We are headed home!

Well after 14 months in PA we are headed back to Colorado. The project Scott was on was cancelled, yes it was supposed to be 3-5 years. something with the PUC and a National Forrest were not going to "fly." So here we sit awaiting a house. We are so very grateful Scott applied every place and was offered 4 positions in 4 different states so of course Colorado out weighed all the others in all aspects so it was meant to be.

We have been trying to do a bit of touring we have had 2 visitors since the last blog, Bonnie(Scott's Mom) and my Sister. The winter months flew by and the winter was not to harsh and the spring was not anywhere near as wet as the previous. The girls did great in school their "first" semester, Faith made the honor roll and Hope was advanced in many of her classes (they don't give letter grades out in Elementary here ~strange. Levi is running and talking away just going and going. He does some sign language which is exciting to see him use it immediately after we teach him.

We were in Michigan for my Aunt Pat's memorial over Memorial Day weekend and were able to see family we haven't seen in years not just a few but like 30, crazy I tell you. and my sister drove back with us so we had a bit of visit with her which was so great. Mom and Faith were in Michigan for Grandparents University at the end of June and stayed for a few weeks to visit and a bit of and extra visit due to the naughty van (agh!) They got home and Bonnie arrived a couple days later. We travelled to Amish country and saw beautiful quilts, went to quilt museum, and we went to Lopez Pa where Mema grew up, it was so fascinating driving done all the roads Mema talked about and seeing her grandmother's grave was so wonderful to share with her. I think she enjoyed just hangin out with us. Bonnie and mom went back to Colorado Mom for the month of August, Jim's birthday and sister's birthday. The girls swam in our free pool and played with friends almost every day!

School has started we are trying to get into a routine but it will soon change Scott leaves Wednesday for Colorado. He will search for a house we are going to be looking everywhere for Evergreen to Brighton hopefully a rent to own situation but we will see. I think everyday of something I will miss here...today it was the flowers, there is always something blooming even in the winter. Yesterday it was my friends here and the girls friends, we have made good friends here and I hope they will come visit us someday. Well I will sign off for now I will try harder to blog more, the facebook monster takes over and I think it is enough and I know it isn't. Well Colorado friends I hope to see you soon and I will get intouch when we are settled if not before

The snowy days of winter finally

Well it has not been very snowy before, kinda of rainy weather which is so strange this time of year, but we got some good dumping of snow recently. So we enjoyed a snow delay of school and 2 snow days. The thing is that the snow is still here...a week later nothing has melted just kinda dirty. So this is the difference, the snow doesn't come one day melt the next like it does in Colorado or so warm you can go without a coat. Yes our driveway still has ice and snow all over it, we did PAY the neighbors snow blower guy to dig out our mailbox because they seriously wouldn't deliver if it was not done properly. Crazy it was a pile of ice from the snow plow for the road and it wouldn't budge. So we had total of 6 days off of school due to the Presidents day weekend and the snow days we played in the snow 4 of those 6 days we sledded and went to a "hill" at a friends and tried to build a fort. Okay so we enjoyed it I'm ready for it to melt now. The icicles are really huge the kids want to know how to get them off of the tall tall house. Hope just asked if we could ask the neighbors for some of theirs they touch the ground! So we anxiously await the meltdown!

Levi turned 1

Levi turned 1 on January 29th, wow a year already? It doesn't seem possible that little guy has been in our life that long. The 1st birthday is a big one in our house we usually have large family birthdays and of a couple of cakes one just for the 1 year old. So how does one celebrate in a new place? Well we celebrated 3 times! Friday was his actual birthday so we went to Chick Fil-A to the play land that he has never experienced before you might say "hmm interesting, they are always at Chick Fil-A." I know but mostly drive thru of course and with him walking it seemed okay now to let him play. So dinner and brownies and ice cream all around, yum. Then Saturday we had planned on meeting one of Scott's co-workers at Chuckie Cheese's, well they cancelled so we still went. On a Saturday night we must have been crazy... it was insanely packed. The kids got tokens played the games we ate a not very good pizza and got the heck out of there. Then we we went to Friendly's which happens to have awesome ice cream just not good service so way past Levi bed time we finally got sundaes and ate the quickly as Levi was melting faster than the ice cream (okay all of us were melting). Phrew what a weekend of celebrating but we didn't do the cake! So the next weekend we make the cutest train car cake (thanks Lana for the pan) We all decorated and Levi was not very patient for that event as he was sitting in his high chair watching us with candy and icing he was angry we we not sharing so we rushed and got his done sang happy birthday (finally) and very fast took the candies off he couldn't eat(after the pics were taken) and he had lots of candy and cake well we continued to decorate the other train cars. Ah what we do to make ourselves feel like we celebrated this event properly.

