Editor's Note: The majority of this blog was written some time in mid June. I thought I would finish it later in the day and somehow it became about 30 days later. Here are the highlights of the beginning of our summer. We do have more blogposts in the works but we are just not very speedy on getting them typed up.
It is a hot Saturday afternoon and we are lazing around the basement. Frankly it is a nice change. The past few weeks we have maybe run ourselves ragged so a restful afternoon is perfect as it is hard for use to say no to anything in the summer. Here's what we have been up since once again we obviously haven't been blogging lately:
- This past week has been been full of people. It has been fun to hang out with friends and family but as introverts it was exhausting therefore today we are recovering. On Monday evening we got together with my two brothers and theirs wives and our cousin for an 'adult' evening. My sister-in-law has transitioned to being a stay-at-home mom over the past few months to care for their 4 year old and infant twins. She wanted to host an adult evening eating charcuterie. Charcuterie is a French word that is a store like a deli that prepares and sells a variety of cured meats and other food items that go well with these meats. We tried a variety of cheeses, meats, fruits, crackers, and drinks. It was a great evening chatting on the back deck. Arthur enjoyed the honey herb goat cheese and I loved the basil lime spritzer I had to drink.
- Along a similar theme our current favorite show on Netflix is The Great British Baking Show. We are still in the first season although season 4 just kicked off. The show is reality TV but with the British reality TV is down right pleasant. In a recent episode there was a brief moment of drama when a contestant threw what he was making in the trash and walked out since someone had left his ice cream for baked Alaska out of the freezer and it melted. It is good competition without the drama between contestants. In the show there are several amateur bakers who have different challenges each week-- breads, cakes, pies, etc. Arthur learned quite bit about bread on that episode and made his best batch of bread this week since he upgraded to a specific bread flour with a higher gluten content that improved the bread rise. It was also been educational to watch a show on which they speak English but we don't really know what they are talking about-- sponge is a cake, biscuits are cookies or crackers (we still don't really know).
- While we still haven't grasped the King's English I am continuing to work on learning Italian since we have finally purchased our tickets to go to Italy this fall. Learning Italian has come in handy since I have been emailing to make reservations to find somewhere to stay in Italian. In Rome we wanted to stay at a convent and most of the sisters at the different convents do not speak much English. Sister Irene, a Polish nun who lives in Rome, thought my Italian was coming along well. Sometimes I am floored by technology when I can communicate with someone across the world in a language that I am learning without ever having direct contact with a person who actually speaks this language. Another learning experience though has been figuring out how to reserve a room with a debit card in Siena. We have called and stopped in at our bank more about trying to get this charge to go through over the past few weeks then we had to when getting a mortgage. And we are still working on it. There still seems to be a lot of details to work out but we are looking forward to it.
- It has been fun to plan a trip but we still have several projects to keep us busy here at home. While my younger brother Arnold was in the area this week he helped Arthur do some roofing, fix a threshold on the back door, and improve the structural stability of a shelf in the closet. Arnold has worked as a roofer, trim carpenter, and maintenance man. He is in seminary too right now so he and Arthur had a lot to talk about. Speaking of home updates I realize that we haven't posted anything about our home or garden projects or even a tour of our new home. Hopefully we get around to that soon.
- One of our goals with our home was to practice our hospitality and we had a lot of opportunities for that this week. Since Arnold was here this week we invited a few of Arnold and Arthur's FarmHouse brothers that live in the area over for dinner. It had been at least a year since we had seen most of the guys and it was also a chance for me to get to know their wives. On Wednesday we didn't host anything but I had accountability group in Manhattan. By Thursday we were tired from staying up too late socializing but we had a double header of social event that evening. After work I hosted a baby shower for a co-worker. We found out that not having furniture in the living room is not so bad since it gives plenty of room to set up a few extra tables and for people to mill around. Once we finished with that party we headed to Life Group. I could tell Arthur was tired since he didn't chime in much for discussion-- this is out of the norm for him. He made me promise that we wouldn't hang out with anyone Friday evening. So we didn't. Instead we watched our favorite survival show "Alone" where people are dropped in the wilderness all by themselves and live without human contact until they just can't take it anymore. This idea seemed slightly inviting to us but we will recover from people overdose and will be ready to interact next week.
-We did try to escape to the middle of the Flint Hills for some peaceful time but 7,000 others joined us for Symphony in the Flint Hills. Every year the Kansas City Symphony performs a concert at a different location in the Flint Hills. This year it was at a ranch near Junction City. We, or as Arthur may tell the story, I decided that it would be fun to go to the concert. However the tickets were a little pricey for my frugal taste but if you volunteered for 6 hours then you got tickets for free-- that sounded like a good deal to me. This led to Arthur and I standing out in the summer sun and Kansas wind for 6 hours telling hoards of concert goers which way to go after getting through the ticket line. For the first 4-5 hours I enjoyed being cheerful and helping answer peoples questions. I'm not sure Arthur enjoyed any of the day since he isn't used to standing in one place especially next to a pile of hay bales which set off his allergies. The good news about volunteering was that we were able to reserve an excellent spot since we were there before the gates for the event even opened. We finally got to sit down and enjoy the concert while watching the sun set over the hill behind the symphony and a herd of longhorn cattle making its way across the ridge. It as a great setting for a great concert.
