Urgent Update!

I must correct my earlier post in regards to Ethan and the piano. Apparently it was JOSH who discovered this darling piano and conned Ethan into being his partner in crime! I'm so used to Ethan doing this and since Ethan is the one who kept talking about it I somehow missed the fact of who it was that actually found the ad. It's those quiet ones who must be watched more carefully from now on!

A few pictures from the last two weeks.....

Dearest son Ethan loves to scour the free ads on Craigslist and is always finding "interesting" items. He always asks me about them, knowing full well that I will try my hardest to help him see why he does not need the item. Well, this past week, while Ken, Alex, Mariah and I were on a mini vacation, he found a free ad for a piano and decided that it had Ethan written all over it!



Ethan and Josh took off to find this wonderful gem and lugged it home. It turns out to be an 1863 Bauer square grand piano that was brought by wagon from back east and the original owners paid $2,000 for it at that time. The value now......who knows! It needs much work.....sigh......and it takes up a lot of space in our barn......



This is the lake view in MN where we spent a few days with wonderful friends last week. Mariah got to ski, both kids went tubing, fishing, paddle boating, swimming and scuba diving. It was a much needed break and we are grateful to our hosts for their hospitality.



Mariah learned how to use the scuba equipment in our pool before heading to MN to try it in the bigger body of water.



We had an infestation of ants in one of our pine trees and tried for several years to kill them but never succeeded. Finally they had done enough damage that the tree was beginning to buckle and we had no other option but to take it down. Within 45 minutes the tree trimmer had stripped the branches and dropped the tree right where we wanted it.

That was the past week around here. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods!

It's Me Again!

The Pieper clan


The Harrar's



The Iiams gang



Sean, Cami, and Bruce enjoying the day.



Rex and Amy waiting for the parade to start.



Mia, Logan, and Mariah playing on Grandma's back steps.



In our family, Scrabble is the game of choice and it can get pretty competitive!



The girl cousins take on the boy cousins in the pool.



A toast to a great family reunion!



Max must be part fish because he stayed in the pool way longer than anyone else!



Little Logan enjoying a game of "Hang on Harvey"



Part of the explosives the boys enjoyed lighting off!



Sean and Alex getting ready to take a drive through town. Later on they drove to the river on this and went fishing!



The boys were pretty happy with their candy haul this year during the parade.



Ken's dad ready and waiting for the parade to begin.


Well, I've been reminded by multiple people that my poor blog has been terribly neglected so here I am again and I'll see what I can do to keep it current.

I haven't blogged since January and I thought about going back month by month to catch up, but that sounded way too time consuming so I think I'll just go back about two weeks.

My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in March. That wasn't a good time for all of the kids and grandkids to come for a visit so it was decided that we would all get together the last week of June and into July. We eagerly anticipated and prepared for the arrival of sisters, brother, in-laws, and cousins! The weather was absolutely perfect almost the whole time which was amazing since it was terrible for weeks on end before their arrival and it's been hot and humid since they left!

We were able to do quite a bit of sprucing up of things at my parents place that Ken and I really couldn't do on our own. Many hands make light(er) work! Thanks guys! My sister and mom kept us well fed and the kids did an awesome job pitching in to help.

Some of the other activities included a canoe trip, a visit to the Mennonite grocery store, visiting the newly remodeled children's museum, and of course a lot of swimming! Ken's brother had gotten us a slide last year for our pool and Ken was able to get it installed in time for use while the family was here. It was a hit with kids of all ages!

Probably the highlight of the week, at least for some of the family (you know who you are!) was the 4th of July! The day started out with the parade which was 1/2 hour long and went right past our house. We enjoy very good seats each year in our driveway ;-) The kids loved collecting the candy and this year the big kids (Josh and Ethan) came up with the idea of making a candy bucket which the candy throwers in the parade could attempt to toss into. That proved to be quite entertaining!

The rest of the day was swimming, food, more food, etc....until finally time for the fireworks! Josh and Ethan put on a spectacular show complete with music, for our viewing and listening pleasure, right in our own back yard. The boys and four of their friends had spent quite a bit of time planning this event and it turned out wonderful. Apparently they had told quite a few people (who in turn told people, etc...) that they were doing this, because when I turned on the yard lights at the end of the show there were dozens of people in our yard! People with lawn chairs walking to their cars and I had no idea who they were......! Not sure how we are going to handle this NEXT year....., but perhaps the show has outgrown our yard and will need to be in another location.

The older boys had friends who had come down from MN to help with the show and with the addition of them we ended up with 19 people sleeping here the night of the 4th! I quickly discovered I did not have 19 bath towels.....but we did find places for everyone to sleep and enough towels to go around with just a little bit of creativity! We sure appreciated the loan of the camper from our friends for the two weeks we had it. It provided enough bed space in comfortable, air conditioned accommodations to allow for a good night's sleep for everyone.

All too soon the the visits came to an end and we resumed regular activities. Judging for the 4-H sewing projects took place last Friday and Mariah walked away with a blue ribbon for the dress that she made. Our wonderful friend, Bonnie, graciously agreed to work with her on this project and they did fantastic!

Now we are thinking already of what has to be done before school starts, like physicals, eye dr. appointments, etc....and scheduling them in before our time runs out. Seems like summer is quickly slipping away!

This kind of gets you current with our activities. Hope I can stay up to date now!