Busy, Busy, Busy.

I'm a planner. I start everyday by planning out what I'm going to do and in what order. Let me tell you, it never goes the way I plan. Usually everything happens but a bunch of other things get thrown in the mix too and I have to change everything around and I get frustrated. I'm learning to be more flexible. I'm really trying. Not one day this summer has happened the way it is supposed to (according to me) and I'm really learning to just go with the flow. Most of the time. ha

Corn has pretty much taken over my life this week. This has been the ultimate crazy week. I mean crazy! I thought about it and I worked approximately 13 hours everyday. Between helping Luke in the garden, mowing, and helping my dad with everything, I stay busy! The sweet corn has really been growing and so some mornings we start picking at 6 am. I don't always start that early but I always start by 8. Today my family froze a little over 6 bushels (60 ears in a bushel) of corn. I literally fell asleep on lunch break. This afternoon was a little more relaxed because I just decided I would do some of the stuff I need to do next week. 

Now you know what has taken over my life but hopefully I will have a little more time to share stories this weekend. I have some good ones. :) For now I will leave you with a few corny pictures. hehe

All before 8 am.

Getting ready for co op! 

Lookin' rough. Rained on and to early for me. 

Wanna Trade Eyeballs?!?!

I have been kind of MIA for awhile but I have a good excuse. Last Friday I tore my cornea. I have no idea how it happened but I went to the doctor and he said that it was just a small tear and would be a lot better the next day. Well that didn't happen. I went to Arkansas again this weekend for high school reunion with my mom and sister and I was miserable. My eye just kept getting worse and worse. 

Sunday morning on our way back we called my eye doctor and he wanted to see me as soon as we got home. He looked at it and said I had one of the worst ulcers he had seen. He had to take out my contact (which I was still wearing as a sort of band-aid) and it was pretty painful. I don't have any clue why, because it was not that painful, but I pretty much passed out. I never blacked out but my head was spinning, I felt like I was going to throw up, I was sweating uncontrollably and lost every bit of tan. It wasn't pretty and I have no clue why it happened. I have had way worse things happen to me but anyway, after that was over we headed home and I laid on the couch in darkness the rest of the day. I had to put drops in my eye every 30 minutes so I would just get to sleep and I would have to wake up again. That night I had to wake up every hour and put a drop in my eye. 

I had to go back to the doctor the next morning and he said it was improving but my eye was so dilated still I couldn't do much and it was still pretty painful. So, I laid around all day Monday and watched listened to way to many movies. Seriously, to many chick flicks!

Mr. Bear and Coopy to keep me company. It's hard to tell but my is pretty swollen. It looked pretty bad when I tried to open my eye. 

Tuesday I was able to do a little more but my eye was still really dilated so I just did stuff around the house. 

Today I went to market and am actually able to have lights on in the house and look at my computer screen. Yay!! 

It was pretty miserable and came at a really inconvenient time but it's getting better and I'm not going to go blind so it's okay! 

Visit to Arkansas.

This past weekend I headed to Arkansas to visit friends. I got to stay with my friend Christy and it was so fun! :) Christy and I were roommates our freshman year in college and were best friends in high school so I am excited for her to be back home and closer so we can hang out more often. Saturday was a beautiful day and after church we decided to head to Crystal Bridges Museum. Neither of us had been and we both have heard lots of good things about it. It was really nice but I'm not much of an artsy person so it didn't take us to long to get through the museum because that is all that it is, art.

We discussed this painting for a little while. I think it is the only one that we discussed and it was one of the first paintings we looked at. ha At least we tried. Who wins?! 

This one was entitled "Summer Days." Can I please have a summer day like this?! I know, keep dreamin' Allyson.

Part of the museum.  It really is a neat place.

We even saw Pinocchio.

They have really nice walking trails that we walked around on after we went through the museum.

We attempted a timer shot. 

Self portrait. Excuse my scrunching chin. Someday I will perfect taking self portraits.

So, after the museum we headed over to some friends house to watch the thunder game and visit the "Naughty Mango." I don't even know how to explain that. ha It's not actually a place. Just there back porch and they have set up a "bar" and I had a yummy mango smoothie thing that I have been craving all day today because I sweated about 10 bazillion buckets. 

Of course the thunder won, I had a great time seeing friends and was sad to head back early the next morning to get back to work. We did go to the lake Sunday evening but I didn't actually get to do anything. Hopefully we can get our boat out soon! :) 

Perfect.

Partaaaay!!

