Minnesota Road Trip

The boys and I drove nearly 20 hours (over three days) to visit my family in Minnesota. On the way, we stopped at Reptiland in Allenwood, PA. The boys LOVE Reptiland! So many interesting creatures to see! I know photos can be great, but I also hate to inundate people with them, so if you want to see more photos from Reptiland, just click on the picture of the turtles, above, and it will take you to my Reptiland photo page.

One tired, worn-out boy, snuggling with his new "friend" from Reptiland.

We arrived safely in Minnesota and spent the first couple of days at Grandma's house. We crammed a lot of fun into just a couple of short days!

I was glad we brought the boys' scooters along with us. It gave them a way to burn off energy right in Grandma's driveway. And anyone who knows my boys knows they have energy to burn!

We celebrated MY Grandma's 85th birthday. Colin was quite upset that I didn't get a pinata for my Grandma's birthday party, because, doesn't EVERYONE love a pinata? (Sigh. Maybe I should have gone ahead and got one.)

Grandma picked up a Slip-N-Slide for another energy-burning activity on the hot, hot days. It was a GIANT hit!

We visited the Mall of America...including Legoland. Colin thought the life-sized Boba Fett made of Legos was VERY cool!

We also visited the "Underwater Adventure" at the Mall of America. It's one of the world's largest underground aquariums. I thought this shark photo made me look like I must be one heck of an adventure photographer, diving with the sharks! Hee hee! It was all from behind glass!

Now Fred has finally arrived for a few short days, and we are at my Dad's house at the lake. I'm sure there will be MANY pictures to follow, but here is a fun one to share. If you click on it, it will take you to the other photos from our visit to Grandpa's house. Enjoy!

Bedlam!...(But mostly the good kind!)

We've had two busy, busy months. We've been renovating our kitchen and our powder room, a project which is still not complete. We've been submerged in baseball and T-ball season, which has taken up about 6 days per week of our life. The boys have also joined Cub Scouts, which is going to add another dimension to the chaos (again, the good kind).

In the midst of all of this, we took a family trip to Chicago. Fred had to go there for his company's annual National Sales Meeting, and I decided it would be a great opportunity for me to take the boys to Chicago to see some of the fabulous cultural attractions there. Since school was still in session for everyone else, the crowds were thin. If you'd like to see the photos from our trip, click on the photo below, and it will take you to my photo gallery from the trip:

On previous trips to Chicago, we have stayed with good friends and family members who were kind enough to open their homes to us. We opted for a hotel this time, first because we didn't want to inconvenience our friends, but also so that the kids would feel more "settled." I realized after our last visit that it was just too difficult for the boys to settle down in a different house every night.

I also resigned myself to the fact that it would be impossible to see everyone we WANTED to see, given that we only had a week and REALLY wanted the boys to experience Chicago's offerings, such as the Adler Planetarium and the Museum of Science and Industry. (And we had Fred's meeting which we had to work around, as well.) People who live in or around a big city might have trouble understanding it, but after living in rural Pennsylvania for four years and not having access to these things (especially when you're homeschooling), I wanted the kids to have those experiences while we were there and had the opportunity.

So, I opted to simply leave posts on Facebook, letting people know where we were going to be on any given day, and leaving it open for anyone who wished to join us to do so. I'm feel really bad because I think a couple of people were really offended by this; but after driving 13 hours just to get to Chicago, I honestly couldn't see making the boys spend an extra 2-3 hours a day in the car to "make the rounds" to everyone's houses. That kind of frantic pace, along with that amount of time in the car, makes the boys cranky to the point where they completely fall apart every 10 minutes...no fun for any of us!

If you live in the Chicago area, and were one of those who I may have offended, please consider this my formal, public apology to you. And please believe me that no slight was intended.

If you are one of those who joined us in our adventures, thank you for making the trek to meet up with us...it was so much fun to see you again!

Our kitchen project is moving right along. It isn't at the stage where I want to post a final "after" photo, yet, but here is a "before" image:

Actually, this is as they were ripping out the Pergo flooring. The black and white tile would have actually looked fine with the countertops we chose, but a large number of the tiles were cracked because they had been installed over plywood, rather than cement backer board. If you are considering tiling your floor, remember that! If you tile over plywood, it WILL crack!

