6-10-2012 Blue Marsh for Lily & Me

Lily and I went to Blue Marsh today from 1000-2:00. It was about 90 degrees and quite humid so the cold lake water was quite refreshing.

Charlie stayed home to paint the barn. Luke stayed home as well.

Now hanging out as a family watching DVDs.

6-9-2012 Lily's 8th Birthday Review

Yesterday was Lily's 8th birthday. It was a day packed with action, just like Lily likes it. We started off with a mother-daughter breakfast at Shady Maple while Charlie and Luke stayed home and cleaned up the house. Then we went to Ballocity with 2 of Lily's friends, Lila and Tucker. We came home for hot dogs and cookies and a quick playmate with Lila, then off to the Reading Phillies for a baseball game and fireworks.

I had baked a cake the day before at Lily's insistence and with her help. Unfortunately, after it was decorated, it developed a very large crack in the middle that looked like the after-effects of an earthquake. So we decided that would be the 'practice cake' and we had lemon cookies for her birthday. Bought at Redner's per Lily's request.

We were thinking of going to Knoeble's tomorrow with P&J, but the weather is supposed to be in the low 90's with high humidity, so we changed our minds. We'll stay home and hang out here. Maybe go to Blue Marsh swimming in the late afternoon.

Charlie is working on painting the front of the barn. It def. needs it.

5-20-2012 Unexpected Fun Day

Grandma K. called this morning and asked if the kids wanted to stop in and hang out with Adan. That meant Charlie and I could have a few hours to ourselves. No-brainer!

We dropped them off and went to Shupp's Grove for their outdoor antique market. Spent $5 on a fire billow to blow air into the goblet of fire we got 2 or 3 weeks ago.

Then we headed to Wegman's in Downingtown for a grocery shopping adventure. We bought a cart full of stuff as we always do. But this time we snacked in the parking lot on some rosemary and sea salt bread and hot pepper spread we put on little baguette slices. Charlie loved the hot pepper spread so much we went back inside and bought 6 more jars!

5-19-2012 Back Track to Mother's Day Weekend

I had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend! Saturday Charlie and the kids helped me in the garden all day. It was in the low 80's and sunny, so Charlie set up a canvas tent to give us shade. We'd weed a section then move then tent and weed and move. It worked beautifully.

Sunday we went with Mom and Dad to Knoebles'. We had a picnic lunch then did rides for a few hours. Then we went back to Mom and Dad's and Luke, Charlie, and Dad did some fishing in the dam.

Gorgeous weather and surrounded by my loved ones. Doesn't get any better than that.

We had about 3 inches of rain between Monday and Tuesday and the dock detached from the stairs. We still have it because Charlie tied it fast to some trees. But it is going to need some work.

Today is another gorgeous day. I took Lily to deck hockey this morning while Charlie and Luke worked on the lawn mower. This afternoon we went to Black Creek Greenhouse in East Earl. We stopped at a roadside stand and bought 6 quarts of local strawberries. The small, dark red, delicious kind. We ate 3/4 of a box on the drive home. I made one of the best smoothies ever with another box when we got home.

Lily and Luke are currently in the kiddie pool we've had for a few years. I'm sitting on the river side porch and Charlie is finishing up the mowing.

Not sure what tomorrow holds. Probably planting some of the plants we bought today. And enjoying this great weather.

5-8-2012 A Day in the Life of Us...

 

5-6-2012 The Great Moon View that Wasn't

We were very excited last evening to see the super moon we were supposed to have. Charlie and the kids went to Wal Mart and bought a fire pit. We put the air mattresses on the river-side porch and planned to watch Harry Potter while enjoying the moon. unfortunately, it clouded over and started to rain. We had to come inside. We enjoyed Harry Potter, but didn't really get a good view of the moon.

Today we did some firewood. Lunch was fabulous chicken and pasta. Then we went dockside for the afternoon. Non hanging out watching Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief.

5-5-2012 Drawing Contest

Lily went with Charlie to a dinner at a lumber company. They announced that the drawing contest would begin at 7 pm and Lily insisted they stay for that. She thought it would involve drawing pictures and she was confident she'd win.

4-29-2012 Romantic Weekend...re-do, please?

This was supposed to be our romantic weekend. Mom and Dad take the kids one weekend in the spring for a sleepover and Charlie and I have a romantic weekend all to ourselves. I dropped the kids off Friday with Mom. Charlie and I had dinner and went to the bedroom where he promptly fell asleep. Poor guy. He's been working hard, both on the job sites and in the office to nail down the next big job.

