Happy birthday...

...to my brother Matthew!

We were excited to be able to celebrate his birthday with him while we were there this past week...

...below is a typical picture in our family...

Happy birthday, Maciej! We love you!

 

Home again, home again...

We're back home safe and sound...we had a great time and tried to be helpful during the move, too.  As my family always does when we're together, we made lots of fun moments in the midst of the work...there's always a lot of teasing, jokes, and laughter.

My favorite moment of this trip was while we were driving caravan-style from the old apartment to the new house.  In the lead was my parents in their truck with a trailer, then Matthew, then us, then Caleb.  At a stop sign, my dad jumped out to check something on the trailer (no one else was behind us), and one of the brothers started to honk his horn...so of course, I and the other brother joined in.  People from the gas station across the street were all looking to see the guy with the truck who was holding us all up! :)  My dad took it in stride -- he's used to us!!!

Sorry, not many pictures of the move...check out my mom's blog post here for those.  I do, however, have a picture of my brothers and me last night, enjoying a favorite family delicacy...deer heart!  One of our friends here in Georgia got a deer Saturday and gave me the heart (happiness is) -- I took it down to share and we cooked it and ate it together...bonding, country-style!!!

The week is off to a running start...

The kids and I will be heading to Florida early tomorrow morning to help my brothers move into the new house they're renting...so today will be a flurry of school, packing, and cleaning.  It'll be a very fast trip (coming home Thursday), but we're happy to help out and to be a part of their excitement!

Here's a (completely unrelated) picture of the kids playing on Saturday morning.  Having been inspired by our trip to the Varsity, they dragged out the McDonald's playset and played Varsity for a while -- complete with the signature "What'll ya have?"!!!

Fernbank Field Trip

Yesterday RaDora and I took the kids to the Fernbank Museum of Natural History for a field trip.  We explored the whole museum and, for most of our visit, we had the place to ourselves, which was great!  It's nice to have the leisure and peacefulness of no crowds at a place like that.  With the exception of the museum's missing out on the clear evidence of our Creator's amazing hand in our amazing world (but we had addressed that ahead of time with the kids), this was a great field trip and we plan to go back throughout the year as special exhibits arrive...and when an interesting Imax movie is showing (the two showing yesterday weren't appealing, so we skipped it).

Our favorite exhibit was undoubtedly Sensing Nature, a hands-on exhibit that explored cool things about the body, the brain, and nature.

We all loved the bubble maker...

RaDora and I laugh that one of the reasons we get along so well is that we are both so easily amused...but it was cool to see our eyes up close!

The lightning globe was amazing and was David's favorite part of the trip.

 They had a kids' area that we spent a few minutes in...Abigail fit nicely into the flower 'garden'...RaDora was a good sport about sitting in the cave so I could take this picture!

This little thing had stuffed 'worms' that you dropped into the baby birds' mouths, then retrieved from the bottom of the tree trunk to feed them again.  David HAD to figure out how it worked. :)

 After our museum trip was done, RaDora treated us to lunch at an Atlanta tradition -- the Varsity.  It's a classic 'greasy-spoon' kind of restaurant, and...oh, was it good!

 We all practically licked our plates and then decided that we couldn't leave without trying the fried pies, too.  Yum!

At one point on our journeys through the downtown area, I spontaneously burst into song..."Green acres is the place to be...Farm livin' is the life for me...Land spreadin' out so far and wide...Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside!"  It was a good thing RaDora knows downtown, because not too long into our driving, I was very lost!  I don't mind city driving, but the navigating ability abandoned me completely yesterday.  No worries, though, because RaDora knew exactly where she was taking us next...to a special place just for my enjoyment...

This is a little hole-in-the-wall type shop that is so charming in a downtown setting.  It's a co-op of local artisans, so we wandered through and saw lots of neat handmade things, from soaps to jewelry to clothing to purses.  As a crafter, I am always up for new ideas and inspiration, so it was lots of fun.  I bought a fat quarter as a souvenir of our day...I'll incorporate it into something at some point...not sure what...but every time I see it, I'll remember our fun day!

Water fun

Since we had some pictures left on the waterproof camera, we had some fun at the pool with it.  Here are our favorites.