The forgotten BLOG

So the blog falls by the wayside, sorry. I found it was a bit easier to post a bit on facebook. But was recently reminded my blog is better (thank you Sister & Debbie). I guess I have been avoiding it as it seems it would be to much to catch up on. So I decided I will do one post for the past and try to remember how important it is in the future.

So I think the last thing was the Aunt Julie in July, which seem so long ago. In August Mom went to Michigan to visit, we all stayed behind and got ready for school and enjoyed the rest of the summer. We went to Conneticut for Scott's employee picnic we passed through New York and on a clear day we may have seen the statue of liberty. Scott and the girls did tubing Tuesdays at the Wildlife Reserve down the road, Scott went once and swore he would never go again, but the girls went a few times it was fun to actually ride a ways in river that runs behind our house.

September we started school with Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School, an online public school. We had tons of great field trip opportunities, the girls loved the laptops they were loaned and the curriculum kept us very very busy.

In October Dad and Barb visited on their way out of the country to Italy. We had so much fun showing them around we went to Hershey Park again (you really can never get enough frankly) we did the chocolate tasting this time, the tour and the 3-D movie, which is a little crazy interactive. We also took them to our Farmers Market which has great selection of anything you could imagine. It was so nice to see familiar faces.

In November we traveled to Colorado for Thanksgiving. Wow 33 hours there and 26 hours back was enough car to last anyone awhile. We had a great time visiting friends and family of course there wasn't as much time as we wanted. I can't tell you how strange it is to not be at home for a holiday, even in years past if we went somewhere we would end back at home but it was different going to a hotel room after that Thanksgiving meal. Mom and the kids and I drove out and Scott and the kids and I drove back so as you can see Scott wasn't stopping for nothin' and everyone was sick and we just wanted to get home.

December was a little more difficult than I would hope we were all home sick and were having a hard go at holidays with out the craziness that usually surrounds it. We also made a tough decision and enrolled the kids in public school. We had heard great things about the school district so when we checked it out and felt pretty good about the schools it was just time. I think with all of the changes we have incurred in the past year it was just a better choice for right now, who knows what the future will hold. We had high hopes of going to New York to see the holiday decor but the couple times we tried it just wasn't in the cards, maybe next year.

Ah and here we sit in January, wow I caught up fast. The girls started public school they both take buses which is so exciting for them (I'm sure this will wear off soon). I think Faith was most excited about the smorgasbord she could choose from for lunch more than anything. Hope was excited about the kids she was going to play with even though she was out numbered with her being 1 of 2 girls in a class of 12. They really are enjoying it and learning which is what matters. Our little Levi has started walking and really expressing himself. Just today the dog stole his cookie(which happens frequently) and turned around and swatted her. It is just amazing how fast they grow, I have taken such joy in really watching him grow into a little boy. Well we had a mishap today and I was a in a car accident, yes with the new van. My fault completely and all I can say is the Tom Tom lady said "to turn left" she did not say to look you are on a one way street there could be someone next to you. So thank goodness no one was hurt due to my ignorance, the kids weren't with me and I have insurance. So there you have an up to date some what blog. I will do my darnedest to update this and please feel free to nag.

Aunt Julie Comes to Visit!

7/22/09

My sister was our first official visitor from Colorado, it was fantastic to see her! We all anticipated her arrival for a few weeks now so we made list of things to do and prepared the best we could with a baby who is teething (that's a whole other post) and 2 girls who were so excited between Aunt Julie and camp ( another post to come) they couldn't see straight.

Day 1
Well she did take the red eye so she fly through the night so she was a little tired when we got her here. We took her to Friendly's which is a restaurant that is on every corner out here and has pretty good food and fantastic desserts. So we showed her around town a bit and let her rest for awhile.We had Hawaiian Chicken for dinner our favorite mom dish. Scott went in search of a beer...Bud Select was requested as part of my sisters vacation, believe me this was not an easy feat! They only sell Liquor at the liquor stores in PA - no beer! You have to go into a restaurant & order it from the bar! They have beer warehouses where you can buy a case of warm beer at a time - in 10oz cans no less! Strange I tell you.

