We started out our December with our annual Christmas shopping trip to the mall. I don't know how many years we've done this now, but we look forward to it every year. The kids have so much fun picking out gifts for each other and for us. They seem to be getting better and better at it every year.

Making (and eating) Christmas cookies is one of the kids' favorite December traditions around here. They especially love helping decorate the sugar cookies.

I thought I would do one short camera dump, before it's time for all the Christmas posts...

Joey has played on a competitive basketball team for a few years now, called And1. He's had a few different coaches in those years. We're so thankful for Coach Lara who he has now. She is an excellent coach, and Joey and her have a really sweet relationship. It's been great.

On Sundays in the fall, Joey and Hannah have been part of a program called "Shooting Stars." It's a basketball rec league for kids with special needs. Every kid is paired with a buddy to help them out and encourage them. Joey's buddy, Ryan, is the best.

He's super friendly and loves basketball. He's really into playing and smiles the whole time. Joey loves being with him.

Hannah's buddy, Kacie, is a sweet girl with cerebral palsy. Funny enough, when Hannah was in kindergarten, Kacie and another third grader were Hannah's third grade reading buddies. It was neat for them to be back together after so many years.

My dad's birthday is in the middle of October so we had my parents over for a birthday lunch. We were so glad Timmy was able to make it!

Pumpkin patch at the kids' school.

Yum!

Wednesday evenings Andy has basketball practice with Hannah and Joey's teams, so Ellie and I have the house to ourselves. We like to eat an early dinner and then play games. I used to be able to beat her easily in Memory. Now she beats the pants off me.

At least I can still win games of total luck! 

Joey is in the advanced band, "Symphonic Winds" at his school. They had a concert this fall, and it was so good. I can't wait to hear what they sound like at the end of the year!

I've been doing Jazzercise since August 2018 right after Ellie started first grade because it was the first time all three of my kids were in school all day. This was my first full year, and I got the shirt for coming to 150 classes!

Yay for fall colors! 

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, while we were still in Texas, we were hanging out at the lake and Andy decided to go for a ride in the old boat. He took off his shoes because there was quite a bit of water in the bottom of the boat, and when he got in he stepped right on a rusty screw.

It's been a long time since he had a tetanus shot, so Andy and I drove to an Urgent Care about 20 minutes away. I actually called two medical centers that were close by as we were driving. One lady I talked to was really grouchy, and the lady at the other place was lovely, so we chose the friendly place. I'm sure glad we did! The staff at the Urgent Care was wonderful!

That trip ended up being a trial run for the next day. Saturday was our last day of vacation. Our flight left at 6:50 pm that night. That morning I told the kids to get in as many ATV rides as possible because that was going to be their last chance.

About an hour before we were going to head to the airport, Joey and Hannah came back from an ATV ride with Hannah crying and her arm all cut and bloody. They were exploring a new trail, and Hannah made a wrong turn. She thought it was the trail, but she ended up running into a barbed wire fence. The barbed wire clotheslined her in the arm. Her ATV plowed through the bottom part of the fence, and she got thrown backwards off the ATV. Thankfully she was wearing a helmet and goggles. The bummer was that she had just taken her sweatshirt off because it was pretty warm, and all she had on was a tank top.

As soon as I saw her arm, I knew she was going to need stitches. We got in the car and left right away because we needed to go to the Urgent Care, but we also had a plane to catch! Praise the Lord, the timing all worked out perfectly. We went back to the wonderful Urgent Care, and she got seen right away. They cleaned out her wounds, stitched her arm, glued a cut on her neck, and bandaged her all up. We just had to stop at a Walmart to pick up her prescription for some antibiotics, and then we were on the way to the airport. We got there with plenty of time to return our rental car, check in, and have a nice dinner after our crazy afternoon.

Hannah bounced back relatively quickly. It was nice to see her smiling again. I think it was the promise of milkshakes at Ruby's Diner!

This was a picture of her arm the Monday after her accident. My sister said the picture looks like she lost her arm and they sewed it back on. Ha! Thankfully, it looked worse than it was, but it was very sore that first week.

I took this picture exactly a week later right after she got her stitches out. (Thankfully getting her stitches out went a lot better than last time.) The doctor wanted to put two little steri-strips on the deeper part of her cut so that it wouldn't open up again. What a difference a week makes! Her arm looks so much better. We're so thankful that her injury was as minor as it was. It could have been much worse, and we are so thankful for the Lord's protection!

For Thanksgiving this year, we flew to Houston and drove about an hour and a half north to Colmesneil, TX where Andy's Uncle John and Aunt Judy have a cabin and a bunch of land. Andy's parents came too. We had such a wonderful week in the woods!

