Long Lovely Day

The rain held off today which was wonderful. My SIL from IN was here for the weekend with kiddos so the other in town SILs and I headed up to the inlaws cottage for a bit of cousins time for the kids. They swam, ate, played, fought, rode the boat, fished, fought, and played some more. I love it that my kids have cousins their ages to get together with. I never had that and do my best to make cousin time a priority. Hence an upcoming IN road trip with a SIL and her two kids to the other SIL with two kids. That will be an adventure for sure.

After an exhausting but fun day I rushed home to get the kiddos to bed and off to a scrapbook night with a girlfriend I use to work with. It was great to catch up with Amanda and her sister as well as get a few pages done. I've definitely got the scrapbook bug back. I'm already trying to figure out how to fit time into my schedule to do more on a regular basis, plus more of these girls night out. That will be easier said than done. Logzie - are you up for more??

Saturday and Sunday promise to be more long days, but hopefully good ones. By Monday I'm going to need a vacation from my weekend. Wouldn't have it any other way. I could live life more rested, but I'm not sure how much living I would get done.

Irony

It has to be the most humid day of the year so far (the fog didn't lift until afternoon) and the heating and cooling guy showed up to install the humidifier on our furnace that was missed on the original install. Great for winter, not so much for today.

I Miss Pre-School

Here's a totally selfish post. It's only been a month and I miss pre-school. More like I miss Ryan being at pre-school. I miss the two days a week that I enjoyed a bit of freedom, one-on-one time with Ty, a few hours without sibling rivalry and spats, less whining, time to think and run errands with only one child...

We have totally hit the sibling rivalry stage and I'm going to earn every one of the grey hairs that are being colored. I need to find things for them to do together or breaking routine more often. If we can stay healthy and disease free, we might be able to accomplish something.

I know some sleep would come in handy about now, or a girls night...

Luckily, a neighborhood girl should be here in 1/2 hour to babysit the kiddos (naptime lucky girl) so I can go get my hair cut. Schedules are crazy enough that I haven't been able to get family/andy/etc to watch the kids so I can get my locks trimmed. I'm not use to getting regular haircuts. With my longer hair I'd go 4-6 months between cuts, now its 6-8 weeks! It will be an expensive haircut (actually I'll spend more money on babysitting that I will the haircut), but by golly I'm gonna do it. I'm heading out with my coffee and an attitude.

Wild Weekend

I have completed 21 loads of laundry (I think) and have another 4 or 5 left (stuffed animals, jackets, etc). We have all been rid of the scabies and our home sanitized. I even got most of my decorations on the walls and shelves finally and Andy mowed our growing lawn (YEAH).

Yesterday we had 34 people over to say "Thanks" to for helping with the house and moving. Sad thing is it was only about 1/2 of the people we invited. The good thing is it rained for just a little bit and it was a full house. We had hamburger, hot dogs, and bacon burgers (small chopped bacon mixed in to the burgers - they were AMAZING). I also had a spinach/strawberry/candied almond salad, bacon/pasta salad, & greek salad with chips, cupcakes and brownies. No one went hungry and we'll be eating burgers for a while. I'm good with that. Less cooking for me this week.

This morning I took the boys out to the strawberry and we picked (more like I picked) 12 qts of strawberries. Tyler ate the berries and Ryan kept dumping them from one container to another. It was a lot of fun in between trying to keep Ty from walking on the plants and from taking other people's berries. Now comes the task of making jam, Kuckie's strawberry cream puffs, shortcake, pie, smoothies, and whatever else sounds good. Yum oh. This is not going to be a figure friendly week. Strawberries are a definite weakness.

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

The Good:
* My schedule got cleared out for a couple of days and got lots accomplished.
* I had to clean my house anyways for our "thank you for helping build our house/move us in" party this weekend.
* My house is on it's way to being REALLY clean.
* Hubby brought home Chinese for dinner. That's a great reward for cleaning all day.

The Bad:
* Was diagnosed with Scabies yesterday. It's a mite/organism that lives under your skin causing rash and itching. Contagious. 4-8 week gestation before symptoms appear. Got it from my brother's family who was misdiagnosed for 2 months... Found spots on my boys today. We are all covered with medicine and by tomorrow we'll be past the point of transfer. Just a lot more to clean.
* Have to wash everything. I'm on load #10 of 15 in laundry world.
* I had to cancel 3 get-togethers things to get past the contagious point.
* I have to call all my friends and warn them what to watch for in case I've exposed them. I'M SORRY! We didn't know.

The Ugly:
* My thighs. Normally they are far from beautiful, but with a rash all over, they are quite the sight. I'll be wearing pants for a while.
* I'm grossed out by my own body.

What I'm Telling Myself:
* It could be far worse. We caught it early, it's a pretty simple treatment.
* Just one more thing to get through.
* Our friend Dave said that I "have the most bizarre medical history." I guess there is a time and season for everything. It's just been a long season.

Childhood Memories

Thinking back are there activities or things you did as a child with your family that you have great memories of? Anything that you wished your family would have done?

Father's Day

We celebrated Father's Day a bit early with Andy - dinner out to a local restaurant (support local economy with our buy 1 get 1 free coupon), new summer clothes, a couple of Bourne movies, and new fishing lures. The boys do an excellent job of picking out lures that work well. Andy looks forward to getting Ryan's find each year.

