This is the busiest summer we've had in a long time!
We are settling into our town and church and enjoying life with people.
Harrison did swim lessons last week. He and another boy were the oldest ones there, so I thought for a minute that they wouldn't learn much. The first day they seemed to just be diving for toys. But the second day...... The second day they were supposed to jump off the diving board and then off the high dive.
This was a major nerve-wracking experience for both older boys. And I noticed Harrison did a lot of sitting by the side of the pool. So after some talking and lots of encouragement from everyone at home and some talks about courage and "You can't just sit out. You have to at least try, even if you fail....", he did it. The third day he did an actual dive off the diving board and then jumped off the high dive. And the fourth day he passed the swim test to be able to "be in the deep end."
We were proud of him for getting back up there while afraid.
That last day he made a keen observation: "The scariest time is right before you do the thing. When you actually do the thing, it's not scary."
The church had a picnic and pool party last Sunday night. These kids were playing Go Fishing after supper. Adorable. One of the boys is in my Sunday school class this summer. It's been a great way for me to get to know some families at church.
Paul and Elayne dropping in to say 'Hi.' (I love it when they do!)
I think Papa was telling Jon something about growing up in this house or farming. I love all those family stories.
We have seen kittens from our cat Abigail!
There are four: two gray with white paws and two gray tabbies. They come out to play but are pretty skittish. Abigail has gotten friendlier though and will let us pet her and such. She's very awkward at affection, so it's funny to watch her try. But she's trying.
Some kids helping out for VBS workday.
We wrapped a bunch of boxes and the kids painted them to look like suitcases.
We had a gorgeous lightening storm the other night.
The storm did damage to a nearby town though.
One of the library programs was a lady from town who just had a
middle school fiction book published by Harper-Collins. She read a chapter and talked to us about getting published and such. It was a fun time, especially for us adults. Harrison was one of the kids who won one of her books though, so he's working on reading it right now.
Look at this monstrous thing in our backyard. Those tires are taller than I am! I think that's a sprayer.
The field of beans to the east of us.
This has been a very wet year; the wettest Papa remembers having seen. I don't know what that means for crops. Every time Phillip steps outside he says, "Yep, it's just a swamp out here." We've had a lot of standing water around our place.
And we just finished having Cody Harris and his kids over for the weekend. Emmey was going to attend a friend's wedding an hour from us, so they stayed here while she attended the wedding and came back.
And Cody's birthday was this past week, so we decided it was time to acknowledge his birthday somewhere adjacent to the actual day.
There's an ongoing joke with Phillip and Cody because Phillip never remembers his birthday and Cody always calls or texts for Phillip's. We didn't even have Cody's birthday on our calendar till last year. So since he was going to be here, Phillip decided to get 28 cards (that's how many years he's known Cody) and sign them and date them for all the past birthdays.
And then Cody had 28 cards to open and read in front of all of us.
It was a lot of fun on our part. Now if we can just keep it up and remember next year.....
Happy Birthday, Cody!
This pie was a joint Harris-Gore effort.
I made pie crust, Cody provided cherries from his Aunt's (?) cherry tree. And Emmey rolled out the dough to make a cherry pie and some cute little tarts.
Chris Harley came to visit us since he lives not too far away. He's good friends with Cody too.
We had good visiting time ~ talking about ministry, reminiscing about college days. It was a lot of fun to have them all here.
Cody, Chris and the older kids shooting guns in the backyard.
Jonathan enjoys this a lot, and I think he's fairly good at it.
We played our traditional Scrabble game.
Emmey won, Jon was second, and Phoebe and I were somewhere down the line.
Liz just texted me this picture of her and Nana. Apparently my parents stopped today to take her to lunch in Joplin as they make their way down to Louisiana with their moving truck. My parents are moving back down south.
Whew! What a week of activity! I'm so grateful to be living here.
