{Summer 2018}

September 8, 2018November 12, 2018 | Allison

Hello, dears!

Oh my, it was VERY hard to restrain myself from starting this post with the overused “I can’t believe summer went by so quickly!” (Wait, but what did I just do…? XD) Instead… let me think. Oh! I saw a marquee sign the other day that said “Summer should get a speeding ticket.” Much more original, right? AND TRUE.

ANYWAY. I seriously am having a hard time believing it’s September already, especially since this is the first year after graduating when I don’t have school! :O It feels strange, but it’s exciting. Even though it’s not technically fall yet, it doesn’t quite feel like summer anymore. Maybe it’s… fummer. NOPE, THAT SOUNDS TERRIBLE. Maybe it’s just September. Let’s go with that.

Ahem, what I was TRYING to say was that this post will be about 20+ things I did this summer, in no particular order. Not an exhaustive list, but a good summary. (Or rather, summery. SORRY I COULDN’T RESIST.)

Wow, I really better start using pictures instead of words, now. This is getting out of control. O.o Heh, let’s begin. Continue reading →

A Trip to the County Fair

August 27, 2018November 12, 2018 | Allison

Hello, dears!

We recently went back to where we used to live for some family reunions and a trip to the county fair! Even though I didn’t enter anything this year (see P. S. at end of post), we still had a ton of fun and made some great memories. 🙂 Also I got some good pictures, which is what I’ll be showing you today. 😉 Continue reading →

Etcetera #4

August 20, 2018November 12, 2018 | Allison

Hello, dears!

My random photos and mini adventures are piling up fast, so I guess it’s time for another Etcetera post! You might want to get comfortable, because this could get reeeeally long. O.o (Update: yep, it’s really long. XD) Are you ready for this? Are you set?

Let’s go! Continue reading →

Thoughts On… {Tolerance}

August 14, 2018November 12, 2018 | Allison

Say you have a friend; let’s call him Robert. He’s a nice enough guy for the most part – good with kids, bad at lying, and a mediocre harmonica player – but there’s this one thing you just can’t tolerate: you’re a Republican and he’s a Democrat.

Annette, on the other hand, is great! You both prefer cats to dogs, you go to the same hair stylist, and she even likes Ken’s Steakhouse Creamy Caesar dressing on her lettuce wedges, just like you! Of course there’s that little detail about her being an atheist while you’re a Christian, but hey, you’ll graciously let that slide since that’s got to be the more loving thing to do, right? Continue reading →

Off the Deep End: Going Pond Swimming

August 8, 2018November 12, 2018 | Allison

Hello, dears!

This is a sad subject to talk about, but the truth is… we are in our last month of summer. *SNIIIIFF* As everyone knows, summer is for swimming, but as not everyone knows, we have sadly only gone swimming three times this year. The only pools we have are ponds and streams at our new farm, and one of those ponds is a mudhole while the other is usually covered in duckweed. Yay. However, we still managed to get wet and have fun!

So, in case you ever thought about going swimming in a pond or lake but simply didn’t know how to go about it, NEVER FEAR. I have gleaned much wisdom from the past three swimmings that I’m sure will come in handy. *nods gravely* XD XD XD Ahem. Continue reading →

The Summer Bored Games: the Finale

July 30, 2018November 12, 2018 | Allison

Hello, dears!

First of all, I’m SO sorry this took so long to get up! We had a lot going on today and then it took us hosts all way longer to put together this post than we thought. O.o Anyway, HOORAY, today we announce the winners of The Summer Bored Games! WOOHOO! Be sure to also stay tuned for our favorite pictures that you guys sent in over the past month, near the end of this post. Continue reading →

The Summer Bored Games, Week 3

July 16, 2018July 17, 2018 | Allison

Hello, dears!

Are you excited for the next round of SBG? I AM! WOOHOO! Thank you all for your participation so far, and for making it so fun to host. 😀

In case you’d like to review the basic rules of the game, you can check out my introduction post right here. Shall we begin? (That was a rhetorical question, by the way. I’m going to start whether you answered yes or no. *nods*) Ahem.

WHAT TO DO:

You have until the end of this week to complete however many of the 35 challenges below you wish to do. This is the only week that you’ll be able to complete these challenges.

