MAY

One of the mottos of Western Kentucky University, where Justin and I met is 'Life, More Life.'  It has always seemed an odd phrase to me, and one without a lot of meaning, but that's sort of how I felt about our month of May.

The first of May we were returning from a major camp out with many American Heritage Girl troops.  I handled the finances for this big get together, and spent several weeks going over every penny in and out.  In the midst of that we finished up our school year,

  Nate finishing kindergarten.

 

We held a small end of term celebration with friends, food, and a couple of displays of what we learned. Here is some of our astronomy and geography work.

Our AHG troop was wrapping up our year, which also required a bit extra from us.  There was the crossing over ceremony to plan, organize, and hold.

Gabby moved up from Tenderheart to Explorer that night.  Her Daddy got to take her old vest before she crossed the bridge to get her new one from the waiting girls on the other side.

Here she's showing off that very full vest before we cut it up!

Both gals received Presidential Service Awards.

We filled in summer planning sheets for the older three kids, books to read, things they wished to accomplish, and set to work on those.

We attended birthday parties and last tutorial day.

 

We took hikes in the woods and Justin replaced some faucets and worked on some projects

 Then we took a trip to Ohio to visit Justin's parents.  His mother is ill, so our pictures are not with them.

 We visited a fun play ground that had both seesaws and this teeter totter.

To give us as long as possible with his parents we stopped in Cincinnati for the night on the way back.

We visited the aquarium in Newport, getting to see (and for Nate and Kate pet sharks), see the alligator come up for air, see a presentation on penguins, and much more.

 I believe this tank had sea horses.

 Thankfully Ellie was able to rescue Gabby from these horrible jaws!

 The jelly fish really are beautiful behind that glass where they can't sting you.

 Kate, at one of our favorite spots in the city, Eden Park.  She was only one when we moved from there.

Proof that I do exist!

 Justin showing the kids about the old reservoir.

The fam with what Ellie called 'the big toy,' where we stopped to meet a friend from the area.

This week, by contrast, has had not one blessed requirement beyond what running the house normally requires.  We have been to the pool 4 times, running a load of towels through every afternoon, just to repack it again for the next trip.  It has been a lovely relaxing change of pace.

We've a few things on the calendar for later in the month, but I think this is just what we needed after all the busyness, too bad poor Justin was at work this week, though, I think he sometimes finds work a little less overwhelming than life here.

If you made it to the end, maybe you're as tired as I was, I hope you can get a pool day in too!

Joy in the Journey

I remember the days of packing up for a quick trip with one suitcase.  Those days are gone, at least for now, but we still do a little traveling, though it be with extra clothes for little people, pack an plays, and potty seats.  June is Justin's month 'off,' though they have him scheduled to work quite a bit for new student orientation this month, so we drove up to visit his parents.

Since we pass through Northern Kentucky/Cincinnati on our way there, we try to make the most of our travel. We spend the lion's share of our trip with them, of course, but as we are passing through, we'll often stop by for some Skyline chili.

This particular trip, we got Skyline at the restaurant just down the road from where we used to live.  We saw a waitress that used to serve us there.  Then we stopped by the University of Cincinnati for about an hour for Justin to drop off some crystals for his current research project (the crystallographer there is a able to provide her services to outside universities) and to let him chat with his former adviser.  We also got to show off our littles.

On the way home, we made a trip to see a dear friend.  It added some travel time to make it to her house, but it is so nice to see old friends, even if for just a few hours.  And the littles loved her dogs.

Then we stopped at a little place called The Dari Bar, since we used to go there when we lived near by.  

The kids did not object to greasy food followed by ice cream!

On our drive home, we came upon an accident.  We were less than 10 cars back from an overturned semi.  The driver was taken by ambulance, not life flight, which we took as a good sign.  And, while no one wants to be stopped on the interstate for well over an hour 5 hours from home, we had the most lovely weather for it.  We opened up the doors to let the breeze through.  The fussing was no more than should be expected by three little people, and perhaps less than one would expect.  We had stopped to let the littles use the restroom at the gas station one exit back while Justin filled up our gas tank.  We had plenty of food and water in the van.   Justin was able to chat with a few of the other people stopped.  And considering the state of the truck, one lane was cleared quickly.  To top it off, since everyone became friends as we waited to move, everyone was so courteous in merging, so it we moved very quickly when the lane was opened.

We made it home at 6 PM, much later than our 6 AM start time could have given us had we driven straight through, but there is joy to be had in the journey too--old friends, old memories made new, and kind strangers.

Over the River...

Busy, busy, busy!

We took a trip up to see my in-laws last week.


The girls got a chance to tube in the snow, which they loved.


Nate got a chance to play on the tube in the living room, which he loved.


A gingerbread house was built,


Books were read,


Nuts were cracked,


And the tree was trimmed and untrimmed (and toppled over, though not by the force of the little guy)!


We also stopped to see Justin's grandmother for a brief visit.

Then we made our way back home just in time to prepare for Christmas.





We spent Christmas day there, then we were off again, this time to celebrate with my parents and sister.


This time there were horsey rides,


A chance to dress up like a princess,


More books to read,


Games to play,


And of course presents to open.

It was nice to visit with everyone, but it's nice to be home again too.

Pumpkin Patch

It was a cool crisp fall day today and it has finally stopped raining, so we took the girls to a pumpkin patch.

We got had a nice lady take a picture of the four (five) of us.



We took a little ride on the wagon to the pumpkin patch.

We waded our way through the muddy patch of pumpkins for the girls to each choose their pumpkin. They really wanted pumpkins that they could carry, but the field with the smaller pumpkins was made inaccessible by the bog created by the recent rain, so they each choose rather large pumpkins. Kate could pick hers up, but not really carry it around.

We got treats as we were leaving too. Kate got popcorn, which she had been eying when we came in, Justin and Gabby each got a cookie, and I got some warm cider.

A Trip to the Zoo

We took the girls to the zoo yesterday





It was a nice trip. We spent about four hours walking around the grounds and looking at the animals. We had perfect weather, warm but not hot and a gentle breeze.






Gabby wasn't very interested in most of the animals, but she liked the walk.





The first exhibit we saw were the elephants. Kate thought she'd like to get a lift.





Gabby's favorite the Tropics house. She liked the otters shaking off when they got out of the water.






Kate said the tiger (who was sleeping in a hollowed out log) was her favorite.