Happy Birthday, Mom!

Picnics, Cute Kids, Softball, and Other Assorted Topics

I love this picture... two little cuties in our backyard with peaches in their hands
(and totally oblivious to sagging pants)

All right, so I have to bring you all back up to date once again. I guess I should shoot for at least a monthly post... ah, well. I only missed September by a couple days. :-)

Let's see, what went on in September? Well, we went down to Morton for the annual Multi-Church Picnic, which goes by another name now, not currently lodged in my memory. As is usual for these types of events, I took essentially no pictures. I feel ashamed every time. But talking with friends takes precedence, wouldn't you agree?

Here we are with the lovely Riggenbach girls, trying to stay cool and failing utterly.

(Thanks for taking the picture, Mrs. Hirst!)

So some escaped into the church and amused themselves with music!

Next on the calendar was a "camp-out" at Wendy's house, though not very many people camped out. :-) Friday night was dinner and games and a campfire, and on Saturday we all went to the world's largest corn maze and made it through... with our fair share of going around in circles, thanks to certain members of the group who decreed that we should traverse the maze without using our maps (brilliant, I know). I don't have any pictures of that as I didn't want to lug my camera around on a 10+ mile maze in the blazing sun.

Friends!

Oh, look, a cute kid!

Everyone knows that it is a crime to get together and not play volleyball.

The beautiful and photogenic Raeanne, whom I plan on recruiting for a photo shoot in the foreseeable future.

Anna was using Wendy's camera during the games, and I told her to "look professional." :-)

And most recently, the great Annual Softball Game! It was a grand event involving several churches this year, and instead of just one game (how boring is that?!) it was a tournament. We were gracious hosts and let the other 3 churches claim the 1st, 2nd and 3rd places. ;-)

Lots of effort going into that swing!

Notice the spider web?

Little Miss Cami started out the day being very shy but Megan cracked her shell!

I like this father/son moment... I was a split second too late to catch Mr. Geaschel patting Armin on the back before they separated to their positions. Grrr. I still like this though.

My partner in crime! ;-)

The kids had fun on the playground

Jessica keeping score for the other team (they only brought players so they had no score keeper and no fans to cheer them on. Don't feel too sorry for them - they still beat us).

The Wintons gave us a nice concert

I got to hold this cutie the whole evening *happy sigh*

Ok, now in between taking pictures of the game, I got distracted by a certain adorable young gentleman. I think my camera has a magnet installed in it and the other end of the magnet is somewhere inside his head. Anyway, I couldn't decide which pictures to omit because they are all so stinkin' cute. So I compromised on a collage so you get small versions of almost all of them. :-)

Well... that's it for now. So until next time...

Our Visit to Pine Crest

A few weeks ago we had the wonderful opportunity to take a mini vacation up to Door County. Dad's secretary's brother owns a beautiful house up there that he let us use!

The house was all of stone and looked like something out of a BBC movie. :-)

The terrace in back

The back view... pretty big, eh? :-)

This is a historic restaurant in the area and is apparently THE place to go for ice cream or lunch. It was packed!

They had a really neat old phone in the kitchen! The whole house had a lot of antiques.

Dad in the "study." See, even the inside looks like a movie! Dad's just missing a top hat and a cravat.

Tara took some pictures of me with my harp

(here's a slideshow of more pictures if you're interested)

And I took some of her in various outfits.

You can see more of this on my photography blog.

(I only have photos from the bridesmaid dress shoot so far, but I've got more coming :-)

We had breakfast at the Old Post Office restaurant, which sounds a lot cuter than it was, but it was pretty good food. :-)

The lovely two-room kitchen (no coveting going on here at all... nope)

Adorable dining room (it had two tables)

Blurry picture of the study leading into the living room

The upstairs extra room which housed the TV, and some couches which were certainly not my style. :-)

One of the pretty beds.

We had a nice time relaxing, shopping, eating and enjoying the house. If you'd like to see more pictures of the knick-knacks in the house, I'll be putting up some of those more "artsy" pictures on my blog tomorrow!

(and we finally got a family picture without us dressed up in our Reformation Day outfits!!! :-)

Summer Wildlife

Although raccoons are incredible pests, you have to admit, the babies are pretty adorable! The mama has been bringing her 4 new charges onto the deck late every afternoon to scrounge for birdseed or whatever else we happen to have out there.

This little guy has been scampering through the yard this spring/summer but found our front door mat tasty for some reason so Tara was able to get some fun shots up close.

Hello there!

Time to move on!

Wait. 

What are these creatures? 

Could it be the rarely seen "Lasagnanoodleeatinggirls" we've heard about? 

How did they get into my kitchen anyway?

And then...

While the girls were out (unfortunately) one afternoon last week, I (Mom) was able to watch as four baby warblers ventured out of the birdhouse to try flying for the first time. It was so cute to watch!

The last one was just a little too comfortable to come out.  He waited a good hour or so after the other 3 were practicing their new flying skill in the pine tree behind him before finally venturing out.

And there you have our summer wildlife summary so far...