Natural Playscape

Have you been to the Homer Lake Natural Playscape?  If not you must go and bring a change of clothes because your kids will get wet and dirty.  I've been meaning to take the kids here for the last year since it opened but have never gotten around to it.  There are just so many parks to go to within 5 minutes of our house that I don't think to drive 30 minutes.  But this afternoon we had nothing going on and decided to have a family outing and go.  We stopped at Subway to pick up a picnic supper and were on our way.  It was another beautiful cool day for July (70 degrees!) so it was very refreshing.  We spent two hours there and only left because we needed to get the kids baths and to bed at a decent time.  I can't wait to go back.  I'll let my pictures tell the story.

Rare picture of both kids looking at the camera and smiling

Grace and me walking down the stream

Climbing on the rocks

Chair in the wood climbing area

Spiderweb

Caleb loved playing it was hard to nail him down for a picture

Log see-saws

Grace tried to bury herself in the sand

Matt said the web was not comfortable for a nap

Jenna's Visit

Last spring my SIL Yvonne and I started talking about having Grace and Jenna spend time at each others houses over the summer (and continuing this tradition for years to come).  It worked out to have Jenna come this week from Wednesday morning until this morning (Grace will go visit her for the same length of time in August).  We had so much fun!

Wednesday we started by meeting halfway for an early lunch and then heading back to our house.  Once we got back home Grace and Jenna spent the afternoon playing together and coloring while Caleb napped.  After Caleb's nap Jenna got to tag along and watch Grace's swimming lesson.  She was a good sport about not being able to swim and seemed to enjoy watching with me.  Then we went back to our house to play outside and enjoy dinner before putting the kids to bed.  Jenna slept in Grace's room and they did fairly well without too much goofing around.  Grace was the bigger problem if there ever was one because she would just bug Jenna and climb onto her bed.

Jenna loved "driving" Grace around the yard.

Thursday was a beautiful sunny day.  I had planned on taking the kids to the pool and I was a little worried it would be too cold. Fortunately the sun was shinning and there was no breeze so the pool was amazing.  And everyone stayed away because it wasn't 90 degrees out so it was super empty and we lived it up!  After the pool we had some lunch and just hung out at our house the rest of the day.

Swimming

Silly girls

Jenna and Caleb on the slide

Friday was shaping up to be another nice cool July day (high of 79 and cloudy) so I took the kids to the park.  We stayed for the whole morning and everyone seemed to love it.  After Caleb's nap I had to change plans a little because it ended up raining so I took the kids swimming at the YMCA.  I actually dropped Caleb off at the childcare room and took the girls swimming because I really didn't want to deal with all of them in the pool (ok I just didn't want to deal with Caleb in the changing room after the pool).  Then we met Matt for dinner at Culver's.  Yum!

Matching cousins at the park

Love these girls

Looking at the water at the park

Finally on Saturday we drove back to meet Yvonne halfway and that was the end of our visit.  It was super fast and super fun!

SOLD!

For the first time in 2.5 years we only own one house and it feels good!  We have had a great situation over the last 2 years with excellent renters who have taken care of the house and always pay on time.  It has worked our really well because the rent they paid has covered all but the fairly low property taxes.  Since we had a 15 year mortgage on the house too the rent was helping build up our equity.  Finally, our old house was being managed by a property management company so it really didn't cause us any hassle.

Anyway sometime in the spring our renters informed us that they weren't going to renew their lease (which ended September 1st).  We tossed the idea around of putting our house back on the market but didn't know what to do if it sold and our renters still had a lease.  We didn't think anyone would be interested in waiting around to move in when they could literally buy a house down the street that was exactly the same and move in whenever they wanted.  Fortunately after talking to our renters we realized they were willing to move out whenever if we sold the house.  It was a win-win situation because we figured we could put the house on the market and if it didn't sell by August just get a new renter without losing a month's rent.

Honestly at this point I was trying really hard not to get my hopes up.  I just thought it would be so nice not to own two houses.  It hasn't been a financial hardship but we also aren't interested in having rental properties.  A second house is just an extra burden to worry about.  We had several people interested in our house and finally one man was really interested.  We didn't hear from him for a couple of weeks but long story short his offer on the house across the street like ours fell through and he decided to put an offer on our house.  We didn't haggle much and settled on a number fairly quickly (he got a great deal).

