Go Hop On Pop

I wanted the to send the summer off with a bang.  I said to Danny “throw caution to the wind”.  “Take us to a Hawaiian Island.”  Either he failed Geography or he needs help in the hearing department… oh wait…  I guess he has a valid excuse, really I think he was following his wallet.

Who knew landlocked, middle of America Ohio had islands.  Lucky for us we get to discover these things, what joy it has been to have a renewed sense of discovery and adventure.  The boat ride was probably the highlight of the day.  No one puked, so I was happy too.

I have decided that life on an island would be very laid back, and the houses are so stinking cute.  If I ever come into a sum of money, I’m going to buy a summer house on an island, and just let the kids swim, hike and be kids and I’m going to plant my butt in a hammock, retrieve and bathe the children at night.

When we first got there we thought we would just hike to the other side of the island where the sandy beaches were and have a swim.  It was a bit of a hike and we made it, but the thought of dragging them all back was a little overwhelming, so Dad saved the day.

While Dad was hooking us up with our ride the rest of us did what all people who live on an island should do.

We took off to tour the island, now I have to come home and buy a golf cart, it was such a great way to get around.  One more reason I should move to an island.

A few sites:

Grooves carved by a glacier, the girls wanted to fill it with water and use it as a water slide.

Cute little house.

And then back to reality, but it was fun while it lasted.  There are a few more islands to visit, you can bet we will.

School starts up this week, along with that comes a buzz of nervous excitement in the house. I look forward to setting some new goals and getting into a nice routine.

A few pictures to capture a few moments:

Grandma and Grandpa T spent a week with us this summer.  Grandpa and Danny took the kids fishing but I didn’t dare send a camera with 5 kids and Grandpa, I was afraid I was already asking too much.  We went to the state fair and got caught in a huge storm.  The kids love Grandpa, he’s so chill and loves to watch cartoons with them and buy them candy, I look the other way during the week because I know this time is so important.

Cute Tanner received his Webelo in July.  They had a swimming party so he was all wet.  I’m so proud of Tanner.  He also spent two weeks at pre-algebra camp this summer.

Danny picked weeds, Hallie helped.  This is just half of what she picked, little stinker.  We had quite a crop of tomatoes this week so we weren’t too upset, and who can get upset at that cute face, especially when she just thought she was helping.

Stellar storms blow through here weekly.  This one had so much lightening I was certain I could get a picture of it, but I didn’t.  We haven’t watered our lawn or our garden once this summer it’s been a treat.  I love the rain, and we love to sit on the front porch and watch the storms come.

Had to capture some of the girls summer paintings.  I might be tempted to complain about the messes they  make but they are staying busy and having such a good time.

Next week is our last full week before school begins, and I want to go out with a bang. Looking forward to another great school year.

August 18 we traveled  to our nations capital aka Aunt Eva’s house.  My kids love going to see their cousins, my sister Eva has kids closest in age to mine.  We are each others Yin and Yang, with her 3 sons and one daughter, my 4 daughters and 1 son they get lost in a world with one another and we pretty much have no interaction with them the entire time other than feeding them and making sure they shower occasionally.  Cousins are a wonderful gift.

My sister’s oldest son is named Evan, but for some reason (Alyssa) the girls can’t wait to get there to call him Kevin.  In return he calls Alyssa Melissa since she is obviously the reason for his misery.  Tanner takes off into a world of Pokemon then entire time and Laura goes off into a world of make believe with my girls that I sometimes wonder if they will ever emerge from.  At meal time I have to ask them to come out of character.

Hallie potty trained at my sisters house, I guess when you put 9 children in one townhouse, you get lots of “got to go potty” and she was the only one in diapers, well it ended on this trip.  Why fight it, if the kid is begging to go, might as well play along.  She has been in undies since we returned with most days a success.

We love living this close to so many opportunities to see new things. Unfortunately the week we went was record breaking heat.  Yes I let my kids get into the fountains that I’m sure are look don’t touch in Washington D.C., with a heat index of 113 degrees, no one could blame me.  The kids were awesome though, and we were able to see much of D.C., including an unofficial/unplanned tour of Georgetown during rush hour.  I swear if I hear the GPS tell me one more time to make a legal u turn… got to love the roads, they turn all lanes to one way with no way to cross center islands when you need to make left hand turns.

One of my favorite places was Mt. Vernon.  What a delightful little gem, we took a slavery tour that was an hour long, and the kids amazed and surprised me with their attention span.  Learning more about George Washington was great.  The kids of course loved the “necessary” (out house).

Next time we want to see Jamestown.

Grant was baptized and we were happy we could be a part of his day and proud of him.

