A Ton of Fun in 2021: Week 45 Recap

Gah, how is it November already? And why is my birthday on election day on a year that I'm up for election?!  So no matter what this year I'm eating cake! On Monday night Jeremy said he got home from the gym and he said that I needed to come outside. He taped me discovery that the sign gypsies had visited and put this amazing display in my front yard. Turns out Liz, Jill C. Canon, Alisha, Nikki, Jill L. and Mallory went in together to make this happen. So incredibly thoughtful.  Jeremy grabbed a spot light and put it up on the signs overnight. 

My birthday was eventful this year. I woke up to get ready to teach and stop by to vote before heading into work. After a full day in the classroom, I got a text from Carol Slane's at work saying they had tried to drop off flowers at my office, but had left them downstairs in the deans office. When I went down to pick them up, I found my parents had sent me flowers at work. How sweet and they were beautiful. I ended up taking them home to enjoy and put them in my bathroom to brighten each day from the start. 

Election Day- well I did a thing this year. I ran for school board. Many had asked why. My answer is simple- I wanted to get more involved in helping shape Elida student education. So here we are, with no campaign signs and no campaign frankly, trying to win one of the three seats up for grabs in a five contestant race. Those who know me, know that I loathe politics, so the thought of ever having to run for an elected position made me roll my eyes. But, school board is an elected position, so I ran. I had taken Olivia to gymnastics that evening when I text a friend and asked how would I know if won.  The answer was the board of elections would post it on their website. Sure enough, I didn't even have to look because at around 9 p.m. my phone started to explode with congratulations texts. I certainly didn't win by a landslide, but I did win, so in Jan. 2022 I will take a seat at the Elida School Board meeting. So very excited to get started. 

November 3 found Isaac at his first orthodontist appointment. It was just a consultation and they took some pictures of his mouth to get an idea of how to proceed. Wowzers. As you can see from the picture, we have some worth to do. A hereditary trait, he is missing three teeth and thus, teeth are just filling in holes however they want.  His mouth is a train wreck. So they developed a plan from spacers to braces to a permanent fake incisor tooth so he doesn't look like a toothless wonder his whole life!

I know we are no where close to Christmas season yet, but I don't care. This week I asked Jeremy and Isaac to carry up the Christmas tree from the basement. After finding the coats soaked, it was partly to get the tree out of the box and make sure there was no damage. Luckily there wasn't and everything worked fine. We also got down all the ornaments from the attic and the kiddos helped me put them on the tree. Nothing like the sparking lights to put you in the Christmas spirit. 

The weekend found us at Galion again, but this time at a normal meet. Isaac doing only the backstroke and free swims and Olivia doing fly, breast, and IM. Both did so well and mom was able to come over and watch again, which was so nice. Next week we will be back at home in Lima in a 8-lane pool with plenty of competition and both kiddos couldn't be more excited. 

Saturday night we made it back in time to drop off the kiddos at Maws before dressing up and meeting Kristi and Andy at OCP for Andy and I's birthday dinners. In typical fashion, there is never a dull moment. Jeremy and Andy ordered steaks.  They came out over done, which is the second time forJeremy when you pay they crazy rates, so both boys sent them back (which he NEVER does). Well long story short, it took them forever, Kristi and I were done, and they came out with a half of steak for each. We were dying laughing and the waiter told us that they had dropped one of the steaks and so they had to cook the third one. LOL. So they brought them out a second half later.  We ended up staying there for nearly 3.5 hours. Good news was they comp'ed the steaks and the better news is that the company was fantastic no matter what!  

Sunday was two back-to-back flag football games...the last of the season. The league itself was thrown together last minute, but it was still nice to see the boys out there playing and doing what they love. Jeremy will now move to being their basketball coach for many of them. I love that he is so involved in sports and coaching Isaac. Isaac enjoys flag football much more than tackle. I think it's because his true love is running and he gets to run and chase without hurting anyone (which isn't his nature). 