After we settled on a number and got back a positive inspection we felt like this sale might actually happen.  We've been so nervous it would fall through that we haven't even celebrated.  Finally this morning we had our closing.  That went ok but there was one missing piece of paperwork so even when the closing was over it wasn't really over.  Again we couldn't really celebrate.  Finally at 2:00 this afternoon the rest of the paperwork was signed and we got a check making the sale of our house official!

I thought I'd add a couple pictures of the house when we lived in it.  I feel like I never really got to say goodbye since in theory I could always go back while we still owned it even if I wasn't living in it.  One thing I loved about the house is even though it was only 1000 square feet and it started out with just me, then Matt moved in, then Grace moved in it never felt small to me.  I wanted more space when I knew we were going to have Caleb but I never called it small.  It was like it had moveable walls.  I loved that place.  What a blessing it was!

View from the front

All in one - kitchen, dining room, office, living room

Looking back at the kitchen

Originally office/guest room turned into Grace's room

Master bedroom

County Fair

Today we had a super fun morning with some friends at the County Fair.  Growing up as a super involved and nerdy 4-H girl means I love the fair.  However my fair experience was always taking projects to the fair and getting them judged, wandering around the 4-H part of the fair, eating lots of fair food and never really thinking about the rides.

I've learned a lot of people actually go to the fair for the rides.  So today for the first time ever I attended a fair for the rides.  And they weren't for me to ride but for my kids.  This morning was preschool day and they were offering free entry and 5 free rides per child and then the rides were only 50 cents each after that.  So after all was said and done I spent $1 and the kids loved it.

I was a little worried the kids wouldn't really like them but Grace jumped right on and after Caleb watched Grace ride one ride he decided he'd try to.  They loved them.  Grace's favorite ride was the dragon roller coaster and I'm not sure I'd even be willing to ride it.  It was quite jerky.

After riding several rides we headed over to check out the livestock.  Caleb was pretty scared of the animals.  He also kept saying about the cows, "That kinda looks like a cow!"  Finally as we were heading out the kids got to meet the fair queen!

Swimming

One of the best things about this summer is we have done lots of swimming.  So much at the public pool that I'm kicking myself for not buying a season pass.  We've also been able to swim at a few different friends' private pools which is always fun.  And Grace took lessons in June for three weeks. They were only twice a week and she really didn't show a lot of progress in the 6 lessons.

Despite the lack of progress I do still like lessons because it gives her more exposure to the water and helps her practice following instructions from a person in authority.  Since she's not in preschool and we're planning on homeschooling I always find things like that beneficial.  She's currently taking lessons at the Y and seems to be enjoying them too.

Anyway outside of lessons she has finally gained the skill of being able to put her head underwater all by herself.  She has put her head under many times via being dunked (safely with me), thrown (safely and controlled) or jumping in but never on her own initiative.  So when she decided to do it this week I was so proud of her!

Caleb is also fun to swim with.  He loves loves loves jumping in and will stand on the side and jump to you for hours if you'd let him.  He also really likes slides.  There are two kid sized slides at the public pool he adores and one giant one that you can ride down on tubes.  He loves riding with Matt or me on that one.  I only have one picture of him swimming this summer with his friend E at E's pool.

Kingdom Rock Vacation Bible School

Immediately following my family reunion we drove back to town for the first night of our churches Vacation Bible School.  And it was AWESOME!  I think everyone loved it but because I was so intimately involved in the planning I took a lot of joy in seeing it go off without a hitch.  Last year was the first year we had a VBS and we learned a lot from it so this year was really fun to help plan.  We had almost 80 kids and 60+ people who volunteered in some way, shape or form.

I was more involved with the preschool program so I got to spend my time around 3-5 year olds which was so fun. It was amazing watching the kids play, interact, learn and worship God together.  It was also amazing watching the adults and kids get to know each other more.  

We were also blessed by a team of college students who travel around and help out with VBS programs and camps all summer.  They did the opening and closing each night and brought a ton of energy.  It also really helped us focus our volunteers and energy on shepherding the kids.  The team had three girls and two guys and the girls stayed at our house for seven nights.  I had so much fun hosting them and getting to know them.  And Grace and Caleb were enamored.

One of the volunteer roles at VBS was a photographer and Celina held that role and did a great job.  I'm so thankful for all the pictures that Celina took because I never would have had time to get out my camera (on my phone) and they would never have turned out as good as hers.  So, enjoy some of her pictures below.

Matt and Jason leading the preschool games

Love this picture of these 3 girls

Singing and Dancing

One of my favorite pictures of Grace

Celina said she just wanted to keep it real:)

H Family Activities

Wow, we have had a lot of stuff going on the last couple of weeks.  It's been great and I'm not complaining at all but it's been nice doing nothing but hanging with the kids, playing in the sprinkler, and getting some down time this afternoon while the kids nap/rest.

