Totally Unrealated

  The kids enjoying the first day of Spring with their free Ritas Ices.

 Makenna's first science project . . . without

 and with food coloring.

 This is one of the little "groupings" we found at the bottom of the cup.

 Last weekend, I went with a few highschool friends of mine to see our friend Kristin that I've previously mentioned. (Kristin is in the middle.)

 It was good to catch up (one friend I hadn't seen in 17 years!!).  Please continue to pray for Kristin.

 Then we met up with my family for lunch Sunday.  My youngest brother flew in from FL for the weekend.

 We left Steve at the end of the table all by himself.

As always, we had a great time!  (The girls are always being silly when they are around Aunt Mel!)

Our Little Getaway

Rick & I were able to get away for a few days last week (thanks to Nana & Pappy)! I guess you could call it a tradition since we've done it for three years now. We get in on the special winter rates they run at Inn at Amish Door in Wilmot, Ohio.

(Photo from website as I didn't take one.) It's a gorgeous place even at the end of a barren winter.

They offer special deals on their "honeymoon suite". It has a kitchenette . . .

. . . livingroom with fireplace and breakfast nook . . .

. . . a king-sized bed and a huge bathroom with a hot tub! We always enjoy our stay.

This year we hung out quite a bit in Millersburg. Didn't pay too much attention to it before this year. We found the best place to eat -- Hotel Millersburg (next time we'll have to schedule time for a tour). And we found this quaint shop. Doesn't look like much from the outside.

But it also has a lot of history like the hotel. This is a built in safe. It used to be a pharmacy and a clothing store. Rick thoroughly enjoyed reading all about it's past.

I enjoyed looking at all the creative things they had for sale. An old shutter painted up cute with a chalkboard in the middle.

An old screen painted up for a wall hanging.

So many ideas! Wonder which one of my kids will be the first to "benefit" from my new found ideas! HA!

Found some other fun ideas in crafts stores. Don't know if you've ever heard of I Spy bottles. This shop had pouches. We've started to collect items to make a find it bottle of our own! The kids are so excited.

Rick found this and pointed it out to me. I kinda rather like it!! It's me! Maybe I should put one on my front door to scare away burglers!

Actually found quite a few cute signs!

This is an awful picture, but it's the only [fat-faced] one we took. We went bowling with some friends one night. We had a blast! Sadly, us old folks had aching arms the next day. We're SO out of shape!

One of our favorite finds was the table-top corn hole game! The kids love it. Isaiah is even pretty good with it. I look forward to many evenings enjoying this as a family! Course we had to get the black 'n gold version!

Our New Adventure

For a long list of reasons (that I won't bore you with), we pulled Makenna out of school. Didn't realize Isaiah had taken a picture of us, but here we are . . . teacher and student!


Makenna has struggled in spelling (again, for a myriad of reasons I won't bore you with). On average, she was missing about 16 of the 30 words on her list. We've found an online spelling game website, and it's proved to help her. She only missed 2 on her first test!


Makenna was very proud of the results. Daddy was very impressed with her hard work.

She even earned a dollar!

I think Isaiah has enjoyed having Makenna home. This picture is from breakfast the other day. They were making smiley faces with their orange segments and saying silly things that made them laugh.

Found this on my camera also . . . my little strong man! Rrrr!

Look at those big brown eyes! Can't believe my baby is almost 10!

Makenna is almost a completely different person . . . almost always happy and enjoying school.

We've even had some extra time to do some extra activities . . . sewing on a button . . .

. . . and a science project! (Still waiting on the results.)