MANASSAS BATTLE FIELDS: Eva’s house just about sits on the battle fields.  History eeks out of everywhere.

MT. VERNON:

HIKING IN VIRGINIA:

WASHINGTON D.C.: You can see the heat on their faces

 

BEATING THE HEAT-LAKE IN MARYLAND:

GRANT’S BAPTISM

 

Good memories made, isn’t that what vacation is all about.  Thank Eva and Rob for letting us hang with you, can’t wait until we get together again.

One  year ago today a chapter closed and a new one began.  A year ago today we were in Salt Lake City headed to Lagoon for the day.  Danny had gotten a call right before we left on our trip to fly out for a job interview in Columbus OH.  We didn’t want to cancel our trip so we had them get the tickets from the SLC airport.  I took 5 kids to Lagoon myself after I dropped Danny off at the airport.  The feelings that flooded me were with a little bit of excitement and dread.  The entire day at the park I had my mind on my husband.  He had, I think, he may come on and correct me but 8 interviews that day.  He flew home the following day and brought each of the kids an Ohio memento.  I remember thinking that if he didn’t get this job that we’d have these mementos to remind us of our disappointments for a long time to come.  I shoved it out of my mind and let the children enjoy their tokens of love.  We returned to our home later that week and went on with life as usual.  We didn’t hear from them for a long time (a week) but when you are waiting that’s a long time (remember that boys when you don’t call a girl).  Anyway, they said to be patient, they were doing some reorganization.  We waited, months, with no word and went on with life that it just didn’t work out.  Then one day in October Danny got the call at work, right after he had been informed that his boss was retiring and that if he wanted the job he could have it.  So all of our cards were in front of us.  We knew we had to make a choice, Danny didn’t like the way his job was going, he didn’t want to be a people manager and pulled away from his true love of computers.  So the decision was simple in the end.

As I reflect on this past year, it has been one our hardest since we started our journey together 15 years ago. I would rather have a thousand paper cuts and do pushups in lemon juice then repeat this year. I always tell Danny that being married is the easiest part, it’s life that gets in the way.  It has been trial after trial, but we are happy we have closed this chapter in our lives and opened a new one.  Our dog passed away a couple of weeks ago, and I think that was the final event.  We decided to put Jazzy down, we also decided to talk to the children about the reasoning’s for making this choice, although we did consider telling them that she was sick and we took her to the vet and she didn’t make it… but decided we could make this a learning opportunity about life.  It sucked.  I took one last picture with her and the kids and it’s too heart breaking to post.  They were all very sad but understood the reasoning behind it and that we were actually showing her compassion to let her go.  Here’s hoping for a happier chapter to follow.

Danny is extremely happy at his new job.  He’s loving the daily challenges, the large scale of his job, and the international flare.  He sees a future with this job, and has plenty of room to grow and learn.  There were so many reasons to make this change and we are finally starting to see some of them.  We love the community, schools, trees, lakes, laid back attitudes, children friendly activities.  Our ward entered a float in the local parade.  My children were giddy with excitement, and set their own alarms to get up on time.

Picture overload!  Following the parade we went to a friends home for a BBQ and fireworks.

A few pictures of the last few weeks.

 

 

 

I go walking at the dam every morning.  Hallie and Alyssa come with me and then we play at the park at the bottom of the dam afterward.  The other day Hallie asked me where we were going and I told her we were going to the park, and she quickly replied with “the dam park?”.  Since then our entire family refers to it as the “dam park”—funny the things that stick.  Tonight we went to the Dam Park with some friends from the ward.  We had a BBQ and the kids ran up the large grassy hills and rolled back down.  The kids were all on top of the dam when a large thunderstorm rolled in.  They were out in the open and in the highest spot in the area, so we quickly called them down and enjoyed a marvelous thunder/lightening storm from the safety our cars, and it poured unlike anything I have ever seen.  The lightening continues still hours later.  I love the freak storms we get here, seems like once a week we get a reprieve from the heat with a beautiful rainstorm.

We spent a week with Grandma and Grandpa O.  What a joy and a treat they are to our family.  Grandma spent her trip here sewing dresses for Alyssa and Hallie.  They turned out beautiful, I only wish she could have stayed long enough to see them wear them to church.  The smocking was perfect and something I thought I’d like to learn to do until I saw/heard about all the work that was involved.  These dresses will forever be treasured.  I didn’t catch a photo of them wearing them this past Sunday but I will this week.  Alyssa refused to take her dress off last week and we finally pulled her out of it when she fell asleep.

We did make it to the John Johnson farm where Joseph Smith was tarred and feathered and lived for a while with the Johnson family.  The home has been beautifully restored.  I can’t help but think of all the terrible things that occurred there, and the suffering that happened.  What a sad time. I’m so thankful for the sacrifice of the early Saints.

