May/June Happenings

June seemed to be very busy. This summer is flying by quickly. I can't believe it's already the middle of July! 

Grace doesn't like to wear clothes. She also doesn't like to wear diapers. Combine those with velcro closure diapers.......! I watched her sit there for over 5 minutes one evening working at that diaper to get it off! She finally succeeded. Little stinker!

 Grocery shopping with the whole family, even Daddy. After a stop at the dairy, we decided to eat at Carriage Crossing. Except we got there and realized Jacob didn't have any shoes on!! So Daddy took the boys over to the little school playground and the girls and I went in to order our supper to go. It was a lovely evening for a picnic!

 Such a big girl!

 Our dear friends moved away :( but we got to spend lots of time with them the week they packed up and loaded the truck! They stayed with us for a few days and the kids had a lot of fun together. They filled our entire sidewalk up with beautiful artwork!

 She's on the move!

 That's a lot of kids...and this doesn't even show all of them!

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I've been buying raw, local honey from a sweet man for a few years. I've always said it would be fun to have a tour of his little operation. We finally did! It was so fascinating.

 The insulated, heated room to keep honey in cold weather so it doesn't crystalize.

 Learning how the honey is extracted.

 Jacob was all about the machines!

 LJ modeling the beekeeper's protective gear.

 Inspecting a honeycomb.

 Feeling the beeswax.

 Showing us how the bees seal off the honey inside the comb with wax, and how he breaks the wax open to get the honey out.

 The kids thoroughly enjoyed the entire morning. And Mr. Honey (as Isaac kept calling him!) loved it, too!

 My diffuser came in very handy when we got our new-to-us vehicle...

The kids all approve....

And so does Mama! ;) Our van served us well for almost 10 years, but it had given about all it had. 255,000+ miles on that thing!

 Since Aaron's car sat in front of our house 95% of the time, we decided to trade it in as well. I'm thinking we got a pretty good deal on those two beaters! Haha!!

 June brought Addie's wedding!!!!! The kids were so excited to see Seth again they just couldn't contain it! ;) He should know better than to take a nap out in the open on the couch!

 We also camped that weekend. And it was even more of a fiasco than the last time. I forgot to pack much of anything for the kids to play with, which means they spent most of the time at the camper fighting with each other. And then we all got at least a little sick with some stomach bug. Except I got it the worst of all. I've never in my life been that sick. And being that sick at a campground....well, I'm just thankful I actually had a bathroom to go to! I spent the majority of one night in there. I even pulled the Tahoe down and parked right in front of the bathroom. I slept a little in there, but mostly I was in the bathroom. Aaron wasn't sure what to do about it all. He had Grace (and I had forgotten to bring the pack-n-play so she couldn't be left when sleeping since she was up on the bed). And of course, she didn't sleep well that night and it was too cool outside to walk her around. I ended up laying in the middle seat at one point to feed her. I was in pretty bad shape. At around 3am, Aaron had finally gotten Grace to sleep. By 3:30am, I was so dehydrated that my limbs felt electrified and my hands seized up. I texted Aaron (thankful for voice text because my fingers weren't working!) a couple times to come get me, but he didn't answer. I knew he was sound asleep so I just prayed over and over that he would hear his phone, which is always on vibrate. I called several times and by God's grace, he finally answered. He came down and panicked as soon as he saw me. We obviously couldn't just leave the kids in the camper, so we tried calling Seth. No answer. Somehow we didn't have Bruce & Shirley's number!! So, Aaron loaded up all the kids (he said he cringed when he went to pick up Grace since she was finally sleeping soundly), came back and got me, basically carried me to the car, and off to the ER we went. We spent several hours there while they pumped me with fluids. Thankfully, Grace slept the entire time. Anna evidently took a little snooze in the wagon. The kids were angels, Aaron said. I was pretty well just out of it. 

It was just a perfect storm. Nothing I had with me helped to stop it. I couldn't be away from the bathroom long enough to stay with the kids for Aaron to go see if the gas station had any medicine. By the time it got really bad, it was the middle of the night. Just crazy.

 This is how Aaron felt after the whole ordeal. Imagine how I was looking! 

We made it home and the kids still want to go camping again!! Aaron said, "Maybe we need to just give up on camping!" Ha!