Abigail doesn't actually go underwater yet, but here she is above-water and below-water! 

Floating down the Ichetucknee River

When we visited my brothers last month, they treated us to a tubing trip down the Ichetucknee River.  These pictures are belated because we had to wait for the waterproof camera to be developed (which reminds me just how much I love digital!)...the picture quality isn't great, but at least it captures the general idea!  We had such a great time.

We rode tubes/rafts down the river...

The guys had to try stunts, of course (I missed a shot of Caleb jumping off an overhanging branch)... 

As we floated, we could hear thunder in the far distance, but by the time we got to the last few hundred yards, it was getting really close.  We literally watched it roll in and we were glad to get out of the river just in time!

Our tram ride back to the parking lot was a wild ride of torrential rain, thunder, and lightning -- more fun than any amusement park!  Although it spoiled our hopes of taking another ride down the river, it was fun nonetheless.  You can't see the actual rain in this picture, but the graininess/blurriness is because it was raining like only a Florida-afternoon-thunderstorm can rain!

Getting six drenched bodies into the car without the benefit of a dry place to change was very interesting...but we made it work.  We got back to their place in time to clean up, dry off, and devour the roast beef that had been cooking itself while we played at the River...and then we enjoyed a fun evening of being together.

I think David's summary of our NY trip has become my new summary of any time spent with family..."The only bad part was leaving!"

Hearing updates

In the flurry of leaving for our trip to New York, I forgot to post results from our latest hearing checks (August 24th).  Abigail had some improvement in her mid-high frequencies; David had more loss.  In fact, he is nonresponsive in one of the high frequencies, meaning that the equipment can't get loud enough for him to hear it, and has profound or near-profound loss in several others.  We notice the difference -- he hears much less without his HAs now -- but with HAs on, he's still doing great.

Here are a couple of pictures of them after their booth testing -- RaDora took them for me (thanks!) -- note David's very OCD pattern.  That's my boy! :)

Join the sewing fun!

This was a very apropos theme for me to join in on since we have several pajama-needs in our family that I have been planning to sew for.  Spare time in which to sew might be an issue this month...but this will be some good inspiration, anyway!

Summer is winding down...

Today is the last day of the pool season for this year...we went down to enjoy it and got the whole pool to ourselves!

Settling in at home again

I know, I know...a blog post without pictures is blahhhh...sorry!  But I have been sidelined with another UTI/kidney infection, so I'm not feeling very ambitious...I have gotten some laundry done and dinner in the oven, but that's about the extent of it...pictures are pretty low on my priority list right now!

We are looking forward to a long weekend with Bruce...although he will do some work from home, he will be here and we are all excited about that, especially after a long week away from him.  Abigail especially has been very Daddy-clingy since we got home, so I expect most of Bruce's weekend will be spent with a Velcro-daughter firmly attached to his side. :)

Hope you enjoy your weekend as much as we plan to!

Our trip to New York...history in textiles

One last post to share a bit of family history with those of you who love history and textiles. My grandma got out these special quilts to show me and we spent some time with them that was very dear to my heart...I love to hear family history stories and my grandma is so good about sharing them. We sat for a long time while I admired the work -- and enjoyed touching the same fabrics and stitches that my grandma and great-grandma touched so many decades ago! -- and my grandma pointed out fabrics and shared their stories with me. The top left and top right quilts are ones that my grandma and her mom made in anticipation of my grandparents' wedding (they got married in July of 1953). The bottom left is one that my grandma made in her newlywed days. The one on the right is one that my grandma, her mom, and my aunt made in early 1978, during the sad days after my grandma's dad (my great-grandfather) passed away. Below is a close-up of the quilts so that you can see a little bit more of the fabrics (click on the photo to enlarge). There are fabrics that were from the clothing of my grandma, her sisters, my great-grandma, and even my great-great-grandma; there are fabrics that were from my great-grandma's aprons. There is so much family history sewn into each careful stitch. I wonder if my great-grandma, while she stitched away, ever daydreamed about future generations admiring her work. I'm so glad my grandma gets to see all of us admiring hers. What a wonderful treasure!