Life outside of the lightning ...

Although it seems like life was dominated by dealing with lightning this past week and a half, there were a lot of other things going on, which may be why it was such a long week.

First, we have reached one of the peaks of harvest season. The next will come sometime in August with the tomatoes and such, but this past week was pretty hectic, too. Anna and I have been picking a quart or more of raspberries every other day; I picked several quarts of pea pods every other day; Anna and I harvested and canned another 6 pints of pickled beets; Matt and I picked and canned 14 quarts of green beans and have frozen at least as much; the first of the summer squash ripened; and our pumpkin patch is soon going to take over parts of the yard. Whew! It's lots of fun, but lots of work. One of the best parts of all this work is being able to visit the Mischnick store all during the fall, winter, and spring :)

Before a lot of this started, we tried to go to one of Madison's well known and widely loved Concerts on the Square. Tried is the key word here. Somehow things had looked a little easier in my head than they actually turned out to be. Doing things that late (the concert didn't start until 7 p.m. downtown) just don't work out very well for our family right now.


Also, Anna had her four year check-up last week. In case there was any doubt, we still have a very healthy and happy kid on our hands. Anna's height is 42 1/2" (84%) and her weight is 39 lbs. 3 oz (79%). We thought she was stretching out over the past year and this just proves what we suspected. The only issue was that we are having to deal with a case of athlete's foot with her.

The addition is coming along well. The walls and roof are up now and the windows have been delivered. The girls look forward to seeing the workers each day and finding out what they'll be doing next. Matt and I are painstakingly trying to pick out a countertop and flooring for the kitchen ... certainly not one of our favorite things to do.

Anna likes to help Kate wake up from a nap by throwing all of the stuffed animals into her crib.


And then we throw the stuffed animals back onto Anna.


Last note for now ... Have I mentioned recently that both girls are into knock-knock jokes? We kind of go in phases with them, but every once in awhile they like to tell the jokes with each other. A few weeks ago during a playdate with Lukas and Sadie, Kate and Lukas (2 1/2) were telling each other knock-knock jokes across the lunch table. Pretty fun :)

Hopefully our next week is not quite as eventful as this past one was with all of the extra phone and cable people around. I think between Monday and Friday we had 11 different professionals or service people go through our home for one reason or another, and only 6 of them were related to the addition! The strangest one was when a Sherrif's deputy came knocking on our door at 8 a.m. on Friday morning looking for the previous owners of the house! (They were owed some money in a settlement case and the courts didn't have a forwarding address.)