When you’ve completed all the challenges you’d like to for the week, submit your points using the survey included in this post (see it below). Please try to submit your results just once per week. I suggest waiting until the end of the week to submit the survey.

Okay, guys, NOW FOR THE CHALLENGES. Are you ready for this? *drum roll*

Microwave Ivory soap. (Learn how to here.) 2
Write a haiku about lonely earthworms. 2
Attempt to yodel at an animal. 1
Hit a potato with a baseball bat. We encourage you to actually play baseball with said potato. 2
Give someone a Christmas card. 3
Come up with a 7 word tongue twister and challenge 3 people (outside of your family) to say it. 4
Put at least seven socks on one foot. Earn one point for every sock you put on past number seven. 4
Make supper for your family. 10 (megapoints)
Come up with an odd fantasy creature (example: a dragon with a unicorn horn and a mermaid tail) and draw a picture of it. 2
Buy something for exactly $1.99. 3
Put a thank-you note and a treat in your mailbox for your mail deliverer. 3
Bake cookies for (and give them to) your neighbor. 4
Organize a treasure hunt for your siblings or friends. 10 (megapoints)
Make an ATC. (Learn how to here.) 2
Spend at least 5 minutes blowing bubbles. 1
Make a mug cake for someone else as a surprise. 4
Go on a walk and find the following: a piece of trash, a forked stick or twig, something round, something blue, and a colorful rock. 4
Get a notebook and a pencil/pen, set a timer for 20 minutes, and draw non-stop until your time is up. It doesn’t matter what you draw, as long as your pencil doesn’t stop moving. 4
Give your mom $15 toward groceries. 10 (megapoints)
Learn to whistle with a blade of grass. You can use the internet to learn how. 3
Find a rock, paint it, and give it a name. 2
Put up a birthday banner (a happy birthday sign) in your house…when it’s not anyone’s birthday. XD 2
Learn how to tie a reef knot. 3
Make a blog post including the words “Crazy”, “Frosty”, “Abominable” , “Frank” and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”. 2
Sing a song while washing a window. 2
Send a letter to your favorite living author. 3
Read a book (or part of a book) out loud to your entire family. 4
Try a new fruit, vegetable, or meat. 4
Find five new blogs and leave each blogger at least one kind, sincere comment. 4
Give someone a message you wrote in Morse Code. 3
Pick and listen to three songs, and draw what they sound like. 3
Play “shark Attack” in a pool. (How to play: https://www.wikihow.com/Have-Fun-in-the-Pool) 2
Organize something in your house that’s messy. (Examples: Your desk, under your bed, etc.) 3
Wear mismatching shoes in public and see if anyone notices. 3
Learn the sign language alphabet. 10 (megapoints)

What do you think? Which of those challenges are you most excited to complete? My favorites are #1 (THAT IS SO FUN TO DO, GUYS), #11, and #31.

If you have any questions about the challenges, the game, or anything else, don’t hesitate to contact us at summerboredgames(at)gmail(dot)com. We’re happy to help! Read on for a few more important details:

If you’d like to print off a checklist to help you keep track of the challenges for this week, CLICK HERE.

If you take any photos of your completed challenges (or your funniest challenge fails!), we would LOVE to see them! Send your pictures to us at summerboredgames(at)gmail(dot)com, and we’ll pick our favorites to include in the final post! (If you’re just completing the challenges just for fun and haven’t signed up, we’d still love to see your photos!)

We’ve really (REALLY REALLY) enjoyed the photos you guys have sent us so far, and we can’t wait to show you guys at the end of July! Keep the pictures coming, hee hee! 😀

Have you completed all the challenges you’d like to do for this week? Hooray! Just click the image below to submit your points:

Click that graphic and it should take you right to the form!

Please be honest – the game is no fun if you aren’t playing fair. Please follow the rules and make it fair for everyone!

And now… *drum roll again* the participants who got the most total points (points from the last two weeks).

