JB and the Baby, Bunny

This is a baby bunny that we found in the window well. The only way I knew it was there was that Zephyr was very interested in something over there and was scaring the bunny out of its furry little skin. I think we scared it even more when I called the kids over to come see the baby bunny and I reached in a pulled it out. I let the kids hold it for a while, then I was not sure what to do with it because I think its family lives under our deck, but I didn't want Zephyr to chase it down if I put it back under. We ended up keeping it in our basement bathtub for a couple of days giving it a little cardboard box to hide in and some grass and leaves. Then Max let it go in the side back yard when Zephyr wasn't looking. Now he can grow up big and strong munching on my veggies...it's a love/hate relationship.

Have a Few Cicadas!

She's a brave girl, she is!

The one side-ponytail is due to Gloria taking out the other one. This is a morning where Max was watching the kids while I was a Women's Ministry event at a nearby church. I told him he could have at least taken out the other one before taking pictures...of course with the cicadas on her, probably no one is noticing her hair.

Walking the Dog

Here's Gloria "walking" Zephyr with a homemade leash - a bungee cord.

Tamsey's Family in Tennessee (and DC)

The "Brookline Crew" - Jessica, Dad, Mom, and Luke

Mom and Dad

Mom and Tams on the bus to Nashville for a tour of the capital building and lunch and a southern cuisine restauraunt.

The gals - Emily, Jessica, Mom, and TamsI couldn't leave out my dear bro Jonathan, so here is a picture of him and me at the White House about a year and a half ago.

Indoor Evening Fun in Tennessee

We are playing "Apples to Apples" here, which is a fun opinion game. John Love kept kiddingly chastising people about their "wrong opinions". They apparently ran rampant in this game.



John and Emily Love playing "Apples to Apples"

"It's Their Fault"

These are the faces of the parents and grandparents of the "younguns" at the reunion, resulting in more than 50 family members altogether (including spouses). Ultimately it was my grandparents, Paul and Dorothy Showalter's, "fault" that this reunion happened. These are their six children, from left to right, Dale, Joel, Paul David, Larry, Diane, and Dena. Neither of my grandparents are alive today, but we still remember them as we all got together as a Showalter family July 1-July 5.

Front Porch Time

My sister Jessica is holding Gloria, in the rocker with JB is my sister Emily, guy in the background is John, Emily's hubby, and the girl in front of the rocker is Bethany, my 5-year-old niece.

Getting Refreshed

Max is spraying water from a "mister" into the kid's faces...you can tell they are hating it. It was hot almost the whole time in TN, although with the 106 degree! temps we are having in Wichita, that would feel like springtime right now.

Samuel Love is the boy in the middle and is JB and Gloria's cousin. He is 2 months older than JB and it was fun seeing them play together. I hope we can get the cousins together again soon! A time of building memories...

Outdoor Water Fun in Tennessee

We had a lot of fun on the lake at the retreat center, especially since it was really hot and lots of family got involved in the water fun. Here's a few pictures of our family in the outdoors of Tennessee.









JB had a lot of fun discovering that he could "swim" with the life jacket on. This experience in the lake gave him much confidence in the water for this summer's swim season. Gloria had fun too, but she's more of a water wimp...she can dance on the sand though...










Canoe racing with John and Jess (and a few passengers) was fun. I guess they should've had Luke at the paddles, him being on the crew (rowing) team in Boston, especially since they got skunked by Max and me (Max is the one who knows how to direct and power a conoe, I just move my paddle forward and back).

The zip line was a lot of fun. You can see family members lined up in the background. The youngest child to do it was a four-year-old, a very brave boy named Ethan, my cousin Tallie's son. My nieces, Bethany (daughter of Emily and John) as well as Tyler (daughter of Jessica) also did the zip line, which showed a lot of courage. My heart was pounding hard every time I went to the top of the platform to sail down and either gracefully fall into the water or violently slam into the water, usually depending on the height of the "fall", when I let go along the zip line. Many members of the family did it and many went out of their bounds of comfort, although usually found it was a blast (more like a really big splash).

