Kemper Family Farm Weekend 2012

The big happy family!  (Tony, Sandra and Brayden Kemper and Uncle Larry are not in the photo)

I look forward to this weekend every year.  At some point during the Summer, usually around Grandma Kemper's birthday, the family gets together at the farm, celebrates our heritage and also does a few odd jobs to help Grandma out.  You know, give her a little bit back for all she has done for us.  I so enjoy spending time with my aunts, uncles, cousins and others that come out for the weekend.  We get to catch up on all the happenings and stories of the last year and I can't explain how much it means to me that my kids get to experience their great big family in this way. 

Wyatt and Brayden going around in circles

Lorelai and Brayden headed to the park.

We arrived in town on Friday afternoon and got to spend some much needed time with the VanLaeys family and my brother and his family.  It was actually a really nice cool day in Western Kansas!  I had a jacket on for a while and as you will read below, the weather in Kansas changes as fast as the time of day.  We took the kids to the school park up the street and let them burn some energy stored up from the long car rides.  My Mom pulled a couple of them in the now old little red wagon and it must have been a great ride as there were arguments on the way home from the kids as to who got the ride. We had a great steak dinner provided by the Kemper farm and my brother's margaritas.  Yummy! 

Visiting Great Grandpa's Grave

My Mom had bought each of the kids a little flower arrangement to place on their Great Grandpa Kemper's grave for Memorial Weekend so we headed to the cemetery after dinner to pay respects and visit about those who are no longer with us.  The kids of course are now in their prime hour before bed so they were crazy but I am pretty sure my Grandpa thought this would have been funny and didn't mind a bit. 




Saturday everyone met at the farm bright and early for breakfast.  First order of business?  Feed the baby calf!  My Dad took all the kids out to the pens and they got to watch him bottle feed the little baby.  So cute!  The kids got right up close and some even got brave enough to pet it. 

Painting the clothes line poles

Then it was back to the house for more breakfast and to get started on our many projects.  The kids took off and ran and ran and ran.  And then ran some more!  Grandma's clothes line needed to be redone so they pulled the poles out, painted them, moved it to get it out of the walkway and cemented it back in the ground.  It looked so good and we definitely should have done this for her a long time ago!  Several people got busy cleaning her house.  Wiping down walls, pulling out her big rug under the dining table and just sprucing things up.  Nothing like a little Spring cleaning to brighten your little corner of the world!  We also hauled everything out of her wash house, aside from her clothes dryer, an old cream separator and an old washing machine (I'm talking about the kind with the ringer on top!) and cleaned and painted the inside.  I wish I had thought to take a before and after picture because it was pretty amazing how well it all cleaned up!  Lunch was provided by all the cousins and we did our usual grilling burgers/hotdogs and sides and desserts. 

Tony with all the boys on the Farmall

After lunch my Uncle Marc and Dad got my Grandpa's old Farmall tractor out and pulled out a dead tree from the yard.  This is a pretty special tractor and it got me thinking that someone (namely Sean and Ayston) needs to take the time to rebuild it to its former glory.  See, the tractor was the first one my Grandpa Kemper purchased by himself.  He bought it in 1941 for around $1100.  A lot of money back then.  Today it wouldn't even buy you the tires!  My Dad pulled it into the garage out of the wind which just happened to be blowing like crazy that day.  My Uncle Marc read a poem that my Dad said reminded him of my Grandpa and my Aunt Coleen, who is pretty good at keeping people and stories straight about the family, told us some facts about the farm.  There were lots of pictures taken with the tractor! 

Great Grandkids with the Farmall

Uncle Larry and Aunt Coleen

After the work was done, we were all pretty tired and beat up from the wind and dirt in the air and headed home for naps and showers before dinner.  We met at Uncle Marc and Aunt Tam's for happy hour (yay!) and pizza. My Uncle Larry and Aunt Coleen were celebrating their 39th wedding anniversary so we all surprised them with a cake and heard stories about their wedding day.  Holy cow our parents were all crazy back then!  It was a great ending to a really great day!

Happy Birthday Grandma Kemper!

Sunday everyone attended church and then we met for lunch at the church hall.  Ribs, meatballs and so many other yummy things!  We were joined by family from Arizona and Seldon, KS and they helped us celebrate my Grandma Kemper's 95th birthday!

Every year, I am reminded how special the family farm/ranch is to me.  It has always been a place I loved to go visit and I remember lots of holidays there with the very cousins I now get to spend this weekend with.  I love sharing it with my husband and kids too.  Hopefully they will too have some great memories to share like I do.  Thanks to all who made the trip out and I will see you next year!!!!

Wyatt - Preschool 2012

Yesterday was Wyatt's last day of Preschool!  He was so excited and not really because it meant he was now officially on Summer break but because he will now be in Pre-K!  The day before he helped me make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for his teacher and the para in their class.  I put his cookies with a note attached that said: I'm One Smart Cookie Thanks To You!  He of course had to wear his K-State gear on the last day of school!

 They had a water play day outside so Lorelai and I went up to school early to take pictures and just watch the fun.  They had a little swimming pool full of water and spray bottles and some other squirty toys, bubbles and water balloons.  There were lots of reminders not to spray anyone, only things with the water and of course the boys then figured out how to unscrew the water bottles so they could dump the water down the slipper slides.  Lots of wet bottoms! :) They got treats out of the treasure box and then had popsicles before heading home. 

Water balloon time!