10: Aria: 102

9: Enni: 107

8: Anna P. and Christina (tied with same number of points): 131

7: Ava: 148

6: Mandalynn: 161

5: Julia Rose: 167

4: Sophie: 187

3: Jo: 195

2: Chloë: 216

1: Laura: 259

Way to go, girls! 😀 Also can we just take a moment to appreciate the fact that Laura did EVERY SINGLE ONE of the challenges so far, minus one! *awed look* XD WOW, LAURA. I AM IMPRESSED.

You have until 11:59 PM EST on July 21st to complete as many challenges as you can and submit your points. Have fun busting that boredom! 😀

Thanks for reading, dears, and have a lovely (and non-boring) day. 🙂

***Allison***

Moving On {Part 3}

July 12, 2018 | Allison

Hello, dears!

It’s been AGES since I made the last “Moving On” post, but I wanted to wait until I could finish up this mini-series. And now I can! We are all moved in to the big house now, except for one room of unpacked boxes… yeah, that might take us a while. XD But now, enjoy this account of the most recent phase in our moving process! I can’t go over every single part in detail, so I’m just going to highlight some major chunks: packing and unpacking the house, packing up Dad’s shop, and taking down the old log cabin. Enjoy!

Packing the House

Packing up our old house was exhausting and kind of sad. I can’t remember the rooms ever being empty, since we moved there when I was one. However, it WAS exciting to finally be ready to move into the big house! One day while we were packing I saw this box which used to hold bittersweet vine found on our farm, and I had to get a picture. Moving really is…

Often when I got up in the mornings, I would step between this curtain and the window…

and look out at this view, to see what the weather was like, and wonder what would happen today.

The last evening at our old house was gorgeous. It was sad to think I’ll never see these views from the upstairs windows anymore. I’ll miss them. *sigh*

Some of our family as well as people from church helped us pack up, which was wonderful! Dad got a (not the most beautiful) trailer for our semi, to load up all our stuff. We fit practically our whole house into one trailer. It was strange to see all our familiar furniture stacked together in an unfamiliar place like that.

And then we left. We can come back again, of course, but it will never be the same since the house and the farm are no longer ours. *sigh*

Goodbye, old farm. ❤

Unpacking House Stuff

The semi trailer got to our new farm a couple days later, and since my Dad and brothers weren’t available to unpack as soon as we hoped, the girls decided to start in ourselves! We got probably 2/3 of the semi trailer unpacked with just my mom, my grandmother, us three girls. 😀 It was great. I didn’t get too many pictures of this, but I got a ton of videos! I want to make a fast-motion video of us unloading the trailer. 🙂 Here’s a picture of Logan helping us, at least:

It took us two days, I believe, to get to this: AN EMPTY TRAILER!

After we unpacked our dining room table + chairs, we sat down to the first “official” meal in the big house, with delicious food that some of our friends from church kindly brought us. ❤

HA HA, here’s one last bonus picture for this section. XD Gram was like, “Allison, where’s your camera? You need a picture of this!” And I hurried off to get it. 😛

In case you’re wondering, the package is a fridge. One of many, sadly. Dear me, the first fridge we got from Lowes wasn’t the right kind, the second one didn’t work, the third one leaked, the fourth was the wrong kind AGAIN, and we’re still waiting for Lowes to bring the fifth one and HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE RIGHT THIS TIME. Goodness gracious, WHAT ON EARTH IS WRONG WITH LOWES?

Packing the Shop

Once we got the house stuff moved, we went back to our old farm and packed up Dad’s entire shop (which he uses for fixing farm machinery). Let me tell you, that was a job! Over 40 years, the shop had accumulated enough nuts, bolts, screws, paint, ratchets, wrenches, etc. to seriously open their own hardware shop. XD Only it would be an extremely dusty hardware shop.

For some reason I think this looks really neat…

As you can see, Dad has SO many tools in all different sizes, particularly wrenches. I really like this picture. 😀

The best part of packing was having pizza for lunch. 😛

Taking Down the Log Cabin

Remember this old, fallen-down log cabin in our backyard?

Well just a few weeks ago, we took it down the rest of the way. I was hoping to find some more neat old letters or other interesting artifacts, but sadly we mostly found… a lot of junk. It was a bigger project to take it down than I expected, but it’s nice not to have to stare at it from half the windows now. 🙂

First, Dad and the boys pushed it over with the telehandler. Next we all clambered up on the roof with a couple of hammers and started extracting the nails so we could peel off the metal. The tar paper under the metal was covered with dead ladybugs and stinkbugs. O.o That was nice.

