Happy (Belated...) 4th!!

Holy crud...this is definitely the longest that I've gone without updating the blog. That bites.

I'm going to start catching up with the awesome and completely exhausting July 4th holiday we had.  It started with some swinging to kick off the long weekend...

...and a long overdue visit with Aunt Amanda.  She moved to Ft. Wayne a year ago and we had been missing her! 

Friday we had a great time at Sarah and Brian's cooking out and hanging out.  Swimming for the kids, lots of food, fun and a firepit for all :)

And pretty flowers for me to take pictures of - which made my day.

Mason turned 20!!  No idea how that is possible.  He tried to recreate the wipe out of his 13th birthday by getting on another Rip Stick.  Luckily no broken arms this time!

Saturday we missed the Hilliard parade because the kids slept in late - the usual for them these days.  We made it down to watch the Doo Dah parade in the Short North though.  Our first time and we had so much fun.  Definitely NOT your typical parade!  Creative, fun, odd, goofy, different and sometimes scary for sure.  Super fun time that we hope to make a tradition!

Justin was at the parade too - apparently too busy hanging out with Lee or something.
 

From Doo Dah we went to the annual James pool party - luckily the weather was pretty decent and the kids got to swim.  Somehow I ended up with no pictures - must have been too busy gabbing!

Justin spent a HUGE chuck of Saturday cleaning out his truck and removing the cap so that he could do the Annual "drive the kids to the fireworks in the back of the truck" run. We had a nice clean truck to pile into the back of...so that we could promptly get eaten alive by 1 Billion mosquitoes.
We had a much smaller group of kids this year - Mason was working, Sarah was out of town, Ashlee with other friends...as they get older and go their other ways.  But we still had a great time.

 Michael, Silas, Allysa and Ella

Our neighborhood view is quite lovely considering we don't have to fight all the traffic to and hoards of people!  We followed this up with another firepit, more s'mores and sparkers!

Sunday -  when we thought we couldn't take any more fun...the women's US soccer team played in the World Cup on Sunday night.  A high school friend invited us over to swim and watch the game.  Awesome fun and awesome game!! 

I'm surprised that here it is - Tuesday - and I'm not still asleep.  Instead, I'm finally blogging! I am going to try VERY hard to keep up...

Only 2 Months Behind...

I'm once again slacking greatly on the blog.  I had a nice little bout of motivation back in March and April and then things just took over life again...

May was really busy as the kids finished up their last weeks of school and soccer was winding down with several tournaments that took over our weekends!

Ella and I took a mini midweek road trip up to Cleveland with Jennifer and Abby to see John Green and a couple of the stars from the book turned movie The Fault in Our Stars.  The place was PACKED with screaming girls.  It was crazy!!

The girls totally loved it and Jennifer and I...lived through it.  I enjoyed the book actually - I started reading it while we were sitting at the mall waiting for the author and actors to come out.  The movie was...meh...
Ella and I went to see it opening weekend.

She made her own TFIOS tee shirt too. 

____________________________
This year the kids' school got a new gym teacher after our original gym teacher retired.  We LOVED our old teacher so we were pretty skeptical about a new person.  But, he's been FABULOUS!  He has organized so many fun fun FUN things for the kids, including the Fall Warrior Dash that we participated in.
This year field day was a Full day of fun for the kids (years before they split it up and it was just 1/2 a day).
There were so many activities and the kids and parents all had a blast.

(so all the above was added on Monday...here we are on Thursday and still trying to finish this!)

Back to Field Day!
Mr D had a fire hose thing that the kids LOVED!!

 Silas and Ben below...

 Silas on the water slide

Ella and Abby being goobers! :)

So, with that, I got 1/2 way through May...still the last of school to go.

BUT we leave for the beach soon, so that will probably interrupt any more posts about May for now!

Good Ol' Rocky Top

You can't drive to Tennessee without that song bouncing around your head - especially once you start seeing the peaks in the horizon (and feel the waves of nausea clutch your gut), without singing this song!
Our great friends, the Sayres, asked if we were interested in an impromptu long weekend, Spring Break trip to Chattanooga.  I've been to TN quite a few times but never to Chattanooga.  What a great city!

