Big Day on Maus Ln

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad Sweigart!!! They've been married 32 years today. :)

Today has been quite an eventful one so far. To start it off, I delivered a baby at 6:34 this morning. I worked all night until 7:30 am and it was crazy busy. The lady came in by wheelchair, her water had just broke as she was walking through the parking garage door. As she was wheeling down the hall I could hear her pushing. She barely got into bed and sure enough lucky for me I had gloves on and out came a screaming baby girl (I think her name was going to be Nora..although I thought Jessica would be more fitting). So that was the start of the day (or end of yesterday really)...

After a few hours of sleep, my cousin Camille and husband came over as they are in the area this week. While we were visiting the shingle men came to drop off the load of shingles. That was fascinating how they unload...looked to be quite a bit more efficient than carrying them up by a ladder! Still during their brief visit I noticed the men from the electric company came to take care of the tree that needs to come down in the back yard. Remember...the same one that Ben thought was a good idea to tackle by himself. Well, I laughed outloud when I saw the number of people that it took to watch one man climb up the limb to cut it down. It was very ironic how one of the ten men standing there was criticising the man up in the tree, barking orders how it should be done, while they all watched him do the work.They only cut the one limb since it was the only one close to the power line. Hopefully, this Saturday the rest of the tree will be taken care of with a few extra pairs of hands and proper equipment. I didn't know all this activity was going to go on today. I wish I would have taken a picture of ALL the trucks that lined Maus Ln to take care of this nasty limb. Quite amusing..not sure why all of them needed to come. Here are some pictures just for fun.

I couldn't fit all the men that were standing around in the picture...but here they are "working" away!

The one pulling on the rope above, is the one in the tree...you can't tell but part of the tree is falling in this picture.

First Weekend at Home....Ahhh.

Well after all the travels of the summer we finally had a weekend to do whatever we wanted around the house. Saturday, we drove up to Hesston to borrow Jessica's parents truck and power washer. On the way home we picked up Ben's futon from the house he was living in before we got married. We were able to get the house pressure washed, and Jessica got started on scraping the trim. Hopefully this week the house can be primed and painted (its mostly brick, so its just the upper part and trim). Also, Ben worked on patching rotten pieces of the trim.

The plan is to re-roof the house the third weekend in August, so all of this is to prepare for that to happen. In the evening, we decided to rearrange the basement furniture because I guess we didn't have enough to do...

Mitch stayed with us for the night and Ben took him to the airport bright and early in the morning. He is starting his classes for his Masters in Business at University of Indiana, and needed to go out there for a week (most of the program will be done online for this year).

Sunday we went to church....and then relaxed!!! Ahhh..we actually drove up to Hesston for the afternoon and stayed near the pool (at over 100 degrees outside, it felt mighty good).

A trip to Topeka

Following Ava's birthday party, we headed up to Topeka to see Ben's parents for the weekend. It was good to visit them. We also got to see the house that Ben's dad fixed up and is now on the market. Sunday afternoon we went to a reception party of a friend of Ben's that got married the previous weekend. Nearly every weekend since we've gotten back from our honeymoon we've been out of town/state. It's been nice that we could go so many places this summer, but I think we're both ready for some time at home now.

Little Birthday Girl

Our niece, Ava, turned three on July 21. We celebrated at Brent and Alyssa's house last weekend with the family. It was a festive occasion with Tinkerbell and all. She's getting to be quite the little lady!

A picnic set from us. Brent did such a wonderful job of demonstrating how it works to "play picnic".

Blowing out the candles on the Tinkerbell cake. Good job!

July weddings

More traveling...last month it was reunions, this month it is weddings! Kira Johnson and Pete VanderPloeg got married near Denver, CO on July 12th. Kira is a college friend of Ben's. We carpooled with other college friends and had a good time. Jack and Karen (Ben's uncle/aunt) live outside of Denver so we were able to stay with them and visit for the brief weekend. The weekend was beautiful all around.

Hesston College friends/alumni

The following weekend, Camille Birky (my cousin) and Russell Adrian were married in Mountain Lake, MN on July 19th. My mom rode up with us, leaving very early the morning of the wedding. The wedding went well and they had a very tasty reception dinner. Usually we don't to see the Birky family this much in one summer (our wedding, reunion, this wedding), but it has been a nice treat.

Fourth of July 50's party

On the fourth of July, Carissa came for a 10 day visit. We picked her up from the airport and headed to Hesston to Mom and Dad's, where they were hosting a surprise 50th birthday party for a friend, Cindy. In honor of her 50th..they had a 50's theme to go along with it...and we participated. It was fun. The glasses I'm wearing were Brenda's when she was in 5th grade..they maybe were a bit off centered at times.


Later, Ben and I went into town to celebrate the 4th with friends. It was a good night!

no harm done??

I've waited a little while to post this, because it took that long to sink in that it could've been much worse. Ben is a handy man to have around the house, he's made me shelves to store things, repairs stuff here and there, fixing up the garage, etc. While I was at work during the first part of July, he was working on cleaning up the backyard by cutting down small branches. Apparently, he thought the task was too minor and decided he was up for cutting down the whole tree piece by piece (which really does need to come down b/c its mostly dead and has a slew of carpenter ants that occasionally make their way to our house).

He had bought a hand saw and a little yellow rope for the job, and used a ladder to get to a climbing point in the tree. Note..I did not know this is what he was up to before it was too late. On the fourth of July, I was informed of the plan and was concerned for two major things..#1 the safety of his life and #2 the safety of the house. He said neither one should be an issue. :) oh goodie. So I stayed outside "trying" to help...I tugged on the little yellow rope when told, and the big branch did not come down with all my efforts. The branch was cut over 3/4th the way through and wouldn't budge. We had to pick up Carissa from the airport and go to Hesston for the evening, so we left it. It was still standing in the morning, and as we were talking in the dining room about how to get it down....BOOOOOOMMM! Sure enough, we didn't have to wonder anymore how it was going to come down. Unfortunately, the little yellow rope didn't do much good and indeed the big ol' branch landed on the house. It made a small hole, which Ben patched, and hit the thing the holds the power line to the house. The cable that supports the power line needed to be fixed, but the actual power line stayed connected (thank goodness). Needless to say, we will be using different equipment to get the remainder of the tree down with several more people involved. I am very glad no one got hurt and we are planning on re-roofing the house and gutters (which he just took down last night) this summer anyways...which is a good thing...otherwise I don't think this would be a talking matter :).