Memorial Day Weekend

What a fun, fun weekend! Sue and I picked up the kids on Friday evening, Andrea joined us on Sat, Mom and Dad joined us on Sunday and Jason and Holly arrived on Monday making the fam complete. It was a full busy weekend, but loads of fun. Just a quick run-down of activities. Let's see, there was jump rope (Emmy is the queen of jump rope!), line soccer (Andrea and I one on one is a sight you have to see to believe), Red Rover (Andrea about took Emmy out. We all ended up on the ground laughing till we cried. When we asked Emmy if she like red rover, she replied, "Not so much." This made it all the funnier), 4 square, baseball (Elijah is the master of this game. When I asked him how his season was going, he replied, "Great! I'm the best one on the team." And so humble too!), Frizbee, and the list goes on...
Sat. night we cooked out around the fire pit which was lots of fun. Emmy had a smore disaster, which if you notice Sandy in this picture, she had a nice bite of that smore in Emmy's hand while we were taking this picture.
Emmy helped Aunt Andrea make an incredible peach cobbler dessert to go along with our homemade ice-cream on Monday. It was delicious.

Did I mention a squirt gun war? That was lots of fun!
Zeke enjoyed squirting himeself more than anyone else.
What a crack-up!
Andrea enjoys the smores by the fire!
Zeke helped collect some sticks for the fire. Funny how the little guy brought the biggest sticks!

We also did some swimming. The weather wasn't perfect, but we made it work.

The weekend was perfect. The kids were a hoot and I loved every min. of it.

Recent activities

What a busy week this has been. I feel like every day has been full and they are flying by. After today only 7 more days of school. Everyone else at my school has 8, but I'm taking tomorrow off. I've saved this personal day for just the right time and tomorrow is it. Well, let me take you through my most recent adventures. I actually can't remember much about last week. We started softball last Monday night and actually have 2 games this week, one tonight and another tomorrow night. So, you can be looking for a post about that sometime soon. Let's see, Friday night we had a Sunday school progressive supper. Haven't done that since the Bennet St. Wesleyan days so that was lots of fun. It was a full evening and we all had a good time. Sat. started bright and early at 9:00 with some landscaping at the Buck's. A few of us from SS went to help Cindy since Geoffrey is graduating next weekend. We had such a good time and had it all done in 3 hours. Then I came home and raked out my front courtyard to prepare it for planting and new mulch. After 4 trips to the burn pile, I jumped in the shower to get ready to head to Indy. I need new tennis shoes, but have some serious feet problems. I find that I can't wear the new shoes after I get them. So, a friend of Sue and I told me about this place in Indy called Runners Forum where they watch you walk and try to fit you with a specific shoe to help you specific areas of need. I got a pair of Brooks that have great arch support. My "expert" shoe fitter said my arches were collapsing and my feet were turning in thus giving me my shin splints and many other pains. We'll see. You might see me training for my first marathon sometime soon. After a nice dinner out, we headed back to Marion. There was about an hour of daylight left so we thought we'd take a bike ride. Have I mentioned that Sue and I bought bikes? No, well, we did. Now, when we did, we ran into a girl from our softball team. She told us the next night at softball that she had purchased 2 bikes from Wal-mart only to have to return them both. Now, did she share this with us in Wal-mart, of course not. Sue had to take hers back because her back tire wouldn't hold air. Then we got ready to ride for the first time, my pedals went round but nothing was happening. Got to looking and the back sprocket wasn't even attached to the wheel. So, put the bike into the truck and off to Wal-mart. I exchanged it for this nice little beauty pictured a little ways down. So, by the time we got home, it was too dark to ride so we rode laps around Lakeview's parking lot. We rode between 2-3 miles both Sunday and today. I'm really enjoying it, but hope my rear grows caluses soon. Now, on to Sunday. After church and dinner, we jumped into my courtyard landscaping which is what these pictures are off. The top picture is taken from my front door looking out. The next two are taken as you come into the courtyard. I planted about 50 petunias that mom gave me last weekend. They were her leftovers (and she didn't think she had bought enough!) and they filled my space nicely. I put them in clumps of five to make some nice big plants. The new mulch really jazzed it up too. I have discovered something a little disturbing. Every morning, there are half eaten rabbits under my japanese maple tree. Something is catching them and bringing them up there to eat. I don't know if it's wild dogs or coyotes, but either way, it creeps me out to know they are up that close to my front door. Anyways, one more area down. Now, I just have my big hill out front to plant. I'm not sure when that will get done.