We had some visitors on the farm yesterday and so we had a party. We like parties. :)

We ate fresh sweet corn, and yummy blackberry cobbler with homemade ice cream. 

Usually at our summer parties we swim in the pond but something crazy happened last night and it got really cold. There were a few brave souls.

The rest of us watched the crazies. ;)

And stood around the fire.

I'm telling you this weather has been crazy. One day it's 95 degrees and the next it's 75. (and it was colder than that when the sun started going down.)

They even got the sailboat out. Yes, we sail on our very tiny pond. Round and round. :)

Then, like all cool kids do, we jump roped. We started out playing school. Anybody else play that when they were younger?? We were serious jump roping nerds when I was in grade school. 

Then we moved on to other games and we seriously jump roped for approximately 2 hours and that is probably the approximate reason I could not bend my knee when I first got up this morning. I'm getting old. 

Yes, we are a bunch of college aged kids (some of us older) jump roping. We always seem to end up doing something random when we all get together. We are easily entertained. :)

It was such a fun evening and I was so sad to go to bed but I know there will be many more parties to come this summer. 

Mad Dash.

For some crazy reason we always wait until the last minute to bring everything in from the field and get everything under shelter before it rains. Last night was no different! It really wasn't as crazy as usual but we did wait until the last minute. I think we do it just because secretly we know that we enjoy it. ha 

Can you see the combine? My dad was flying away as fast as the thing would go, which is actually much faster than you would think.

We are soooo thankful for the rain and are supposed to be getting more tonight. Still praying for no bad storms, just rain! :)

Memorial Day.

{I had this all ready to post Monday night and our internet went out from the storms and the same thing happened last night. Joys of living in the country.}

Today was a busy day and we got lots done!

I made 3 pies. 2 Chocolate and 1 mulberry. They were so yummy with some homeade ice cream. {more on that later}

{Sidenote. I was just making another pie crust and realized why these weren't as good as usual. I forgot salt. Goodness, Allyson. That is why you follow recipes.}

My mom and Macy painted the living room and I helped a little but I was mowing the yard most of the morning.  It desperately needed painted and it looks so nice now! 

We painted it a pale yellow color and really like the way it turned out. Cooper was a big help...

This evening a few family members came over and we ate ice cream and pie. :) It was yummy! My mind must have been somewhere else when I made the mulberry pie because I messed up everything so it wasn't as good as usual but it was still okay. The chocolate was so yummy and so easy though!

I remembered to take a picture after I had already eaten part of it. I'm smart like that. ha

The dogs... always the center of attention. 

 Entertainment... Lexy and Macy trying to whistle. They were unsuccessful but I can't say much, I'm pretty bad at it myself. 

Result=Laughter. We are pretty good at that.

Storm clouds rolling in. We are praying for some good rain but no hail. The wheat is extra fragile right now...

{We ended up just getting shower Monday night and some pretty good rain last night. So thankful for the rain and no hail.}

Cousins and sister! Do we look alike?! 

So, after eating way to much ice cream somebody (Adam) got the crazy idea to play "softball." We had 2 bases (trees) plus home (sidewalk). 

Spectators.

Yes, just two bases, Adam. It's okay. ;)

It was Adam and I against Macy, my Mom, and Lexy. Sophie joined our team later.

I'm certain Adam and I won...

Cooper was quite confused by it all. ha

No caption needed.

They tried to take me out the whole game. and yes that tree is dead. It didn't survive the drought last summer. :(

I tried to tell them that every time I made it home it equaled 3 points because Gus and Cooper were always right behind me. They didn't agree.

Homerun.

It was hot and I was so full of ice cream I thought I would be sick but it was fun anyway. My mom did end up taking me out. I was pitching and she hit it right into my ankle and there was no way I was fast enough to get out of the way. We had a good time though! I never laugh as much as I do when with my family. 

Outdoor Church.

My church has what we call "outdoor church" once a year. Instead of having church service in our normal building, we all head out to the lake and have the service there. It was a really nice day if you don't count the crazy, strong winds. 

Peaceful.

 We started out with Sabbath School. The adults had lesson study and a few of us took the kids to play charades. Can you guess what Bible stories these are? :)

We all joined back up for church! We started by singing some songs. My sister and cousin helped me lead song service and later on some of the kids helped us too.

Cousin Andrew spoke and did a great job! 

 Cooper even got to come along.

I could have church outside every week during this time of year. It was so nice to be outside in nature worshipping the Creator.