"Being a family means you are part of something wonderful. It means you will love and be loved for the rest of your life. No matter what." ~Author Unknown



Monday, July 29, 2013

The Big Move

Fourth of July was the weekend before the move.  As we drove to the boat Mark and I looked at each other with the same thought.  Every single thing we did that weekend was just an attempt to pass the minutes to get closer to the closing day on the house.  We did manage to have some fun(and keep kids happy) in spite of our wandering minds. 

Come to find out several neighboring lakes do their fireworks on the same night.  From our lake you can see them all.  At first this sounded like one of those “Dad has a great idea which is really going to be stupid but we have to humor him” kinda moments.

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Look how happy everyone is.

Thankfully for the dad figure it turned out to be true.  We could see about 4 different sets of fireworks at the same time.  After Mark yelled “Turn your lights off A*****E” to the boat next to us, we enjoyed watching them.  I had to add that because when it happened the whole boat was laughing about the fact that that part of the evening wouldn’t make the blog.  It did, so there.  Keepin’ it real. 

We went out twice that weekend for swimming and knee boarding, bringing cousins and friends each time.

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We spent the 4th of July evening at a party where the kids got to see more fireworks.

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Finally Monday morning came, we signed all the papers, and the house became ours. 

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Let the packing frenzy begin!  My sweet friend Beth came over one day and packed our whole kitchen.  Added side effect was some much needed Sof time!

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We. Have. So. Much. Shit Stuff. 

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We closed on Monday, and the moving truck came Thursday.  That left a few days for us to slowly bring some boxes over and put a few breakables away. 

We still required two full trucks on moving day.  Sof went to school(for all the obvious reasons) and we snapped one last pic of her in front of the house.

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The poor movers worked non-stop(literally) from 9am-8pm.  I seriously don’t know how they do it!

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That’s my basket of dirty laundry sitting on the sidewalk.  Why you ask?  I have absolutely no idea.

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When we got to the new house and poor Scratches was very confused.  She wouldn’t come out of Lexi’s closet, and wouldn’t eat or go outside either! 

There was a ton boxes unloaded and furniture put together.

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Sof had a good cry before bed and begged to go “home”.  She slept through the night but the first words out of her mouth in the morning were, “After school can we go home?” 

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The next day was Friday and the start of Mark’s birthday weekend.  We can’t pass up a chance to enjoy a Friday, so in between projects and unpacking we also had dinner and cake with the usual crew plus some!

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We spent the rest of the weekend exploring our new territory.  We already love the pool!

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Our new grocery store has a Starbucks.  Points for that!

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We needed EVERYTHING…

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Mark’s real b-day came and the girls had a card and present for him. 

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The real gift was he got to work in his garage most the day!

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Scratches disappeared for a whole 24 hours, and everyone feared the worse.  Mark and Lexi drove around calling her(because she actually comes to her name).  No luck.  Then out of the blue she showed back up and it was a happy reunion!

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A few weeks later everyone is settled in.  Most of the boxes are unpacked, but the walls are still bare.  Landscape is still being worked on, but for all practical purposes it feels like home.

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Saturday, July 6, 2013

Summer Redeemed

This summer is divided into 3 parts-Beginning, Moving, and End.  I decided we better get busy enjoying the beginning, because the other two parts are full of Have-To’s.  Once we set our mind to it, we had no problem checking things off the annual summer to-do list. 

We had an invite with some dance friends to the waterpark.  Perfect day-cloudy but warm!     

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Sof had a great time, and the big girls were great about taking her on the waterslide!

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The great thing about water activities is any age enjoys them…4, 11, AND 14. 

Sof and I had some visits with Aunt Anne.  These often happen when Mommy is sick of entertaining Sofie.

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We discovered Tiny Town, which is a new favorite of mine.  Super cute play stuff for Sof’s age.  She loved it and so did I!

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Lexi and I went paddle boarding one morning.  We loved it when we did it last year, and we were very confident leaving the beach.  It seemed like a perfect morning for it.  As we went along it seemed to get choppier.  By the time we were across the lake it was so windy that Lexi couldn’t get her board pointed in the right direction.  Long story short, we ended up paddling to the beach, borrowing a cell phone, and calling the paddle board guy to come get us.  We got a pontoon ride back, and laughed about the whole thing over lunch.  We’ll try it again on a little calmer day:) 

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We had a cousin day out.  We couldn’t quite decide what to do so we did it all.  Lunch first.

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Movie next.

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We finished out the day at the sprinkler park.

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Ummmmm, is my baby pole dancing?  She’ll never make any money wearing those goggles.

Best part of the day?  While we were havin’ fun Em’s MIL was back at the house making us dinner!

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Adrienne went downtown to see a contemporary dance troop with her dance friends. 

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All three girls did musical theater camp.  Livy also joined them.  Adrienne was a helper for the camp from 9-3, then from 4-8 she stayed for a vocal camp herself.  At the end of the week they all performed.

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The show was the “Granny Awards” and Alexa was the Granny!  She did great!

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Kaitlyn usually does musical theater camp too, but this year she decided she wanted to do gymnastics instead!  One day after camp the girls and I all went to pick her up together.

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Then we went back to the house for some afternoon fun.

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With all that kid time we needed some grown up time too.  Dinner at “Palate” was the perfect night out! 

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After some rejuvenation we were ready for the next event-Balloon Fest! 

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Random big news in the family…Ellen is having another baby boy!  We went to a gender reveal party at their house.  Such a cool way to share big news with friends and family!

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That sums up the beginning of our summer.  Now we’re onto the moving part.  We close Monday, and mover’s come Thursday.  Let the fun begin!

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