Whirlwind of fun and chaos

This is my younger brother Nate, wife Alisha, and kiddos.  Their home was hit by the tornadoes that came through our state 2 months ago.  The major repairs needed to their home have made them temporarily homeless.  I begged for them to just come and take an extended stay at the farm... and two Mondays ago they arrived.  The farm has been tons more fun ever since!

Poor Nate is still holding down the home front while working during the day.  He comes and stays here on the weekends.  Not sure how long it will take to dismantle the damage and rebuild again, but honestly, us Callahans are in NO HURRY to see them leave.  Activities during the days include workbooks (kids not so happy about that part, snicker), puzzles, hammock time, tons of games (we can be quite the competitive group), building forts, 4 wheelers, time with chicks and baby donkey, WII, chores, slip 'n slide, and general chaos making.  Life is Good!

In other farm news... Christian's toe has chosen to remain a part of his body, whew!  It was near impossible to keep him off his foot for longer than 48 hours.  I threatened to sit on him but he laughed at me, rude.  He seems to be in the clear and is just thankful that he will be able to go to Youth Conference next week.  Huge Priority.

 

 Ummmm, have I said how much I love my husband... yes?!... well, I do!  He is such a patient man.  Like when I tell him that I want 12foot wide steps on the shed, he simply grabs a pad of paper and sketches out what I want and makes a shopping list for Lowes.  He didn't even ask why the steps need to be that wide.  Fact is that the shed is right next to the firering where we hang out often and I can see lots of littles lined up on the steps with plates in their laps full of roasted hot doggies.  Yep, wide steps = extra seating.

 We now have a ramp at the double doors too.  The shed is on very uneven ground, so to level it the installers had to use lots of blocks.  Not the look I was going for so while Shawn was on a roll I asked him to come up with some kind of skirting.  While I would have loved a stone skirting, I quickly returned from lala land and decided I was too cheap for that idea.

 The wood skirting is cheap PERFECT!  Now I am still trying to convince Shawn that the metal door needs to be 'skinned' in wood to feel more like the rustic shed I am dreaming of.  Then a firewood lean to on the right side and then I can paint/white wash it.  I won't bore you with visions of climbing roses and hydrangeas... yet.  I'll save that blabber for a later post.  You're welcome.

 Monday we had our annual 4th of July barbecue.  We had all the tables and chairs set up at the fire ring.  I thought the rain was going to pass over.  I was wrong.  The gigantic clap of thunder that made all the adults, children, and dogs pee themselves helped us adjust plans quite quickly.  And we soon found out that we can squeeze 50+ folks into our kitchen and back porch for burgers and hotdogs.  It worked out great.

The kids had fun just being together with promises that we would head outside as soon as the storms passed.  Just before sunset we were indeed able to ride 4wheelers and play lawn games.  Fireworks were a blast and the holiday was yet another great memory.

Some sad news... a predator of some kind got into our chicken coop a few nights ago (a very sad 'someone' forgot to close the coop up for the night).  We were left with only 4 chicks.  To say those 4 chicks are getting lots of attention is an understatement.  We are trying to come up with 4 perfect 80s hair band names for the survivors.  They just getting funnier and funnier!  Check out the 'dos. 

 And the last bit of news for this week is... Savannah ditched us all.  It is Young Women's Camp this week and she is a Youth Camp Leader this year.  She loves camp.  Thankfully she has trained her cousin Carden to carry on with her farmgal 'duties' so I can can continue to enjoy the animals... but don't have to do the down and dirty work.  Ahhhhhh.  Gotta love delegation.  Its a beautiful concept.

 And anyone that truly knows Savannah is not surprised in the least that she is wearing her boots to camp.  True to herself... Love that girl!