Craft Camp

While we were gone my parents watched the kids (thank you).   As I have previously mentioned, I generally fail in the crafting requirements of a stay at home mom.  Something about being a biology major and PA that just doesn't lead to a lot of crafting enthusiasm.

Luckily, my kids got in a years worth of crafts during the 2.5 days we were gone as their kindergarten teacher grandmother happens to be quite comfortable in the crafting world.

Look at the the projects they managed to complete while we were gone....

Painting

This was generic painting. 

They also painted pictures of Easter eggs and decorated them with glitter.

 Dying Easter eggs

AND if you look closely in the photo below you 

will also see they tie-dyed paper towels.

Really, Mom?! 

Just a bit of an over-acheiver! :)

 Don't forget the homemade Easter cookies!

Along with many homemade meals.

Dad made sure to closely supervise in the background.

Haha! 

They also took lots of walks where apparently Erik discovered a bow.

I'm just kidding about the supervising!

The kids had a great time with Dad too.

I'm lucky my parents are young, healthy, and more than willing to watch the trio 

while we get away occasionally.

The kids have a lot of fun with Grandma and Papa but so far seem happy to see us when we get back.

I have not yet been asked to go live in Wisconsin and have Grandma and Papa live with them in Maryland as a certain spunky 5 year old may have suggested to her mom recently. 

(This is still making me laugh Kristal!)

There is still time for that I guess as my mom just left today.

Winner!

I almost forgot!  There is finally a winner of my book giveaway. :)  Kristal - you were the first person to comment once the comments got to (actually over) 1000 that had previously mentioned things you were grateful for!

Daron - you were the 1000th comment but didn't leave a previous comment so you have missed out on the opportunity to read Wheat Belly and One Thousand Gifts (at least the opportunity to own them for free).

Kristal - I hope you like the books!  I promise to send them to you soon!

Searching for Spring In Charleston

Victor and I spent three nights in Charleston this week.  We had a late flight on Saturday evening and when we got to the car rental counter Hertz said our reservation, which I had booked 2 days prior via priceline, had been canceled.  What?!  Hertz wouldn't/couldn't help us so we were left with the 1-800 number priceline provides.  Too make a long story short after 1 hr and 41 minutes of arguing with Priceline, they still wouldn't cave and admit any fault.  So FINALLY the Hertz lady called her manager and got permission to match the price that Priceline gave us and priceline agreed to refund us our money (or said they would at least - we'll see!) so at 11:30 PM we finally picked up a car and headed to the hotel.  I had also booked the hotel through Priceline and was a bit nervous that that would be messed up but thankfully, it was not.

The next morning we got up to a monsoon! This was as close to spring as we got while we were there (April Showers a little early, right?).

We had a specific restaurant in mind that morning and were not going to let a "little" rain stop us!  We bought some umbrellas and headed out to find the restaurant Hominy Grill.  We didn't make it.  We tried multiple different routes and each of them ended up like this.....

Totally Flooded!

So, we headed back to a main drag and just stopped at the first restaurant we came to which happened to be the best meal I ate while I was there.  It had a nutritional value of zero but it was sooooo good!  I can still taste it and almost went back for it a second day but the caloric counter in my brain got the best of me. Ha!

Grit cake, poached egg, Cajun shrimp at Virginia's

This meal alone might be worth a trip to Charleston.

Unfortunately, Victor is allergic to shellfish so I had no one to share it with.

Despite the monsoon and highs around 50 with blustery winds we managed to see quite a bit and had a nice time.  Charleston is full of history.  We walked on the campus of the Citadel (and went to the museum), went to the Slave Market museum, toured a working tea plantation, walked down to Battery Park and Riverfront park, shopped a little, visited Boone Plantation, ate quite a bit, and walked a lot!

We wanted to visit Fort Sumter (site of the first battle of the civil war) but the Ferry was canceled due to high winds. 

My favorite place we visited was the tea plantation.

Did you know that the only tea grown in America is found in Charleston.

The next closest tea producer is 4000 miles away!

It was a fun tour - lots of free tea!

Tea plants - I believe the tour guide said they are in the evergreen family

Tea Harvester

(One machine replaces 500 workers)

Tea Factory

If you want to purchase the only tea grown on American soil you can do so HERE.

(I was happy to hear they use no chemicals on their tea plants!)

Otherwise, you can come visit us as I bought quite a bit of it! :)

Blogging While Bathing?

I'm not but I seriously considered it tonight.  The blog has been silent recently because we have been busy.  During the past three weeks Victor was gone on a work trip, then the 5 of us went to Williamsburg for a few days, then Victor and I went to Charleston.  We got back Tuesday evening then both of us worked a full day on Wednesday.  Today I took the kids and my mom up to DC to spend the day at the Children's museum before my mom headed back to WI.   Oh and Victor also started a new job three weeks ago and has been working for 12+ hours a day (when we haven't been out of town).  I'm We're quite tired!

