Mary has a new little lamb, her fleece is amazing; rolly polly.
She's a CVM, her name is Jolie.

 She lived far away and had to come home, bringing her tail behind her.
Some wish it was Mary who went, but it was actually Theresa they sent.


 Theresa could only groan as the loud sheep went Baa Baa Baa all the way home.


 Now whenever you have a lamb in a nice new car, the lamb is sure to go...


 Baa Baa Bad sheep, with all the nice wool, pooed in the car on the way home.

...which was against the rules.



You've never seen such a sight in your life, Theresa was about ready to use a carving knife...



When at last home that night, all the children laughed to see such a sight, because...

Hey Diddle, Diddle, Mary's little lamb wasn't so little, stuffed in a tiny bin tight as a fiddle!


 Needless to say, the arrived home none to soon...

...and the fork ran away with the spoon. :)

I love my new lamb, she's perfect!  

(p.s. More updates coming, of the less creative, more coherent, sort. Thanks for reading! :)