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.

For the last few years, Andy and I have talked about taking our kids to visit our alma matter, Grove City College for Homecoming weekend one year. This year seemed as good of a year as any, so Andy planned out the whole thing in late spring and booked our tickets. We decided to spend Thursday exploring downtown Pittsburgh, and then we would drive up to Grove City for Homecoming on Friday and Saturday.

The kids spent Labor Day weekend with Andy's parents this year. Normally the kids spend the night with them here and there, but they had never done three nights in a row, so they were pumped! They went over Friday after school and didn't want to come home until Monday night! Andy and I didn't put up much of a fight about that! Ha!