The week of the 4th of July my sister and nephew were able to come and visit for over a week.  We got to go to my parents 3 times to see them and get some quality baby holding in. Neil is getting cuter every time I see him.  Here's a fun picture my sister took...

Then at the end of their visit on July 7th we had a family reunion.  This year was my grandpa's family's turn to be in charge.  So Laura brought her photo booth (they still have events in Chicago so she didn't have to haul one from Texas), I lead one lame game, and my cousin led a couple of good games.  It was a pretty hot and steamy day but it was fun to see everyone.  I have a bunch of fun photo booth pictures I had to put on the blog too.

Grandpa and Caleb

We totally forgot to use props

Grandpa and Grace

I often don't know what to do so I just stick out my tongue

My grandpa and his 4 granddaughters

My Grandma and Grandpa

July 4th

Another thing we enjoyed this past week was celebration the 4th of July with Matt's family.  Since Rachel (Matt's sister) was born on the 4th of July it was also a fun family birthday party for her too.  And the weather was perfect!

We started the day by hitting the road right away in hopes of having our 2.5 hour drive to Matt's parents' done by 10 or 10:30.  Even with a bathroom break we made it before 10:30.  Once we got there the rest of the family arrived and we just enjoyed hanging out, eating outside and being together.    

Finally around 7:30 we gave the kids a bath and got on the road again by 8:30.  The kids zonked out right away and Matt and I enjoyed being able to see many fireworks shows from the road.  There was one point when we could see 3 or 4 shows at a time.  It's not the same as being under a show and hearing the noise but it was neat to watch while in the car.

I loved the pictures Rachel took of everyone in their patriotic clothes...

Sleepover

We have had a lot of fun things going on the past couple of weeks that I haven't had a chance to really even think about let alone blog about.  The first one I want to write about is Grace's sleepover with Charlotte and Anna.  Last summer Charlotte came and spent the night at our house and this year we invited Charlotte and Anna since Anna is 3 now.  I have a feeling that as the girls get older and since they will be living super close to us soon I won't be blogging about sleepovers because they will be very regular occurrences.

Anyway, Charlotte and Anna arrived around 5 for dinner with us.  We had the classic kid favorite pizza and even had some mixed veggies on the side.  The highlighted activity was a pillow fight after dinner.  Apparently Anna told her parents thats what you do at sleepovers so we had to do one (picture below). Then we played a few rounds of hide and go seek and put the kids to bed.  We were planning on taking the kids swimming in the morning so we decided to put them all in separate rooms so guarantee a better nights sleep.

Everyone slept great and then got up and had a yummy breakfast before meeting back up with C & A's parents and heading to their grandpa's house to swim.

The pillow fight

2nd Quarter Book List

I'm still feeling good about my reading pace.  Since I'm still hoping to read 50 books this year I'm happy that I'm halfway through.  I think I've been reading book 26 for over two weeks though and I finally finished today.  We've had a lot of other stuff going on and I'm always slower at non fiction.  Now I'm off to fold some laundry and try a sample of the young adult book Divergent by Veronica Roth on my Kindle.  From what I've heard though I will love it and will end up buying it.

I have rated my books on an astrick system that is as follows...
* - Not great and don't read it unless you're bored or it looks really really interesting to you personally and even then you might want to think twice.
** - Pretty good and if it looks interesting to you I would recommend it.  I don't think it would be a waste of time.  I generally enjoyed these books.
*** - Great book!  Definitely read it (if it looks interesting) and you will like it.
F is for fiction and NF is for non-fiction.

13. Moloka’i by Alan Brennert - (F)***

14. Carry on Warrior: Thoughts on Lie Unarmed by Glennon Doyle Melton - (NF)*

15.With or Without You by Carole Matthews - (F)*

16. Here and Now: Living in the Spirit by Henri J.M. Nouwen - (NF)***

17. Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl - (NF)**

18. The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones - (F)**

19. The Pastor’s Wife by Jennifer AlLee - (F)*

20. Persuasion by Jane Austen - (F)***

21. Unglued by Lysa TerKeurst - (NF)**

22. The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate - (F)***

23. Once Upon a Prince by Rachel Hauck - (F)**

24. Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours by Dr. Kevin Leman (audio book) - (NF)**

25. The 7 Experiment: Staging Your Own Mutiny Against Excess - (NF)**

26. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain - (NF)***