Our Summer so Far

I must start by apologizing to the poor regular visitors who daily check for new pictures and have been disappointed for so long now. So, here are a few pictures I managed to scratch together. As awful as it sounds, I just have not found reason to grab the camera. The end of May I had a one track mind, get school finished. I thought life would slow down after that, it did in some ways, but sped up in others! We are also still in the decision mode of deciding what to do for school next year!?
Since I don't have many pictures, I will fill up space with a story of something I experienced the other Sunday. It was a scary thing that I think scared 10 years off the beating life of my heart,, well not quite that bad. Treyton had a fever, so I had stayed home from church with him. I heard a knock on the door, I looked out a window and saw no car, so I figured a neighbor must have walked over. Now, I had the inner house door open, and the outer door is full length glass, so as I got to the door, I noticed it was our drug-dealing neighbor on the porch. I figured he was probably here to ask to borrow our lawn mower again. As I went to open the door, I realized he had a large rifle in his hand and slung up over his shoulder. I must say here that it scared me that bad that my heart literally hurt! I knew he had already seen me, so I had no choice but to open the door. I told myself that maybe he was here to warn us that one of his 14 pitt-bulls had gotten loose or something. Well, what he really wanted was to tell me that he had been in the woods behind our house and had come across and shot a rattle snake that was as fat as his arm is round. Now, he is a skinny guy, but that would have been one very large snake! He said he already carried it away to his house, but he wanted to tell me cause he had seen kid toys at that spot in the woods, so he wanted to warn me. I gratefully thanked him for letting me know and he went on his merry way. I must say now that I hope when he seen what I am sure was an obvious look of terror on my face that he learned that a black guy, especially with his well know reputation, just doesn't go and stand on a white ladies front porch with a gun in his hands!!!
After he left and I could think a little more clearly, I was wishing I would have had enough nerve to say,"Well, I guess it was a good thing you just so happened to have a gun with you when you seen the snake, and you were behind our house, why? when you live a good walking distance up the road. And really you could have left your gun at home after you took the snake there and before you came to my door!" I guess I should have asked if I could come up and see the snake, because I have a feeling there really was not one. Just the week before this happened, another neighbor came by and she mentioned that everyone is pretty sure he is growing drugs in the woods. We now wonder if he seen kid toys near his plants and wanted to scare the kids away from his precious, expensive crop? Whatever the case may be, the woods are now off limits whether there are snakes or drugs!
In my mind that likes to get a little crazy sometimes, I am hoping he had not caught wind that some of the neighbors have been trying to get me to join their cause of getting this guy in trouble so he has to leave our little area here, so he wanted to put fear in us. I had not agreed to help them simply because he had never done anything to us and I did not want to get him mad at us and then he would seek revenge. But that is hopefully just a crazy thought/fear.

Hooray! No more school!!!!!
(yes, that is my weed patch, I mean garden in the background. With all the rain, the weeds got way ahead of me, I gave up! To the right of the corn is where what is left of my green beans, the deer did eat both rows in 2 nights time!)
I have a little tale about our cat. A couple weeks ago he completely disappeared. I came to the conclusion that a hawk must have gotten him. We had very tearful bedtime prayers for quite awhile. A week after he left, we were going around to some of the neighbors giving away some of our too many potatoes, and here was our cat on a neighbors porch, almost within sight of our house! So we got him back. The neighbor man said the cat has been "bawling" on his porch the last week. He claimed he would throw it something to eat once in awhile. It must have been a small roach or something cause the cat was half starved and dehydrated, but at least he had not shot it or something!

Rissa had her 6 month follow-up on her thumb this past week. She was all clear! Praise the Lord! They are going to keep checking her every 4 months for the next year just in case. They said they want to do this since there had been cells present when they did the biopsy. Her nail is almost completely grown in now. It is ever so slightly deformed, the doc said that will be her permanent scar.

The shirt says it all- I could not resist this one when I seen it! (~:

We had our first very small picking of sweet corn, something the kiddos have been impatiently waiting for!

I must say here that we are having the nicest Summer weather ever since we moved here! It is not humid like normal, and it is not too hot. We are actually getting enough rain that we don't have to water every two days like normal summers!
I told the kiddos that once they finished the school year, I would dig out their pool, they have been loving that! This is Trey's first year to swim and he thinks it is great!

I am sure the coloring book companies love us! I got them a new one the other week, I think they had them all colored in less than a week later!

Treyton spotted that Daddy was home from work! Trey's favorite part of the day!

My Mother's Day

My Mother's Day was spent in Pennsylvania! We decided to make a very fast trip, and surprise our Mother's. Our siblings knew we were coming, and had everything planned. We showed up at supper time Saturday night at David's Mom's house. The kiddos managed to sneak in the house and surprise Grandma in her kitchen. We stayed there till Sunday afternoon, then we made our way over to my Mom's. Now she has a long lane, and we knew she would see us coming, so we hitched a ride with my brother and his family. Mom and everybody were outside when we go there. Jenny was the first out of the van, and it was worth every hour of driving just seeing Mom's extremely surprised face! We stayed there till Monday morning, then we left for home.
I have been blessed with a wonderful Mom and Mother-in-law that I love very much and I am so thankful for them!!

Even though I feel like this more than I ever expected to as a Mother, I am still thankful for the privilege and honor of getting to be a Mommy!

Grandpa and Grandma Summy

They had a blast playing together! Alea did not know we were coming either, so she was also surprised!

Treyton thought it was fun getting a ride on Grandpa's new mower!

I was very mad at myself when I got home and realized I forgot to take a picture of the kiddos with my Mom and Dad. So, my sister sent me a picture of them and I made one of them all.

You can just see how much fun they have together!

