Revived

The Spiritual Emphasis Week at Hill-n-Dale was great this week. Elizabeth had a lot of fun playing with her friends every night and they had some great activities planned for them - they even got to see a fire truck up close! The adults had a lot of fun too. The speakers were all wonderful - especially our minister on the last night. But, I think the best part was how much the church grew through the process. It took so much cooperation and commitment by everyone to get it all done, and it was amazing seeing everyone step up and work together. David and I even managed to make it through our night on the Praise Team. I guess we did alright, because they've already asked us to do it again! Of course, I think the Praise Team was easier than our night volunteering in the 2-year-old room. We were really tired after that one!

I've finally wrapped up my grueling month at work also. To give you some idea of how much I had going on, I ended up billing an average of ~60 hours/week for the month - which doesn't even account for the administrative time I put in! But, the good news is that they have hired a new manager for my office, who starts on November 5, which means there should finally be an end in sight.

After all of that, I decided I needed a little break. So, believe it or not, I actually took a DAY OFF today. David, Elizabeth and I took advantage of it by heading to Raven Run Nature Sanctuary and going hiking. It was the first time in a long time that we'd tried putting her in the backpack and, once we learned to tune out her never-ending requests to get down and walk, it was very enjoyable. The leaves were starting to turn and fall off the trees and there was a slight nip in the air, so we feel confident that we may actually make it out of this incessant heat wave we've been dealing with for over 2 months now.

Here are some pictures from our excursion:







And, our hopeless attempt at using the camera timer to get a group picture involving a 2-year-old:



Now, before you all fall over in shock at the idea of me actually being able to take a vacation day, I'll have to admit that I ended up working most of the afternoon because I got a big new project in involving a collapsed roof of a building under construction. But, hey - at least I tried!

We're still here!

Yes, we're still here. Work has been crazy hectic for me the past 2 weeks (yes, I know I sound like a broken record, but it's even been worse than usual!). Plus, we've just been chugging through our normal routine with work, school, church, etc., with no real inspiration for blogging material.

So, we'll direct you to Aunt Erin's blog, because they've had all the recent excitement for our family. Yes, Baby Cousin Bridger is here! He arrived unexpectedly on Saturday, September 15 - just one day shy of Granddad's birthday. Just like Elizabeth, he was born at 36weeks, 2days, but was still big and healthy (almost 8 pounds - yowza!). Mommy and baby are doing great. We can't wait until we get to visit them in October!

Jonathan and David went on an overnight camping trip last Friday at Red River Gorge with some of the guys from Jonathan's youth group at church. They had a great time. Elizabeth and I took advantage of the time for a girl's outing to Mad Potter with some of my friends and their related children. She had fun making handprints and painting, and really liked spending time with the older kids there.



(Notice the brush is in her left hand - it's becoming more and more prominent for her.)

Other than that, most of the little free time we've had lately has been dedicated to getting ready for our church's Spiritual Emphasis week (a new-age revival), which will take place this week, Sept. 23-27, with the goal to get "Closer to Jesus." We're really excited about everything that's been going on in our church in preparation for this, and feel like it will be an amazing experience. David will be singing in a men's quartet on Sunday night, then we'll both be singing in a Praise Team on Monday and in the choir on Thursday. In between all that, I have to go to Indianapolis on Tuesday for an arbitration, then I have a daylong deposition scheduled for Wednesday. Hopefully, I'll have more time to breathe after this week is over!

The continued emergence of our girly-girl

Have I mentioned that Elizabeth believes all of her outfits should be pink, and the pinker the better? I'm sure you recognize this outfit, because if it's clean, she insists on wearing it. I call it her "flamenco" dress. David and I have even taken to hiding it on occasions when we're trying to convince her to wear something else. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I took this picture because I thought it highlighted her "girly-girl" nature. She had just gotten up from her nap, when she insisted on wearing her pink outfit, plus all of her necklaces and bracelets from Granddad. She also wanted her hair up in pigtails, so on a whim (ok, out of sheer laziness), I put her hair up in one big ponytail in the back. She insisted on looking in the mirror and preening, before she finally announced, "My hair is pretty. Just like the big girls at church!"

Have I mentioned we're in trouble?

Happy Birthday, Jonathan!

Today is Jonathan's 14th birthday. He celebrated on Friday night by having 3 friends over for a sleepover. After a quick pizza dinner and ice cream, they disappeared into our basement for a night of pool and video games. Everyone seemed to have a very good time.

Here's a picture of Jonathan with his "cake," which was really just a huge chunk of ice cream:



That was taken before he performed his annual custom of "decorating" it with gel icing:



Then it was time for him to try to blow out his trick candles:



Elizabeth even tried to help him do that by blowing from across the table:



Then the fun part - eating the ice cream. Everyone quickly learned that the gel icing colored any body part that it touched, especially lips and teeth:



Then, the boys figured out that if you mixed all the gel colors together they turned black. Here's a picture of Jonathan's friend Brian that I'm sure we'll be able to use as blackmail later:

The College Dropout

For what it is worth, here is the latest on my return to college situation. My experience with UK has been frustrating. My counselor, although a very nice lady, still couldn't tell me as of two weeks ago which of my previous college classes were going to transfer. I have been working with her for about a year now. Then, I arrived at my first class only to be greeted with no professor. The positive out of the situation is that part of my UK program involved some classroom volunteer time. I arranged to volunteer with a teacher that Jonathan had last year. He told me about a program at Morehead State University and put me in touch with the director of the Master of Arts in Education program. It is a program designed specifically for people who already have a degree in something and want to get their teaching certificate. I will go to school (once I start full time) for a year or two depending on my class load. At the end, I will not only have my teaching certificate, I will also have my masters degree. And, if you can believe it, I can actually go to work as a teacher as soon as I want as long as I am enrolled in the program. So, for a lot less time and money, I end up with a much better end result. I have dropped my UK class and am now preparing to take what amounts to a math placement test that will be used in place of countless math classes I would have had to take at UK.

Labor Day weekend

We didn't have much planned for this weekend, so we've used it to catch up on a lot of things. Elizabeth in particular has been working quite a bit. She recently learned how to open doors by herself, so her favorite new game is to "go to work" - she gives us a big hug, then goes out in the hall and shuts the door, then comes back in and gives us another big hug (then repeats ad nauseum). Even though it does get a tad bit tedious, we really like this game because it means we get lots of hugs and kisses, plus it doesn't require a lot of effort on our part!

Here's a sample of the game:



Do you think she'll still be wearing Dora panties when she really does start going to work?

I myself am not that excited about her being able to open doors, since I also have a 14-year-old stepson that lives in the house with me. So, we're now working on teaching her how to knock before she comes in!

In between all this hard work, we also managed to relax a little bit, including a neighborhood cook-out and a picnic in the park. Here are some pictures of Elizabeth playing on the playground:







Although this wasn't taken this weekend, here's a recent picture of Jonathan playing with Elizabeth in her sandbox:



Although it might be a coincidence, we've noticed he's much more eager to take her out back to play on her swingset now that a cute 7th-grade girl has moved next door!