Our Favorite Weekend Trip

by Steph // Sunday, September 1, 2024 // Comments off

I think you all could probably type this post for me!

We are such creatures of habit here, aren’t we??

We enjoy taking a weekend trip many times a year to visit family in Illinois and Indianapolis.

We do the SAME things every time!

We stay at the same hotels, leave home at the same time, and even have some traditions with my brother that are the same!

No complaints from me – I love the same things when the reason they are the same is because they are so good!!

We took a trip to Illinois and Indy at the beginning of June.

In prep for that trip, Tate was my special helper as we went to check on my in-laws new home.

I wanted to get photos to show them when we saw them the next day.

We also stopped for some grocery, and then spent the rest of Thursday packing and prepping food for the trip.

Lane worked that afternoon, but once he and Blake got home from work, we left that evening and drove to Peoria to spend the night.

We always get two rooms when there are five of us and have a girl’s room and a boy’s room.

It works out very well, especially having two bathrooms.

Eliza and I enjoy being roommates on these trips!

Our first stop Friday morning was to visit my father-in-law, Ross.

I love watching these kiddos play the piano there.

We went back to the house for some lunch on the patio on a beautiful day.

As you can imagine, we have LOTS to talk about right now for the upcoming move.

Next we headed to our favorite little coffee shop in Morton to have a late afternoon snack and see Blake’s Mom.

These visits are way too short – yes.

But we are driving 1,100 round trip miles each time we do these weekend trips!

Friday evening we continued the 3 1/2 hours on to Indy.

The hour time change is not in our favor on the way there.

It is always SO late when we finally arrive!

But we had Saturday on our minds!!

When we get to see my brother and my Mom.

My brother planned an outing for us Saturday morning to a local nursery.

It was LOVELY and we were there a long time!

Remember my comment above about tradition?

Well, a summer water fight with my brother is one of those traditions!

I can hear the squeals and laughter just looking at these photos!

My brother is one in million – really making some solid memories with these kiddos!!

Please notice that I am sitting on the deck IN A JACKET while those crazy people dump garden hose water all over each other!

We started a new tradition for dinner on this trip.

Frogmore!!

Have you all every had it??

It is really fun!!

And delicious!!

We had a blast!!

We had some kiddos pretty excited about the pool back at our hotel, so we headed back in the late evening to give them enough time to swim.

I have an awesome video of the biggest kid in this family – my husband – swimming with the kids that evening.

He is hilarious and wild and crazy and super fun when in a pool, just saying!

Sunday morning we headed back to my mom’s for just a bit to spend some more time before our very hard “See you again next time” goodbyes.

My Mom is doing great, by the way, and remembered us all on this trip!!

We hit the road before lunch for the almost nine hour drive home.

The kiddos might have got a little stir crazy on the way home, but they were just emulating someone who was sitting next to her hubby in the front seat.

I am not good at sitting still!!

Well, I am so far behind in this little scrapbook of ours that we have been to Illinois and Indy again already!!

And have plans to go and see my brother again after we get my in-laws moved here.

See, we love the same things!!

What a fun trip this was!

CANNOT WAIT UNTIL NEXT TIME!!

Our Twin Oaks

by Steph // Saturday, August 31, 2024 // Comments off

You might remember that the little nest we live in is named Twin Oaks.

The two huge old oak trees on our property meant a lot to us as we left the farm.

You can read a very sweet story about them be clicking on this HERE.

We had a lot of rain and storms in the first months of this summer.

One late afternoon a storm came through that was fierce, and pretty soon I looked out the window and saw this.

One of our beloved Twin Oaks.

I said out loud when I saw it “No, no no!!” which had the kiddos come running to see what was wrong.

This tree had already been hit by lightening a few years ago and had split in half.

We did our best to try to save it – but obviously it was weak and rotting on the inside.

It was several weeks later that we finally got around to starting to clean it up.

I say “starting” to clean it up, because the biggest part of that tree trunk is still laying in our yard.

It was a HUGE job!

Blake had a chain saw – and he also had Scottie, Addie, Lane, Tate, Eliza and myself to help him.

Thankfully it was not hot the day that we did this – nor was it raining for once!

