First Day of School!

Time sure does fly. I can hardly believe that four years have flown by so quickly! But, believe it or not, our family took a big step this last week, we moved into the school years...

Ruby Rae started preschool last Wednesday and was VERY excited. Ruby will be attending the First Baptist W.E.E. School in Brevard three mornings a week (MWF). Before setting off for her first day, Jared and I coerced Ruby into a short photo shoot to commemorate the big day! (I mean, we'd probably be in pretty deep doo doo if we didn't get first day of school snapshots!)

The week before school started, we went to an open house in her classroom to meet her teacher and see the classroom. Ruby was at home right away (as was Max!), while Jared and I worked on reams of paperwork. After a while, Ruby came over to us and said, "Why are you guys still here!?" Apparently, we're no longer needed!

Jared and I also got a good chuckle when one boy shouted out across the room with his super southern accent, "Miz Baaaaab, eye thank wer gonner haf ter fix thas!". Oh my!

For the first two days (Monday and Wednesday) the class was divided into two so that her teacher, Mrs. Babb, could get to know the children a little better. Ruby, whose first day was Wednesday, was the only girl that showed up that day, but it didn't seem to bother her at all. I guess there are quite of few payoffs for having a little brother!

According to Ruby, the highlights of her first day included: playing on the playground, having chocolate chip cookies for snack time, and NOT getting a time out. Also, there was a lot of talk about "Wedder Bear". Let me tell you, it took me an age and a half to figure out she was trying to say "Weather Bear"! It was too funny! So, apparently Weather Bear tells the children the weather for the day by pointing to sunny, cloudy, rainy, or snowing. I have a feeling Weather Bear points to rainy an awful lot around here.

Friday, I squeezed a bit more information out of her...

1. They had to play inside because it was too wet outside.

2. "Wedder" Bear had been moved and was now pointing to rainy and cloudy.

3. They did not have chocolate chip cookies, but some other kind of cookie.

4. They, once again, had apple juice. And Ruby DOES NOT WANT APPLE JUICE! (I advised her that a simple "no thank you" would work nicely to remedy that problem.)

5. She didn't get a time out, though two boys did.

6. They watched part of a penguin movie.

7. She drew a lovely family portrait including all of us, even "our little pup Hazel".

Today, Ruby's third day of school, she was still all smiles. Here is today's report:

1. She didn't get a time out today!

2. She had music class today, and no, they did not sing, play instruments, or dance. Hmmm...

3. They had cupcakes today! It was someone's birthday--hurray!!

And that about covers her report. After that she was pretty urgent about getting some lunch, which is understandable after all that hard preschoolin'!

I'm sure that the coming year will bring lots of funny stories and we're very exicited about this new stage of life. Max and I are having a great time enjoying some time together on our own and Ruby couldn't be happier.

Life is good.

Cute Quotes

Ruby: I've got an idea Max!

Max: Wha' Wuby?

Ruby: Let's play Princess and the Pea! Do you want to be the pea?!

Kayaking the French Broad!

Several weeks ago, we were invited to join Jared's boss, Roger, and his family for a day of kayaking and decided to take him up on it! Here are a few photos from the trip...

On our way! Jared had Max sitting on his lap in his kayak and Ruby sat up front with Hazel running here and there in mine.

Ruby had a great time while I floundered a bit trying to figure out how to paddle without ending up stranded on the rocks!

Fun in the sun!

Ruby decided to take a turn paddling. When it became clear that we were destined to float down the river backwards under loads of low branches that MAY have snakes in them I decided to take over again.

Daddy and Max, cruisin'!

Ruby and Hazel hanging out. Hazel was up, down, in and out on the trip. She only jumped out of the boat once and apparently she CAN swim (or at least doggy paddle, haha!).

We saw a lot of pretty sights along our four hour paddle (with stops), but the paddling by the Biltmore was pretty great. At least until I almost tipped the boat while ogling the Segway tour group! Oh, and then I dropped my new camera into a puddle at the bottom of the boat. Yes, I was on a roll...

So, that brought an abrupt end to the picture taking (though it turned out that the camera is fine thankfully!), but it was a great trip! We hope to try it again... maybe this fall with the changing colors.

Blueberry Sour Cream Pie

I got this delicious recipe from one of my college pals, Carrie Williams, and made it for Jared's small group meeting yesterday. I think it was a big hit!! Thanks, Carrie!

Also, this is my photo, which doesn't give this pie the credit it deserves. I seem to be a hopeless food photographer. But on to the recipe!

Blueberry Sour Cream Pie

Crust:

Use your favorite recipe, a crumb crust, or refrigerator dough.