We had two weeks of living with our kitchen island (which includes our stove) in the family room, unusable. The refrigerator and kitchen table was also in our family room. The contents of our island and another cabinet, as well as our kitchen chairs were all over the dining room. My usually chaotic house reached brand-new heights of chaos!



We have the new tile and countertops in, but I'm waiting until all the trim is up and everything is painted to show an "after" photo. I'd also like to wait until the drywall is repaired (that's leftover from our replumbing project). Hopefully, I'll be able to post some "after" photos soon!



Well, that's all for now (but it's really quite enough, isn't it?)!

Our Easter

We hope yours was happy too!

Where Have We Been?

I just realized it has been almost 2 months since I posted a blog here. Yikes! Where did the time go?

We've been busy with lessons, training our now 93-pound puppy, and home renovation projects. We've been tearing apart our kitchen and putting it back together (still in progress), having a new well pump installed, and now we are getting ready to rip out drywall and replace all the plumbing in our house.

Here are some photos, just for fun. This one is Aidan with Juno about two months ago (photo taken by my mom)...she was smaller then than she is now.


Colin loves playing with the snap circuit set they got for Christmas. It says it's for ages 8 and up, but he seems to have caught onto how to make it work pretty well. If anyone has thought about buying one of these for their kids, I highly recommend it. This is the starter set, and it EASILY keeps MY wiggly boys focused for an hour or more at a time!


I've been trying to do more painting. It has been a really icy winter that has not allowed for us to have much time outside. Painting helps me to cope with the lack of color and light we experience in the winter. I mean, look at my pastels, below. How could anyone look at all of these beautiful colors and resist the urge to pick them up and start painting?

Basically, pastels resemble chalk, but they're almost pure pigment...the same pigments used in artist-quality oil paints.

I started a separate blog for my art and photography. If you are interested, you can get to it by clicking here. I HAVE been updating that blog regularly because I've been painting regularly, thanks in large part to my mother-in-law, who watches the boys once a week so I can go to the "Open Studio" time at the Dietrich Theater and have some dedicated time to paint. Have I mentioned that I have the best mother-in-law in the world?

Why We Live Where We Do

In our front yard, as seen from our living room windows...Not too many words needed here; the photos tell the story.

The orange stuff they're eating is a pumpkin. And, yes, those two tiny spikes are baby antlers!

Breakfast With Santa

We were greeted this morning by a magical, sparkling beauty that extended for miles from the top of our mountain. We were very lucky that the freezing rain did not knock out power and cause too many other problems; we just got the beautiful trees, which sparkled like a forest full of diamonds.

Fortunately, the roads were in good enough shape that we did not have to cancel out on our plans for "Breakfast With Santa" with some good friends of ours!

That look on Colin's face is because he is asking Santa for something that he knows mommy and daddy do not want him to have...a Nintendo DS. It's not that we are opposed to video games in general, we are just not in favor of OWNING any! Fred has too many memories of playing them until he got blisters on his thumbs, instead of doing other things like homework and playing outside in the fresh air. Not sure how to handle this one with Colin...I'd LOVE to hear any suggestions you may have!

Aidan was very excited to tell Santa what's at the top of his wish list! Guess what? Santa already knew what that was...hooray!

On the way home, Fred helped me find some places to park the car so I could take some close-ups of the pretty ice.

I thought these pine needles looked amazing...

And I've never seen an oak leaf coated in ice quite like this one! Pretty cool, huh?

Scenes From A "Picture Perfect" Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I always wish we could be with ALL of our family for the holidays, but the miles between us makes that prohibitive. We had a lovely Thanksgiving at Fred's aunt and uncle's house.

I think pictures can sum up the atmosphere of our Thanksgiving feast better than my words can, so I'll share a few...



Aidan with baby Samuel:




Juno in one of her quiet moments:


A French pumpkin begging to be photographed:



Dinner preview...one turkey had foie gras spread under the skin, and the other had a mushroom paste spread under the skin. (No, they are NOT from our neighborhood!)