Blake decided to cut a bunch of rounds from the trunk for us to save.

I am so glad he did that!!

We are hoping our neighbor will still want the biggest part of that tree like he said he would.

He burns wood to heat his house!

And he has big equipment to move a huge tree!

If not, we will figure out what to do with it eventually.

We have a lot of our own fire wood stacked thanks to that tree!

We can have camp fires for years!

So – here’s the thing – the loss of this tree is just a circumstance.

Most often circumstances are completely out of our control.

That is really GREAT actually, because that is where the Lord does His best work in our minds and hearts, isn’t it??

When this tree fell God gave me the opportunity to choose to say “It’s just a tree.”

“We were all safe during that storm.”

“That huge tree did not come close to hitting our house.”

“My hubby will know exactly how to take care of this.”

And now I can add to that – “Thank you, Lord, for giving us a great day of fellowship while we all worked together cleaning up that tree!”

I am still a little sad that it is gone.

But we are keeping our name.

Twin Oaks, two trees or not, you are still a very sweet little nest that we are so thankful to call home!

A Library Cruise

by Steph // Friday, August 30, 2024 // Comments off

One of my constant prayers is for the Lord to show me things that I can do with this trio of mine as we are the ones who spend our days together.

Lane, Tate, and Eliza are very content with our school routines and rhythms – but I am always looking for experiences and things that will get us out and about some too.

The libraries in our area had a “passport” promotion this summer.

We all got a passport pamphlet from our local library, which has been renamed by Lane’s nieces and nephews as “Lane’s library.”

SO cute and something I never want to forget!!

The idea was to get as many library locations stamped on your passport as you could, and then your passport would be entered into a drawing at the end of the summer.

The kiddos and I headed out for our first library “cruise” at the end of May!

We went to Holmen first, which is where we used to live when we first moved to Wisconsin, and about 45 minutes away.

Before we went to the library, I had another plan for us – to try out a newer gluten-free bakery that was in that same town.

I was hoping to get the kiddos cinnamon rolls for breakfast, which I had heard from some friends are pretty fantastic!

The bakery did not have any cinnamon rolls that morning.

Let me just say we were not impressed with anything there, and leave it at that!

We did buy some treats anyway, but two of them got thrown away, just to be honest here.

Holmen has a new library that was not there when we lived in that town, and it is just BEAUTIFUL!!

We headed there next and enjoyed browsing and browsing and browsing!

It was the most beautiful day too.

Next we went to the library in Onalaska, kind of making our way back toward home.

The inside of that library has been rearranged since the last time I was there.

It was fun to browse there too!!

Our last stop was in West Salem.

I used to spend a lot of time in this library and building, because our three oldest children were in 4-H and this is where a lot of the activities for that were held!

It was a fun walk down memory lane for me that day!!

West Salem also has a very nice library – and every single person we met that whole day as we went from library to library was VERY friendly, talkative and kind!!

Our next library cruise was at the end of June.

We only planned to visit one library that morning and then a Co-op near it to get some lunch.

We headed to downtown La Crosse to the main library there.

When we lived on the farm, this is one of the libraries we went to most often!

One of the librarians recognized me (but not the children!) and we got to chat which was so sweet.

The Co-op is just a few blocks over from this library, and we headed there next.

The children let their Co-op loving Mama walk every aisle and look around, and then we went and got some lunch for the kiddos.

Lane ate his sandwich as soon as we got into the van, and told me “This is the sandwich of all sandwiches, Mom!!”

Of course it only filled one of his two hollow legs, so he ate again when we got home, ha, ha!

Now I want to do that all again!!!

Especially that trip down memory lane!

I did drive the children by our very first home in Wisconsin while in Holmen – and they had so many questions!

It was very fun to talk about life all those years ago!

I am grateful for any little outing with my trio where we are having experiences and making memories together.

Hopefully I will come up with some other good ideas for this fall!

We are bookworms though!

And love a good library!

Do you all read a lot too?

Go visit a new library if you do!!

May Days

by Steph // Thursday, August 29, 2024 // Comments off

Hi friends!

Wasn’t May years ago now??

This summer has had a way of feeling very unusual for us here – in many good ways though!