A strangle disguised as a hug

Yup that’s right, Hallie, my baby, turned 2.  It was a crazy week full of lots of activities and guests coming to visit, so we went to Cosi on Thursday (her actual birthday) but had cake and presents and all things yummy on Friday.  Aubrey was very offended for Hallie, she thought we were horrible to move her birthday for our convenience.

A few things about my Hallie:

• She has a lisp, that I hope she doesn’t grow out of too quickly
• She speaks in complete sentences and is very opinionated
• She finally sleeps through the night
• She refuses to tell you that she is 2, it’s become a game for her to tell you that she is 1
• We go to a park at the bottom of a dam and she loves to ask if we are going to the “dam park”
• She still twirls her hair and anyone else’s who will let her
• She loves to say prayer
• Her brother and sisters adore her and love to give her more attention than she can handle
• Her blue eyes always sparkle (none of these photos are touched up!)
• She is the most polite child ever (always says “please” and “thank you”)

We love you so much little Hallie, you are a joy to us, and your little voice makes us all grin.  Thank you for being the caboose in our family!

 

I can’t say enough good things about  the school system here.  I am so grateful for the wonderful school district we have moved into.  Aubrey is learning Microsoft word (in first grade)! When we got here she was way behind, she has worked so hard and is now at or above where they wanted her to be, what a relief.  Tanner’s teacher is the most amazing person.  I’m so impressed by her.  She has Tanner on a fast track to having most of his math and English requirements done for college by the time he graduates from high school.  They offer pre-algebra for 6th graders and he will be taking a pre-algebra camp class this summer that the school offers.  Emma’s a little miffed because in Dayton 7th grade honors math was pre-algebra so this will put Tanner ahead of her, she’ll be fine 😉  Nothing like a little competition to drive you to new levels right?

Today I chaperoned Tanner’s class at Camp Mary Orton.  They had a blast.  Here are a few highlights of the trip.

 

Occasionally I get surprised how quickly life is moving.  It seems like just last week that the H family was visiting and we were up at Kirtland and now May is coming to a close.  Summer is just around the corner, and life is steadily moving in a forward direction.

Tanner had his first and last pinewood derby here in Ohio.  With only one son, this was my last pinewood derby as well.  He placed second.  He has finished up his Webelo requirements, and I have upgraded him to a khaki shirt.  I had to change the troop numbers and other badges, so I figured why do it twice.

There are about 20 boys and he seems to be fitting right in.

Mother’s Day has also come and gone.  I got all sorts of fine poetry.  My favorite line was when Tanner compared me to a loaf of fresh bread… that gave me something to ponder, am I soft and doughy? warm and comforting, hot and smelly?  So many ways to take that.  The kids gave me a new cookbook that I’ve been wanting, that’s a gift everyone benefits from right?  I really enjoyed church, the men filled in for all callings and the women went to Sunday School and Relief Society.

Our R.S. president told us a story about a turkey that lives at her Mom’s house.  She had a picture of this turkey and it was losing it’s feathers and was skinny and looked ill.  She (the turkey) was sitting on a nest.  This turkey had been sitting on her eggs, and it was obvious that they were not ever going to hatch, and no matter how hard they tried they couldn’t get her to leave her babies.  She suffered from hunger and was about to die herself for the sake of her babies.  So our R.S. president’s Mom got an idea and took some viable chicken eggs, and was able to coax the turkey off her nest long enough to put the chicken eggs in place of her eggs.  The turkey hatched her chicken eggs and life was good.  Now there are so many morals you could draw from this story but her point was that we are here to help one another.  We are sisters, and just as her mother helped out this other mother (the turkey) we are woman and are here to aid one another.  Then we went to the gym for a brunch and a professional photo of us together as sisters.

I think that Ohio has got to be the lawn mowing capital of the USA.  Lawn covers everything here, and people are crazy about it.  Danny is working so hard and we are on 1 acre of lawn, and he just doesn’t have the time to mow it.  I want him here on Saturday with us, and not out pushing a mower, so I’ve taken this chore upon me.  Every Friday is lawn mowing day here.  It takes me almost 3 hours, and by the end of the 3 hours I’m resembling the Jolly Green Giant, minus the Jolly part.  The first time I mowed it I didn’t realize that the mower was self propelled (duh- palm of hand to face).  The next time I mowed it I looked down and wondered what that lever was for, pushed it down and off goes the mower.  I’m on the look out for a used riding mower.

Worms ooze out of everything here and the girls love them.

All caught up… until tomorrow 🙂