N+A Miller: Summer Days

I'm going to be perfectly honest here & say that I HATE Summer over in this part of the world. The Summers are hot & humid, basically just like Kansas. Except for, Kansas has air conditioned homes. Come on Europe!!!!

The past few days have been close to 100F. We also happen to live on the upper level of a home & our landlords live below us. Oh boy does the heat rise. Miserable. It's SIGNIFICANTLY cooler down below. So much cooler in fact, that if we happened to live in a home on the first floor, my feelings towards the Summer months here would probably be vastly different.

Last Summer I learned to open up all the windows when the sun is setting to start letting in the cooler air {with fans in the window to bring in the air quicker!}. Then when we wake up around 6am, we close up all the windows, and it usually keeps it around 10 degrees cooler than outside during the hottest part of the day. It warms up really fast since the sun rises at 4:15am and stays hot because the sun doesn't set until around 10:15pm ish.

I think the worst part is seeing how uncomfortable the kids are. John & Ellie have both has a constant heat rash for the past few days. We spend quite a bit of time in the bathtub during the day since we don't have a pool or anything near by {Nathan drives the Jeep an hour away for work every morning}. Their appetites {and mine too} are just gone. If they do eat, it's cold food like fruits, yogurt, pudding, popsicles, frozen fruit/veggies.

Thankfully I do not have a newborn this year to worry about. Ellie would overheat so easily last year. It was scary & stressful! It's much easier to keep toddlers cool than it is a newborn.

So before we get to the summer photos, here are some from several weekends ago that I just got around to....

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{some are edited some aren't.... it just depended on what mood I was in when I sat down at the computer lol}

Two Sundays back, Nathan participated in a half marathon run. It was in memory of all the soldiers they lost in their 2012 deployment to Afghanistan. Proud of my hubby for completing it! So sad that I ended up having to leave with the kids about a half hour before the marathon started though. They were both not happy to awake & wanted to sleep in their own beds. So, I drove the 40 minute drive back home from Rothenburg. At the end of this month, he's running in the Army 10 miler; I believe it's in Grafenwoehr. We're still debating if I'll bring the kids up or not. Its an early race & a few hours away.

Only three pictures! Oh well. There will be more in our future :)

My favorite lens {50mm 1.4} was dropped by accident a few weekends back when Nathan was trying to calm Ellie down or something like that while we were out on a walk. I had just given it to him since I switched it out for a different lens. The glass is fine & everything cosmetically is fine {I had it in a lens pouch}, but the AF is done. So, I've been working on manual focus. urgh. Definitely ordering the AF motor or whatever it is in a few days. Luckily Nathan can fix it. He already took everything apart carefully & figured out what was wrong & put it back together. So, here are some of my practice shots using manual focus.

I love how this little girl ALWAYS wakes up so happy! Makes my day :)

John loves to come with me to get Ellie from her crib. He always brings part of his apple to share with her & asks to be put in the crib with her for a few minutes.

John had just given her a hug & a kiss-- can't believe I missed it!

Ellie loves dry cereal. On this particular morning she enjoyed some off brand Lucky Charms

Oh he is such a stinker!
I had a terrible headache so I was trying to drink this Dr. Pepper as fast as I could.
I apparently didn't put it up high enough before leaving the living room for a minute.

When the breeze outside is good we'll take the kids outside to run around. It's not bad at all in the shade when there's a breeze. John was thrilled! He loves the backyard; so many things he can get into.

{these are not the greatest pictures. there's no way I'd be able to manually focus my 50mm as fast as I'd need to for the kids in action so I used my Tamron 28-75mm which is no where near as sharp or fast.}

John loves to take the heads off of these "geese" & throw them into the gardens.

All of the little lawn & garden decorations crack me up.
When I first glanced I thought it was a real puppy lol.

I think one of John's favorite activities EVER is throwing anything, but especially rocks, into water

She means business ya'll!

Working on walking finally! Before this day, she'd just plop down
if we tried to get her to take a few steps.

she was done. she wanted her freedom to roam back lol

Ellie loves watching the fish swim around.

See that dark blue garden decoration globe?
yes... John thought it was better suited in the water than beside the pond

Ellie did not like the feeling of crawling on a downward slope

Whenever she drinks laying down, her skinny little leg is always up in the air!

we live up in the brown area. the windows to camera left are the living room windows.
the other two are the master bedroom windows.

They grow everything! strawberries, raspberries, grapes, all kinds of lettuce,
squash, tomatoes, herbs, you name it!

John loves the shed. He knows thats where all the cool German toys are.

trying to decide if she's brave enough to climb the stairs...

the kids love this little push toy.
before we leave here i think I'm going to buy a nice little lot of wood toys.

ellie loves to bear crawl! I'm envious of her core muscles!

she was speeding off! ready for a bath & bed...
it was about 8:30pm. still light as ever out.

oh just tasting grass... no big deal

We had just returned home from a walk. It wore the boys out :)

my little bunch of goofballs!

this shot is all kinds of bad in technical terms, but i couldn't trash it.
i love her sweet smile too much!

John put the apple in Nathan's mouth....
then attacked it with his mouth haha
we were busting up laughing!

ellie is really starting to love books now.
when she reads she says "row, row, row"
just like John does.

the best snacks are crumbs you find on the floor
:-/

ellie LOVES to give hugs & kisses :)

our little ellie-belle is seriously the most affectionate little girl ever!
we love it! its so fun to cuddle her.

somebody sure loves her daddy :)

ellie is super ticklish
but nathan is really the only one who can get her to really belly laugh!

she's such a little mommy. she loves to feed us & give us her cup to drink lol

CHEESE!!!!

I asked John to give me a smile....
this is what I got.

her new favorite game is peek-a-boo

Nathan took my broken lens apart while I was gone at an appointment the other day to figure out what was wrong with it. While he was messing with it, he tried his hand a manually focusing the lens on John.