So tonight, while I know the blog has been silent (and Gigi is probably missing out on all photos I normal post) all I could think about was taking a bath. Ha!  So I did and instead of blogging watched an episode of Modern Family and now am trying to blog a bit before I fall asleep!

Joy Project

140)  Beautiful sunny day today

141)  Long talk with a friend who moved to California recently

142)  Lainey skipping.  She loves to skip and skips as often as she walks.

143)  Carson saying, "Otay!"  instead of Okay.  It is SO cute!

144) Carson's sense of humor!  He is a funny, little guy with big dimples and a huge grin.  So sweet!

145)  Running 1.5 miles with Erik this afternoon, hiding Easter eggs along the way, which made the run a fun event.

Quick Get-Away

We took the kids to Williamsburg for two nights last week.  Erik missed one day of school - an "unexplained absence" as the attendance secretary pointed out but I figure it doesn't matter too much in pre-k.  Ha!

 We spent the first night at Great Wolf Lodge.  This is pretty great place to take small kids.  Erik is now big enough to enjoy all of the slides (except the tornado which I have not taken him on) which is great because I LOVE water slides and am happy to have a partner.

Carson and Lainey had fun too.  They spent a lot of time in the kiddie pool area where where are water toys and three small slides.  I think Carson probably went down the little slides 50 times. Ha!  Lainey also loved the kid-friendly hot tub which was cute!

I let Erik run around in the "tree house" area unattended as it doesn't have more than 12 inches of water but there are a lot more fun activities for kids his age (climbing, water guns, bigger slides, etc.).  It is right next to the kiddie area and he checked in with us every time the big bucket dumped out.  Most of the time one of us was with him but this worked well if only one of us was at the water park for some reason (packing/unpacking - thank you Victor).

During the second day both Lainey and Carson went down a medium slide (which is actually quite large) on their own (can't ride with them!).  Lainey said she was scared, Carson said he had fun but neither was willing to go do it again. Ha!

There are 4 really big inner-tube slides.  One is the tornado which no one went on this time but another one is a big river raft ride. It's pretty adventurous but we took everyone down it.  Erik went a number of times, Lainey and Carson again only went once.  Haha!  I have a feeling that Carson is going to be a holy terror on the slides when he is 5.

Sleep at the water park was not great.  This was our fault as we let Carson sleep in the "tree fort" portion of the room instead of a crib.  Therefore, he and Lainey were up almost constantly until 4:30 in the morning.  Haha!   The next night we stayed at a different hotel in a much smaller room which I thought might be a problem.  But we put Carson in a crib, Erik on a roll-away, Victor and Lainey in one bed, and me in another and no one made a peep for 9 hours.  Hallelujah!

Guess Who Slept???

After we checked out from the water park we headed to James Town, VA.  This is where the English first landed in 1607. Erik LOVES history and loved this park.  He listened intently to all the guides and movies and is now well versed on that part of our countries history.

The following day we went to Yorktown, VA which is the site of a large battle during the revolutionary war where General Cornwallis surrendered.  Erik can now tell you quite a bit about the Revolutionary War in addition to the Civil War.  I love to watch him learn and have learned quite a bit myself. :)

 Lainey and Carson were not interested in the history lesson or the 

rifle demonstration but greatly enjoyed the Jamestown chickens. :)

After visiting that park we headed to Richmond on our way home and stopped at the Children's museum.  The whole trio enjoyed that.

It was a nice getaway and it'd been 8 months since we'd taken the kids anywhere so I think they enjoyed it.

Joy Project!

132)  This sweet girl that asks me to curl her hair in the morning.  I'm not any better at that than I am at painting nails but she doesn't care!  (I only do this 1-2 days a week due to lack of time!)

133)  Family fun on Carson's birthday yesterday (more to follow on a separate post)

134)  3 sunny (aside from 8 hours of rain this morning) 60 degree days in a row!

135)  After dinner walk with Erik (in the light) - he is so chatty when he has some one on one time.  I love it!

136)  Spring peepers serenading us loudly on our walk - remind me of home

137) 3 kids who sleep through the night (I have two friends who have been really lacking sleep lately which reminds how nice sleep really is!)

138)  My joyful, spunky two year old, who is so full of personality!

139)  All three kids happily eating a bowl of carrot and sweet potato soup tonight!  Erik even told me that he didn't like the soup, "He LOVED it!" Shocking!

What brought you joy today?

Two!

