Grandpa and Grandma Come to Visit

Being out in Ohio, we have kind of isolated ourselves (not by choice of course) from the rest of our family. Needless to say, we love to have visitors. Grandma and Grandpa Starley got to come visit us October 20-26. The girls were off school the Monday they came in and then on Tuesday London went half day and then we went to the McKinley Museum down in Canton. London's first grade class went there a year ago and she has been begging us since then to go again. So we had our own personal little tour guide. It is a pretty neat museum, small but just enough for me, oh, I mean the girls.

One of the highlights was the vacuum chair. You would turn on the vacuum and it would produce enough suction to lift you while sitting in the chair.

This was the first time Grandma and Grandpa met Sydney.

We miss being around our family and sure enjoyed having them come out. We wish we were closer to everyone. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for coming out and everything you did for us.

Lemonade Stand

You know, I love watching my kids come up with ideas of things to do. However, when it involves me, sometimes I just want to shoot their so called ideas down. During the summer, London, like every kid, wanted to do a lemonade stand. I kept putting it off and putting it off and creating one excuse after another. Well, I ran out of excuses and the possibility of sunny days. So our neighbor down the street was having a garage sale last weekend and we asked if we could come down and profit from her crowd. We took 2 pitchers down, one grape and one lemonade. Miss Betty (neighbor who was having the garage sale) always watches out for our family and is constantly giving without expecting anything in return. But she gave the girls some crackers to sell with the lemonade and told them to keep the money. London was so excited about that. We started out with $2 in change, and came home with $8.50 so they were thrilled that they each got $3.25. Wow! Wouldn't that be nice if we could get excited about that amount of money, that just might buy us a gallon of gas. Because I had to keep running back and forth between the houses, Betty and other neighbors helped the girls if they needed it. Thank goodness for great neighbors. This was actually a fun time and an opportunity to put London's math skills that she has been learning about in school to good use. Betty's husband took these pictures of the girls. Thanks to him for capturing their first lemonade stand moments. Laurel, one of London's best friends joined in on the action a little later and I think that is when London really started to have fun. It turned out to be a beautiful day and on top of making a little money, they got to take the sombrero hats home from the garage sale. YEA!! Brooklyn actually convinced Betty that she didn't want the hat and got her to give her a bell instead. I don't know which is worse, the constant ringing or the huge hats. Oh well, at least they had fun and can stop pestering me about having a lemonade stand for another year.

Greg's Birthday

Saturday October 4, Greg turned 34. Wow! He is old. I remember meeting him a week before his 22nd birthday. It is crazy how fast the time goes. Undergrad, a dog, med school, lots of moves, residency, and 3 kids later we arrive at the place we are now...HAPPY! Even though things have been tough, we have always enjoyed the journey. Happy Birthday! Thanks to Angel for getting Greg his favorite Dairy Queen ice cream cake.

Finally we had an excuse to go out so to celebrate this day oh, I mean his day, we went to PF Chang's. Angel, whose name fits her, has been a great friend to our family, volunteered to watch the girls. That means fun for all of us. After we left, who knows what they did. Last time is was mani's and pedi's for the girls, this time Angel even documented their events so I will share and let the pictures speak for themselves.

cards for daddy

It's the hand giving him a spanking on his bum.

Then it was some sort of salon time with cool do's. I even got in on the action when I got home.

Pigtails for all of us! Greg is surrounded by girls and I know he wouldn't have it any other way!

Other Crazy pictures of the Birthday Bash

Can't forget the baby

or the dog kissing the babyBrooklyn helping Greg find his present

More Family Time

Even though Greg has been on call this whole month (he can do this because he takes home call which I think is just a way around the 80 hour work week and I could go on about that), we have had time to do some fun things with the girls. We went to the apple orchard intending to pick apples but they only had red and golden delicious ones to pick. So we just bought my favorites, Honey Crisp, and Jonagold from their store. Then we headed through the corn maze. They had a small one for little kids and a larger more complicated one for us "smarter" folk.

This was in the bigger maze. Greg and I went with them while Jamie stayed out with Sydney. London didn't want to stop long enough to even take a picture. She insisted that she knew the way out. After a while she asked that someone else be the leader, so Brooklyn stepped up. That didn't get us anywhere either. It wasn't til the ole reliable mama took over that we finally made some progress. What would we do without ME? I won't go there.

They decided they wanted to pick the feed corn to see what it looked like. London was teasing Brooklyn that you could really eat it...Brooklyn didn't buy it.

After the maze there was a pumpkin patch that they walked through. Didn't know if they were supposed to or not but they did. Too bad they couldn't pick their own.

From the apple orchard we headed to ....

The inside was chucked full of jams and jellies, JIF peanut butter, pilsbury, crisco, hungry jack, products, ice cream toppings, tons of other cooking gadgets, a hall of history, and a little cafe. My mom could have stayed in this store for hours. We however, managed about 45 minutes.

We loved meeting the Pilsbury Dough Boy!

Or at least climbing on him.

Good Bye Smuckerville!

We have so many cool things around us and I would love to see them all. I am hoping to visit other amish towns, take a ride down the Erie Canal, and hit the covered bridges festival, ride the Polar Express, visit the Rock n Roll hall of fame, the NFL hall of fame, go to Browns game(only when they play someone cool), go to more Indian's games, and whatever other adventures I uncover. Too many things, so little time, oh and money.

You would think that this would be enough for one day, but it didn't stop there. We came home got some dinner and went back out to play some miniture golf. You know, Greg had to practice his putting game.

I strapped the baby on and had to get in on the action. I am pretty sure I beat them with one hand! London got the hang of it pretty quick. Brooklyn kept switching hands and sides and would wind up and smack the ball. She didn't get the concept of hitting it soft. I think she will do just fine in softball, and maybe on the golf range. Greg had his serious game face on and was telling the girls that he wouldn't take them again unless they obeyed the rules! He is a rule GooRoo!

By the end of the day, we were all tired and ready for bed. But we sure had a good time spending it with each other.

Hike to the Ice Box Caves

We have had some gorgeous fall days. The weather has been right around 70-75 degrees. Perfect for exploring all the great hiking trails around here. And that is just what we did. This particular hike had incredible scenery. The pictures I show won't do it justice. Rocks created all these nooks and crannies and ledges, even extremely smooth rocks made a nice slide for the kids to play on. It truly is amazing all of the beautiful things the Lord created for us to enjoy.

Going into the "Ice Box Cave" which was too narrow and wet for all the kids to go in.

Up through the narrow rocks which opened up to awesome ledges above.

Good thing a bunch of boys came with us so we could "capture" wildlife moments.

These are absolutely the world's freakiest little spiders. They were all white and covered the whole branch.

We found Little Zions National Park

Sydney was a good sport. She loved being hauled around in her pack.

At the end of the hike there was this look out point across the whole valley. It was so pretty. I can't wait to go back in a few weeks when all the leaves are changing and see how amazing it will be. We had a great time! Here is the link if you'd like to see other pictures or get info.

http://hikingohioparks.com/virginia-kendall-park-hiking-ohio-parks.html