Filling:

1 c. sour cream

3/4 c. sugar

2 1/2 T. all-purpose flour

1 egg

3/4 tsp. almond extract

1/4 tsp. salt

2 1/2 c. fresh blueberries

Topping:

6 T. all-purpose flour

1/4 c. chilled unsalted butter, cut up

1/3 c. chopped pecans

2 T. sugar

1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Line 9" pie plate with pie crust dough.
3. Filling: Mix sour cream, flour, egg, almond extract, and salt in a medium bowl to blend. Fold in blueberries. Spoon into crust. Bake until filling is almost set, about 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven.
4. Topping: Using fingertips, mix the flour and butter in a medium bowl until small clumps form. Mix in the pecans and sugar. Spoon topping over pie. Return to oven and bake until topping browns lightly, about 12 minutes. Cool pie to room temperature.

Enjoy!

Bear with me...

Y'all... ( I can say that now since we in live the South) this has been QUITE a morning!

The good news is that we are getting a new refrigerator and range. The bad news is we are getting a new refrigerator and range. Murphy's Law has been hard at work around our house. Since we've moved in we have had to replace the garbage disposal (covered by our home warranty), the heating element in the oven (also covered by aforementioned warranty), our laptop has required a new motherboard, memory, and keyboard (still covered under its warranty!), our new TV needs to be repaired (supposedly covered by its warranty), and now sometime yesterday our fridge died (NOT covered under our home warranty). Now, I really should have caught on to the fact that the fridge was getting warmer yesterday, but with the noise level in our house and the general heat and humidity, I just thought, "Hmm, I guess that temperature knob got bumped again." I'm here to tell you--it didn't.

In the whole "isn't life funny" kind of way things work, Jared also replaced our kitchen sink last night. It's a beautiful sink that I'm sure we are going to enjoy, unfortunately he realized at about 10pm last night that he was going to need some adapters to get water actually flowing. Imagine my panic this morning when I realized I had a whole fridge full of rotting food and no sink to wash things up! I would like to say that I was cool as a cucumber, but everyone would know I was lying, so why bother.

So, at 8am this morning Jared, the kiddos, and I were rolling into Lowe's. We decided to go ahead a just replace the range at the same time as the fridge so they'll match and plunked down our $2K+ all before 9am. That's tough to do before breakfast. My super hubby also fixed the sink so I was able to wash and rinse and dispose of OODLES of stuff. Now my fridge is empty and my garage freezer, trash barrels, and compost pile are stuffed. But the job is done and tomorrow I'll have a beautiful new fridge and range--yea!!

All that said, forgive me if there's no Tasty Tuesday. The only thing I'm going to be "cooking" today are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches... and I'm pretty sure you already have that recipe.

I'm not invited...

This is why you might not want to invite me to your wedding. And no, there was absolutely not one drop of alcohol in the building or my body. It's just me... trying to win $100,000 on AFV... and not succeeding.

Beaches, Cousins, and Weddings, Oh My!

Our time back in Michigan after our trip to Wisconsin was a whirlwind of activity. Here are a few shots from our last few days...

After Kay picked us up from the ferry in Ludington we stopped for a picnic dinner down by the beach. It was a beautiful evening--a little snippet of heaven on earth.

Nana and the kiddos. They sure were happy to run after our long day of travelling!

We had a great day in Traverse City visiting the Children's Museum and taking a ride on the "Spirit of Traverse City"!

Can you tell Max loved the train ride?!

Our sweet Ruby girl. She still had the face paint on from our ride on the S.S. Badger the day before.

Whew! I have to say I was a little bit happy when the train ride was over. You get pretty nasty sitting behind that smoke stack!

Evening on River Street in Elk Rapids. Ruby opted to get a bee on her knee, just like last year!

Ruby and Caleb had a great time playing together. Here they were playing "gas station". Ruby said, "What kind of gas does your bike take?" Caleb thought for a while, "Fuel". "Okay, I've got that!" Ruby replied. Too cute!

Max and Anna loved blowing bubbles at Kaley and Michael's wedding!

Michael and Kaley's fairytale wedding! Congratulations!!

Hazel

I guess I ought to break the news... we got a puppy!

Hazel is an 8 week old Australian Cattle Dog mix. She's cute and a button and learning quickly. We're all enjoying her a lot and can't wait until she's big enough to go on hikes with us. Until then, Ruby's busy carrying her around everywhere and considering dressing her up in doll clothes.

Crunchy Romaine Toss

This salad is simple and delicious! We have had SOOO much lettuce from our CSA (community supported agriculture) garden that I've been making lots of salads. This one has been a repeater and that's saying something at my house!

In my opinion it needs less than half the dressing, so make less or else whiz up the whole batch to use on a several salads...

Crunchy Romaine Toss

1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1/4 c. cider vinegar
2 tsp. soy sauce
salt and pepper, to taste
1 (3oz) pkg. ramen noodles, broken
2 T. butter
1 1/2 c. chopped broccoli
1 small head romaine lettuce, torn
4 green onions, chopped
1/2 c. chopped walnuts

1. In a jar with a tight-fitting lid, combine the sugar, oil, vinegar, soy sauce, salt and pepper. Shake well.
2. Discard seasoning packet from noodles or save for another use. Ina skillet, saute noodles in butter until golden.
3. In a large bowl, combine noodles, broccoli, romaine and onions. Just before serving toss with dressing and walnuts.