A certain little boy greeted his birthday with a lot of exuberance this morning!  We love you sweet boy and hope your birthday brings you as much joy as you have brought us!

Another Admirer

As I've mentioned before Erik and Madison are very good buddies - apparently planning a wedding someday. Ha!

Well, Maddie's younger sister Molly has apparently made quite the impression on Carson.  She is almost a year older than him but in his same class at church.  My slow to speak (in the past - he now repeats everything you say) came out of church last week talking about Molly.  We did not prompt him in anyway.  Until then I had no idea he even knew who she was or that he played with anyone at church.

Here is a cute video of the kids from last weekend...

And in case you want to listen to Pastor John's last sermon entitled " Dare to Care" the link it below.  It was a touching sermon.


Dare to Care

Joy Project/I'm Back

Well, after 3 weeks we are all (for the moment) healthy again.  I'm hoping we can stay virus free for a month or so as we are hoping to get out of town and will be hosting visitors, both which would be best if virus' stay away!

Anyway, despite the annoying virus invasion the magnitude of our daily blessings, and fairly carefree life, was not forgotten.  So back to the joy project...

122) Daron's good news - :)

123) Beautiful warm and sunny day today

124) A nice visit with friends tonight

125) Pastor John and our church.   We go to a Methodist church which is filled with 40-50% traditional methodist families and then 50-60% of people from all different church backgrounds - non-denominational, catholic, lutheran, etc.   This is different from any other church I've been a part of and I really love it.  The pastor is able to somehow communicate what the heart of Christianity really is and not get caught up in the small details that leave so many churches divided (and many people uninterested in faith of any kind).  He is one of the most heartfelt, kind, and quietly passionate pastors I've ever met.  I am thankful for him.  Anyway, last weekend my friend Julie had her girls baptized. This is one of the "small"issues people get stuck on - do you baptize your kids as infants or wait until they publicly declare their faith??  The bible does make it clear that being baptized is important but the details surrounding that aren't really black and white.  So, knowing that our church is a mixed bunch of folks Pastor John is happy to baptize babies, small kids, big kids, or adults.  The babies and little kids get baptized with the sprinkle method, the big kids and adults give their testimony and get dunked.  :)  Julies' girls are 4 and (almost) 3 and the eldest just happens to be Erik's best bud Madison!  So he was quite excited to watch her get baptized.  Erik and Lainey may have even brought the girls sparkly glitter flower bouquets for their big day.  It was a chaotic morning as during the season of Lent the kids start out the church service with us, then do a lesson with Pastor John up front, and then head to their classes.  So all the little kids were up front during the baptism.  Yikes!

 That's Lainey up front and central with Pastor John during the children's church portion

Erik and his buddy Madison, the photo quality is awful 

as it was on my phone and from a distance.  Err!

126) My part-time job -- I really love working part-time.  I somehow managed to land a job working with an extremely brilliant and kind doctor here in a rural and fairly remote area.  I am learning a lot, will be expanding my role in the clinic in May which is exciting (just assuming more responsibility not adding extra hours yet), and can truly say this is my favorite PA job I've ever held.  (I really liked working at Marshfield clinic which was my first job out but I hated the OR and spent 30% of my time assisting in the OR.  I enjoyed the GI aspect of my 2nd PA job but didn't enjoy the clinic I worked at very much - many of my colleagues were nice and there were some very bright doctors but it was a private practice.  The doctor's were our "owners/bosses" not our colleagues and were not on our team which seems extra clear now that I am back in a hospital owned practice.  I'm sure that's not true of all private practice settings but definitely was in the practice I worked at and I'm thankful to be back in an environment were I know the doctor I am working with values my help and is very supportive rather than just looking at how I can save him time and money.  Yikes!)

127) Quiet evenings after busy days

128) Chamomile tea and homemade chocolate pudding

129)  My sweet and goofy Carson shouting "Annie!" from the back seat if I don't turn on the music fast enough. 

130) Lainey and Carson playing and singing "Ring around the Rosie" together tonight while at the playground

131)  Erik and his passionate love of soccer - practice starts this week and he is so excited!

What has brought you joy this week?

Good news!!

My blog has been very quiet lately!  Last week I was sick with the kids cold turned sinus infection.  I have never had such an awful headache before and am very thankful for augmentin.

Once I started feeling better our computer decided to break.  Updating the blog via iPad is not enjoyable so it's been quiet.  I am hoping to have my computer back by Saturday.  We will see.

My silence has to be temporarily interrupted by some good news though.  What news is that??  I'm going to leave you in suspense but highly suggest you visit Darons caring bridge page (daronwilliams). First time in this journey that I've shed tears of joy.  Finally it seems some prayers have been answered.  Let me know if you have trouble accessing his page.