Seven years of being a mom

Elisabeth turns seven. Hard to believe.
I remember when I first held my little peanut.








Me
Ellie

Well here it is

For something to do, I decided to head to Lansdale for a week and send the kids to VBS at our church there. After a rough first hour, the kids immensly enjoyed themselves. As did I. On my five kid-less mornings, I got to spend time with my mom and mom-in-law and see old friends.

The week before, our car was done, but a snafu with the check from the innsurance agency had me driving the rental to my parents and leaving my beloved CRV in the Poconos. Once the rental was returned on Monday, I had no car but was able to use my parents' car.

Gary's birthday fell during the week we'd be in Lansdale, so I made him a shoo fly pie on Friday and the kids made him cards. Unfortunately for him, he felt awful when he got home from work and went to bed for a while. The rest did him good, and he was able to get a bite of dinner and have dessert with us. The kids are terrible birthday secret keepers. Actually Ellie's pretty good, Josh not so much.



Then on Saturday we went to my cousin's for a picnic. And I got creative with my camera.








And Sunday found us at Gary's dad's house. And Ellie received a doll house for her birthday.

Catch up

I'd like to fill you all in on the happenings of the Kulp family, but I haven't had the motivation necessary to sit, think, type and add photos.

Eventually I will write more about the car, Gary's birthday, being at my parents' this week, and other stuff I can't think of.

But for now, this is all I got.

Rainbow chard

What in the world do you do with rainbow chard? You saute it in olive oil, and garlic slices of coarse, seasoning with salt, pepper and butter.

I finally cooked our one set of greens (we still have collard greens, I think anyway, to do something with) from last Wednesday's CSA. Gary and I weren't very optimistic to it being very tasty. But we were wrong. It definitely tasted different than I thought it would.

I actually had a small second helping. And Josh liked it. Ellie, not so much.

And along with our chard was a lovely turkey dinner saved from Thanksgiving I found in the freezer while cleaning it out Friday.

Freezer - just a little bit emptier, now. That's my goal. To clean it out this week.

Author's note: The above photo is not our chard. Ours was much more limpy and not as fresh looking since it sat around a while.

Plans change

My plan this morning was to take the kids to pick blueberries, then let them play at the playground.

That all changed when I couldn't shut the freezer after getting out some mint for my sun tea. I had to pry it open in the first place. There was so much frost, that it wouldn't shut. Last night I had some ice cream and apparently the door didn't shut all the way.

I emptied the freezer and chipped away at the frost using a hammer and Wonder Bar (a very useful gift from Myrtle years ago. Really everyone should have one.)

The kids thought it was a great fun to see all this ice and "snow." They started playing with it using pots and cups.

I found some food I forgot we had. Some of it should be thrown out, probably.

But now it's been raining off and on all afternoon with thunder, so we aren't going picking today. Fresh blueberries will have to wait.

Of today

Some things we did today.

1. Picked up rental car. Why, you ask, did we need a rental car? Well let me tell you. After dropping the kids off at VBS yesterday, I drove home. As I approached a right curve in the road, I saw a van pulling a trailer coming at me, using part of my lane. I swerved to avoid the van and went onto the side of the road, blowing the right back tire. I stopped the car and gathered my wits. I wiped my tears away and started walking. We currently don't have a jack in the car, so I couldn't change it myself.

I walked to the church we attend. Although there was a car parked at church, no one answered. Next door is a lady's house from Bible study. Again no one answered. Then the lady's son-in-law happened by and offered to change the tire.

Once home I called Gary and he came home to tighten the lug nuts, since we also don't have a lug wrench in the car and son-in-law man didn't have one either. He used a ratchet set to change the tire and apparently they don't tighten as well as a lug wrench.

Then I called and made a claim to replace the slashed tire and ruined rim. And since we were making claims, we made one to replace the hood that was damaged when something fell on it while driving to my sister's graduation last year.

Our policy includes a rental, so we decided to get one. It is a Jeep Patriot, with a New York license plate. And lest anyone thinks we're Yankee fans, I put my Phillies P on the back.

Ironically, Thursday Gary finally gave the mechanic shop the final payment from having the transmission replaced.





2. Went to the farmer's market to buy raw milk and pork. We have been looking for non-grocery store who-knows-where-it-comes-from milk for almost a year now. Without driving an hour or paying at least $4.00/half gallon, we've been disappointed. But on Wednesday while picking up our CSA share, we found raw milk for $4.00/gallon. And they sell grass-fed pork, beef, and rabbit, but we can forget the rabbit.



3. Gary finished building the stone wall. He still needs to add some small stones and top soil, but the stone pile is gone from the driveway. But now the car we put in the driveway is in the shop.
















4. Made some really good homemade pizza, with fresh basil. And found a trick to get the crust crispy like we like it. Add some wheat gluten, or use bread flour. I know it's simple, but for some reason we hadn't thought of bread flour. I used to think bread flour was just a ploy, but I was wrong. It really does make a difference. (Sorry no photo, we ate up the evidence.)

Camping

Our yearly camping trip to Camp Swatara. We canoed. Ellie and me in one boat, with her asking to back to shore the entire time. Josh and Gary, in another, Josh enjoying himself.