Over the river and through the woods...

"Are you sure we're supposed to be up this early!?!"

As you can tell, our early departure from Ludington on the S.S. Badger was a bit exhausting for us after a somewhat restless night in the hotel room. We sure were thankful that we had Nana with us to help us get to the ship on time! So, with baggies of dry cereal in hand, we climbed on board along with cars, motorcycles, motorhomes, and even a HOUSE!! Max was very impressed (not that this photo shows that!).

Once on the S.S. Badger we explored the ship--they have several lounges, two eating areas, a kids play room, a movie room, and lots of room up on deck to get some air. The highlight of a trip on the Badger must be the BINGO though. I'm not sure I've played bingo since my grade school days, but it was fun (even though I didn't manage to win). Somehow, they manage to get you caught up in the adventure of the trip and even have you happily chanting, "Big Ship, More Fun!" dozens of times over the course of the trip.

The kids enjoyed the playroom for a while, but we spent much of the trip migrating from place to place-- a little bit of BINGO, a little story time, a little coloring, and a lot of exploring the ship. All along the way we were peppered with fun facts about the coal-powered car ferry. I was most shocked to find that the four hour trip across Lake Michigan was only 60 miles long! I guess I thought we were moving a lot faster than that. Amazingly, the four hour trip went by quickly and we were excited to see Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma Bollman waiting for us when we arrived in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

The trip from Manitowoc to Bruce was a bit long (nearly 6 hours with all of our stops), but the kids did well on a steady diet of cartoons. Thank goodness for DVD players. I'm not sure what two year old boys can do in the car aside from watching videos... Though I understand and appreciate the need for carseats, things sure were easier for car travel with kids when you didn't have to be strapped into a 5 point harness!

The day after we arrived in Wisconsin it was Grandma's birthday! I made a cake for her big day, but as it turned out we had plenty of sweets including some delicious cupcakes made by Aunt Judy in honor of Grandma's birthday so Grandma decided to share some of the goodies with Susan Mayer. She claimed that she would, "pass them off as (her) own"! Though I'm quite sure all that know her well enough to be a house guest know that she does not bake. ;)


I'm sure that Grandma will be thrilled that I put this photo of her and Max blowing out their candles together online for the whole world to see, but I thought it was cute and it's my blog, so I win!

As I try to think back on what we did while we were there it seems that eating desserts figured in pretty high on the list. I know for certain that I had two kinds of cake, cookies, cheesecake, strawberry shortcake, and some sort of fruity crisp dessert. Good grief, how do you people stay so slim with all of those desserts!? I must say that the kids were in heaven, though now we're back to the real world of desserts just now and then.

Much of the time around the house was spent down by the Flambeau River which runs behind the house. The water was quite low, but just perfect for the kids. Ruby and Maxwell had a blast searching for freshwater clam shells and especially treasured those that still had both halves connected (at least until Max would crack them apart!). Ruby also enjoyed searching for crayfish claws to pinch us with. Meanwhile, I just sat in my chair and read a book. The easy life!

My one annoyance was Max's very frequent bathroom breaks. One of the things that we're struggling with right now is that he's figured out (as all boys do) that it's actually kind of fun to go potty outside so he would wait until we were outside, down by the river to need to go. Arg! Since then he's actually asked when he's inside the house if he can go outside to pee!?! Uh, no!

I thought this was a cute photo of the kids in the river. They really are good buddies most of the time, which I'm so thankful for.

I think that right around the time I snapped this shot we saw the tail end of a bear across the river! There is SO much wildlife out there--I can't even remember how many deer, rabbits, and squirrels we saw. Max, especially, thought it was the best.

One of the biggest highlights of our trip to Wisconsin for the kids was going out to Susan Mayer's house where they met Indy (her dog). They just thought she was the best and were talking about how much they missed Bubba and Fink and every other dog they've ever known for weeks afterward. They also really enjoyed getting up on the hay bales--a story that I've heard many times since!

We were thankful to be able see some of Grandpa's sisters for meals and games while we were there. We even had a chance to visit with Aunt June for a while out at Susan's which was a real blessing.

We took a few outings to parks in Ladysmith--always a hit with the kids-- and even brought a picnic lunch one day. The parks were like a flashback to my childhood with the TALL metal slides and merry-go-rounds and monkey bars. It was a whole new experience for Ruby and Max!

I really enjoyed seeing some of the places where Grandma and Grandpa grew up. Of course their house is very close to the original stone house that Grandpa grew up in. Also, we saw the farm where Grandma grew up, which looks very different now and the route she walked to the little school house. I can't imagine sending Ruby out for that looong walk in the woods all by herself!

This hotel is one that Grandma worked at while Grandpa was in Japan. It looks like a really neat place and reminded me of an old hotel that Jared and I stayed at on our honeymoon. I wish we could have seen inside, but that wasn't on the kids' wish list!

Well, that about sums up our trip to Wisconsin. We had a great time with Grandpa and Grandma. Ruby and Maxwell are anxious to see them again... maybe this time in our neck of the woods!