It's HOT!!!

It's been a scorcher the past couple of weeks! It's been almost three weeks since it last rained, and it's beginning to look like it! The mess we made in our yard this past winter to increase our well capacity has paid off. We have lots of water in the well, so I've been watering my garden, and today I started watering some of the lawn as well. One thing about brown grass, it cuts down on the mowing time. So it's been a while since I posted, and a lot has happened. This post is a snapshot of the past couple of weeks.

A bonus about all the dry weather is that we made up the hay without any rain on it. That makes for a higher quality of hay, and hopefully some extra money for the farm.

July 20-23 we were at Wellman Lake with Henry's family. It was a great weekend weather wise, unfortunatley we had to deal with some mosquitos. We did a lot of boating in two days. All the kids are getting to that age where they want to get in on the water sports. Our oldest two water skied for the first time, both did great, but Dexter did amazing staying up the longest of all the kids. (I missed both kids skiing, but apparently someone has some pictures, so hopefully I can share real soon.) The tube was also a hit. Here is a picture of Jeziah & Rebecca relaxing on the dock. This was not a staged shot, they set up the picture opportunity themselves!

Life is not always about great times, sometimes we experience difficult times that we don't understand. This is Dexter's school buddy, bus buddy, and neighbor, Jackson. Jackson was diagnosed with a tumor at the back of his head on July 20. His surgery was delayed a number of times, which allowed Dexter & myself to go visit him on the 25th. After a few awkward moments, these two boys found their common ground again and were chatting about sports and favorite movies. I'm grateful that it worked out for Dexter to visit his friend. Jackson had surgery on the 26th to remove the tumor. The surgery went well and it will take up to two weeks to find out the results, whether it is cancerous or not. As of yesterday, the 1st, he is not doing as well, he has a possible infection and fever. Please pray for this family. His mom is due to have a baby in the next 2 to 4 weeks. It is hard to understand why God allows these hardships. When Dexter & I were browsing through the gift shop at HSC waiting for Jackson to return to his room, I came across a book "21 reasons why bad things happen to good people" (some day I would like to find that book again, written from a Christian perspective), and the one reason that I remembered reading is that God may be calling us to pray like we have never prayed before. That is something I've been thinking a lot of in the last week. When I pray, do I really believe and have faith, or do I pray but doubt soemthing good will happen. I've been challenged about how strong my faith really is.

Our camping trip with the church was cancelled last minute, so we had to make new plans for a perfectly good weekend. So Friday night we headed out to the Austin Rodeo. Our kids had never been to a rodeo, and because we have a "cowboy" & "cowgirl" in the family, we thought it'd be a great outing! Besdies the fact that Austin is a major amatuer rodeo, it was a good night. Jeziah wanted to watch bull riding in the worst way, and we had to wait right until the end to see it! It was the third night of rodeo, and it was the first night that any bull rider stayed on the 8 seconds. As I was saying, it's amatuer! The last rodeo we were at was in Calgary 8 years ago. Some day we'll go back... now that was Rodeo!

Saturday night, friends from church invited over 4 couples. Between the 5 couples, there were 19 kids, 15 & under. There were 14 kids in this little pool at one point! It didn't seem to matter that the kids were limited to a few square feet, they were having a blast and staying cool! It was a great night with lot's of good food, water games, and a bonfire to end the night.

Sunday we headed out to Splash Island for the afternoon with Brad & Mel. It was 36C, and even I thought the water was GREAT! (I am not a water person). Of course when you have temperatures like that, the place is crowded, but it didn't seem to matter, we had a wonderful time. It was a great way to end the weekend.

And so that concludes our life of the past couple of weeks. This past week we've been catching up around home and canning pickles and relish. We have no plans for this long weekend. Anyone want to do something?!? Next week Raquel is off to camp for the week, and we'll continue to work around the yard. Our next major event that we have to prepare for is the Little League family BBQ, which is at our house next Saturday. It's been a slice, we'll talk again soon!