I always have some high hopes for the kids' school breaks.  We'll do this, that, I'll take them here, there...
and I almost always fail...and they sit around bored or watching too much television during their breaks.
And then I feel guilty...I tend to be a bit of homebody (really, I am), so when Jennifer asked me if we'd be up for a short trip to visit her friends in Tennessee, my first though was "nah".  And then as my week slowly dragged along, I wasn't as concerned about taking a long weekend...I figured it was a great idea! (And it was!).

We made it there on Saturday evening just in time to catch an hour (who knew they closed at 10PM?!) in the swimming pool.  And then lots of settling in, so it was 1AM before we all got to bed. The kids were pretty wired!


The Tennessee Aquairum was great, especially for a rainy Sunday afternoon.The overly priced, me not smiling picture below, not as nice!

Here the kids were tossing pennies into the wishing pond - Silas told me: "I know what you wished for...30 bottles of wine".  Close...I was wishing for 30 bottles of wine PLUS a few minutes of complete silence.

I loved watching the jellyfish - I could have sat there for hours (with that wine that I wished for) and just vegged.  It's very relaxing to watch them.

Ella and Abby were ready to strike a pose pretty much anytime.  The boys were more difficult to get to stop for a picture.

I wish I  had caught more of Si's face here - he was reaching in to touch a hammerhead shark!

The friends that we visited had an awesome backyard.  They live on Signal Mountain, which was much different that I thought living on a mountain would be like.  They had a flat backyard with lots of room to run around and play ball.

I think that the kids could have spent the entire weekend in the pool and hot tub and been very content. (Ignore Ella's Addam's Family face above!)

There was a new baby in the house - baby Samuel let Ella hold him for awhile. He had quite the audience.

 

  Our last activity before hitting the road was going back up Signal Mountain to Signal Point. It was beautiful!

Herbie was Samuel's big brother, and boy is he adorable.  And very chatty!

The girls started walking on the Cumberland Trail and I started to follow, worrying that they'd get lost.

Herbie then started following me and before long, the 6 of us were doing some impromptu hiking.

It wasn't far but it sure was steep!

Jen and the kids!

After this, we loaded back up for the long drive home.  It was so fun spending time with friends, and spending some uninterrupted time with my own kids.  (Thanks Jen for the invite!).

Lordy Lordy...That Whole 40 Thing

We are gathered here today...to celebrate...another birthday.  Seems that birthdays and holidays are all we get now on this here blog.  Boo.  Life sucks when you have to work and take care of kids all day and cook, do laundry and clean, then more work and don't have time to blog...(kidding...ish)

We had the pleasure of ringing in a new decade for my wonderful husband this past week! 

The BIG 4.0. !!

He picked one of his favorite things...hanging out in Hocking Hills.  And it was a perfectly wonderful weekend.  A HUGE thanks for mom, dad and Margie for taking care of my kids, especially since Silas had the flu and was sick.  Probably made him easier to handle though.

And a HUGE thanks to a few friends that made time in their crazy schedules, got sitters for their own kids and battled their own sicknesses to make it for the weekend!

 This cabin was a first for us and we were greeted by a lovely, long driveway that would be hell to get up an ice/snow storm.

And a gorgeous front porch with all these rocking chairs on it.  It was WAY too cold to sit  in them but they looked lovely!

 Had I been sitting in the rocking chairs, I would have enjoyed all of this very nice sunset.  Since it was 20 degrees, I took a step out the front door, snapped this picture and ran back inside.

A hike on Saturday for some (I may have been napping)...Rock Stull, our favorite hiking spot, with some frozen falls.

Followed by a healthy fire, with snow falling all around.  Cold but fun! (and Lee learning to whistle with an acorn :)

and some hot tubbing with Bloody Mary's.

And then MORE fun when we decorated the cabin while Justin was out by the fire after dinner.