Showalter Family Reunion

Max, the kids, and I drove about 800 miles or 13 hours in the truck to go to Thompson's Station, TN where we went to a Showalter Family Reunion at a retreat center, 35 miles from Nashville. It was for about four days in the beginning of July and we took two days on either side to travel. Everyone was there that could make it - my aunts and uncles, my parents, my brothers and sisters, my nieces and nephews, and all of my cousins and their children. In all, I think there were a little over 50 of us. It was a great idea to meet at a retreat center. My aunt and uncle, Dena and Jeff, moved to Tennessee from Illinois, and they were the ones that planned the reunion. Thanks Jeff and Dena!

While at the reunion we had family pictures taken. Here's one of the "Larry Showalter" family:

Always by Daddy's side

Gloria kept asking "what are you doing, Daddy." Daddy would say "downloading." I was wondering if Gloria was "downloading" something into her pants at this time. Below is Gloria kissing her Daddy because he said his head still hurt after bumping working on his truck earlier.

Since Daddy has only been around on the weekends lately (we are very thankful we have the weekends with him!) the kids like to stay close to Daddy whenever he's around, whatever he may be doing.

A Peachy Visit - Saturday morning

Gloria was not much into walking around the peach orchard, possibly because she didn't want to step on peaches. She also didn't want to let go of my face to pick peaches up on my shoulders. She was into eating one after we had them weighed. We picked 20 lbs of peaches. I'm freezing some, hopefully canning some, and eating some!
JB loved picking his own peaches. His Daddy supervised him wherever he picked so that JB did not pick unripe ones. The peaches were very tasty!
Daddy even let JB climb the ladder and pick!

Garden

Every day I enjoy going outside and checking out the garden. I pull weeds, direct the meandering cucumber vines up the trellis, look to see what new fruit or flowers there are, and pick any that are ripe. So far we have been inundated with radishes and salad greens. In the not-to-distant future we are going to be drowning in cucumbers and possibly tomatoes. I know there will be ripe tomoatos because there are many on the plants that are green, but I can't say that we will definitely be drowning in those like we will the cucumbers. I just picked a cucumber today that I had no idea was growing that big already. I was searching under the big leaves and found this monster:
All of the other ones growing are still about the length of a finger. I was resisting the idea of making pickles, but I think I will have to. I had Justin send me his favorite recipe for pickles. Max, JB, and Gloria love pickles, so I suppose it wouldn't be a bad idea.

Here is a full view of our garden. On the far right are the tomatoes, then the peppers, then the cucumbers. In the garden bed on the left, we have two different kinds of corn, carrots, radishes, salad greens, onions, more cucumber vines in the back, and sunflowers (tall and dwarf).

The corn stalks have several ears growing on them, but many stalks don't have anything. I think we planted them too close together, even though I did brutally thin them in May (just not enough).

Here is our first tall sunflower:

Does anyone know, is it normal to not have any peppers on my pepper plants at this point (not even any starting to grow yet) even though I planted them about two months ago? The leaves are looking healthy and they're growing big, they are just not showing any sign of fruit (or veggie).

Father's Day/ T's Birthday picture

This picture was taken this past Sunday by a clown at the "Altus Club" which is on base. They were serving a pretty good Father's Day brunch, so that is how we celebrated. The kids got humming bird balloons and Max got a doggy balloon. I was just happy to have our family together for the weekend. Max bought me a patio furniture set for my birthday, which I acquired about three weeks ago, if anyone is wondering. We got two square, tile top tables with eight stackable chairs. I'm very happy with them and we were able to use them while my family was visiting in the end of May/beginning of June (see pics below).

Trampoline

I have no idea how to spell trampoline, but I do know how to jump on a trampoline. Gloria had the most fun bouncing while I held her.