Samuel is Here!

My little brother Sam traveled back with us from Carrie's graduation weekend in NC.  He's been her for two weeks now and it has been a HUGE help to us in a short amount of time.

Flying like a pro

While he is here, Sam is also helping out at Chance's parents' farm and will be working on the wheat harvest crew.  On his first day here, Chance and Sam went down to the farm to check things out.  

Testing out the semi

While Chance and I have left each day for work over the past two weeks, Sam has stayed at our house and worked his butt off!  He has been able to get done the work it would have taken Chance months to do on the weekends outside...he's hauled things to the dump, cleaned up trees, brush, and piles of wood, cleaned out our garage, mowed the grass (several times),  helped paint, helped Chance repair flooring, helped hang fixtures in our hall bathroom, and so much more!  He even went and helped one of our friends here in town rake hay for an entire day - he's getting a reputation in town as a great helper already!

The temperatures have been in the 90's and higher since we got back from NC, and Sam toughed it out working in the heat just for his big sis :)  

Learning how to drive the 0-turn mower

Sam heard about a cool event on the radio that we ended up going to last week.  There is a traveling memorial for all American Veterans that came to Hutchinson for a few days, and it includes a replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.  Sam just completed US History in school, and did a big project about the Vietnam War, so this was a great experience for him.  It also includes memorials and information about all other wars our country has participated in since World War I.  The event site is HERE - check it out to see if it's coming to an area near you!

These are all pictures we took while at the Veterans Event.  

After touring the event, we took Sam into town to grab a bite to eat.  Since he'd been at our house for 4 days straight without leaving we figured it's the least we could do!

Downtown Hutch

In the evenings, when Chance comes home, the boys get to work on things inside the house.  Here they were patching a rotten place in our kitchen floor (like many other places around our house).  

Helping Chance paint

It has been such a blessing to have Sam here - not just for the help, but to spend such valuable time with him.  He is going into his senior year this fall, and before we know it he will be off to college.  Speaking from experience, once you go off to college, your summers are full of anything and everything getting ready for the future.  It just makes me so happy that he wanted to come and stay with us and that he's able to be a part of us finishing our house.  Sam even went to our 20 week check-up with us and got to see the sonogram with us - it was quite the new experience for him :)

I'll post more about his time helping with the wheat harvest crew.  They started cutting on Friday, and it will probably take 10-14 days, so there will be plenty of time for pictures.  He's driving a tractor with a grain cart attached, which he just learned how to do when he got here - and he's doing awesome!  More stories and pictures to come soon!