After we dragged away the roof skeleton, we had to pick out all the leftover boards and junk. That took quite a while.

Thankfully we had the skidloader to help!

Like I said, we didn’t find many valuable old things, but we did find some interesting junk! Including…

moving on 10 — Apologies for the awful picture. I was trying to make the junk look at least a BIT prettier but I think I made it worse…?

a rather sad-looking work boot
3-5 fire hoses
a crushed dog kennel
two rusty lawn chairs
a bent-up bike
two very nice terracotta flower pots
a rusty metal flamingo that Megan REALLY wants to restore XD
a blue plastic kiddie pool (which Carmen was EXTREMELY excited about XD)
a large, enormously thick slab of slate
an antique water pump

We are keeping the second half of the aforementioned items. Also some of the century-old heart pine wood.

It was finally cleared away about supper time. We were planning to make a patio around the chimney, but it’s not in the best shape so we might take the chimney down later after all.

And there you have it! A VERY abbreviated account of some moving-related things that we did recently. We are all enjoying living in the big house immensely. It’s just so huge and beautiful! Maybe once we get it decorated I can give you guys a tour. 😉

What was your favorite section of this post? Do you think Megan should fix up the flamingo? Ever have troubles like we did with our fridge? And what is your favorite kind of pizza?

Thanks for reading, dears, and have a lovely day!

***Allison***

Best Friends Photoshoot {Ft. Aria Photo}

July 9, 2018 | Allison

Hello, dears!

Just recently I got to meet one of my dearest blogging friends, Aria. She and her family stayed at our farm for a weekend and we all had SUCH a great time together! We had never actually seen each other in real life, but we’d become super close through emailing, letter writing, phone calls, etc. It was almost surreal to finally meet her, but SO, SO EXCITING AHHHH.

I won’t go tell you guys everything today or it would be as long as three posts, but one of the things we did together was a best friends photoshoot! We both love photography and Aria actually has a photography business over at Aria Photo! Some of these pictures Aria took herself, and some we asked my sister Megan to take (well, to press the button) for us. I basically did nothing with these pictures except be in them, heh heh.

Still, Aria gave me permission to post my favorites today along with some amusing behind-the-scenes tidbits, after which you can check out Aria’s post to see HER favorites, and read about how we became friends.

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The first night Aria came, we took the Mule (a brand of UTV, similar to an ATV, not a literal mule XD) and drove around our farm, looking for good photography sites. It was SO much fun and the land looked gorgeous in the golden light. The evening we started with this path leading into the woods.

We wanted to get coordinating outfits for the shoot, and then Aria came up with the idea to get matching skirts but in different colors. (You might remember mine from the barn dance pictures.)

It turned out so well! This skirt is SUPER twirly and fun to wear, although it’s a bit delicate and has to be handwashed. It also has like a bajillion color options. You can see the Amazon listing right here.

HA HA we had such troubles with this pose. XD Actually no, I had troubles with this pose… and several others, actually. XD Poor Aria. But in my defense, some poses are a LITTLE difficult when you’re very tall and your best friend is only an average height. It was hard for me to bend back far enough without pulling her with me. XD

I LOVE THIS PICTURE! I just think it’s so cute and sweet. ❤ Also Aria kept exclaiming over how much more tanned her arm was than mine in this picture, but I said IT WAS JUST THE LIGHT. XD Seriously though, in real life our skin tone looked the same. *nods emphatically*

Ahh, I love this photo location because of the stunning light! We tried to twirl each other, but… ahem, I kind of kept messing it up. *facepalm* Thank you so much for being patient with me, dear Aria. ❤ I’m not USUALLY so hard to pose. XD

Ahh, the backlighting is just… INCREDIBLE. I took some more golden hour photos of this location last night that I can’t wait to show you guys! In another post. 🙂

Now the third location. Megan thought we looked like midgets here, and also Aria kind of fell backwards while sitting down, but it was worth it. XD I love this picture.

