Summertime

Wow, I haven't blogged in almost a month! Can you tell I got a part-time job? It's definitely making my summer go a little faster than usual since I'm not here 3-4 afternoons a week. We've definitely been keeping busy.

The kids and I have had a few slumber parties on the sofa bed. The first time we watched "Because of Winn Dixie" and the second time we watched "The Karate Kid" (the original one). I let them eat popcorn on the bed which they thought was pretty cool. One night we also made chocolate covered bananas. They were yummy!

One day, right before school was out, Jordis and I took our neighbor on a little tour of some of the finer points of south Columbus. She is from Michigan and we've been discussing a little field trip since last year, so we finally made our way out.
We started at Schiller Park.

Then we stopped for goodies at Pistacia Vera. How I love their macaroons. Jordis had a delightful lemon sugar cookie. I forget what Nancy sampled, but it looked equally as tasty.

Next was a trip up High Street to the North Market. We checked out all the booths, grabbed some lunch to go (yummy mashed potatoes and mac and cheese from a local eatery) and continued north. Oh, and Jordis always has to take her picture with this cow whenever we come to the market.

Our final stop was the Park of Roses. It was a few days before the annual festival so the roses should have been at their peak, but it had been so hot at the time that they were looking a little pekid. We enjoyed them anyway. It's always fun to take someone there that has never been. You'd never know that such beauty existed in that busy stretch of High Street without someone showing you. It's definitely off the beaten path.

We've also had some creepy summer storms....

...made homemade donuts....

....been to the park.....

...and discovered silly string.

There's still 35 days until school starts, so I'm sure we'll have some more summer fun in the weeks to come.

Seriously?

So today is the second time in two weeks that we're supposed to have highs in the 70's with severe storms and then wake up to this by the next morning, if not before. At least my hyacinths are sprouting though. I'm SO excited about that. I bought them last year on clearance at the end of the season, planted them, and crossed my fingers. They're one of my favorite flowers. Welcome to Spring in Ohio!

Ice storm

At the beginning of the month we had a lovely ice storm. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. I love to look around and see how everything that's been glazed over shines so brightly in the sunlight. But it always amazes me how something so beautiful can cause so much destruction.

There were lots of car accidents, trees and power lines down, and widespread power outages. Our power was out overnight for twelve hours, which wasn't horrible compared to some other people. Once the power came on though, we still couldn't see out all of the windows at the back of our house.

Today it was in the 40's and sunny, a far cry from two weeks ago. Xander might actually get some outdoor recess this week. Let's hope that the groundhog was right and the end of winter is right around the corner.

A first for the kids

After our long night out Jason and Terry got up early to go catch our dinner.....crawfish. When they got back Monica and I went to get Popeye's for lunch and we took lunch out on their boat in Bayou Teche.

I loved these leaves lining the water and this egret was really pretty.

It was a little windy, but the kids were really excited to be on a boat for the first time.

Then it started to look like this.

Luckily we got out of there before it stormed. Jason and Terry took our kids and the boat back to the house, and Monica and I took their girls to the store to get food for our crawfish boil. Before dinner we went across the street to say hello to Terry's parents. They live right on the bayou and their backyard is so peaceful. At least it was until I got bit by a fire ant.

Jordis wasn't so sure about the crawfish when they were still alive....

...but she took two bites when it was time for dinner.

The ladies and kids got the first batch (Xander ate some leftovers)....

...the guys got the second.

It was a great end to a fun-filled weekend.

My computer's back!

I'm so excited to have my computer back from the shop, but now I have to try and condense what I was going to blog about so it's not so overwhelming. Jason was letting me use his computer but the blog program only lets you upload photos from a URL or from the computer you're on, and I didn't want to download things to his computer and then go back and delete them later. Too time consuming. So I took a little blog hiatus.

Let's see....I discovered the icicles hanging off the house the day after I made snow ice cream. They're right over the AC unit so I left them there. Figured there's no one walking around back there that could get impaled if they fell.

Jordis is finally fitting in to her Raggedy Ann outfit. My step-mom bought it for her, I think last Christmas, and she couldn't wear it. The skirt is actually still too big but if I don't put her in it soon the shirt will be too small, so I folded it down a little. She wouldn't pose for me so I bribed her by letting her stand on the sofa with her shoes on. I didn't know how long she'd wear the hat but she still had it on after church. I was impressed.

Xan likes rockin' out on his new guitar.

Pretty winter morning.

The kids love playing Wii Fit.

Jordis goes shopping.

Posing with the bird at Red Robin after Jason took us out to dinner.

Big storm. Blew a ridge vent off the roof and left us with a big hole, but we've gotten it fixed now.

Xander loves his new winter coat. And I love that I got an amazing deal on it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Welcome to our spa and salon, Jason will be your stylist.

I think that's it. Not much going on with us. Hope you're all enjoying the end of winter. Or what I hope is the end of winter.

Of berries, bikes, bad weather and brides....in no particular order.

I'm starting with weather first because I'm sick of it. I don't know why it's so hard this year for the weather people to tell us if or when we are having severe storms. They're either popping up out of nowhere, or they tell us they're coming and they don't. My personal favorite is that of last Friday and early this morning, where they say things are weakening or just not coming near us at all, and yet I'm awoken by some thunder and lightning only to discover there's a tornado warning nearby. Poor southern Ohio will have been under a tornado watch for about 20 hours straight by the end of the day if the current watch stays in effect. Luckily the weather was able to cooperate for Memorial Day weekend. It was quite lovely and we had a nice cookout at my mom and step-dad's that Sunday.

At any rate, this rain of late is doing wonders for my plants. The strawberries are a little experiment I was trying with Xander, but then I discovered my neighbor Dena gardens and she offered to start some seeds for me. I'm doing all containers this year until I see if I'm successful, as I don't want to rip up my yard to find I'm not good at growing things. I'm horrible with houseplants so I wasn't expecting much from these. The strawberries are looking great though, and it was fun to watch Xander learn how to plant them, then put them in the sun, and he even helped me water them. I discovered, however, that 12 strawberry plants isn't going to put a dent in my kids' consumption of the fruit. Xander is very proud of the strawberries so I took a picture of them yesterday. The other little plants you see are the ones from Dena that I need to re-pot. They're tomatoes, cucumber and green pepper. One of each, just to see how they do.



Xander also just got his first big boy bike. Jason had told him he could use some birthday money to buy it so they went last week and picked it out. Just so happens that it matches the helmet he got last summer at the Safety Fair. Xander loves his bike and is quite good at it, just got on and took off. He's already riding it around the block and we've been leaving the cars in the driveway so he can ride in the garage on days that it rains.



Nomey has a helmet, too, and insists on wearing it even if she's not riding her tricycle. They even wore helmets to help me wash the car on Sunday.



Other than that we've not been doing much. The kids and I have gone on a few playdates with our MOPS (Mother's of Pre-schoolers) group and I went out for Mexican and dancing with some friends last Saturday night. Something about having two kids and turning 30 has reduced my ability to decide what makes for good "going out" clothes, so I let Jason choose my attire on Saturday. He was quite pleased with the end result and even took my picture. He attempted to go fishing with Xander and his dad last Sunday but that didn't go so well.





Our next big adventure is a garage sale at my mom's next weekend. She already sold some of our baby stuff to a girl at her work, but I have tons of clothes and other things here that I hope to get rid of as well. So please pray for me that it doesn't rain next Saturday, so I will not have spent hours pricing all these things for naught.

Also, Jason's cousin is getting married this weekend, so congratulations Nellie!!! All of you family members making the trip to Punta Cana we hope you have a fabulous time.