Baseball. Done.

 

The official season ran April-July. 

But, it started earlier than that.

At least 3-4 days a week.

Some rain, some snow, some extreme heat -- and a lot of mud.

Trying to keep white pants clean....well, what a comedy.

The record didn't reflect it...but we had a lot of small victories - -including the success of our fundraisers. Friendships were made. Confidence was built, shattered, and built again. Miles on the car. Fast food on the road. Travel. And more travel. (Good thing we didn't add up the cost of gas.) A few tears. A few choice words. A lot of laughs.

The parties are over. The scrapbook is done. The DVD is almost copied.

A team of 12 boys (ended with 11) grew - at least a little bit.

And their parents (and siblings, and grandparents and friends) grew with them.

Gotta love the game.

Bye Bye Birdie

Several months ago (before school ended), we started hearing strange scratching sounds around the house. Admittedly, it freaked Addysen out more than once when she was home alone.
We finally figured it must be a bird's nest -- although, after checking the gutters, we couldn't find where it was.
Until...
One day while on the front porch, I watched a bird fly out of the vent on the front of the house.
Mystery solved. Sort of.

 Although the scratching became highly irritating and annoying, we figured we would just let the birds do their thing until the babies were grown and then we'd figure out how to eliminate the nest.
Now fast forward (or is it rewind since this actually happened last week?)
The smell in our main floor bathroom got really bad. It's not a large bathroom and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why it still smelled after I cleaned it - -and cleaned it -- and cleaned it.
And then, I figured it out. (Yes, I am a little slow, perhaps.)
It was the bird's nest. In the vent....right over the bathroom. The reason the scratching was so loud in the office and bathroom was that a nice little family of birds was constantly traipsing back and forth through the vent...and making my house smell like a pet store in the process.
We simply couldn't let those birds do their thang any longer.
If you've ever been around a Kerr of the male gender -- you know they are men of SOLUTIONS. Granted, their solutions might not always be the most... how shall we say it? pragmatic? Sanitary? Safe? (I could go on but for the sake of family relationships, I won't.) But hey, they come up with solutions.
(Sidenote: I'm remembering a certain Christmas Eve many years ago when the Kerr Patriarch needed a Christmas Tree. He simply took the chain saw out to the front yard and chopped down one of his pine trees, brought it into the living room, trimmed it with the chain saw and WALAH! A Christmas tree was born.)
But back to the birds.
Greg did what any quick-thinking man would do when encountering a nasty smell and unwelcome house-guests.
He took off the vent in the bathroom, fired up the leaf blower -- and BLEW.

 Cannon and I watched from the front porch in morbid fascination as an entire family of birds shot out of the vent....followed by feathers and twigs and the remains of their family home.

 It was actually quite heart-breaking to see the little babies fall to the ground. (Of course, in our defense, we didn't know the actual maturity of the birds - -only that they were loud and extremely smelly.)

 Cannon was so distraught that he came in the house and researched some sort of animal shelter that would be interested in rescuing the birds that had literally been blown from their home. Unfortunately, he didn't come up with any viable results. And sadly, I've since found a few dead bodies in the bushes.

The death of the birds makes me sad. The death of the smell, however, does not.
Needless to say, as soon as he had the vent cover back on in the bathroom, Greg climbed the ladder and secured the vent to prevent future inhabitants.

Cub Scout Day Camp - Cubstruction

Master Archer, Cannon Kerr

The fire department discussed fire safety, and proceeded to spray the boys with their hose.

Hard to see, but this is Cannon's edible fire. Marshmallows were the fire ring, pretzels for wood, candy and fruit snacks for coals and noodles for tinder.

Cannon has been at Cub Scout Day Camp all week. (Well, except for Monday because that was the first day of the golf lessons he and Addysen are taking this summer.)
Tuesday, I was lucky enough to get to be the parent volunteer.
I actually don't mind going down -- and I truly admire the parents who take their vacation time from work to be the den leaders for the entire week. Spending 8 hours a day, for 5 days, with 250 scouts takes a lot out of person. (Of course, I wouldn't know for sure because I have never been there more than 2 or 3 days.)
I think the scouting program is awesome though and I am truly grateful to all of the leaders who have helped, and continue to help, Cannon with his scouting pursuits. He has just earned his Arrow of Light and will be moving on to the next level (don't ask me what that level is) when he turns 11 next month.
As for day camp, Cannon has had a fun, but exhausting week. The weather has alternated between breezy, sunny, muggy and hot, with a few downpours mixed in. (That was all just on Tuesday when I was there.)
Cannon is a master "archer" and loves learning about how to build fires. He also loves the variety of sports they play. I thought the cement handprint was a cool project -- although had I known I would be mixing cement for 4 hours on Tuesday, I would have worn different clothes.
All-in-all, a good week and a good learning experience.

