August: Just the Facts...Trying to Catch up again!

There is no doubt that I've missed a ton of things since the middle/end of summer...so a few catch up items.

1. In August, Mason had knee surgery.  A little cyst on his knee that was rubbing against his IT band.  Not really that noteworthy except that I like him in his little hospital cap and gown :)

 

He was on crutches for a week, the cyst was benign and he milked it as much as he could for that recovery week.

2. In August we also managed to squeeze in one camping trip.  We had hoped to go more this summer but with soccer, surgeries, work, etc...it just didn't happen.  We headed up to Dillon State park for a Saturday night trip.  It was quick but we still had a lot of fun. It was MUCH closer quarters than what we were used to - that wasn't as cool.  Especially when the neighbor spouses started screaming at each other.

We used our new orange tent from Sam's that we got in the spring. Justin hates the tent.  and it's kinda awkward to get in and out of.  But I like orange. 

 Sitting around...

Bored and playing with the metal roasting skewers...probably not a good idea.

Family walk.  Nice way to end the superfast trip before heading home.

3. And then it was Back To School.  Wow, the summer flew by!

5th grade for Ella and 2nd grade for Silas.  

They are getting way too big...and beautiful/handsome.

As many times as I see this throughout the school year, I never tire of seeing them holding their daddy's hands walking to school.  

 

This will be Ella's last year at Darby Creek and that makes me VERY sad.  I love my munchkins being 2 minutes away from me during the day. I think it will be a big adjustment for both next year not being in the same school.

4.  And speaking of SCHOOL - Mason had his orientation at Capital in August (seems like a million years ago now).  Dad and Margie went with him and both loved being on campus with him and seeing all the school stuff with him!

And he officially became a College Student on August 26th - and I warned him that as long as he's living at home, he'll get 1st day of school pictures! (Same grouchy morning face that I've gotten since 6th grade!!).

So that is the short and sweet version of August!

September coming soon! :)

Lake Norris Family Vacation

The first week of June, the day after the kids' last day of school, we took a mini-vacation.  After 4 years of not doing our family Dale Hollow/Lake trip, we ended up back in Tennessee at Lake Norris this year. What a beautiful place!

This was a picture as we were getting closer to the lake...blue blue skies and lots of rolling hills around.

This year, instead of house boats, we stayed in floating houses.  Just like houses but anchored on the lake (and just like houseboats in that they don't have real flushing toilets!).

 

One of the houses had a paddle boat which the kids used a lot to paddle around and back and forth between the 2 houses.  

  There was a lot of going down the slide and swimming in the lake.

 And zipping around on the wave runners (which have now been sold :(

And cruising on the boats

 And seeing some very beautiful sunsets on the lake.

The 4.5 days went very fast - but it was wonderful to get to spent that time with the family!!

Time Keeps on Slippin' Slippin' Slippin'

The last couple weeks have been a blur of activity as the kids get settled back into school, and we adjust to getting out of bed at the crack of dawn (or before) again.  While I'm happy to have a schedule back into the day-to-day, I'm a strong believer that school should not start until after Labor Day!  I continue to struggle with the feeling that there just isn't enough time do all the stuff we want to do and that time is just slippin' right by.

I was traveling to LA again this past week.  95% of me hates to travel, especially when I'm leaving the family behind.  I don't like the worry about how to cover my absence (especially since I work from home and do the school drop off/pick up, etc), dinners, homework, bedtime.  I know it's stressful and tiring for Justin to do everything on his own. The other 5% of me loves the big fluffy King sized bed at the nice quiet hotel with yummy dinners delivered to my room :)
I really missed the kids the few days that I was gone.  I made Justin text me a picture on the walk to school Tuesday morning. I love walking them to and from school.

I was happy to get back home and into the household routine.  It was great to have a long weekend after the trip.  We decided to stay home all weekend and just putz around here, let the kids just hang out and no run a million place.  Mason had a lot going on with friends this weekend - football game, stayed with a friend, went to a party - all the fun stuff teenager so :)  Ella and Silas had friends sleep over and then mostly bummed around in their pj's a lot of the weekend (especially Silas).  I think the new school year is really taking a toll on him!
We have tomatoes out the wazoo from the garden!!  Justin spent time on Sunday learning to can and hopefully we'll get about 12 jars of salsa and also some sauce stored. 

We seemed to do a lot of cooking this weekend - Justin also made a cake for Amanda's birthday yesterday (it was a very yummy chocolate cake with cream cheese icing) and then he made chocolate chip pancakes at 10pm last night so that the kids could have them for breakfast this morning.  He's such a good dad :)

 

About the only thing I really accomplished this weekend was getting the menu and grocery shopping completed and a 9 mile run on Monday.  I finally feel like I might actually be able to complete this 13.1 mile run in October.   The cooler weather helps tremendously. 

I can't believe it's September already!!  Last night we had an amazing sunset.  It was just gorgeous - I can always catch a good one outside of my kitchen window but I wish I had a better view of it!

Now it's back to work, school, etc.  I'm hoping to have a really productive work week to get my caught up after traveling and the long weekend.  Which means I'd better go and get to it!

