July 2014
July
has been a great month for many reasons, but the biggest addition to our lives
was the arrival of another niece, Olivia Schafer! Kyle and Julie became parents on July 2nd
and they seem to be doing very well. They recently moved to Georgia, so a quick
visit to meet the little lady isn’t an option for us, but we look forward to
meeting her soon and enjoy our updates over Facetime!
July
4th weekend was our annual family reunion on my mom’s side. For a the better part of a week, my mom’s
place becomes the site of one of the best weekends of the summer with family
enjoying food, drinks and the water.
This year was more fun for us than in the past as Allison is becoming a
better swimmer and you can nearly let her and my sister’s 3 kids run around and
do their own thing. Sarah enjoys the
group, but can’t move fast enough and usually gets knocked over! It was great to see everyone and the weather
cooperated much better than last year. Deb
and I got a babysitter one night and went on the Handlebar tour I talked about
in the previous post. This is basically
a mobile-bar that moves by the pedaling of the group! We had a great time and enjoyed beers and a
few breaks at some bars along the way.
The
following week, I was off to Italy to work on a computer implementation. Leaving is never easy, but our house is
becoming more manageable by the month and with Deb’s new schedule, things are
getting better most days. Along with that,
Uncle Ralph and Aunt Barbs came to visit for the week I was gone and were able
to help out and keep the girls busy.
That week in Italy was challenging, but my coworkers and I have done
some good work and we all will head back over Labor Day weekend to complete the
implementation.
For Deb’s
birthday the girls and I decided that mommy had talked long enough about a
renovation of her wardrobe, so we decided that she needed some help sending
some stuff to goodwill. Julia and Rosie
showed up in the mid-morning and brought lunch for Deb and then they went to
her bedroom to help her clean out her closet.
After that, they took her on a shopping spree where she bought several nice
things. Many thanks to Julia and Rosie
for helping out and for pulling off a nice birthday surprise!
For
vacation this year, we added a few days to our annual family trip to Lake
Michigan. As we got closer to the trip,
we decided to cancel the first day at the hotel and make it a staycation day
and we went to the Children’s Museum. We
enjoyed a dinner out and the next morning, drove up to Michigan. We were concerned about all 4 of us in a hotel
room, but the girls did well! The
Vandervaarts also arrived on Thursday, so we all went to the beach on Friday
and it was great to see all the kids play together. We enjoyed the beach in the morning and the
hotel pool in the afternoon. The girls
and I would nap while Deb worked out each afternoon. Each evening, I’d put Sarah to bed and my
sisters would hang out on our hotel balcony until Deb brought Allison to
bed. As nice as it was to hang out with
everyone, it was nice to catch up with Pete, as he and I were frequently
hanging out with the older kids. The
lake was cold, but since Claire was in the water, Allison wanted to go
also. Watching Allison scream (because
it was cold) was almost like I was kidnapping her. It was hilarious to watch and she also
climbed 75% of the biggest dune by herself!
Sarah’s Things of the Month
Sarah has been standing on her own and taking 3-4
steps. She will pivot and move more and
more each day and is becoming very interactive with us. She will clap, raise her hand and probably
knows 5 or 10 words.
Allison’s Things of the Month
Allison has learned who the President of the United
States is, but she says it like this, Rack
ObObama. It is pretty funny, but she
has things said daily that I imagine she picks up from us, but I can’t remember
saying it. For example, to get through
church, we usually resort to giving cheerios for the last part of mass. As we got ready to go up for communion,
Allison asked Deb if she “could have a Cheerio for the road.”
A few more items from this
month:
- Deb and Allison went to Abby Watkins’ birthday party. It had a theme of bubbles and she and Zoey Foulke enjoyed being each other partners.
- We all went to a party at Brandon and Diane’s called “Smokefest” where they smoke all kinds of food. It was a good chance to catch up and we enjoyed seeing the group.
- We are currently getting HVAC quotes as our system is 20 years old. We will hope to make a decision soon so we aren’t stuck making an emergent decision later!
- I went to watch the HR derby with a group of guys. Can’t win every year, but I had Puig this year and he had zero!
- Deb had a girls night at Leah’s with the usual crew.
- Deb had a girls night and had a grilled pizza dinner at Shannon’s