And sang the Happy Birthday song...and ate some DELISH carrot cake (thanks to Beth!!)

 Carrot cake is Justin's absolute favorite cake on the planet.  He was a very happy camper!

 

And then, suddenly, it was Sunday and time to pack up and come  home.

The time with friends and celebrating goes WAY too fast. 

So happy that we had the time to share it with my husband and our friends.

(And thanks again to YOU who watched the kids and held down the forts while we were gone!)

When We Last Left Off...

Seems to have been awhile since I last posted!  Dang, time flies when you have to work for a living!

Since the camping and back to school updates, we've been busy getting back into a groove of school, getting up at 6am(ish), homework, packing lunches, paying  for schools fees, paying lunches, girl scouts, after school art and choir programs, homecoming coming up (Mason is actually going he says!), soccer...ya know.

First, running:  I've really been hurting and not running much.  I pulled my hamstring back in (Aug?) and it's been hurting since.  I've done a few fun runs and they have been fine.  I'm worried about the Half in October but know I can finish...but it may take awhile to recover.  I really want to finish it though because Alison will be at Mile 13 as a Children's Champion! It's very important for me to make it to the end AND still have enough strength and energy to hang out and have fun with her there!
In August, 12 of us girls did the Tap N Run and we were the Blue Mooners.  We had a TON of fun running in our tutus and buttocks!

Strides for Hope is the Ovarian Cancer run and has become one that I really enjoy running with my friend Heather, who lost her mom to ovarian cancer 2 years ago.  Our team is Carla's Rum Runners and the rum and coke toast after at 10:30am has nothing to do with why I run it!

We are back in the soccer groove too...this year is a little different.  Ella has gone up a league.  Justin is no longer coaching her.  She's playing for Coach Sam, who coached her indoor league.  It's been a bit of an adjustment but she is loving it!

 Daddy and toothless Si watching one of Ella's games.

Justin IS coaching Si's team again this year but he's the assistant.  It's been hard for him to give up a little control over "strategy" and how to coach the kids but it's been great because he's not doing the organizing for snacks, trophies, etc.

And this look on his face is one we see often.  I love it.

And for your amusement - go back and look at this post of Silas and his soccer arms/face :)



Oh, and I got my hair cut!!  First time in a LONG time that I've chopped it off...but it was time!!  I don't think I had my hair out of a ponytail in 2 years and I was sick of it.  This is quick and easy, I like that I can do something with it when I'm so inclined (like going to a concert!) but can still get it into a (albeit, the teeniest ever) ponytail!

Last weekend, Justin and I went to Put-in-Bay with 4 other couples.  MY FIRST TIME THERE!  We had so much fun!!
We got there on Friday, early evening.  Caught the Jet Express by the skin of our teeth at 5:45pm.

We milled around the island, had a little dinner and drinks and then chilled and got ready for our Saturday morning PIB 5K!  After a very soggy Friday night, we had incredible weather for the morning run.

 

Doug and his babes had a great run!

We spent the rest of Saturday watching the Buckeyes game and bar hopping.  We found a super fun band that night and got to dance and have a great time.

We're really looking forward to doing it again next year.

The last but definitely not least update is our progress on the house (a YOSP update the I've failed to do lately!).
So, one of the things that we really wanted was to convert the 1st floor laundry into a mudroom. Justin put a laundry area in the newly finished basement and that allowed for the laundry room by the kitchen to be turned into a mudroom.

It was a big project and the first portion (tear out and tiling the floor) went pretty smoothly.
Building the cubbies went fairly smoothly too.  The problem really started when trying to get the cubbies INTO the space.  That wasn't as smooth!

And then TA DA!  It all worked out and I have my mud room!!

It is such an awesome space.  The baskets at the bottom hold shoes, the ones above can be used for gloves, hats, etc. Papers will go in there, hooks for book bags, jackets, hats, umbrellas...
Top shelf holds lunch boxes and other odds and ends. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!


It's been a fun and productive month!  Much more to do in October!!