Saturday we woke up and got some necessary work done here. Emptied out the back of his truck. Hauled some firewood for the week. Did a quick clean out of the summer kitchen. Then we got ourselves cleaned up and headed out to Shupp's Grove, an outdoor antique market in Adamstown. We weren't there long when Charlie got a phone call about two potential customers who needed some paper work IMMEDIATELY. It ended up ruining our day because it was nothing that turned into a big brouhaha. When we came home, we had some snacks and took ourselves off to bed to watch a DVD and wind down.

Today we woke today and decided to rearrange some furniture. We got rid of our sofa and love seat by putting it in the driveway for the neighbors to take. We moved our fine Italian leather sectional (a SalVal buy) to the living room. That opened up space in the office/classroom. We moved some of that furniture around to open up the room. Both spaces look much better.

We worked up such an appetite we took ourselves off the Kentucky Fried Chicken to pick up some lunch. We brought it back here and enjoyed a fine dining experience on our river-side porch. The chicken was fabulous and we loved every bite of it! Then we took a nature walk (sluggishly due to the fried chicken) around our property.

The kids are at Knoeble's with Mom and Dad. We're going to leave shortly to go pick them up. Not our ideal weekend, although still not as bad as a year and a half ago when our fall romantic weekend was ruined by the neighbor's hostage crisis.

4-28-2012 How To Use A Sock To Get Beautiful Curly Hair Without Heat | A Spotted Pony

How To Use A Sock To Get Beautiful Curly Hair Without Heat | A Spotted Pony


Can't wait to try!

4-21-2012 Rain is Coming Baby

It has been an absolutely lovely spring thus far. Exceptional in the lack of rain we've had. That's about to change. In the next 48 hours we are supposed to get approximately 3.5 inches of rain. I think it could turn into one of those 'be careful what you wish for' scenarios. We've brought in the chair cushions and tied the dock fast to surrounding trees.

Certainly, some rain will be welcome. The area has had a lot of brush fires and one record setting forest fire. Something we normally hear about in the western parts of the country. Not here.

This morning we ran some errands going to the artifacts bank, dropping off a blueprint, and to our favorite discount stores. Spent a total of $8, which is very good for Charlie. Almost spent $800 at the artifacts bank on some old tongue and groove wood to make a wall partition in the master bedroom. That was a bit too much for old lumber that would take a lot of work before it could be installed.

This past week Ryan and Charlie have been working around the property. they completed the painting of the log cabin section of the barn, as well as the section facing the railroad tracks. They created some smaller doors to the upper level and then moved a lot of the equipment from the lower level to the upper level. lots of purging of items to the dumpster. I tried to peak every now and then to be sure Charlie wasn't getting rid of any of my prized possessions. 

4-9-2012 Oh What a Night!

What a night we had! For reasons that escape me in the clear light of day, we decided to try out the new air mattresses and sleeping bags the Easter Bunny brought the kids. We set up the tent on the new front porch. Everything would have been fine except for two issues. Gale force winds throughout the night and a low of 46, much lower with the windchill, I'm sure.

I would have gladly come into the house in the middle of the night, but I was afraid Charlie and the kids would blow away without me. It was crazy windy. The wind sounded like a freight train as it flew up along the river. It was so incredibly loud!

This morning I took Lily to Shady Maple for breakfast since we were up early enough to beat the crowds and she said she'd really looked forward to it all of Easter break. Now I'm exhausted as is Charlie and Luke. Lily actually slept pretty good in the tent.

Can't wait to sleep in my warm cozy bed tonight.

It's our 10th wedding anniversary. I don't think we're doing anything to celebrate today. We'll celebrate when Mom and Dad have the kids for the weekend. This weekend or in two weeks.

4-8-2012 Easter

 

We had a nice Easter for the most part. No visits with family since we had P&J down last week because J was working this weekend. Kathy is in Utah visiting with George, Denisse, and Baby Brendon.

The kids got candy, juice bags, freeze pops, sleeping bags and air mattresses. Charlie and Luke did some afternoon fishing down at the dock. Caught nothing but enjoyed the sun and mild temperatures. Lily and I had an egg hunt. Lily and Charlie had an egg hunt. Luke wanted nothing to do with egg hunts.

The one thing I wish we would not have done was a sleepover in the tent Easter night. See the next post for the details on that fiasco.

4-6-2012 Cave Exploration on the Eve of Easter

We went to Crystal Cave today. Luke had been there earlier this year on his class field trip and we thought he'd enjoy going back. He seemed to enjoy it, as did the rest of us. I think our favorite parts of the trip were the gift shop and panning for gems afterwards.

