For The Beauty

For the beauty of the earth,

For the glory of the skies,

For the love which from our birth,

Over and around us lies;

Lord of all, to thee we raise,

This our hymn of grateful praise.

Happy Fall everyone!

 May you go out in joy and be led forth in peace. May the mountains and hills burst into song before you. And may all the trees of the field clap their hands.

(From Isaiah 55:12)

Pick-Your-Own-Peace

Well, I wasn't able to post every day last week, BUT I do have photos from almost every day, so let's just get down to business:

Once upon a time, before Eden was a big girl who went to Kindergarten every single weekday, our whole family had Fridays "off."  (Since Sundays are a big work day for pastors, they usually take another day off during the week.  Peter's day off has always been Friday.)  We called it Family Day, and made a very deliberate effort to only do activities that the whole family could be involved in, and to avoid working as much as possible.  We are pretty bummed that Family Days will need to change a bit moving forward, but for our very first Friday, we decided to pick Eden up from school and head out on a surprise adventure.  We went to one of my favorite places: Eckert's Orchard (the Grafton Farm) for pick-your-own peaches and blackberries.  We were actually a little worried that we might have missed the peach/blackberry season, but we were happily surprised to find both fruits were flourishing and amply available.

The wagon ride to the peach trees:

Not my best photo ever, but I'm in so very few (since I'm usually the one taking the picture), that I hate to leave it out.  Plus we're almost all smiling:

The fun:

Picking blackberries was an ironic choice of fun family activity as I used to have to pick blackberries as a chore when I was a child - and believe me, it was a CHORE.  The bushes were out in the middle of a field behind our house, there was no shade, and it was always, ALWAYS, 8,000 degrees and 95% humidity.  Plus, you were constantly swatting at bugs and getting scratched from the bushes, and by the time you got home you were a sticky, itchy, sweaty, GRUMPY mess.  And to top it all off, I didn't even like the taste of blackberries at that time.

The setting at Eckert's is much more enjoyable, and as soon as I felt like being done, I could quit.  Still couldn't quite believe I was choosing to pick blackberries though:

All in all, it was a great afternoon to spend with my family.  People talk about how peaceful gardens can be - surely orchards must top the list of most peaceful places on earth.  Quiet, leafy spots are absolutely, most definitely, my happy place.

60(ish) days in 60 seconds

Okay, it's been a lot more than 60 days! Whatever! (Can I still say that? Do people still say that? What if I don't make the W symbol with my hands while saying it, would that mean it's still cool?)

Welcome to the I-just-can't-skip-over-a-couple-months-without-feeling-guilty post. Which might also be another glimpse into my OCD(ish!) leanings.

In short, here's what you've missed in the life of this crazy family over the last few months:

October:

• Our good friend Shanelle visited!
• For Halloween Eden dressed up as Curious George and Pete dressed up as The Man in the Yellow Hat. I was Professor Wiseman. We went to a Trunk-or-Treat at our church. It was kind of a disaster. (That is, our little family was a disaster - not the church event.)

November:

• Pete and I had a quick get-away to Pere Marquette State Park. I think. I can't find any evidence of this on the calendars, but I seem to remember it happening...
• Peter flew to California for about 5 days to speak at an ACSI conference. Eden and I were lonely but survived.
• We spent another couple of days at Pere Marquette with the rest of the church staff and their families for a staff retreat.
  
• Peter was the speaker for the Fall Renewal Weekend at our church, speaking 5 times over three days. He did a great job.
  
• We spent Thanksgiving Day with Peter's family in Kansas City and then the following Saturday with my family in St. Louis.

December:

• We made an ultimately-successful offer on a house! At some point in the previous few weeks we had actually made unsuccessful offers on two other houses, so this really felt like a reason to celebrate (and also a bit surreal).
• A seemingly endless procession of house-related inspections, tests, decisions, and paperwork kicked into gear.
  
• Eden got her first round of stomach-flu.
• I spent 24 hours feeling pretty miserable myself (aches, fever, exhaustion) but counted myself lucky to have escaped the vomiting. Sadly...
  
• I got the stomach flu on Christmas Eve. I did not escape the vomiting. I did, however, miss the Christmas Eve service at church, as well as Eden unwrapping and enjoying many of her presents. Boo. To. That.
  