I think Tirzah needs to show Amber how to be more bright-eyed! (~:

I often feel like I am missing out on being an Aunt when I see how much my nieces and nephews grow between each visit! )~:

The weekend after David's birthday, we did our celebrating. I had asked the girls what we should do for fun to celebrate, and Rissa loudly proclaimed miniature golfing. So, after a very yummy supper at TGI Friday's, we went golfing. It was a very fun evening!

This was our first time at this one. They had neat scenery and it was an easy course which made it more fun for the kiddos.

Yes, it is a fake gator in the water, Treyton was quite worked up about it though and wouldn't stand still long enough to stay on the picture.

Rissa has a very unique way of golfing, she puts her ball right at the hole, so she can get it in the hole with her first little push!

Awhile ago Treyton decided to be artistic with a pen on his bedroom wall. When I tried to cover it up with left-over paint we had on hand, it did not match. So, we ended up re-painting the whole room. It was a little un-handy cause I wanted to save the wall border that was already up. In the end, I was glad he had done that naughty deed because I liked the new color better. The picture doesn't quite show the color right, but it gives you and idea.

The girls found a toad on the deck the other evening. I was very surprised that Rissa was the only one that wanted to hold the "cute little thing"!

A New Family Member

I wonder how many of you thought, "baby" when they read the title of this post, well, sorry to disappoint (or maybe relieve) you, but I was talking about a new kitten we got! (~:
It has gotten hot out now, it was late in coming this year! Our garden is looking so nice, until last night, the deer thought that the corn and green beans looked yummy. They better beware cause I am on the war path now!

Kiddos with kitty "Nick"

Treyton likes the kitty except when it is too playful

I surprised the kiddos with a trip to the park after a short day of school

A penny for her thoughts

I know it looks like it, but no, we are not Rednecks, he just escaped from the house!

David had his birthday this past Monday. I very much surprised him when I showed up at his work with home-made pizza for everyone. All his buddies knew ahead of time, so we all had one over him that time!

Rissa has taken an interest in writing in old school books, I am hoping to do some K-4 school work with her this coming school year.

I cannot keep this girl out of books! That is a good thing of course!

Amber was the helper at story- time at the library

Being the oldest, Amber gets to read the story sometimes. You can also see Treyton with his new little buddy, "Jackson". They are the same age and have fun together, most times anyway! Jackson is the 'hugging' type, so Treyton feels smothered at time!

Busy, Busy

I am sure you are tired of looking at my last pictures by now! I have been so busy the last while, that the camera stayed in the cabinet.
I finally got the garden planted, pretty much finished spring cleaning and am wrapping up some landscape projects, (with David's help of course).
We are down to a little over a month of school left, it is so encouraging to see some light at the end of the tunnel! I am hoping to start school in July this year when it is so hot and the kiddos want to stay inside anyway, then we can finish early and have some time off in fall when the weather is cooler.

Easter Sunday. We spent Easter with some other families who don't have families around either.

Our biggest spring project, putting a retaining wall around the front of the house. Treyton was Daddy's helper.

We got a load of dirt for some of our projects. I must admit here that I was away when the load came, and when I got home and found all four kids in the dirt pile, I was not impressed. All I could think of was the cleaning up part! But, I decided to let them have fun and worry about the dirty part later. I forgot to take a picture of them when they were done, I think it was the dirtiest my kids have EVER been cause they played on the pile all day. It ended up being a good babysitter while David and I worked! (~:

This is what happened at supper after his day of playing in the dirt! (~:

Amber got to help David with one of his projects while I finished planting the garden, making a walk-way between the deck and garage.

The front flower bed and wall completed, I think it turned out very nice, now the fun part- getting to pick what to plant in it!

I think Treyton has caught up to Rissa in size, I know he has passed her in weight!

Our garden is finally planted. We had some un-expected cold weather and got a couple frosts, but I think everything survived.
We have potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, sugar peas, lettuce, onions, red beets, corn, green beans, watermelon, cucumbers, cantaloupe, tomatoes, peppers and my favorite lima beans, (I think David thought they were a waste of space (:

We went and picked 8 gallons of strawberries one afternoon. Amber helped good, but Jenny thought she was melting in the heat, so she kept Treyton happy for me.

I think we are good to go on strawberry jelly for awhile!

Our Mini-Honeymoon

Well, we are back after a very nice time away that as expected came to an end much too soon! We actually instead of Columbia, went to Greenville SC. It is the mountainous part of the state. After becoming used to sand and flat, it was nice to see some mountains!
The kiddos had a great time at Allen and Jan's house and are actually wondering when they can go again!
We had rain every day, so that kept us from too much sight-seeing. Which was fine too. On Saturday we did another favorite thing of going to flea markets.

We had a very nice motel that I had never heard of, but would use again- Drury Inn. It was very nice and actually had free breakfast AND supper buffet that had good food, so we took advantage of that and only ate out once at our all time favorite- TGI Friday.

David's work phone unfortunately did have to come along. I did threaten to flush it, but he, as promised shut it off at lunch time on Friday after he had his drivers set for the day.

Our first day, we went to give one of David's old friends, Steve, a surprise visit at the barn shop he works at.
After that, we went to see some sights. I came very close to getting car sick on the cow path roads we were on, but it was worth it.
We went to a waterfall. We hiked in the drizzling rain to see it and were glad we did, it was pretty.
This was a very odd tree we seen on the hike.

Twin Falls- a 70 foot high falls

The other place we went was Sassafras Mountain. It is the highest point in South Carolina at 3,200 ft. altitude. On a clear day,(which is wasn't) you can see North Carolina ,Georgia and Tennessee.

Treyton was excited to come home and find a birthday box in the mail from Grandpa,Grandma and Aunt Anita Summy