New York- Here We Come!

By now you know I enjoy stopping at random places on our long car rides. I think it breaks up the drive and makes it seem shorter. Instead of "Ugh man, it's 9 hours of driving..." It's "Sweet! Only 2 hours until our next stop."

This years stops included the Abraham Lincoln birthplace in Hogenville, Kentucky. A Topiary Garden in Columbus, Ohio and the Kazoo Factory in Eden, NY.

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace

A portrait made of pennies. I thought this was pretty neat. 

National Parks have a Junior Ranger program where the kids do a workbook and earn a badge. The kids were working on it at this table in a replica log cabin.

Badge earned!

This is the memorial building. The kids look thrilled, don't they?

There are 56 steps, one for each year of Abraham Lincoln's life. Inside the building is another log cabin replica.

There is a spring next to it where the Lincoln's would have gotten their water.

I missed the video inside the visitors center as we had one child that was not behaving. Lee said it was really good. If you have a chance, you should stop by sometime.


Topiary Garden in Columbus, Ohio 
The garden is actually modeled after a painting by Seurat (you can google it.) It was really fun to see/walk through.

We stayed the night in Ohio and the next morning. We resumed our trip the next day with one final stop.

Kazoo Factory in Eden, NY

We bought a Kazoo 'kit' for the kids to make their own. That consisted of the pieces and a lady helping them use this iron machine to tap it all into place.

Then it was off to Grandma's!

Last day of School and First Week of Summer Break

The last day of school was a sad one around here. It was the kids last day at John Pittard Elementary. A school that we love with all our hearts. When we drove away that day Amy and I were a little misty eyed. We are going to miss that school!!

School ended while Lee was in London. He had a good time with his students but he was ready to come home.

While he was gone we added another member to our family. Meet Billy. Will and Tyler love is when he emerges.

The kids also washed Lee's car... with a paint roller. Well first they sprayed with down with round-up (until I stopped them!) and then they washed it with the roller. I file this under "Things I didn't think I would have to tell my children...."

I came up with a game. They each had to bring me all these random objects and only one was what they really needed for our next activity. The winning item was their swimsuit as we went to a local pool.

The boys made fidget spinners out of the math cubes.

Tyler got really mad one day and stormed off. A few minutes later I found him sound asleep. We have learned when he storms off to just let him nap!

I taught the kids the game Sorry! and I wanted to bang my head against the wall a few times. The whole "count this number of spaces" was lost on the boys. They couldn't figure out the next space was when you started counting. The simple things are aren't so simple!

Tyler was practicing knife safety while helping to make a salad. :) He is such a character.

The the glorious day came- Dad returned! With his return playing Rock Band resumed.....

And he took the kids for a ride on the riding lawnmower. I didn't get out in time to get a picture of Amy.

The boys have been playing outside with our neighbor Tristan. I'm glad they've found a buddy. I also bought this little swing to replace the baby swing on our swing set.

Will felt the need to wear his scuba gear to play in the hose. You can see how much fun Amy was having.

And with that summer is in full gear!

A whole lot of stuff!

Here's an update of our life for the last little while.

Will (twice, different times) almost stepped on a toad in our yard. Of course Amy came running trying to catch the darn things. She asks every night if she can go "frog- hunting."

One day I let the kids kids have ice cream outside, this little girl showed up. I have no idea who she is or where she lives but she enjoyed the ice cream! haha.

Amy's friend Alexa came over for awhile.

Tyler loves climbing all over the playset. He's like a mini spiderman.

I love seeing all the kids play on it. It's the first time we've had something like this in our yard so I'm glad they are taking advantage of it. If you look at Tyler (bottom left) he was performing. He's always singing and dancing to something!

I went on a hike with my hiking friends. This time we tried out Walls of Jericho. It ended up being a really hard hike that no one really enjoyed. We all thought the end result wasn't really worth all the effort it took to get to it. Oh well, it was fun to be together!

We went to Georgia for Mother's Day. It was great to spend the weekend with our mothers. :) This time I remembered to take pictures of Lee's side but forgot to with my side. One day I'll remember and get all the pictures! Cindy made us a delicious lunch and it was fun to see their new house!

Mom gave me this cool chocolate shoe for Mother's Day. Amy and I enjoyed eating it. :)

I love seeing the notes the kids write to one another. I especially love seeing Tyler write notes on his own. It's so cute to see their handwriting and the fact they can write actual words. Yay for teachers!
This says," Dear Will. I an sorry for not let you play with my shuriken (it's a toy.) Love Tyler. I love you!"

I took Amy to middle school orientation. (What!!!??? HOW is that possible????) Her room looked like this. I had to laugh. She has become a teenager trying to figure out what to wear!

I took a small side job delivering cookies for a sales rep. I bake and package cookies and then deliver them to local schools. It's fun to do, it just takes time I don't really have and/or should be doing something else. It will be done this week and I will not be sorry it's over.

I dug up the plants I had already planted once and moved them somewhere else. I'm going for a certain result that wasn't working with the other arrangement. We'll see if this one works to my satisfaction. :)

Lee is almost done with the insulation under the house. He figures he only has what is our living room left. I absolutely refuse to go under there. Last time he found a black widow (that has since been killed by the bug man) and this time he crawled out saying there was a sewer smell. We both kept thinking, "Great! Which pipe is leaking??" Even though he could see  there weren't any leaks. Well, he came pretty much face-to-face with a dead rat. Ahhhh! Later on he found a second one. So yep, I'm not ever, ever, EVER going under the house. Instead I cut the insulation and feed it to him through the opening.

My reign as PTO president ended this week. Well, it technically ends at the end of the school year. But we voted in our new group. They'll be good and are excited. I've had so much help from all the staff this year. I decided to write everyone a thank you card. That was 87 cards! Phew! I tried to do them in batches, but wow- it was a lot!

It's always a struggle for Amy to get ready on time in the mornings. Half of the time we are saying, "You aren't even dressed yet??" One evening she came up with this solution. She put all her clothes on her fan. This girl!

I've been really busy lately. Busier than I like to be. I keep walking by random things that I need to do, I just don't have time to do them. I started taking a few minutes to tackle small projects so I wouldn't feel so overwhelmed. These pots were one of them. The bigger one has lemongrass and a few other random plants that needed repotting. To the left (hard to see) is an onion that was sprouting in my fridge. Out of curiosity I stuck it in a pot and it's been growing ever since.  It needed a bigger pot though. It even has a bloom! I've done some research and apparently the bloom will produce seeds that I can plant next year. Pretty cool! And my girl planter (that grandma gave me years ago) has had different things but something digs it up every night. It's the craziest thing! No matter what I put in there, the next morning it's dug up. I'm curious and frustrated at the same time!

I've been trying to do a 5k a day. My workout friends are doing it together but since I can't meet up with them yet I'm doing it solo. I'm also in a Million Step challenge with Mom and Anna. Collectively we are trying to reach a million steps. I take pictures of myself most mornings to send to my friends so they don't forget what I look like. :)

This next week is another busy one. It's the kids last week of school. Lee left for London this morning and will be home next Sunday. But after this week is SUMMER BREAK!! Woohoo!!!!!!