• We spent Christmas Day at my brother's house in St. Louis with most of my immediate family as well as my maternal grandparents. (I was in quarantine on the love seat.) I did get to see Eden unwrap an avalanche of presents from all her generous relatives. I think she may now own some version of every toy ever made.
• We spent several more days at my other brother's house in St. Louis, generally hanging out and recovering from a busy month. It is so nice to live around family again.
• We did a kid swap with my brother and his wife - watching their son for 24 hours so they could see a movie and enjoy some time to themselves and then leaving Eden with them for the next 24 hours so that we could do the same. We saw True Grit, ate sushi, and slept in. I cannot begin to express how wonderful this was.
  
• We went to see Peter's family in Kansas City for New Year's Eve/Day. I left the party early to tuck Eden into bed but stayed up so I could see the ball drop on television. Unfortunately, I got distracted by a movie on another channel (true confessions: it was The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants**) and didn't remember to click back over until 3 minutes after the ball had completed its descent. Perhaps as payback for this stupidity my body refused to go to sleep until 4 o'clock in the morning.

January:

• We were delighted with a brief visit from some of our favorite people in the world, the Shive family.
• I got the stomach flu again.
• We closed on our house! Oh happy day!
• The real work began as we decided to do a few, small renovations before moving in at the end of the month.
• Our renovation project list went from 1) refinishing the bedroom floors to, 2)refinishing the bedroom floors, upstairs landing, and stairs, to, 3) refinishing all the floors in the house except for the kitchen and bathroom to, 4) refinishing all the floors except for the kitchen and bathroom and knocking out (and then partially rebuilding) a wall. Oh and we're also going to repaint half the house. And sell our stove so that we can have a gas range instead of an electric one.
• It snowed a gazillion inches and now isn't supposed to get above freezing for another week. This may or may not be causing the slow erosion of my soul. But Eden made her first (and second) snowman!
  

Renovations are only halfway completed and only three boxes have been packed, but in theory we're moving next weekend!

And now you're all caught up.

**The tagline for this movie is: "Laugh. Cry. Share the pants." Yes, I am serious. I am so ashamed.

What I Love About the Midwest (Part 2)

Apple picking!
I guess it doesn't hurt that the house we lived in the longest during my childhood (also by far my favorite house) had an apple orchard just beyond the backyard.

Just a week or so ago (see! I'm catching up again on posts! we've just jumped from Labor Day weekend to last week!) Pete and Eden and I headed up to Eckert's for a day o' family fun. Since it was a Friday, not all of the attractions were up and running (aka no pony rides), but it was also much less crowded and we didn't have to pay for anything. And it was even more fun than I expected! There was a kids' area with a big wooden play structure, tire swings, and lots of animals, a country store, and of course, apple orchards and a large pumpkin patch. Eden loved it all, especially the wagon ride (behind A TRACTOR) and the apple picking. I was surprised how much she liked picking the apples actually. She was very into deciding whether an apple was a "good one" or "yucky," and she loved putting them into our bag.

I think the pictures sum up the day best and there are quite a few of them, so enjoy!
Unsurprisingly, this is the first structure Eden wanted to climb in the play area.

Chickens! (Really, I promise they are there. Normal-sized, living chickens, mind you, not just big wooden ones.)

Goats!

Pigs!

The same pigs! (They warrant two pictures because they were adorable. Don't you judge me!)

And see! Here's a second picture of the goats as well. They were not as adorable. But they had this contraption in their pen that supposedly they climb up from time to time. I'm not sure why - perhaps so they can get a good look at their adorable neighbors. But I have to say, we did not witness any goat climbing while we were there. Makes me wonder if Eckert's is trying to pull a fast one.

Camel! Yeah, I'm confused on this one too.

Tortoise! Also a slightly confusing barnyard choice. But fortunate, as Eden is a big fan of tortoises.

She will tell you that they come from the "Glop-a-gose."

I love this kid.

This is practically the only picture where they are both looking at the camera. Punks.

Pun'kin.

Here comes the tractor and wagon to take us to the orchards.

Fun fact about Eden: often when she's really enjoying something she gets a very serious look on her face instead of smiling. She's done this every since she was a baby. I think it's because she's really focusing and concentrating? I don't know. But lots of experience makes me say with confidence that she is feeling much happier than she appears in the above photo.

Almost to the orchard!

And here is just a long sequence of Eden helping pick apples. I know I should have cut some of these pictures to make it shorter... but I couldn't.

Thank you, Eckert's! Eden still wants to know when we're going back to the farm.