Reflections Blog

 This is the greenest summer I ever remember seeing. We are nearing the end of June and it is still green like May out there! We've had a few scorchers, but for the most part the weather has been mild...  I'm not sure why I thought that it would be a good idea to start the habit of blogging again at the beginning of summer! Oh, the days are long this time of year, and there is always so much to do. Yesterday, we took the trek out to my grandparent's farm again, which is always a trip down memory lane. Watching Christopher, our one year old, toddle around the downstairs while Wesley played outside with kitties and Grandma's marbles was just the slow paced afternoon we all needed after the last few weeks of trying to stay busy all the time while Josh is working on farming so that we don't go mad!! Really, we live in such a neat area and even though we are a bit isolated geographically, we are surrounded by so many little gems that are just a short drive away. We have ...

 Some of my earliest memories, certainly most of my best memories, took place on a farm in the middle of the Kansas prairie near a little town called Burdick. My grandparents inherited and added on to a homestead that is about as far away from anywhere as you can get inside of the US (apart from Alaska). In fact, once you leave the front door of their house you are unlikely to see much of anything other than rocks, trees (and other plants), creeks, animals, or fence posts and it stays that way for a solid 10 miles before you would come across another road or house. This was a great place to make memories at, not just because a kid could spend all day digging, picking berries, jumping in the creek, and building all sorts of underwater constructions in the shallows, catching crawdads and so much else, but mainly I value the memories made because of the fact that I felt so safe there. Today, my grandparents celebrated 60 years of marriage together. It was a big day with LOTS of people...

Wesley and I are reading through the Little House on the Prairie series and today we read about Pa getting surrounded by wolves on his ride home (without his gun) and then more wolf encounters later that night! We also read about how Ma got injured while they were building their house, amongst other adventures and misadventures. One thing about reading stories from those times is that you get a sense of perspective. When this series was read to me as a child, I only thought about how amazing their lives were and how much I wanted to live that way, coming back to them as an adult and reading it more from Ma's perspective really changes the landscape! What an exemplary woman she was, to brave all of Pa's hairbrained adventures and ideas with such grace...how she didn't lose her sanity is a mystery to me. More than once today I found myself almost complaining, but was stopped short with thoughts of Ma's grace and perseverance.   I am so grateful for the opportunity to read...

 I took our eldest to the 86th Annual Flint Hills rodeo last night. The event starts at 8pm (about his bedtime). Fortunately it is local and conveniently located. Neither my husband nor I grew up going to the rodeo, so it was only my 2nd or 3rd time to go. Wesley went with us last year and he was smitten; he asks frequently to go to "the radio" whenever we are passing by the grounds...  Joshua stayed behind with the baby as the rodeo isn't really his thing, other than chatting with friends, he can take it or leave it, so he decided to send me with our cowboy this year and we had a really good time.  It is quite the event for our small, little middle-of-nowhere town of Strong City. This year it runs simultaneously with the Unbound Gravel bicycle race which starts in Emporia and spreads throughout the state, bringing thousands of visitors to our area. But at the rodeo, there is always a good mix of both familiar and unfamiliar faces. As we walked through the stands and vari...