Wyatt and Mrs. Relph

We have had an absolutely great experience at Resurrection Catholic School.  Mrs. Relph is first class and has such a talent for teaching these little kiddos.  She definitely has found her calling and our family loves her for her role in teaching Wyatt. Some of my favorite things about this year were his funny stories.  Like when one classmate tried to escape or another's daily trips to the Thinking Chair.  Then there was the day Wyatt had to go to the Thinking Chair.  Oh man was that rough for him.  Big lower lip and all.  Mrs. Relph is so sweet and just said he had a rough day!  I love that he learned the Sign of the Cross and leads our prayer at dinner every night.  The little songs he would just bust out singing while we were playing that he had learned.  I loved going a little early to watch his class walk out to the playground to have recess and would spend the next 15 min. watching him run around like a wild man with his school friends having the time of his life. 

I am going to miss this age.  I realize this is going to be a reoccurring theme every year but I am so glad of two things.  One, we sent him to school with Mrs. Relph at Resurrection and two, I made it a point to take the time to watch him go through this first stage of school.  I am a stay at home mom for many reasons and this is definitely one of them.  He is my precious little guy and I am so proud of him!

Wyatt and his school friends

Garden Time!

So last year I did my best to get a garden in.  Well actually my Mom put my garden in.  There was no way I was organized with a newborn to do it myself so she took pity on me and helped me out.  Then the 110 degree heat hit and not much survived.  It was just too darn hot!  Plus the rabbits, mole(s) and poor dirt quality didn't help much.  This year I am hoping it has a different outcome.  I don't have a tiller so I started digging it up with my spade as usual.  My neighbor came home for lunch and felt sorry for me and lent me their little tiller.  Best. Tool. Ever.  I was so grateful to not have to do it by hand!  I found really cheap tomato and pepper plants at a local farm store and grabbed them up.  This way I don't feel so guilty if they die in the crazy Kansas heat.  In went three Jet Star tomato plants and three Big Bertha peppers.  I also planted some cilantro (NK), heirloom carrots (Burpee) and bush beans (top crop).  So far so good.  The strawberries that were put in two years ago tried to die out on me last year but seem to be trying to come back a little bit.  I have had to cage one of my peppers and will probably have to do another as the resident rabbits seem to like them.  I had some mites or something eating on everything at first but found a spray made of essential oils instead of dangerous insecticides and it seems to have taken care of them in one application.  And I have to put some cheap fencing around it to keep out the dogs.  They have no concept of where to walk! 

My beans and strawberries

Then there is my lettuce!  I grew lettuce at our last house and loved it.  It was so nice to walk out my back door and pick a fresh salad for any meal.  I had planned to put it in my garden with everything else until I came across the gutter gardens on Pinterest.  I fell in love with them for many reasons.  I didn't have to bend over to garden them and with a bad back this is a big plus, the rabbits couldn't get to it and it was just so fun!  I told my Mom about them and she ended up finding an old chicken feeder at the farm and brought it to me.  This is a little different than the ones I saw online but how we rigged it up works perfectly.  Mike drilled some drain holes in the bottom for me and I spray painted them to cover the rust and just make it look more appealing with some leftover Rustoleum paint we had in the garage.  We got some in expensive chain at Home Depot and used some hooks I had leftover from another home project to attach it to the deck railing.  Voila!  I planted two types of lettuce, salad bowl and red sails (both Ferry Morse) and it has come up beautifully.  I need to thin it out a bit but I am so exited to have it right outside my back door!

My lettuce garden off the deck!

We have already had some really warm temps this Spring and I hope this doesn't mean our Summer will be full of excessive heat.  But this is Kansas so if you can imagine it, it can happen.  I am going to try and do my best to keep things watered and I have two kiddos who are old enough this year to help me do it.  It is awesome to be able to show them where their food comes from and literally go from ground to dinner plate.  If we get some crops this year, we are going to have so much fun picking and eating!  Come on green thumb, give us something to work with!

My garden just beginning to grow

Shelley Graduates!

Graduating has become a tradition in our family.  A tradition I am quite proud of and one that continued this past Saturday when my little sister Shelley earned her Bachelors degree from Kansas State University. 



I am so proud of her!  Being 12 years older, I have watched her grow up probably from a different perspective than most siblings have.  I was more of a mother hen at times than anything.  It is tough not to want to protect her and keep her safe at all times.  While this didn't always set well with her, she took me in stride and we have such a great relationship.  She has forged her own path and that is exactly what she needed to do.  I have to admit I fought tears watching her accept her diploma and wanted to just hug the life right out of her. 

After her ceremony, we celebrated the achievement at her apartment with many family and friends.  My Mom outdid herself with all the food and my son successfully filled himself with Powercat sugar cookies and purple cake pops in about 30 seconds!  Oh and I do need to say the purple ice cream from Call Hall is to die for in case you had a hankering for some very real ice cream made right there on campus.



At the end of the day, we loaded up and headed back home pretty happy with the whole experience.  Then there was Wyatt.  Sad little Wyatt in the back seat who, with his lower lip quivering, told Mike and I that Aunt Shelley was moving from Manhappiness and we now had no one to come visit any more.  Poor little guy!  We assured him that there were more trips in our future regardless and he went to sleep.  No doubt dreaming about his future visits.  I was right there with him.  It was such a happy day but I also felt a little bit sad that for the first time in a very long time, no one in our immediate or extended family will be attending KSU.  I guess I need to make it my mission to get my husband to go back for his doctorate! 

Shelley with me and our brother, Tony

Congratulations Shelley!  You are going to make your mark on this great big world in big and small ways and DBS is lucky to have you on their team.  I can't wait to see where this next part of your life leads and I wish you the best.  Have so much fun and keep your free spirit alive.  It is one of your best qualities.  Love you sis!