Two weddings will do that to you, I guess!

At the beginning of May, the guys had a night out with Grant before the wedding!

They went bowling and then to the Outback Steakhouse to have dinner.

They had a great time!

Since the guys were out, Eliza and I decided to go out too!

We headed to town for some shopping and snacks!

It was WONDERFUL to have some one-on-one time with my girl – she is growing up SO FAST!!

Those drinks in that photo above were not good, just so you know!

Right before Grant and Kamryn’s wedding, we helped my in-laws as they purchased a house – HERE!!

It is currently being built, but I CANNOT WAIT to have them here with us.

Dreams really do come true!!

When the calendar says May, it means things start happening outside!

I bought this deck box when I was shopping with a friend awhile back – only because she has one, told me how great it is, and because it was on sale!

I LOVE IT.

It holds all of our swimming stuff and never gets wet on the inside – which has truly been tested this year with all of the rain we have had!

Blake also deemed our swing unsafe and promptly bought me a new one.

I love that spot on our patio so much!

Addie Mae filled our porch and patio with beautiful pots of flowers!

I need to have her sign a contract that she will come back every spring and do this for me, ha, ha!

May and its warm weather meant it was time to clean our Lil’ Red Barn!

We love our goats and chickens and taking care of them!

We did a lot of clean-up outside too.

Blake rented a pressure washer – I think he used that thing on everything that wasn’t moving – we need to buy one of those things!

It really cleans things up!!

We sadly had to remove a birds nest off of the deck railing right above our backyard patio.

Don’t worry, there were no eggs or babies in it!

Aren’t bird’s nests amazing??

Whenever it wasn’t raining we spent as much time as we could outside!

It is very very important to me that we get outside a lot!

Our riding mover (and our push mower!) were a constant headache.

Lane and Blake would spend more time repairing them than actually mowing each time we needed to mow!

Thankfully we were able to sell that old riding mower quickly, and Blake purchased a new one.

It won’t be long before Lane is not here enough to take care of our yard/land – so that job will be mine!

I used to mow at the farm all the time as it was a wonderful way to get outside in the sunshine and fresh air – so hopefully I will enjoy doing it again here!

Even with the weddings we had a lot of normal days here!

I met a friend for coffee one morning – I would encourage you to do that!

I also had my annual eye doctor appointment which meant wearing sunglasses home even though it was raining.

Getting my eyes dilated is not fun – but necessary since I have had trouble with my eyes.

Lane is still working at the library!

He still loves it!

I am still his chauffeur!

But he is in drivers ed right now – so it won’t be long before he is driving himself to work.

He is finished with the on-line part and now we are doing the driving part.

We have transitioned to homemade bread making full-time now.

I do not eat things like bread, but I have heard this is very good!

I bought a bread box to store our bread in on the counter and this was a good purchase.

We use it everyday!

I always LOVE when I have helpers in the kitchen – and I am grateful they love to help!

Speaking of the kitchen.

It truly is my favorite spot in the world.

I really enjoy using, keeping, and managing this space!!

I also have photos of our living spaces in our sweet home.

I do not remember why I took these photos, but I want them here anyway!

You all.

I forgot I have not shown this to you yet!!

I sent my Bible away to be recovered and IT IS FANTASTIC.

My old Bible cover was taped with shipping tape, falling apart, and also bright teal blue.

It took five weeks to get my Bible back, which was hard, but SO worth it!!

Here are a few of the books we enjoyed from May.

The Mom Heart Moments is actually a daily devotional that I am still enjoying!

Here’s how you know you have the BEST Sundays EVER.

1. Your counter looks like this on Saturday.

2. Your dishwasher looks like this on Monday morning.

3. Your bathroom shelves look redecorated on Sunday evening.

4. This is left on your kitchen island.

SO much I never want to forget!!!

Did you all see the Northern Lights in May????

WE DID!!!

Goodness it is so beautiful and so amazing and such a God hug!!!

These two worked happily, tirelessly, and endlessly on their wedding and new “home” plans for months.

Watching them together is one of the sweetest gifts to me as Addie’s mama – I literally have a front row seat to years of prayers that were answered just like that!