A Ton of Fun in 2021: Week 26 Recap

Olivia's Softball Playoff Game

Well no one expected Olivia's softball team to make it past the the first playoff game, but they did! Playing one of the Bath teams, we battled to win by a a few runs on a very chilling 61 degree evening at the ball field.  Jeremy went to coach Isaac's team at their first playoff game, so it was just Olivia and I.  It was cold and misty, but the girls did well and pulled off the W. Olivia played catcher again and hit a couple of singles.  Tuesday night they played the other Elida team and lost, but the other Elida team went on to win it all! So if you you're going to get beat, I guess it's good to be beat by the champions.  The picture of her arm is from my dumb ass attack.  So Olivia wrote her events of the swim meet on her forearm last Thursday.  By the weekend I was sick of seeing it. I asked her to scrub it off with soap and water, but it was still there. In my profound wisdom, I thought a magic eraser would remove it. It did. And then this burn started to form on her arm and she was screaming in pain.  What? Who knew a magic eraser would leave a mark worse than the sharpie?! Not me.  This is four days later afterward when I snapped a picture to send to Brittney to make sure I shouldn't be doing something more. Ugh. Live and learn.   

Cousin's Come to Play

Big things happening in my brother and his family's life. They bought new home on acres of land with a pond! They're so very excited, but now have to list their home for sale. Instead of going on an anniversary getaway, instead they are prepping their house for the hot market. This meant that the cousins needed to get out of the house and we got to have a sleepover. My kids were pumped to have them come spend the night.  Mom came too since all the grandkids were at one spot at one time! We went swimming when the weather allowed us to go out. But they also set up an indoor putt-putt course for everyone to play. It was pretty adorable. We had campfires and made s’mores.  We also visited Maw and Paw's to drop off something and they rode the crazy bikes and when talking about arrowheads decided to go out to the park over near Shawnee to search near the dried up creek.  They found some cool things so Hunter was excited. My kids still had to go to swim practice. So while my kiddos went to swim practice, we headed over to the park next door to play. Isaac and Olivia also had a swim meet on Thursday night against Kenton so Hunter and Addison got to watch them compete. Here is a photo dump of some of our adventures while they were here

Isaac's Laundry Project

Another thing that has been keeping us reading and busy is 4-H projects. I think I mentioned Isaac took gardening and laundry. Well one of his activities in his book to complete was making stains on a shirt and trying stain cleaner and hot and cold water on the stains. He was to leave them set overnight (we left for the weekend and they sat for 4 days-yikes!) and then do the experiment. He found out that warm water with stain remover applied works best.

 

Cedar Point With Maw and Paw

It's no secret that I have roller coster loving, thrill-seeker! He has been pleading with Maw and Paw to go to Cedar Point since COVID hit last year. Paw wasn't too sure about riding the coasters, but he signed up for he and Isaac to get fast passes for the coasters. On the other hand, Maw and Olivia were going to go to the waterpark originally, but then it ended up being so yucky, that they chose Cedar Point instead. Paw hung with Isaac for the first 6 hours before he had enough. Because he looked like he could pass out, we went to customer service and asked if they would transfer his fast pass to me so Isaac could finish out the night.  I know they shouldn't or don't encourage that, but they could see Isaac disappointment that Paw was done and like I said, Paw looked like death, so they agreed.  Isaac got to get on 20 rides today. Olivia and Maw rode small rides and Iron Dragon and spent most there day in the arcade and in the shops. I hung out with them in Frontierland and watched Olivia solve puzzles and meet the characters.  It was a fun day- even with the rain! Here is few of my favorite pictures from the day.  You know it's bad when 22 pictures is just a few of the pictures we took!

Fishing & The Airport Diner and Museum 

We were all too exhausted to drive home after leaving Cedar at 10pm after running all day. So we stayed another night at my parents lake house. It was nice to get up whenever and just take our time leaving. The kids decided they wanted to fish off the dock before we left. They caught some great fish! We also learned a lesson that the ice pack is on top of the cooler in the fridge on purpose so those sneaky worms don't make the great escape. At lunchtime we decided to check out the airport diner. It is located at the airport so you get to watch the planes come in and out. They have diner food- so milkshakes or a rootbeer float is a must when you visit. After we finished eating we headed back to Lima. We got home in time to swim in the pool and chill on Sunday after our fun-filled week 26 of 2021!