YOSP and Random Updates

So, it's been awhile since I updated the YOSP - it's seemed to slow down in the last month or so but now we are hitting the house hard again.  Amanda is here and getting settled in, Justin is framing the basement, I still continue to go through clothes, boxes, etc for donations.  I'm feeling hard-pressed for time because I pretty much doubled my work hours (which started mid-March) but that has really helped with our 1st goal of the YOSP (making some headway financially!).

2. Get the house organized.
 - besides the basement, I've been trying to keep up with just the regular stuff like laundry!  And piles of stuff everywhere, and grocery shopping and, and, and...it never ends!!

this is the basement right before Justin started framing...

3. Health and fitness...get into better shape!

 - still making good progress here!  I've been continuing to run - doing two 5k's  (the Wilds run and today the Race for the Cure!).  I wish I could wake up every Saturday and have a run to go to.  Today the annual Race for the Cure was wonderful.  Sarah and I (and Donna and Lee) ran it, and Margie, Beth, Emma Lou and Sarah J walked it - and then we went out for a delicious breakfast at Easy Street Cafe afterwards. So much fun!

4. Do more family activities. 

Our family time has mostly been consumed by soccer games!  For Mother's Day though, Ella and I and the Masco gals went to see Mary Poppins and then an early bird dinner.  It was a great show!

5. Spent more time on our interests and hobbies. 

 - Still lagging in this area!  Getting a little time to take photos - but not much.  I guess working around the house is Justin's interest and hobby, so he's been getting to do a lot of that!

6. Decrease my anxiety about death, dying and cancer. 

 - better, much better...

7. Spend more time with my husband. 

 - yeah, not so much.

7b. No more kids, so I have to watch just how much time I'm spending with my husband. 

 - see above...

Other random stuff...

• we MUST go get Silas a new bike this weekend - his knees are literally scraped up because they hit the handlebars of his current bike.  not cool!
• Ella hit a new record on her pogo stick - 1,067 jumps!  
• Silas scored 2 goals in his soccer game today!
• At Ella's 8 yr check up, she was in the 20th percentile for both height and weight.  She was not happy when her doctor told her she'd probably be 5'1 or 5'2 (which I've been telling her...) 
• We had our annual Kentucky Derby party at the Mascos again - JP seems to have the Mint Julep down.  I asked him if he used a different recipe - he says he ditched the recipes and is just "winging it".  Sounds about right for him!
• Silas saw the squeeze butter on the table tonight for dinner and asked if it was sunscreen. Justin said, "sure, slather up next time you got outside to play!"
• Ella did something funny today but I can't remember what...if I remember, I'll come back and fill it in here :)  Oh, now I remember...we had the neighborhood garage sale this weekend - we don't participate but the kids like to go around and buy a few things.  Ella was leaving the house with her wallet and Justin stopped her to check her money situation. Good thing because she was about to go out with $68 in her wallet!  God only knows what she would have come home with!

S.A.T.U.R.D.A.Y. Night!

Another Saturday niiiii-iiiight!  Good thing you can't hear me singing it :)  I am at home with the kids tonight, while Justin is out with the boys (a well-deserved night, since I was gone Thursday night, Friday night and have book group tomorrow night). He went to Lucky's to watch the game with the boys, while I cuddled with the kids on the couch (well, Mason doesn't cuddle much these days but luckily Ella and Si still do). We watched the Buckeyes as they barely won - to stay undefeated!! 22 - 0 so far this season!  It's nice to have a lazy evening at home with the kids.


This past week, Silas went for his 5 year check-up.  He had to get 4 shots :(  Poor guy, he was very brave and didn't cry or flinch at all. As soon as the nurse left the room though he looked at me and almost started crying but then just said "oww, that really hurt!"  He got a green Popsicle out of the deal so that made him happy.  His arms both hurt during the day and he got a 102 degree temp that night but was fine by the next day. He's measuring in the 50 percentile for both height and weight.  He's 41 pounds and 43 & 3/4 inches.

Ella has so many (too many!) cute clothes.  She wore a skirt and leggings to school one chilly day this week..  After school I noticed that she just had the leggings on, no skirt.  When I asked Ella why she took her skirt off, she said told me, "because I can't kick Mason with it on!!!" while demonstrating how her leg would only kick so high because of the "dumb skirt".  That girl is going to give us a run for the money...

Ella also started her Clay Creations class at school this week.  It's an after school 1-hour class one day a week that is taught by the art teacher that she loves.  She always brings several cute projects home at the end of the session.  She loves art so much and she's really good at it...she must get that from her Daddy and grandparents, because I can't draw a recognizable thing!

We're continuing to work hard on our YOSP goals.  2 more days in January to make some progress.  The running is going well and we're both doing a great job of sticking to it!  Tomorrow I plan to get to the Y and I'm shooting to run 4.5 miles. I had to back off a little on pace and miles because I was having a lot of pain in my left leg/hip/knee.  I think I was doing too much too quickly and now it's feeling better. I think I can start working my way back up. It gives me so much more energy and especially motivation. Wish I had started a long time ago!

I found myself really missing Jim/Grandpa J this week.  He was on my mind a lot and I think it's just now really sinking in...it makes me sad to think about it...

Speaking of thinking, I think it's bedtime...I need to have a productive day tomorrow!!