So, here we are at the beginning of another week. They sure do fly by. I'm looking forward to next weekend. My family will be here, all except J and Holly. Jason has to do a wedding, so we're just getting the kids. I can't wait to spend a few days with them. I've been missing them.

I may have an interview soon so be praying about that. I just want to be where the Lord wants me, but I hope it's in a new job for the fall. :) Well, I need to start getting ready for tonight's game. I hope every one is enjoying this fabulous spring weather, I know I am!

Kelley

Mother's Day

My Mother with her daughters!

Andrea with Susan, her Mother-in-law.
Mom and Dad

I had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend! Andrea and I were both home and we had such a good time. We all worked outside together on Sat. doing mom's landscaping. It was exhausting, but I enjoyed the time we all spent together doing it. Sat. evening we attended the annual Mother/Daughter banquet which was lots of fun. We sat with our cousins, Carolyn and Kim, Aunt Eva, and Susan, Andrea's Mother-in-law. It was a fun evening filled with laughter. Sunday, we all went to church and then to Grandma Grate's for a big dinner. I love my mom so much and enjoyed this weekend with her! It was a GRATE weekend!

Landscaping

What a weekend! I really don't know why I'm still awake at 10:42pm. I used muscles this weekend I didn't know I had and everyone of them is screaming at me. But, for some reason, I'm not tired. Maybe there's something to this physical labor thing. The fun began Sat. morning when Bob and and Sue showed up at 8:45 with the heavy equipment. Bob totally cleaned up my burn pile and carted off my rusting, horrible burn barrell. It looks so much better! Then, he took out some of the dirt off my huge hill in the front yard. Way better! Then he removed the pesky bush on the corner of my drive that everyone nearly hits and then removed the horrid, green ground cover on the corner of my landscaping by the garage! Way, WAY Better!

In the afternoon, Sue and I took off for Cincinnati! We always go to a couple of games through the season and this was our first this year. It was a disaster. First it was raining so the game was delayed an hour. 2nd, after the rain stopped if was chilly and breezy, bbbrrrr. 3rd, they lost. So, we arrived home around 2:00am this morning wondering why we did that.

Today after church, we dug into my landscaping. The pictures about do not do it justice. The mulch is the red kind and it looks so sharp! We worked all afternoon on the section in the back yard. The spilling basket is sitting where the groundcover was taken out. I had to put something there and that was easy. Sadly, this is only a tiny, small part of what i have to do, but I am feeling pretty proud of myself today. I think it looks good and I feel proud of my productivity.

Well, before I head off to bed, I just wanted to say thanks to all my commenters, especially Susan. Thanks for making yourself known. I always love comments even from stalkers! :) Actually, I have been thinking about the phenominon of this whole blogging thing. I started it as a way to share my life with others, mostly friends and family, but strangers too if they're interested. Somewhere along the line though it became more about the comments. I gauge how interested I am in writing by the feedback. I think this is normal, but I realize that it puts alot of pressure on those of you reading. I am going to try and make my posting, hopefully more frequent, more about my desire to express myself. I find it somewhat theraputic even if it's just a matter of sharing my day, so, comment if you like or just read if you want. I'll keep right on writing!

What to say?

Well, I haven't posted for a while, but I really don't know what to post about. Nothing much is happening. Spring is speeding by with only 20 days of school left. (Not that I'm counting) :)

I did have a question on my comments section asking about my car. It's working fine, just like it always does after I've had it fixed. Actually starting today, Heidi is driving for the rest of the year, so the Honda is going to get very little use. Maybe it'll last longer that way.

My big plans for the weekend are to begin landscaping and working in the yard. There might also be an impromptu trip to Cincinatti to see the Reds play on Sat. night. We'll just have to see.

Well, that's about it. Boring I know. I can't even think of some deep subject to talk about. I think part of my problem is that bloggerland seems dead. Nobody's posting much and nobody's commenting. Makes it hard to be motivated. Well, I hope everyone's doing well.

Kelley