Ahhhhh, it’s a lazy, rainy day. The kind of day where all I want to do is sit on the couch with a book and read away… Hopefully I’ll have a few moments like that today. Tropical Storm Fay is coming through today, and we are getting dumped with rain. That’s a new idea for this northern girl – I’m familiar with snowstorms and blizzards, but not tropical storms! We are far enough north that we aren’t in any danger from the storm [or so they say], but we just get a lot of rain and wind…
Whenever it rains, I almost always take Zoe’ out under the umbrella and sing songs to her. One we always sing is “My Favorite Things,” and we sing about the raindrops and kittens and white dresses with sashes… I just love that song, it’s all so sweet. We sing the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and about the old man who went to bed and bumped his head and couldn’t get up in the morning. She loves it. We put our hands out from under the umbrella and feel the raindrops. It’s just so fun so show her all these “new” things, let her discover the world for the first time!
It’s also a great day to catch up on everyone else’s fun posts! It takes me days to read everything when I’m gone for a while!
Oh, and we finally have air conditioning again… After being without it for almost a week, we are some very grateful folks, I’ll tell you! It was pretty neat though, because although it’s been an extremely hot summer, the week our a/c went out was the coolest week out of the whole summer! The nights even cooled down for the first time, and although it was humid, we were able to survive in our house. So awesome how God does things like that… Any other week out of the summer and it would’ve been too hot to stay here. It was so humid in our house that week, that although we were able to make it, our piano went out of tune, some of my pictures fell off the walls because the cardboard backing buckled, my hair took 8 hours to air-dry, and our sheets and blankets smelled awful… Like I said, we were definitely a grateful folk to have our air conditioner working again! And our landlord put in a whole new unit, so hopefully that’ll also help with our electric bill ["light bill", like the southerners say. That was for you, Marylou Hershberger. 
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Destination: Morgan County, Ohio
And now, for the Campout pictures. Like I mentioned earlier, it was primitive camping. That is not my first choice of vacationing, but with this wonderful family, I would’ve camped for weeks! Okay, maybe not quite that long, but it was worth every minute of freezing at night. We had to suddenly acclimate to the frigid northern nights, and had I not had my personal heater [a.k.a. Husband] I wouldn’t have been able to make it in the tent!
We had a wonderful time together… I am so blessed to be a part of this great family – who loves the Lord, and who is also ever so much fun to be with!
We were welcomed to the campout with a lovely bouquet of flowers…
And more flowers on the picnic table
Our little shelter from the cold
Zoe’ thought the tent was the coolest thing she had ever seen. She would crawl around that thing as fast as she could go, just grinning from ear to ear.
She also had more attention that she knew what to do with. She got lots of pinches and squeezes from the uncles and cousins. 
All the cooking was done over an open fire. And when Gaylord & Celesta made doughnuts that way, I was thoroughly impressed.
Gaylord soaking up Chloe’s affection
Lots of campfire times – one of the many highlights of the weekend!
These little boys were in the creek eeeaaaarrrrrlly in the morning – waaaayyyy before anyone else would be up and around. We could hear some of my Ohio cousins from our tent, “OOOOOOON-FA-SHTENDICH!! OON-FA-SHTENDICH NAH-HA-MOH!!” [or however you spell that in PA Dutch] as they’d discover crawdads and minnows. It was the funniest thing – after I got over being awakened at such an early hour!
They were pretty proud of this one. Even though they were the ones who put the minnow in the claws.
and this one is just for Christy - she looks as excited as can be as she cheers a water-balloon-toss
and just some lovely faces…
Darling Chloe
Dear Victoria
Wynn [affectionately known as "Wynnie the Pooh"]
And my little Zoe’ – whose piggies never cease to get a giggle out of me. But Ben still says they look terrible.
and lest he be offended by my calling him “lovely”, I will say this: “Check out my handsome bro!”
The Annual Baseball Game. Which proved to be rather eventful.
Ben at the bat.
Claudia slugging the ball…
…which led to this: an emergency room run for my dad!
In diving for Claudia’s ball, he tripped on the uneven field and landed on his shoulder, thus resulting in a torn ligament… Poor dad will be in recovery for the next 6-8 weeks, followed by therapy!
And my brother, David, got hit by a dear cousin who [blindfolded] thought David was the pinata!! He had an egg on his cheek that stuck out further than I’ve ever seen anything stick out…
So now we’re back at home, after an exciting weekend in the hills of Ohio! Zoe’ must have gotten chilled at night, because she’s been fighting a cough and cold ever since we’re back. I’ve seen almost every hour on the clock the past few nights… We have been spending many hours reading books and looking at pictures of animals and saying all kinds of animal sounds… Hopefully we’re on the way out of this sickness though!
A very happy weekend to you all!
jk.
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