I posted about Ellie's soccer season, but Joey and Hannah also had great seasons. Hannah's team, the Super Smurfs, were in first place all season. The only two games they lost were the two games Hannah wasn't at, so officially Hannah had an undefeated season! ;-) Unfortunately the girls' first playoff game was not until 7:30 at night, and the girls just weren't themselves. They lost and were pretty heartbroken about it.

This year Ellie's soccer team was the Flamingos. They had a great season and only lost one game. This is especially fun because her coach, who I happened to go to high school with, had coached the season before and never won a game. Then we ended the regular season in first place! 

After having a bye and then winning two playoff games, they made it to the championship game. Quick side note, our three kids each play three sports a year. Collectively, they've made it to the final championship game for different sports seven times. They've won zero times.

On the day we were evacuated because of the fire, Ellie was supposed to have her second grade performance and a field trip. Both got postponed, and her performance was rescheduled on a day when I was going to be subbing for Hannah's class. I was going to get another teacher to cover my class for those thirty minutes, but then I found out that Hannah's class had PE during the performance time. Perfect! I love when things like that work out!

Joey's birthday was on Sunday, and we had his birthday party the following Saturday. This year he decided to have another park birthday party like two years ago. He invited ten friends and three of their younger brothers (Joey hangs out with those three younger brothers at our park days during the summer, so he considers them friends too).

Halloween 2019 was all about our legal system theme.

Believe it or not (we don't really believe it), we have a teenager in the house! Joey turned 13 on Sunday. We started the day with our traditional birthday donuts. After church, he played video games all afternoon.

Andy's grandfather turned 90 years old this month, so his family had a party for him. All of his kids (Andy's parents, aunts, and uncles) and grandchildren (Andy's brother and cousins) were there to celebrate. Grandpa lives in a suburb of Philadelphia, so Andy flew out to Philadelphia for a quick weekend.

He stayed at his brother's house and finally got to meet our new niece Jane. She was darling.

Hank was thrilled to have Uncle Andy come to visit. Andy took the red eye and was there Saturday morning to greet Hank when he woke up. The first thing Hank said when he saw him was, "Where is the Star Wars Battlefront II [Xbox] disc?" Apparently he's been looking for that game disc for a long time.

Grandpa's party was at a nearby park. 

They had fried chicken and cupcakes. 

Andy got to see his aunts, uncles, and cousins, some of whom he had not seen in several years.

It was Hank's birthday in a couple of days so Grandpa gave him a Spiderman outfit.

Grandpa and his four kids

The next day also happened to be Hank's 5th birthday party, so Andy got to go to a second party in as many days. This party was a little louder than Grandpa's. It was at a local pub/bar that has as an indoor kid's play area complete with a jungle gym and Nintendo games. Hank had a blast.

We love these four! 

My sister-in-law, Sarah, texted me after the weekend and said that Andy was the MVP of the party.

Andy got to hand-deliver Hank's birthday present, a Batman video game. Hank was just a little excited.

It was a whirlwind of a weekend, but Andy is so glad he got to celebrate Grandpa and Hank with his family.

 

Friday night was our annual Halloween carnival. It made it a little more interesting this year because we were evacuated the night before, but we still made it! This year for Halloween, Joey decided to make it easy and just stick with his costume from last year. Cameron and Ellie decided they wanted to be robbers, so then Hannah decided to be a cop.

This past week we've had some hot, dry, Santa Ana winds blowing through our town. Thursday night was especially windy. Joey actually slept in a sleeping bag in the girls' room that night because a tree branch was banging and scraping across his window really loudly. 

Around 3:30 am, I woke up, saw that the power was out, and heard the kids talking in the girls' room. I went to go check on them, and found out that Ellie was kind of freaking out about the power outage. I calmed her down and told all the kids to go back to sleep. 

I went back to bed to try to fall asleep, and I heard sirens. A few minutes later I heard banging on the front door. Andy went to answer the door, and I went to get the kids up because we knew right away that there must be a fire on our hill. We had to evacuate in 2007 and 2014, so we knew the drill. 

I got the flashlights from the garage, and we all started packing. The kids and I took off for Andy's parents' house (which was empty because they are in Philly right now), and Andy stayed behind to finish packing some important things from the house and to knock on our neighbors' doors. 

