Beating the Heat and exploring

The Summer Dog Days are here.  While the heat has been kicking we've been trying to stay cool in a house with no central air.  Just window units in 2 rooms.  So weve been trying to beat the heat. Meanwhile we've been exploring what's around us.  We realized that we have Black Blue Berries.  Her are some pictures of what we found and the fun we had picking them.  So i'm not going to mention any names... but someone could not wait to have a "little" berries while we were picking them.  OK, 2 of people...

Yeah, that's the flag!

 Wrong time wrong place for somebody... Nora didn't traumatize him too much though!

 Look at these 2 beauties!  Only thing they need is to have their beautiful Mama in the picture as well.  

Thanks again for visiting and More posting to come.

3 Weeks in...

It's been 3 weeks here in Indiana and we are enjoying ourselves and enjoying the country.  Sharing some pictures of a tree swing that i built. Here is the web site i used to build the Tree Swing

Here is our nightly sunset.  This particular night we had some clouds which actually made it even more beautiful, but the sun sets right over those trees every night!!

So here is the tree where the tree swing will be situated. It's the branch that is going left.  It's on the front lawn of the house.  

 Here is a close up of the limb.  It's about 20 feet in the air.

Here are the supplies that are listed at the top

 Here is a good shot of the front porch of this old house.  On the right in the middle you'll see a whole in the deck.  Watch Out!!  Dont trip!

Because I can tell your curious, i took another picture of it. 

 Step 1 is to drill 5 screws into the longer board

 Don't forget to use Gorilla Glue

 Next drill the holes in so they can accept the rope

Here is the top side of  the board

Now the rope is through the board

Make sure to tie good knots!

Another shot of the board with the rope.

Thanks for stopping in and please come back soon!!  I'll try to keep updating pictures on a weekly to biweekly basis.
Cheers and Chat Soon!

The Beautiful Land

Here are some pictures of the land and the house.  You'll see some pics of us in there having fun also.  You'll notice that a portion of the land is being mowed at this point and the majority is not.  So the portion that is not mowed is roughly waist to almost shoulder height on me.  One of the next purchases for us is zero turn mower.  We also have some woods on the left of the property which you may be able to see as well.

  More pics to come in the next post!

This is just one of the many views that we fell in love with!!

Below you'll see a picture of my garage, or as they say "round hur" my pull barn! 

Out yonder you'll see a farm with over a hundred heads of cattle (over 100 cows and sheep)

Corn Field

Tall Grass and Corn Field

So we will be positioning the back of our house to see this sunset every night.  You cant tell here but the sun is on the way down.  Kristen came up with the brilliant idea for us to position the house so we can view the sunrise every morning from our master bedroom and front of the house and every night as the sunsets we will be able to view it from our kitchen, dining room and back patio.  As you can tell with all this land we should have no problem being in the perfect spot for catching the beautiful sunsets!

Cant wait till you visit and take it all in!

In the below pictures you will see that we had a farmer come and bail the back yard.  You'll notice that he bailed a good portion of it but needed some additional equipment for some of it that was not done.  But you'll be able to see a good difference in what the land looks like when it's semi kept up.

 Soph is off and running in the distance, and Nora is waiting on me,
So the bailing process is a 3 step process.  First they (we) take a bush hog and go through tall grass and cut it down.  Second step is to go through with a different tractor and put the hay/grass in piles of rows.  Thirdly you'll see in the last pictures they roll it up with yet a different tractor.  

 In the below picture, I'm trying to give some prospective here... i'm almost in the corner of the yard here and the closest person you can see is Nora on the left side of the screen.  Sophie is standing next to the tree on the right side of the screen in her light purple/white shirt, and our current house is up there in the middle. 

The rest of these pictures, you'll see that they have bailed the hay.  Bailing is a Win/Win/Win for all parties involved.

1. We get our yard taken care of for FREE

2. The Farmers come and bail and collect it so they can feed their cattle

3. The cows/sheep/alpacas/Reindeers get to eat some good home cooking from the Stewarts!  Our grass is 100% natural and 100% free of preservatives, GHB, steroids, antibiotics, triptophan, aspertane, and MSG.  So they can eat it up and feel guilt free! 

Fun Pictures after a long day of playing with friends and playing in the splash pad.

One more move...

Wow!  Just realized that it's been since January since i've updated this page.  So please forgive me for that.  I'm wanting to give you all an update on what's going on in the life of the Stewarts!  Yes, we are moving again, but this time to a familiar place.  We are moving back to Warsaw.  I have changed jobs with in Zimmer Biomet and we have relocated back to Warsaw.  But this time things will be a tad different.  We aren't going to be living in a neighborhood  or a subdivision this time... We are doing it country style!!  We are thrilled to say that we bought 7 acres and are going to build a house.  We will certainly miss the neighbors and friends we grew to know and became so close to but Warsaw, In. is only 3.5 hours away.  So here's a little more details to the land we bought. We bought 7 acres as i mentioned before but we bought it mostly for the land.  There was a house on it that we had hopes of rehabing into a nicer home, and building around it but our builder said that it would need too much work to make it solid for what we want. So plan B was build the land bulldoze the house and build a new one.  Unfortunately the last part of that last sentence is not a quick step.  Building a new house can take anywhere from 5-8 months.  So we opted to stay in the old house that was built in 1900 until the new house gets built.  It's a 2 bed and 1 bath so we will really bond over the next 5-8 months.

We moved in to the house on the 12th of June, so the next post you'll start to see pictures of the house and the progress once it gets started.  You'll also see a smathering of pictures (only because i like the word smathering) from the old house as well.
Thanks for checking in and please don't be a stranger.  I plan to have weekly updates on the progress of the new house from start to finish.  At this point the construction start date is probably the end of July, so we will see how realistic that is.  Until then you'll see some of the exploring we will do in the country.
Thanks again for stopping in and "Y'all Come Back Now Ya Hear!" (For those that dont speak country, that's "please stop back here again and dont be a stranger!")

Here are some pictures of the old house and some flowers that Sophie picked for Mama.  Look how amazingly cute this little girl is.  8 years old.

Starting the New Year!

What a fun year 2015 was and the winter has been rather mild to say the least!  Here is some updates on what we've been up to.
In 2015 we had out house painted on the outside which made a HUGE difference on the look.  It looks beautiful!! Kristen is busy with redoing the interior of the house as we speak.  We will post some pics as we get to finishing them.  Sophe is doing Gymnastics and Ballet currently.  Nora is doing Gymnastics and Ballet also.  Lastly, regarding an update, we finally became a minivan family.  We got a Honda Odyssey for all the taxi-ing around that we do with the kids and that Kristen does with other Mom's and Kids.
January was a rough month for us as we got hit with the sick bug.  I feel like the entire month of January one of us was sick.  February is just starting off great though so no sickness here.  I have slowed my running down over the winter months.  I plan to start picking it up in February again so i can be in mid-season form by end of March or beginning of April.  I havent picked any races to enter into yet but we will figure that out soon enough. Last year i ran in 2 half marathons and Nora rode in the jogging stroller during of the the halfs.  Kristen finished a full cycle of T25 (2.5-3 months at least 5 times a week) with some of her girlfriends.  They inspired me and a buddy to start T25 as well.  I think that is all for updates for now... Here are some pics of the girls from the winter.  Thanks for stopping by and dont be a stranger!

Which one of you Judges gave me a 9... That was a perfect 10 performance!!

Best Buds!!

This is a recipe that i think you will LOVE!!  They are called "Energy Bites"  Kristen makes them and the girls love them. Click on the link to get the recipe!  

Thanks for stopping by and see you next time!