Details, details, details...

Spiced nuts as a pre-dinner snack:

Wine glasses ready to go:

Fred carving one of his works of art:

The picture-perfect Thanksgiving table:

WOW!

And the meal was as picture-perfect as the table!

We had a big crowd, the company was delightful, the food was amazing! We hope your Thanksgiving holiday was wonderful, too!

Hasn't Anyone Told Them...?

Hasn't anyone told the turkeys that it's almost Thanksgiving? This was the scene in our yard a few days ago:

Today I found this pretty creature lying between my house and my neighbor's...

I know, it would be a much better photo if I had moved over to the right about 15 feet, so I could have gotten rid of my neighbor's fence in the background, but I was afraid that he/she would run. I got within about 15 feet of this deer, but then he/she decided that was close enough.

So, I left some apples on the ground for it and walked away. It's the closest I've ever been to a deer that was not in captivity. It was really a pretty cool experience!

AAARGH!

Now that the weather has warmed back up, it's that time of year...time to try to get a decent family photo for our annual holiday cards. The challenge, of course, is to get a decent expression on everyone's faces, while using a tripod and the timer function on my camera. Okay, everyone, say "Cheese!"

Hmmm...okay, boys, how about REAL smiles for the next one? Okay?

Okay, you need to sit UP, too...

Not quite, something isn't quite right about that one. Let's try again...

No, screaming during the photo is NOT funny, and it wrecks the picture!

FRED: "Why can't we have the dogs in the picture?"

ME: "Because we can't even control the KIDS for this picture! How are we going to control our unruly puppy, too?"

Okay, we give up for now.

If you get a non-photo Christmas card from us this year, at least you'll know why!

Also, if you're curious about just how big that tree was that almost fell on my car, and just how close it came, here you go:

I had to REALLY back up to get the whole thing in the photo! The spot where it broke off was about 7 feet up, so that gives you an idea of the size. This was Fred's and the boys' big project last weekend, cutting up the tree and hauling the branches away. Fred actually had to get a new chainsaw to do the job. I think he secretly LIKED having an excuse to do so!

Yep, it crushed our lilacs, which makes me REALLY sad, because they bloom so beautifully every Mother's Day. I don't know if they can be saved. Oh well, at least it didn't crush any of US, as we were all out there playing in the snow when it fell. It really was quite a sight!

Snow Day?

I took the following photos a couple days ago. Please forgive the mediocre quality, I took them through a window, and there is definitely glare/reflection showing up in the photos. These were our "guests" inside our fenced in backyard, dining on our burning bushes.

Yep, that's SIX deer, just hanging out together, eating whatever they can before the snow comes.

I'm always amazed at how close to the house they get. I watched two young bucks wrestling each other with their antlers the other day...they were 40 feet from me, and I was sitting outside talking on the phone. It was almost like they were putting on a show just for me!

This is one of the fawns who lives around our yard with her mother and sibling. About 1/2 a second after I took this picture, she took off running, because Colin openend the door and yelled, "Get off my lawn!" at the top of his lungs and slammed the door shut. (Thank you, Monster House!)

So, we've had lots of beauty and wonders of nature around here for the past few days, and we've been doing our best to appreciate all of it. Lucky thing, because THIS is what we woke up to this morning...

(Oh, and that dark pine tree you see beyond my car...it is now laying on the ground about 1 foot away from my car...it fell down while the kids, the dogs and I were outside playing in the snow. It was pretty scary watching it fall; we decided it was time to go back inside.)

This snowstorm was NOT forecasted by ANYONE, so I am woefully unprepared. Our power keeps threatening to go out (and most of our neighbors have no power), so I've got a big fire going in the fireplace, and I'm trying to get everything that requires electricity done, just in case. Anyway, about another 3 inches has fallen since I took these pictures this morning.

UPDATE: Our power DID go out before I could finish posting this blog. It's back, now, though...I'm loving having heat and electricity once again! We've got about a foot of snow on the ground, and it's still snowing furiously. Luckily, the wind has picked up and is blowing much of it off the trees, so hopefully we won't lose any more to the weight of this wet, sticky snow!