Another Family Weekend!

Another picture post... because it is easier to caption photos than it is to tell a story!

Mom drove Andrew and i out to Topeka for breakfast with Kris, Ashley drove in from Hays and met us there.

Andrew enjoyed playing on the iPad on the way to Union Station, he covered it with finger prints.

Andrew LOVES trains, he was in heaven.

Ashley and I on the hand car.

Ashley and Andrew sword fighting, he was pretty good!

Uncle Eric watching TV with Andrew.

Sarah, Andrew, and me at the "Fire-Water" event on the plaza.

Mom, Alan, and Deb at Fire-Water.

Paul and Eric made it down to the creek after about an hour looking for a parking spot.

Andrew loves his strobe stick - and cried when I had to take it from him to fix the strap (so he wouldn't drop it in the creek).

The fire pits floating on Brush Creek.

Andrew was really intrigued by all of the people and the fire.

Not especially impressive, but pretty cool.

Andrew was SO sad about the sun coming in the window on the way to church.

Uncle Eric and Andrew with his "Sadie" balloon.

Andrew visiting Grammy's tree.

Phew, I'm glad our Squish is only the size of a peach right now!  Pumpkins are huge!

Just a priceless facial expression.

Andrew LOVED throwing the straw in the air.

Nana and her grandmonster.

Eric rode his bike to and from the pumpkin patch because we didn't have enough seats in the car for him.  He didn't mind.

St. Thomas was Flocked!

As a fundraiser for the new building at St. Thomas, the youth group had a crazy and fun idea.  One hundred pink, plastic, flamingos landed on the lawn and needed to be coerced away before the Bishop arrived on Sunday.  For a $15 adoption fee, you could take one home with you!

So Eric and I bought one and it got to spend a few minutes with Grammy before heading home with us!

5th Annual Ren Fest!

Off the main topic, but important to the start of our day!  At church, Gar let a parishioner, who worked in a building 1000 feet away from the World Trade Center ten year ago, deliver the sermon.  He gave a detailed account of his experience, and how it has impacted his faith.  I brought tissues in because I figured the sermon would relate to the anniversary, and I would cry.  I thought I was going to make it, until he listed off the names of the 4 people that he knew personally who died in that attack.  It was very touching to hear.

After church, I made us pick up some to-go food from IHOP because I was feeling miserable.  The blueberry waffle really helped, the plain hashbrowns did not!  Then we were on our way to meet Steven in Bonner Springs!!!
  
For the past 5 years, Eric and I have gone to the KC Ren Fest every year.  The first time - we got matching puzzle rings, the third time - he proposed with a beautiful puzzle ring that he had custom made, and our fifth time - we bought a teeny tiny puzzle ring for our baby!

I was also (insert slew of emotions here) to find out that the ring I wanted from Grammys jewelry box was from the Ren Fest.  She must have bought it when she was there with us and Papa last year.  Happy, sad, surprised, excited - it just makes the ring a lot more special to me.  And now Ive got 3 generations of puzzle rings on my hands!  Grammys, mine, and babys.

Steven came with us and it was an awesome day.  This was the first time that Eric and I came prepared with money to actually do whatever we wanted!  First stop was to buy the puzzle ring, then we went looking for a Hypnotist show - Steven and I went on stage, but the guy only made us feel sleepy.  I had a root beer float for breakfast.  Steven and I bought $1 pickles, and Eric got a bag of peanuts that lasted all day.  We watched multiple shows that had fire jugglers, and went hunting for the hard to find faeries.  We went to the honey store and Steven bought a brick of honeycomb.  For lunch I had a hot dog, Eric had a steak sandwich, and Steven had a veggie burger and Dr. Pepper.  Steven brought us to the Gnarlies shop to hear about their stories.  I tried to talk Steven into getting a $50 shoulder puppet.  Steven bought the tiniest hat ever - well, not ever.  But people commented on it all day (Did your head grow or your hat shrink?).

Eric and I at the proposal spot.

Steven feeding medieval Steven Colbert a pickle.

Me with two pickles!

Steven with a tiny hat! 

 Itty bitty puzzle ring for baby.

The ring from Grammy’s jewelry box came from the Ren Fest last year!

Steven is a happy kitty :)

Eric put all of his peanut shells on Steven.

  

Fire play!

He was throwing the sticks around, but this shot was really funny.

This lady curls and dyes her dogs hair for the fest.  Poor pup.