On the way home we stopped off in Kutztown for Charlie to check out a hardware store for barn paint. He and I painted the cron crib/log cabin section of the barn yesterday. We're not crazy about the color. It seems a bit too orange to us and we're worried about the side facing the house with the Hex signs on it. We don't want it to fade orange instead of red.

 Lily and I walked a few blocks down and bought a smores donut at 'The Frying Dutchman' Hot out of the oil and quite tasty.

Once home, the kids played outside while I did laundry and lawn watering and Charlie mowed the lawn. We had fabulous steak with peppers and onions for supper.

All in all, a very nice day spent together as a family.

4-5-2012 River Side Porch Pictures

 

 

 

 

4-4-2012 Best EVER Sal Val Buys!

 

4-1-2012 Aprils Fools' Festivus for the Rest of Us

     As has become our tradition, I got Charlie and Lily first thing this morning with an April Fools' joke. I went to the mailbox to get the Sunday paper. I came back into the house all excited and yelled that someone had dropped off a box of kittens in the ditch behind the mailbox. Charlie jumped out of bed to get clothes on and Lily ran down with me to check them out, begging and petitioning the entire way down to please, please, please let her keep them. Oh, I got them good.

     Luke could not be fooled.

     Mom and Dad came down for lunch. We had anti pasta salad, pizza, cheese steak hoagies, and stromboli from Mimo's. All very good. Then hung out for the afternoon. It was our Easter celebration as well as celebrating Dad's 64th birthday which will be April 7th. We did the celebrating today because Mom is working for Dad's birthday and Easter. We're flexible like that.

     Now to do a bit of backtracking. Charlie and our employee Ryan were here last week doing work around the property. They put the dock back on down at the river. Then they built an absolutely lovely riverside porch. They also trimmed branches and chipped those branches into mulch.

     A few weeks ago, Charlie's dad was here for a few days and created a new path from the wood pile to the outdoor furnace. Then the remaining areas which had been ruined by Gradall tracks were graded and planted in grass.

     I'll have to post some pictures of the various projects. we currently have tulips, daffodils, grape hyacinth, forsythia, and primrose in bloom. The flowering cherry trees and Jacob's ladder are just getting ready to bloom. It's cool and rainy today. Hopefully, perfect for all the grass that's planted around the property to grow. I'd much rather let the skies do the watering than me!

3-14-2012 Driving Miss Crazy!

What a busy day! I took Lily to school. Twenty minutes later, I took Luke to school to take the PSSA tests taking place this week. Then I took myself to Sal Val to do some shopping. Then I ran back to school to pick up Luke from today's PSSA test. Then an hour later, I took Luke to his appt. with the child psychologist. Then I ran to the accountant to pick up our financial binder. Then I came home. Then an hour later, I went to school to pick up Lily. Then 45 minutes later, I took both kids to the library for Lego Club. Then an hour later, we came home. Then I made sesame ginger chicken and rice for dinner.

Now I am in bed. I am tired!

3-8-2012 lego Club an Epic Success!

We had our first meeting of the Lego Club at our local library yesterday afternoon. It was inspired by a suggestion from Luke's child psychologist. She knows he enjoys Legos and thought it would be a good opportunity for him to be around other kids.

I ran the idea for the club by our local librarian and wa-la! In addition to Luke and Lily, we had Lila...friend a Lily's, Tucker.....friend of Lily's, and 4 boys from our community we'd never met before!

I'm feeling very good about the whole thing. This morning I ordered 10 pounds of Legos on ebay. So excited for next week!

3-4-2012 Over the River and Thru the Woods...A Hiking We Shall Go

3-2-2012 We Dodged A Bullet!

I saw a cop car drive back the dirt road to the neighbors just as Lily and I were about to leave to run to Sal Val. I went into the house and asked Charlie if we should stick around with him and Luke for a bit. We knew there was a warrant out for the neighbor's arrest and he's the same guy responsible for taking his mom hostage back in October of 2010. So we stuck around for a while.

Soon another cop car came. Then another. And another. My nervous energy built with each vehicle that drove back the road. I cleaned the kitchen. I cleaned the living room. I cleaned the bathroom. I charged the laptop and cell phone. I packed a bag with a change of clothes for each of us. This time I wanted the house to be in good shape if we ended up hosting police and SWAT teams like we did the last time.

One by one the police started leaving. I called the dispatch center to ask what was going on. An officer called me back and explained that they had served the arrest warrant and the neighbor was in custody. Thanks be to God, no one was hurt.

We celebrated by going out to eat to Smokey Bones. We ended the meal with a bag of hot donuts which were quite possibly one of the best things I ever ate. Delicious.

Now we're home safe and sound. Sleeping comfortably in our own beds and able to wake up in the morning and go about our day as we please. It's the little things:)