We went for a hike on an easy trail. Or so we thought. It was very rocky and overgrown. Gary had to hack our way through in several locations. There was some scrapes and grumbling. We apologized f0r the trail's condition, not that we could have foreseen it. We also apologized for not having them wear pants. We did teach the kids about trail blazes and why there are one, two or three of them on trees sometimes.

I took Ellie swimming, while Gary stayed back at the site with Josh and napped. Josh was not allowed to swim since he isn't potty trained. Children who aren't potty trained aren't allowed in pools if they don't have swim diapers. And I happened to not have swim diapers with us. He didn't like having to stay back. (We're going to see how this plays out at the pool at the cabin - him not having swim diapers and not being potty trained. Maybe he'll want to use the potty now.)



Ellie and I both have pig tails, hats, and Capri's. She was very excited to call us twins.
















Our campsite.












The fire tenders.

The game

Anyone missing? The boy didn't want to be in the photo. He's hiding behind me.













But I got a shot of him anyway.
















Josh and Pop pop.











Ellie and Mom mom.











Even though we paid for seats for the kids, they were only in them for about the first inning. They sat with Mom and Dad instead.




The Phillies won.

The last day . . . or is it the first?

Here is my sweetie pie on her first day of school.
















And here she is on her last day of school.

Since there was still some money in her account, we let her buy lunch the last five days of school, which is apparently very exciting. She also used her own money to eat breakfast at school today, which is also exciting.

And tonight starts a mini vacation. We are going to a Phillies game with my parents tomorrow and camping on the weekend. We are all excited.

And then we had herbs

We went to Gary's dad's house yesterday. His birthday was Thursday and Father's day is next weekend.

And Judy, his step-mom, has a garden. And in this garden are herbs. She trimmed them this weekend and gave us a bagful



And we processed what we could use and will give away the rest.

Second breakfast

What to do?

Josh watched some PBS, while I showered. Josh had a second breakfast, while I had my first. I knew that him eating at 6:00 wouldn't last long.

Drove to see about free fire wood, which except for two pieces, turned out to be too rotten. Stopped at an antique store just to see what we could see, but then remembered to look for something for Gary for Father's Day.

Came home and rummaged for some lunch, than Josh played with his trucks, while I attempted to make a night gown for Ellie. The night gown didn't work out so well.

Field Day

It's 7:00 and Ellie is already on her way to school. Today is Field Day. She is very excited. She has given me all sorts of instructions about how this day is suppose to go (and we've received numerous letters from school.) She should wear her green school shirt. She must wear sun block. She must take water. She must take the bus to school. She needs to fill out the lunch selection sheet with an adult (I was elected since I was the only one around.)

She was in our room this morning at 5:40, telling Gary that they needed to be at the bus stop. There was no hassle with getting ready this morning. It was lovely.

Of course, Josh is awake. He was up soon after Ellie. He's eaten and dressed.

And now we have two extra hours with which to do something. What to do, what to do.

Stories and Italy

Ellie likes to hear stories. She especially likes a story, or five, at bath time. I rack my brain and come up with something. Last night was Myrtle and my trip to Italy.


First of all, we ate a lot of pizza. A lot. And dare I say, you can have too much pizza? We didn't think it was possible until we went to Italy. And tried every sort of pizza we could find.





The Colosseum in Rome.


















Streets of water, in Venice.

Ellie was impressed that there are no streets or cars in Venice. Only water and boats.









Ruins of Pompeii.













Myrtle and me on an overlook of Florence.

Chain saw time

I cut up the tree today.









Gary built more wall. (I forgot to take a daytime photo.)








The kids dragged branches for extra pay. And posed for photos.

The log they are posing on rolled a good 70 feet down the hill once it was cut free from the rest of the trunk. From Gary's angle, it was a bit unsettling.
















Here they are writing in there journal books about where the logs and branches were suppose to go.







The chain saw's chain stopped spinning. To fix it, the chain needs to cool down. I was done cutting . . . with the modern convenience.

I picked up my axe. Actually cutting a tree apart (or small branch in my case) is not quite as easy as using an axe for splitting wood.

The game

The girl at bat.











The boy (yea, he played . . . all three innings) at bat.











Handsome father watching.







Photos are from Monday's game.

It's down

The tree guys were here for less than 20 minutes. The tree is down.

It wasn't hard to bring the tree down. Just tie a rope around the trunk just above where it started to crack. Then put the rope around a tree nearby tree, and then tie it to the truck. Then take your chain saw and cut the tree on the struck side. Make a second cut on the opposite side of the tree, while your helper slowly drives the truck away from the tree. As the tree falls, the rope will pull it away from the cabin.


Now Gary has his work cut out for him.

What to say

~Clearly the tree was no threat. It is still stuck, 6 days later, half broken, fallen into the adjacent tree.

~I am ready for the humidity to end.

~I am ready for summer vacation with the kids. I am forming plans to make it a fun summer for all of us.

~The overabundant caterpillars can go jump in the lake.

~And what's with all the insect bites, even though insect repellent is applied?

~I am enjoying the quite of the days here, with the birds' songs to cheer me.