Grammy's Tree is Resilient

The extreme heat wave a lack of rain over the past month left Grammy's tree with a total of three leaves and the ends of most of the branches were obviously dead (dark brown, not green wood).  Last week I noticed that the living branches were covered in tiny buds... and this week the tree had exploded in green!  I'm so relieved, as we're coming up on the first anniversary, that we aren't also going to have to deal with a dying tree. 

 Hooray!

The top and ends of the branches are dead, but new life is taking hold! 

Etc. Stuff

This is mostly a picture:story post - surprisingly enough, the cat focused part of the post lacks pictures!  

In the beginning of July, I had our carpets professionally cleaned because Mystic has a bad habit of not making it to the litter box.  I must not have thought this all the way through, because she was back at peeing on the carpet a few days later.  She is sneaky about it though, and never does it when we're around.  So our new routine is to keep her locked in the bathroom (with food, water, and a separate litter box) when we're not home or asleep.  I'm thrilled to report that we haven't had a carpet accident since!  Hooray for having a house that doesn't smell like cat pee!

Last week we came home and Eric noticed Addy was limping.  I felt so relieved that we have a section of our savings account earmarked for pet expenses.  So the worry of the cost of taking her to the vet didn't overshadow our worry of what was wrong.  We spent the evening trying to make her sit still, and I held an ice pack on her for ten minutes.  Luckily, the following morning the limp was gone.  Who knows what happened, but we're glad she's feeling better!

My summer has been full of working with my nanny kiddo - and he's been working on bowling this summer.  His form has something to be desired, but he's bowling in the 50's or above!

I've also been working on programming his AAC app on his iPod - he doesn't speak well, and he's picked up really quickly how to use it to say his words!

 My nanny kiddo also has this awesome body sock.  It is a nylon bag that provides sensory stimulation, and I caught this really cool picture of him!

Eric's summer has been spent wondering whether or not to buy some new games.  Addy broke him down, and now the are playing Age of Empires I, II, and III, Bioshock 1 and 2, and Unreal Tournament 3.

Eric and I housesat for Papa while he was in Michigan visiting Molly & family.  I used this as an opportunity to further unpack and organize his house.  This is his dining room, starting to look like a dining room!

This is his office, now empty of boxes and fully set up!  There is even a pillow for Frisco to sleep on while Papa works.

The guest room is also empty of extra boxes!  It has a bed, bedside table, lamp, and rug.  Perfect for someone to roll in for a night or weekend to visit.

I've also upgraded my clothesline!  The old one was nylon and flaking off strands on our clothes.  This is pvc, and affixed with L brackets - I used the two screws to secure the brackets to the porch, and then the pvc wire goes through the other two screw holes.  Now I just need to do some laundry!

This massive heat wave (temps over 100 for the past two weeks) has killed off most of the leaves on Grammy's tree :(

Some of the branches appear to be dying...

However there are still some that are holding on for some hope.  We got some rain today and have more in store for the next week.  Hopefully the leaves pop back up...we'll see.

We really let our budget get away from us this summer.  So we're attempting to go all of August without eating out.  Fast food was definitely a weakness for us over the past two months.  This is our last hoorah before that kicks in (this was on July 30th!).

This is Ashley's new room in her apartment.  She has officially moved out to Hays, KS for her first semester of state college, woo!

Day 344: Another Busy Sunday

This morning I went to church by myself because Ashley didn't want to get up for the early service, and I didn't want to wake Eric up after our late night.  After the service, I talked to Father Gar about Eric and I leading a Financial Peace University class starting late this summer.  He was on board, so I'll post details as soon as we work it out!

After church, we went to Bo Lings for dim sum with Paul, Deb, Brian, Jen, Shannon, and Pau.  Everything was delicious as usual - I tried a boba drink, but it wasn't as good as I'd expected.  I had boba balls at a frozen yogurt place before - gelatin balls filled with juice.  The boba balls at Bo Lings were solid gelatin balls, a little odd.

Then we did some shopping with Brian and Jen, and went to my family's house to see Mom, Ashley, and Andrew.  It was so good to see that little guys, I can't believe we haven't seen him in a month!

We topped off the evening going to a party at Warren and Mary's house in Belton.  Their house is only a few blocks from my grandparents - Butch & Karen Halbasch, so we walked over to say hi.  They weren't home, but the party was still really fun!  Mary has really great taste in music, everyone brought delicious food, tasty wine and we had some nice conversation.  We would have liked to stay later, but I was completely wiped out.

The willow branches are growing really long!

The tree is still pretty easily swayed by the wind.

Me, Mary, Paul, Warren, Deb, Pau, and Eric behind the camera.

Jen & Brian!