Oh yes, Aria wanted to do my hair AND my makeup for me, and she did them both beautifully! I never use full makeup and don’t normally style my hair much, so that felt different. I wouldn’t want to go to all the trouble and time normally, but it WAS fun to just be stereotypical teenage girls for a little while. 🙂

❤ ❤ ❤ (Also SEE. Now MY arm is tanner than hers. It’s probably still the lighting. *nods wisely*)

This pose, the outfits, the lighting, the location… they all went together PERFECTLY on this one!

Now we’re into the photos Aria took with her remote. This is by an old, rustic shed we have by our driveway. It’s a great backdrop! By this point my hair was getting kind of frizzy from the humidity, but Aria’s still looks gorgeous, don’t you agree? ❤

The whole time she was there we were both like, “I keep wanting to email you about this trip but then I realize I can just TELL you!” XD It was so strange because we do tell each other anything and everything by email usually.

AHHH I LOVE THIS. Aria said she wants to get a print of this one. ❤ I think Aria is possibly my long-lost sister? Or maybe a long-lost cousin. Whatever she is, I’m awfully glad she’s not lost anymore. ❤

THIS WAS SURPRISINGLY HARD. For one thing, my fingers are a lot longer than Aria’s, so at first the heart was lopsided. XD And apparently even though Aria was more flexible than I was for, say, the bending-backwards photos, her fingers were not as flexible as mine. BUT WE GOT IT. SORT OF.

Now both of our curls were kind of disintegrating at this point. BAD HUMIDITY.

Next we tried some photos in the corn but it didn’t really work out. The corn leaves intruded into our faces too much. XD But it worked quite well to be in front of the field!

Isn’t this one so cute?

Lastly, we took (or re-took) this picture the day before she left. I like to tease Aria that her eyes are blue because she says they’re green. What do you think? I think we’re both right and they’re mint or aqua… or just beautiful. 🙂

Since this is the kind of picture that I think looks good when you can tell it’s edited, I took the liberty of editing it. Tell me if you would rather not, Aria, and I’ll take it off. 😉 I don’t know why I love eyes so much, but I sure do. ❤ They’re just so gorgeous and unique!

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Lessons learned:

Some poses are not as easy as they look on Pinterest. Particularly if your height differs significantly with the other person in the photoshoot. Do the photoshoot anyway. It is WELL WORTH IT.
Having matching/similar outfits for this type of photoshoot is super fun!
Aria tried to carry me piggyback but it FAILED. Well it worked, but it looked extremely odd because my legs were so long. Then I tried with her, but it STILL looked weird because she was wearing a skirt. IT WAS HILARIOUS. So: make sure the taller person carries the shorter person, and preferably don’t wear skirts.
Note to self: Don’t keep talking while someone is trying to get pictures of you. It ruins pictures. (Heh heh, Aria was like, “WOW my expression in this one…” and I was like, “You think THAT’S bad? Look at mine!” I can say with assurance that Aria is DEFINITELY more photogenic than I am. XD XD)
If you ever have a chance to meet one of your close blogger friends, do yourself a favor and MEET THEM. PLEASE. It is an amazing experience, and you’ll make memories you will never forget. ❤

Thanks SO much to my sister Megan for helping us with the photoshoot. We couldn’t have done (at least part of it) without you! Also thank you, Aria, for too many things to count, but especially for listening to anything I tell you, for the looooong and honest emails and letters about everything from faith to health to politics, and for being my best friend forever. ❤ PLEASE COME BACK SOON.

I hope you enjoyed that post, guys! Be sure to check out Aria’s post to see a few different photos (and some photos of just me that I didn’t put on here), and follow her blog to see more posts about her visit in upcoming weeks. And tell me…

Isn’t Aria’s/Megan’s photography gorgeous? Have you ever had a friends photoshoot? Which pose or picture was your favorite? Have you ever met an internet friend?

Thank you so much for reading, dears, and have a lovely day!

***Allison***

P. S. Also, a big thank you to guys for participating in the first week of The Summer Bored Games! We LOVED hearing your feedback and seeing your photos from those challenges – I can’t wait to show you guys the pictures too. 🙂 Ready for some new boredom busters? Check out Megan’s post here!