Veggies from the garden

Here in the Ozarks, about the only thing we grow naturally is rocks - and lots of 'em.  Luckily, the previous owners of our home built raised garden beds in the backyard which we've enjoyed planting in every summer for the past few years.

Grandpa is the chief gardener and comes over several times a week to tend the crop. The kids enjoy working with him and are especially excited when the first radishes start peeking through the dirt.  The fun has begun the last week or so, when we get to go out to the garden in the late afternoon and see what we can pick for dinner.  So far we've enjoyed radishes, green beans (green beans fresh from the garden-YUM!), a few beets, swiss chard, cucumbers, zucchini, squash and the tomatoes are just starting to turn.  The kids say there's nothing better than eating food that's traveled hundreds of inches from the garden to your table!

Fun with friends and family

Friday we headed out early in the morning.  First stop was Warrensburg for a quick (but fun) visit with Spencer, Tessa and Tanner before they had to travel back to Albuquerque the next day.  From there it was on to Lee's Summit to visit the Padget cousins.  We got to see Connor's tee ball game, go out for awesome ice cream at "Here's Your Scoop", and help Connor celebrate his birthday on Saturday with a BIG party.  And even though BIG storms rolled in Saturday morning threatening the BIG party, tables were quickly set up in the garage and the party moved indoors.  It was perfect!  It was a great weekend of visiting friends and family.

Peaceful Puppy

This is the newest four-legged addition to our household.  He was given to us by our good friends, the Walkers.  His mama is a very sweet dachshund named Sherlock and his daddy is a Schipperke named Shadow.  He came to us with the name Shalom (he truly is a peaceful puppy) but we're calling him Buddy.  He loves to sit on your lap and tries his best to tag along wherever Lola goes.  The problem is that his short little legs are no match for her long Lab legs.  He tries though!  We'll have to post some video of Buddy soon.  He's a very good puppy and quite cute if we do say so ourselves...

"76 trombones..."

Okay, well actually it was more like "5 or 6 trombones", but impressive nontheless!  Uncle David and his high school band were here last week for a few days.  We got to hang out with them and do lots of fun stuff but definitely one of the highlights was the band's performance at Silver Dollar City.  Here are a few photos from the day....

We arrived at Silver Dollar City VERY early...even beat some of the employees to work and got a front row parking spot.

Uncle David got the band organized and warmed up.

We got all lined out with our banner holding duties.

At 9:00 a.m. we headed into the park and the band played a short (but AWESOME) concert at the Gazebo Stage.  Although you can't see the crowd, they played to a very appreciative audience.

 We loved being the banner carriers!

 It was great to spend time with Uncle David and Aunt Kelly and hear the band.

 And when the concert was over, we ate some big ol' cinnamon rolls!