Visiting

Sunset from our front yard.

Lanaya Elizabeth came to visit over Labor Day weekend. We picked up her wedding dress and did some wedding planning and such. She's settling into the apartment in Chickasha, OK where she and Amos will reside once married. She's a good decorator with all her pretty plants and nature pictures on the wall. 

We spent time in Hannibal after picking up the wedding dress. She and I hiked up all of the stairs to the lighthouse near the river. I guess it was built as a decoration and not as a working lighthouse since it's too far from the river to be of use. Good workout though.

Nana and Aupa needed a picture of their grandkids for Nana's high school reunion. I think we managed a less goofy one for the reunion, but this one is funny for right here.

At Mimi and Papa's.

Playing some card games.

We also watched all of the episodes of Over the Garden Wall. It's a cartoon. The kids had been playing the songs around the house and that tempted me into watching it. It was very well done. Imaginative, clean, good storyline, folk-song type of music, simple yet moving. I recommend it to families.  The 10 episodes are 12ish minutes long.

A long time ago, Lanaya Elizabeth came up with these homemade 3-D paper toys that she called Boxy Pets. Harrison decided to make one of his own this week. His is a bird in a tree.

Our cats. 

That is ~ SOME of our cats.

They jump up onto the kitchen window ledge when they smell food cooking.

Jonathan picked up an ear of field corn that was fallen over or mowed over. He got the kernels off and ground them up in our food processor and then made grits and Johnny cakes. The Johnny cakes tasted like Corn Flakes ~ so good! The grits were good too; they were more like eating a corn pudding. Field corn is not as sweet as Sweet Corn, but I could live on that if I had too!

By the way, you know how drawings show a stalk of corn having lots of corn cobs on it? They actually only have one! Sometimes they grow two, but the second one is usually not very healthy. I had never ever known this until we were studying the corn field for Nature Study. 

Phoebe picked and dried and braided these long grasses over the summer, and now she is sewing them into something. I think it might be a basket. But a hat has also been mentioned. 

Harrison has been wanting to make molasses candy (molasses has come up a lot lately since one of the catchy songs from Over the Garden Wall is called "Potatoes and Molasses"). 

I think this is our third attempt over the years. We still cooked it too long, so it's a really hard candy. But you can suck on it and it tastes pretty good. I also put a piece in my coffee, and it gave it a yummy fall flavor.

The kids went into town one day and got pictures of themselves in front of our church building. 

With sickness being over (we've had it in our home for several weeks) and a little free time showing up on the calendar, Phillip and I decided to take our anniversary trip this weekend.

We stayed at an Airbnb in historic downtown St. Charles. Unbeknownst to us, they were holding an art fair this very weekend, so that was a lot of fun to see outside our apartment. We stayed above a cookie shop. We got breakfast at a neat place down the street and strolled through lots of shoppes. 

The kids went to Pizza Hut for their supper after we had left on Friday. Phoebe made lunch on Saturday. They all had it cleaned up when we got home. Sigh....... It's nice to be able to decide to leave and know that your kids can take care of themselves!

We can't wait to watch the harvest!