Dear Readers...

Welcome to the second edition of the Saturday Evening Post. The headlines include an update on our building project, coverage of a young ladies quilting, a warning to watch out for the county's most dreaded outlaw, and much, much more. Oh, and don't forget to check out the obituary section!

The Lumber Arrives

A great opportunity to practice jumping (and a great opportunity for a photo shoot as you will see by and by.)

On the left - the one who couldn't get off the ground.

Conrad: But, Carmen, there is no way I can do that...

Sitting on the sun!!!

For the blog, anything is possible you know.

Ouch! That's a hot seat!

Leapfrog

(This is my favorite of all the silhouettes I took. Oh, and about the caption, that's just what the picture said to me.)

Obituaries

(For the first time, the Saturday Evening Post is including an obituary column. Hopefully it will be the last time too. ;-)

The Martin family's "Grey Van" died, at the tragically young age of nineteen, in a vehicle collision on Thursday, June 4, 2009. The accident occurred in Schoeneck when a car pulled out of Cherry Alley right in front of the Grey Van. The van was pronounced "totaled" at the scene of the accident. For fourteen years of his life, the van faithfully served the Martin family, especially Mr. Gary Martin by daily taking him to his place of business - this could be considered the life work of the departed. The Grey Van is survived by "the Red Van," who, in the Grey Van's old age, had taken over the difficult job of transporting the entire Martin family. Funeral services were held at the local junk yard. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be given to the bereaved Martin family.

The Pallbearers

(What we really are doing is pushing the van out of the way into the parking lot, later that night. :-)

Dad says goodbye to the minivan...

...and says hello to a rental car.

What Dad drives now.

(I know, I know - some of you recognize it. ;-)

The Anual IFRC Big Girls' Party...

...not to be confused with the annual IFRC Little Girls' Party.

Speaking of vehicles, the Einwechters' "Big Blue" does much faithful service by hauling folks about.

My grandmother would say, "Make your hands go as fast as your mouths." :-)

In our inexperience, we seemed to be able to do only one at a time - either make our mouths go or our hands. Here's proof that the hands did "go" at times.

Sherri filling the awkward silence when our hands were "going." :-)

Kara lists the basic rules of quilting:

#1 Take the thread to the needle, not the needle to the thread.
#2 Wear your thimble on your thumb, not your ring finger.
#3 Always put your knots on the surface of the quilt.
#4 Only penetrate the top two layers of fabric with your needle, not the bottom layer.
#5 Never take an amateur quilting instructor seriously! ;-)

Grace mentally takes notes.

Time to dig in?? Let me remind you this was a girls' party. There were more leftovers than there was food eaten.

CatchPhrase - remember that game?

Oops, I think Michaella just gave away the answer to the other team. :-)

Last seen in Strasburg (dangerously close to the girls' party location).

(One of the blog-worthy things that you find hanging on the Raines' door. :)

Friends worth having! (And all brave enough to venture into the territory of dreaded outlaws.)

In case you are wondering, no, we did not put all the short girls on the left and all the tall girls on the right. The hill just created that illusion. :)

The Excitement Starts to "Build"

Clayton S. Martin and Sons build.

Gary L. Martin and sons inspect.

Young Clayton S. Martin goes over the blueprints with Dad.

(To be honest, the paper is a maze Clayton drew.)

This reminded Mom of an Amish barn raising; it reminded us children of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. (Shows the difference in generations I guess. :-)

A rather important part of the building - the steel beams - arrives.

Uncle Brian's eyes are longer than this arms.

"Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it keeps on flying anyway." Physically, Mervin shouldn't be able to push the wheel barrow, but Mervin doesn't know that so he goes on trying anyway.

The Three Stooges drive a high lift. ;-)

(By the way, this was not staged! It was a total coincidence. First I took the picture, about a week later I thought of the caption, and then a day after that found the lower picture of the three stooges. I like when that kind of thing happens; makes blogging even more exciting!)

Heights just don't bother some people.

The disadvantage of having Candace taking photos is that I have no idea what was supposed to be going on.

The result of my experimentation with the camera by taking pictures of the windowless windows in the garage.

A boy's dream in remote controlled vehicles.

The boys who are still dreaming.

They get their highs too.

Last time I STARTED with a random photo....

...This time I'll END with one, that Candace took.

Here's the baby of the family (for about six more months only!).

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That's all for this issue of the Saturday Evening Post.
Thanks for stopping by.
~The Editor~

Yes Everyone...

...you are at the right blog. I have a new post but it's still the same old blog. A few posts ago, I mentioned, jokingly, that I ought to rename my blog the Saturday Evening Post. The idea sort of stuck with me, and so, at least for now, this blog has a new name. For those of you who have never heard of it, the Saturday Evening Post is/was (?) a real magazine. For years, Norman Rockwell (who, as you ought to know by now, is my favorite artist) painted the magazine's cover illustrations. Either he made the magazine famous with his paintings or the magazine made him famous by featuring his paintings - I'm not sure which, but I imagine it was some of both. The reason I am adopting the name is mostly because of it's applicability, since I have posted every other Saturday for the last half year or so; though, ideally, my dream would be to be able to photograph the type of situations that Norman Rockwell captured. A few of the cover illustrations that I included in by blog header are personal favorites of mine. Maybe sometime I will feature a few with the reasons why I like them.

Anyway, I hope you can adjust to the new look. If it is too painful let me know. ;-)

We start out with two totally random pictures...

The only kind of glasses Candace will wear.

Candace and I made up this frozen strawberry-shortcake trifle recently (we gave it a long enough name didn't we :). In Clayton's opinion, "It isn't as bad as it looks."

Chess Classes

Lesson #1: This is the queen, the most powerful piece on the board. Use her; don't be a stay-at-home queen!

By a calculated move, Conrad sets up a situation to test Christian's skill.

Umpire: "You can't take that piece! This rookie needs his rook!"

The Rookie... thinking hard.

Lesson #2: Don't suck on your thumb! It is NOT professional.

Things get bad... and the umpire has had all he can take.

Oh well, maybe next time.

Hard Core Demolition

Grandpa arrives...

..."and the walls came tumbling down."

There goes our fun outdoor studio.

Destruction

That was one well-anchored wash line pole.

"Dad, you just pulled up Sarah's wash line post!"

Mom didn't care. In fact, she said he could pull the other one out too. :-)

If this photo hurts anyone's eyes, I apologize. I got a bit carried away on the editing, but after I undid all the edits, it looked so dull that I pushed "redo."

"I do NOT need a shot!"

Candace became the first casualty of the project when she jumped off the trailer onto a nail. (Like it or not, she did get that tetanus shot.)

Trench Warfare

Looks as if more casualties may be forthcoming. ;-)