Since I was very quiet here on the blog in July, I decided I would write up a little recap post. It’s not very exciting, as the majority of July I spent in bed. But we did make some effort to take the kids to some fun events before the morning sickness hit me full force.
July was the first month that we were really able to get any projects done on our homestead. Believe me when I say that it looks like we haven’t done hardly anything, but we did! Theo put up a clothesline for me and did some work on the irrigation problems that we have in the back of our property.
Theo had to work the fourth of July weekend but the kids and I managed to attend two parades! We had quite the adventure with the first parade where I hopped on a “shuttle” from the parking lot to downtown, only to realize that it wasn’t a shuttle……it was a parade float! Hahahaha. Thankfully I hopped off before we were actually in the parade. The second parade was HUGE and like 4 hours long. Not really, but it felt like it. We had to park and walk about 1 mile just to get to the parade and then one mile back when the parade was over. There was also a street festival but it was SO crowded that I was just doing my best to not let my kids get swept away from me in the crowd. We did pop into an ice cream shop to cool down and as a reward for how long the parade was (we enjoyed the first hour and then were OVER it).
This was also quite the adventure…we needed to get a mattress from the garage at one of our rental properties. No problem! We can just strap it to the top of the van. Well, right when we got it on the van, we heard the most giant clap of thunder….and then it proceeded to DOWNPOUR on the mattress for the whole 30 minute drive home. Literally could not have been worse timing. Thankfully we were able to take it apart and dry it off with our big horse fan in the barn.
We had a really fun visit from our cousins and crew. The kids had a blast playing together, chasing chickens and even attempted a sleepover in the barn (spoiler: they did not sleep).
We also took the party to our other brother in law and sister in laws house and celebrated Aunt Sarah’s birthday. This is really only about half of the cousins on the Hines side. So many blonde girls!
These cousins also live on a homestead that is much more established than ours. We were joking around about buying some of their pigs and lo and behold, we came home with….three pigs! Hahaha. We literally were not intending on getting pigs that day or even for a year and then suddenly we had three pigs of our own.
I took the kids to a garden center, the kids loved playing with the chickens and pigs, I continued to work on household chores and finished anther of my cross stitch projects and a relaxing puzzle. This was right around when I was starting to not feel great, but I was still out of bed and functioning. After this I have basically no pictures of July.
Or all of my pictures look like this….
We did manage to go to a hot air balloon festival, but since the adults outnumbered the kids I was able to somewhat function and actually enjoy it! We packed a picnic dinner, got rained on twice, and then finally stuck it out long enough to see the balloons blow up and glow. I don’t know if they ever actually flew the balloons because we left around 9pm, but I am so glad we stuck it out to see what we did get to see!
We also went to the worst fair I have ever been to. Oh my. I LOVE the fair, but this one was a tough one to swallow. First they said under 10 didn’t need wristbands, so we didn’t purchase any. Then they directed us to park in a back field, but didn’t direct us where to go after we had parked. We walked clear to the wrong end of the fairgrounds before realizing we weren’t headed towards the actual fair. Then we got to the rides and they said all rides were free with a wristband. WELL, the only people who had wristbands were over 10 and had ZERO desire to ride rides. And the people who did want to ride didn’t have wristbands! That should have been communicated better, in my opinion. Then we walked to the arts and crafts building and were SO DISSAPOINTED. Y’all, next year I’m entering my cross stitch because this was the county cross stitch winner…
Anyways, we really knew that the star of the country county fair would be the animals, so we began searching for the animal barns…and truly could not find them. Not a single sign or map indicating where to go. Finally found the barns and walked into the “entrance” only realize that my kids were in the actual path of 1000 pound pigs who were coming out of the show ring. YIKES! We backed out of there as fast as possible. We did finally find and enjoy all the other animal barns and that was by far the best part of the fair. We especially loved the chicken and rabbit barns and are always so impressed that these are kids who breed and raise the most beautiful livestock!
To wrap up July, we headed Up North for the annual Hines family reunion! I think that Theo and the kids had a blast, but I was basically on the couch or in bed the entire time- so sick. I’m so excited for next year when I will have a 5 month old baby and not be as sick the whole time!
And that is a wrap on July!!