Day 2
Mom made sister her favorite french toast for breakfast then we did a touristy thing we went to Hershey, PA! We went to the World of Chocolate. It was so much fun! We got to learn all about Milton Hershey and his trials & tribulations he had to go through to become world famous. They had such a cool gift shop, we literally spent hours in it! Then we went and ate at The Kit Kat Cafe. The girls & Mom & Jill shared a build your own sundae... I had a Hershey's Chocolate milk - yum yum! We only did a few things and there was so much more to do not including the amusement park we definitely will take all visitors here so prepare yourselves for the love of chocolate!

Day 3

Sister and I took the baby to the Crayola factory while the girls stayed at the house with Grammy to get ready for their camping trips. My sister was so amazed at all the colors they have "this is so many more crayon colors than when I was little... what color do you think "Awesome" is? It's like a pinkish red color. What about "Happy ever after" - it's like a lite blue color. Who knew?" She said Then we went to Ice Cream World... after dinner. They had soft serve & hard ice cream and the best flavors the crazy thing - they had ice cream cones made out of pretzels! This is the pretzel capital I tell you and we surely have done a pretzel tour, we missed the pretzel doughnuts, that will be added to the next tour!

Day 4
We got up early & headed to the "Jersey Shore" - we ended up in Atlantic City. The traffic was awful & it took 6 hours and was a 2 1/2 hour drive! The boardwalk was really cool with all the shops. The beach... well it was crowded, and the happened to have abundance of "clam worms" yuck- o that didn't stop us we closed our eyes and ran passed them to jump waves. Sissy and Scott went to a casino and she taught him how to lose at Roulette.While we stayed at the "wormy ocean" & played in the ocean for a few hours then we decided to head back. The traffic was insane as we went back through Philly... apparently a Philadelphia Philly's game had just let out. I tell you we just can't win a good stress free trip to the ocean.

Day 5
Sunday the girls got ready for girl scout camp & Sister and Mom went out for brunch. Finally they were ready and left - the Girl Scout camp which was called Laughing Waters - but has no body of water on it... not even a river - is about 30 minutes away. The girls went right to their groups, I was very grateful I had them at the same camp, just different programs, that way they had each other if they needed each other. Sister and Mom went to the Philadelphia Pretzel Factory - an actual Soft Pretzel Store! They made theirs FRESH and they were totally cheap! Sister even bought shirt from there (pretzel tour, I tell you).

Day 6

We went into Philadelphia early to do some touristy things and we got to see the real Liberty Bell! (During the Civil War it was hid in Allentown, PA) It was really cool - they even have security with a metal detector there! There was so much stuff to do there - tons of history in that town. That's where George Washington lived while he was president & John Adams - the actual floor plan is laid out on the grass to see where the rooms were. It was really educational I can't wait to take the kids back! Our last meal with Sister we had to wait a really long time for but it was gooood a Philly Cheese steak, and she tried and she liked it yeah! We then took her to the airport with out getting too lost and sent her on her way. It was so great to have her here, now she knows all the crazy things I say about Pennsylvania are true!

Fun around home

7/12/09
We had planned on going to the shore but Hope wasn't up for it so we decided to just stay around here and do a few fun things.

There is a fish hatchery down the river a short way from us so we went and checked it out it is very old and was started in the early 1900's it houses several different kinds of trout from 12 inches long to about 3 feet long. Yes we do have lots of these trout in our river cool uh!

We went into our river with inter tubes! This was really fun Faith tied the raft to the tree and walked out to the middle of the river and rode down as far the rope would go. Then Hope got on with her and Scott tried as well (he mostly got wet didn't go very far). Scoot held on to rope as Faith rode down a ways, I think the neighbors probably think we are crazy we were screamin' and yellin' it was great fun!

Vacation Bible School

The first week of July the girls went to VBS at Concordia Lutheran Church. It was quite a production, I think about 160 kids it was crazy, but so awesome. The theme was Gadgets Garage, it was based on a guy who built a robot, so there was text messages to read and stuff the kids thought it was great.

We also became members of this church the following week it is a very comfortable place and Hope told us the first time we visited this was going to be our new church and she was right.