Tacie, Tacie, How does your garden grow? (Family Goals Part 2)

A second part of our family goal-setting session included the plan to plant a garden. We've been taught to be self-reliant (just a head's up to those of you who have not yet done your VT for the month of June -- this is the topic....but no, I didn't plan it that way.) We've talked about planting a garden ever since we moved into this house -- 3 YEARS AGO. Yes, that is about the pace at which we operate with most projects.
When we lived in Utah, we built a beautiful garden plot -- complete with darling little fence all around the edges. (Had to keep the dog out.) And then we moved -- before ever getting around to the actual planting.
When we lived in Cleveland Heights, we did plant a garden -- once, out of about 7 summers that we lived there. The garden did well for the most part. Granted, birds ate all the strawberries -- but our carrots grew (although they didn't taste good) and our tomato plants WENT CRAZY. We had so many tomatoes we didn't know what to do. We gave them away to anyone and everyone who wanted tomatoes...and made spaghetti sauce...the hard way. It was awesome -- nothing beats fresh tomatoes from the garden.
And so here we are again...having lived here for 3 years and FINALLY planting the garden. We talked about it the first summer...started tilling the ground last summer...and finally got around to planting it this summer.

It isn't pretty...but it is in.
For those of you who don't live in these parts...you might not know that we were thinking about building an ark in the month of May. Yes, it rained that much...or more. Even real farmers had trouble getting their gardens in due to the inclement conditions. So, when we finally had a nice day -- and a day off our many other activities - -it was do or die. Greg tilled the ground one more time while I ran to the garden store to get some seeds and plants. Afterall - it was scheduled to rain again the very next day.

Of course, the day we planted it was the hottest day of the year so far. And humid. Which made for a lovely combination of sweat in my eyes and dirt across my face as I attempted to dig out some rows. (Apparently, we lost our hoe in one of our moves.) I clearly had no idea what I was doing, (although I did have flashbacks to planting gardens for FHE as a kid. We LOVED to put the corn and pea seeds in my dad's perfectly laid out little mounds of dirt. In fact, I thought of my dad's garden a lot as I planted...and wondered how embarrassed I would be if my dad actually saw my pathetic attempt at planting. Then, if only to make myself feel better, I decided that my dad would be proud of my efforts, even as lame as they may be....cause that is just the kind of dad I have.)

I (along with my 'helpers') worked outside for several hours -- finally making Cambrie go inside when I feared she would pass out and die from some heat-related (or possibly dirt-related) illness. We made a lot of progress, but unfortunately, as most projects go around here, we had to stop about half-way through - -in order to attend Cannon's baseball game.
When we got home from the game and got kids in bed....I returned to the garden. It was nearly dark, still extremely hot and muggy and the mosquitoes were out in full force. Cannon decided to join me and we finished planting the garden. He held the flashlight down towards the ground as I dug holes with the shovel. (Not the way I would recommend doing it...especially in flip-flops.) We alternately swatted at mosquitoes and wiped the sweat from our eyes as we slapped those seeds into the ground.
Like I said, it isn't pretty...but it is in.
Amazingly, it's two weeks later and we have things growing. We are calling this our experiment year -- hoping to get some tomatoes, green peppers, celery, zucchini, cucumbers, peas, beans, cauliflower and broccoli.
I'm hoping we will have to figure out what to do with all of our bounty.

+++++
Sidenote:
Remember how I said our tomatoes in Cleveland Heights took off like crazy? Yeah, well, I think we planted 8-12 plants that year. Hmmm...funny story. When I was at the garden store getting plants, I had no idea as to the dimension of our garden space -- or any concept of how many tomato plants I wanted. So...I opted for 36! And I planted all of them. Yeah...and about 1 dozen pepper plants (and since I really only use them for spaghetti sauce...that is a lot!)
Greg questioned why I even bought zucchini -- given that I have NEVER purchased one in the store. I looked at him incredulously and simply stated, "because the lady said they were easy to grow." Duh. 
Ha ha...if they do grow, I guess we'll be baking lots of bread. (Truth be told, I like zucchini - -especially on the grill. If, I mean, WHEN, they DO grow...my family will have lots of opportunities to learn to like it as well.)

Family Goals Part 1

In Family Home Evening a few months ago, we talked about goal-setting. We each set some individual goals -- as well as some family goals. One of our family goals was to FINALLY have a garage sale. We have accumulated way too much stuff. (What, you mean everyone doesn't store refrigerators, stoves and dishwashers in their garage? Thank you rental properties.)

Anyway - - this week we are participating in the city-wide garage sale days. Given that we don't actually have room in the garage to set anything up (thank you large appliances for taking up space!), I couldn't really set anything out to get ready yesterday.

 And, given that it was supposed to rain....and we didn't get home from Cannon's baseball game until nearly midnight (yes - midnight!), I wasn't up and at 'em at the crack of dawn. It all worked out though. We had a good day -- despite the storm that moved in about 3:30.  No longer will I be storing appliances in my garage!

What our driveway looked like about 10 minutes before a massive thunderstorm.

 We'll see what tomorrow - -and Saturday brings (hopefully people who are looking for lots and lots of clothing items - -starting at .25!)

Safetyville

One week of summer down...Safetyville...CHECK. Kenzie is more than ready to head off to kindergarten - or so she tells me.

The Warrior movie trailer