As soon as we got to Andy's parents' house, we found out that the fire had already been contained, but our power was going to be off for several more hours at least. We decided to stay where we had power and AC! I got the kids settled and tucked into their beds. I tried to go back to bed myself, but I was still texting with some neighbors trying to get updates, and waiting to hear if the kids were going to have school the next day. At 6:20 am I got a phone call from the school that their power was out so that school was cancelled. Finally, I was able to fall asleep around 6:30 and slept until 10:00. 

We ended up having a cozy family day at Andy's parents' house. Andy slept in too and then worked from home. We raided the pantry and freezer for whatever food we could find. The kids were pumped to find Ritz crackers and Pringles. At one point I told the kids that we were so fortunate to have a house to come to with power. Hannah added excitedly, "And Pringles!" We relaxed and watched the movie, Bedtime Stories together (so good, we highly recommend it).  

Around 2:00 we found out that our power was back on and earlier than we expected. After the movie, we packed, cleaned, and then headed back home. Once we were home, we unpacked, got everything put away, and got ready for our annual Halloween carnival. What a day! 

On Saturday we got up early to have a complimentary breakfast at the school. The kids got to meet the school mascot, Willie Wolverine. After breakfast, we walked around campus some more.

Friday morning, we checked out of our hotel in Pittsburgh, got a rental car, and drove an hour north to Grove City. We met Rachel and her kids at the Best Western where we were staying together. Michael coaches a high school football team, so he actually made the drive back to Indiana for their Friday night game. We were down one adult, but thankfully with Joey and Hannah helping with the little ones, it kind of felt like five adults and five kids. 

For lunch we went to Rachel's Roadhouse because we have fond memories of going there in our college days. In fact, the first time I met Andy's parents they took us out to Rachel's.

We had a girls' side of the table...

and a boys' side.

After lunch, we went back to the hotel to drop Rachel, Luke and Nathan off for nap time. Then we took Ben and Lauren with us to visit Grove City College. We headed to the bookstore first thing so that the kids could pick out GCC sweatshirts. Then we explored a little. This student union was built after we were there. It was neat seeing all of the beautiful new buildings.

This STEM building was also new. It had such great quotes all around about how science and faith go together.

At 3:00 we were scheduled for an official tour of the college.

When we were in the PLC (Physical Learning Center) on our tour, Andy found his old water polo team picture. Andy and his friend worked with the swimming coach at Grove City their sophomore year to get a grant from the U.S. Water Polo Association to start a water polo team at the school. The water polo program is still going on to this day.

After our tour, I went back to the hotel to pick up Rachel, Luke and Nathan, and then we all went to the cafeteria for dinner. Man, the food is so much better than when we went there! The kids loved all of the options...especially the dessert table!

After dinner, we walked through the library and showed the kids where Andy and I met for the first time. (Officially it was the second time we met, but that's a story for the next blog post.) Here's our library story:

At the very end of my sophomore year (Andy's junior year), I started noticing this guy I had never seen before looking at me a lot during finals week. I was studying in the Gee (the old student union) when I first noticed him staring at me. Over the course of the next few days, it seemed like all of a sudden I saw this guy everywhere...in the cafeteria, walking around campus, even at church, and we were always awkwardly looking at each other. Then I saw him sitting in the library next to my roommate's boyfriend, Adam. Finally, someone I knew that knew him! When Adam came over to the table where my roommate and I were studying, I immediately asked who that guy was. Adam started laughing and said that that guy has just asked about me.

Adam went on to say that Andy had asked Adam to introduce the two of us, so they concocted this whole plan. While we were sitting there studying at the library, Andy was going to come over and ask Adam about a Phish CD that Adam had borrowed from him. Then Adam would take the opportunity to introduce the two of us. As soon as I heard the plan, I was on board (poor Andy had no idea that Adam was telling me everything ahead of time), but I had a suggestion. Since my roommate Jenny and another guy Rich were also at the table studying with us, I told Adam to make sure he introduced Andy to all of us and not just me. Otherwise that would be too obvious. Adam agreed.

Sure enough, after a little while Andy came over to our table and asked Adam about his Phish CD. Adam then introduced Andy to Rich, Jenny and finally me. The best part is that Andy thought it was so smooth of Adam to introduce him to everyone at the table and not just me. He couldn't believe it when he later found out that not only was I in on the whole plan, but that last part was my idea.

After Andy and I were introduced, we talked a couple of times before we left for the year, and we started dating the next fall when we got back to school. It was weird being back at the library table where it all started, and showing it to our three kids.

After our trip down memory lane, we hung out in front of the library for a while...

while the cousins all played in front of the boys' dorms.

As we were walking back to the car, we saw Andy's fraternity sign. I made him take a picture.