After church we headed up to the in-laws cottage. Most of the siblings-in-law weren't there but we had concocted a golfing excuse to get FIL out. Really Andy and his brother took their dad out for a glidder ride. He's been wanted to do so for some time but MIL was way too apprehensive to let him go. Boy was he surprised and she was a little more shocked when they got back with pictures. I kept laughing inside my head all afternoon at her comments. It was REALLY windy out and she kept saying "Man, their balls have to be flying all over the place." To which I'd smile and reply, "I'm sure that Frank's are!"

Father's Day is always a mixed bag for me, and I'm sure for some of you as well. My dad has been gone for years now and days like this always bring back memories. For some of you, maybe your father wasn't around or less than stellar in his presence. Maybe you long to be a father and can't, or have known the pain of losing a child. My prayers go out for you on this day. May you know the comfort of God, the father to the fatherless.

Happy Father's Day to all, especially you Andy. You are a terrific dad and our family is blessed daily by your love, kindness, and sillyness.

Catch Up

So it has been a wild week (which one isn't these days). We've gone from driveway washouts, to crazy kid days, garage sale messes, and driveway reconstruction. I'm tired.

We tried to go to the cottage last weekend with our kids and cousins Logan and Kenzie. Instead we got to shovel all the sand that should be under our driveway off the top of it thanks to torrential rain. We made "I Spy" finders out of tin foil rolls, finger painted, watched movies, and played lots of games. It was a lot of fun to have all the kids together.

Our cantilevered driveway.

The four musketeers.

Gentleman, start your engine.

Someday he'll learn not to eat the bottom out of his cone first. Until then, we'll have lots of sticky messes.

All the kids were a "big help" moving sand.

My friend Elizabeth gave me this lunch idea. The boys and I had a picnic in the living room and munched on a variety of different foods for lunch. It came in really handy since I didn't have much of anything in the house to make a meal out of. Great way to eat lots of fruits, veggies, and good foods. It would also be a great way to enjoy not so healthy foods, but in moderate portions.

I'm participating in a group garage sale this week. I managed to pull together stuff and hung out in a really warm and humid driveway all day. I came out only slightly pink. I had to rush home as our hired help and family who were drug into the mess helped pack all that sand back under the driveway and put drain tile in. Storms are suppose to come through in the next 24 hours so we'll see if it holds.

It was a warm and muggy night to haul sand and dirt.

Ryan tries to help Uncle Ben get the work done.

Insurance

Evidently our insurance doesn't cover surface water damage so we are left to fend for ourselves on repairing the driveway. So the race begins to get things repaired before the next line of storms comes through this weekend.

I have all sorts of good news and great pictures to post. Maybe tomorrow when I'm not so tired... At least there is good stuff happening in the midst of driveway junk.

All The Fun

So, in case you wouldn't guess, it isn't a good thing when your newly poured cement driveway has all of it's sand and dirt base washed out from under it. A cantilevered driveway is not a positive trend. Thanks to the flooding storms that keep hitting MI, who knows when the fun will end.

Snap Shots

I'm tired, hot, and sweaty from working outside @ my mom's house in our unbelievably humid weather. It's a body shock from 60 degrees and no humidity to 85 degrees and 99% humidity.

I am unable to think of anything blog worthy, so here is another brainless picture blog posting.

Our resident super heroes.

Did you know that super heroes hunt deer?

Not sure what he could see, but it makes me smile. Sad thing is that is his dad's hat. My big headed boy.

Ryan was swimming in mucky freezing water - until a water snake showed up and his aunt freaked him out.


Life isn't complete unless you get REALLY dirty.

Wish List

If you could do whatever you want - what would be your PERFECT day?

A Growing Weekend

It was a busy but rewarding weekend. We put in all of our gardens this weekend - veggie, flower, & herb. I have a great sunburn, bruises (thanks to blood thinners), and scratches all over. What can I say, it was a labor of love.

Veggies - tomatoes, yellow & green pepper, jalepenos, broccoli, yellow summer squash, beans & giant pumpkins. I thought I had gotten zuchini so I'll be going back for more. We ended up with some extra room so I'm to go shopping for the extras now that the basics are in. We had to make wire cages for most of the veggies thanks to the plethera of deer, bunnies, and other creatures that live in our wildlife park that we call home.

Our little "helpers" had fun planting and making a mess.

Tilling up the new garden.

Plants - I stashed away my favorite perennials at my MIL and friend's gardens. I have a mothers garden filled with flowers that my boys give me for mother's day. They get to pick out whatever they want. Sometimes it's an "interesting" choice... When I went to dig out my plants my MIL gave me all kinds of flowers from her garden that needed to be split, moved, or removed. I think it gives her a way to be generous and go get more new stuff ;)

The view.

Getting started. Landscaping really made the house look like a home.

Herbs - I put a special mini garden right by the patio outside the kitchen. I love cooking with fresh herbs. I cook far more healthy when I do. With a patch easily located I can grab them and go. I have rosemary, thyme, basil, oregano, parsley, & cilantro. The neighbor is giving me sesame. The plant is used in a lot of asian cooking. This garden saves me LOTS of money.

Yummy herbs. Fresh all summer and freshly dried all winter.

We also made it to pressure washed the driveway, went to church, a grad open house, and had friends over for dinner & games. A full and wonderful weekend.