The Helm Family: The End...And the Beginning

May was insanely busy. I can't believe how busy we were this month. I am so glad to see May is over and to get to start a new month and start all the craziness over!

Memorial weekend we had house guests. Chris', Mom's cousin Kathy, her husband Dino and their seven children (ages 12-2) came to Kansas from California. Whenever there is a large gathering of Solbach's from out of state we try to have a family get together. And since it was a holiday weekend, all the park shelters in town were already reserved so Chris and I volunteered to have everyone out to our house Saturday night for a family reunion. We had an amazing turnout with family from Salina, Wichita, Topeka, Texas, California and in between. We had a total of 80+ with a large number of kids running around. It was so much fun.

Bernadette, Paul, Cecilia, Mark, Madi, Meriam, Sophia, and Veronica. Amazing kids and a wonderful family. So glad to meet Kathy and Dino. You are all welcome back at any time!

We had tractor, golf cart, and four wheeler rides (of course!), lawn toys, bubbles, bikes and cars. They all had a blast! And the adults were able to sit around and visit and watch the kids play. We grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, and brats and had all the sides and lots of desserts. It was a lot of work before and after but it was a lot of fun and I would totally do it again.

Kenley, Madi, Alex, and Ava cruising. They had so much fun on that car!

During one of the tractor drives Sunday, Chris found some Mulberry trees out back in the tree row. We had never seen any fruit on these trees before but what a find! We went back out on Monday after our guests left to pick some. We found at least a dozen mulberry trees. Most of them are buried behind plum bushes and among other trees. But we ended up picking about 15 quarts of berries. It was tough, hot, buggy work. If we want to continue doing this every year, we are going to have to thin out the trees around the Mulberry trees in order to get to them easier. We ended up putting a tarp in the back of Dan's truck and shaking the limbs. This worked out well but then we had to sort all the leaves, twigs and unripe berries out. We probably spent a good 5 hours for those 15 quarts. By the time we got done, I didn't even want to think about doing anything with them. So we froze them and waited until today to can them. We made Mulberry Jam and it turned out really good. I can't wait to try it after it has set for a couple of weeks.

Our raw ingredients

Our final product. That 15 quarts made a lot of jam.

We have already been told that we could have at the pear trees again, they are producing a lot of fruit this year. And then the end of August, the plum bushes out back should be ripe so we will try to do some jam out of those also. That is if the deer, birds and other little critters leave us some!

Last week was Vacation Bible School at First United Methodist. I volunteered and lead a group of Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd graders around to their activities. Madi was able to participate and spent the week with the preschoolers. And Evan hung out in the nursery. He didn't do very well the first day. They had to come find me because he just would not stop crying. I ended up taking him to Jane for the rest of the day. But we kept at it and he did a little better each day until Friday when he had no problems. Madi had a lot of fun making crafts and playing with a bunch of new kids. This morning all the kids performed for first and second service and got to do another craft, have a snack and watch a movie. Madi didn't want to sing though. She said she was too nervous with all those kids on the stage with her. She didn't even mention the 200 people in the audience watching. Oh well, maybe next year!

My little astronauts with Galileo the Gorilla!

I spent the last part of the week in the afternoon trying to get our pool all cleaned up and ready for the summer. We finally were able to get in Friday night. At least, Chris, Madi, Evan and Dan did. I wasn't sure how Evan would like it, so I didn't want to get in. Plus, I was so sick of looking at it after spending every afternoon working on it, the last thing I wanted was to get in the stupid thing. But Evan absolutely LOVED it!! Of course Madi did too, she has been asking to go swimming for weeks. But I started by just sitting Evan on the side rail and letting him splash his feet. He was all smiles and really getting in to it. So, I got him changed and blew up his floaty, put him in and he was having fun. Smiling, splashing around, his little legs were just a kicking under the water. It was very cute. My kids are such water babies, they just love it!! We went our again tonight and he was a bit more clingy and I held him most of the time tonight but he was still having fun. And was totally exhausted when we got out. We weren't out of the pool 5 minutes and he was sacked out in my arms. I hadn't even had a chance to get him out of his swimming trunks and dried off! Maybe we should go swimming every night right before bed time!!