Favorite Photos from My Summer

For me, the easiest way to give an update is to share photos. Below are a few of my favorites from summer 2023.

First, here’s Ivan and Annalise and me atop Backbone Mountain overlooking Pleasant Valley. In real life, you can pick out our farm in the valley below, but I doubt it’s identifiable in the photo. This photo was taken in July, and another thing that’s not easily identifiable in the photo is the fact that I was four months pregnant. In next year’s family picture, there will be four of us.

This summer I spent a lot of time driving back and forth to a chiropractor about an hour from our house, trying to fix a recurring back problem. (Still working on that.) Annalise often came with me, and we’d stop at a playground for twenty minutes or so, an-easy-to-offer pleasure that in her mind made the trip well worth it. In fact, usually when I ask her what she wants to tell God thank you for, she says, “Swings and slides.” Here she is crawling through a tunnel at one of the parks, her eyes like stars.

Picnics have created several more fun moments this summer, whether on a Sunday afternoon or in the field while Ivan was haying.

This impromptu tea party made Annalise so happy! Little girls don’t care if the cupboards are cluttered and Gatorade serves as tea. Tea parties are always the best.

Annalise and I took a trip to visit my parents and siblings this summer. And would you believe it, caught Grandpa Ted and Grandma Rose taking selfies on the bridge.

If you’ve read Anything But Simple, you might remember that Dad planted over a thousand apple trees going into “retirement.” Well, those trees produced bountifully this year, and my parents were kept busy picking for weeks. Just a couple of days ago, Mom said on the family chat that they’d finally picked the last apple of the season. For those of you who live near Sheldon, Wisconsin, they still have plenty left for sale!

Here’s a picture of Annalise with a dear Wisconsin friend. What I love about this picture–besides the fact that it features two of my favorite people–is the contrast between their hair and skin.

And below is one of my brothers with his little son. It makes me proud and happy to see him be a daddy, and rock it. This is the brother I wrote about in my very first post, many moons ago. I remember how scared and nervous and terrified I was to think of people actually reading that post. I was overjoyed when friends and acquaintances made positive comments about it.

Blogging has done a lot for me. It got me used to writing for an audience.

We enjoyed a Kinsinger family reunion this summer. Ultimate frisbee below.

We hiked with friends during the early changing of the leaves. They’ve far matured in their autumn colors by now.

And we’re only ten weeks from baby’s due date. Amazing! I am still chugging along full steam ahead–albeit with lots of puffing and groaning and naps now and then–trying to get creative writing curriculum at a good resting spot before baby arrives. I’ve pulled out some wee clothes–they’re so very tiny, aren’t they?–but have yet to get them into drawers or the baby room ready.

I think I’m glad God gives us nine months to prepare. I seem to need every week of mine–but no way would I want it to be longer.

In case any of you missed it, another momentous even occurred recently when Rosanna in the Middle–a children’s book based on my mom’s childhood–came out. You can read more details in last week’s blog post.

And that’s it for this update! Next week I’d like to share a guest post from a writer whose newsletter I recently subscribed to. She writes about boundaries, a subject near to my heart because I’ve had such a struggle with knowing what good boundaries are and how to set them.

Until then, Luci