A Walk in the Woods

Yesterday we drove down to the Hoosier National Forest for a little nature time and picnic in the adorable town of Paoli. It was a very fun time!

Lately I've seen all sorts of old and faraway friends such as Alison, Lisa, and my wonderful old neighbor Tara.

This is the end of two straight weeks of visiting family and friends. It's been great, but I think it'll be nice to get back to our old quiet routines. Also, Martin is done with the condensed work week, so as long as he's not swamped at work, he may be getting home at 5:00 again. Also a nice change... although this week may seem a little long without having Thursday off!

Sorry about all the spam comments on my blog. Pretty weird.

Keeping it Busy

Here's a cute picture (or I think it's cute, anyway) of Martino and me. I don't know when it was, but Martin must've still been wearing his retainer because his teeth are still tightly together, which means it was probably before we were married, considering Theodore ate his retainer during our honeymoon days at Eastway. And here is a super adorable picture of my niece, Angelica, and my nephew, Christopher, making their First Communion last week.

This weekend we did what we have never done before: We spent the night at the River with the kids! It ended up being really fun. Well, exhausting, but fun. This is week two of out-of-towner family visiting, and the kids are doing pretty well, but Anja has started taking naps, which is a sign of the exhaustion level! Spending the night at the cottage was great though; Martin pulled two armchairs together to make a silly little bed for Anja, and Greta and I shared the bedroom bed. Martin slept on the couch, but Anja joined him a few hours into the night.

Well, the pictures were all I had to post.... Greta didn't get a nap to speak of today so she is definitely ready for beddy.

In the Dark Ages...

Surprisingly, I don't miss having the internet at home as much as I thought I would. This is the first time I've come over to the library to use the computers and I had forgotten how dirty I feel when I'm here in this lab. Luckily I have the computer located right inside the door so there is a breeze of somewhat fresh air to breathe.... I'm not completely closed in.

A few messages for people:
-Sarah and my Dad: I don't have a camera anymore. If you email me any good pictures of my babies, I'd appreeeeeeeciate it. Thanks!

-Anne: I keep forgetting to buy stamps. I have a letter for you, but who knows when it will actually enter the postal system.

-Joannie: Since I am not keeping up with the blogs, you HAVE to call me when Jill has her baby! DON'T FORGET!!

-Laura: You're still my friend, and I'll call you soon. I promise!

My brother and his wife and girlies are visiting this week. They actually leave tomorrow; we've had a pretty fun week with them. Tomorrow after they leave, Martin's sister and her boys will be arriving from Chicago to spend half a week or more, so we're going to go from one busy week with family right on into the next busy week with family. Fun summer times! And after that we'll be having a few different friends visiting from out of town, so the fun will just keep on going.

The only bad thing about Ben and Anna visiting is that Anja is terrified of Ben. It's really kind of sad. All he has to do is walk into the room and she bursts into tears and is inconsolable. But my nieces are really cute and I like being around them. Angelica and Christopher made their First Communions on Tuesday and baby Avila was baptized. It was a big event! Sadly, my children (both of them) cried through the entire thing. Actually, it was more like screaming. But we survived!

Anja has really started pretending lately and her "games" (what she calls pretending) are getting pretty elaborate. Yesterday she told Martin this whole long story about how Greta was going poo-poo on the carpet all morning and then she was climbing on the table all morning also and going poo-poo. She went on and on and on and it was seriously hilarious. Also, after a week or so of being bears, we are now all ducks. Except for Greta, who remains a bear.

And so, life just keeps chugging along. I'm sure I'll be back online eventually.... but I'm not sure when. Don't forget me while I'm gone, readers!!

I'd better get back now. We promised Anja a trip to the Humane Society today just to look at their puppy selection. I've done a good job of dodging the Baby Bug lately, but I woke up this morning itching for a puppy. I also had the opportunity to take home up to 6 free kittens last Saturday (at our most disasterous RiverFest ever--I think next time Martin should leave the girls and me at home!) and I used good judgement and left without any of them. The thing about "free" kittens is that the price doesn't include things like food, shots, earmite medicine, and the cost of all the yarn I'd have to buy to knit them each a winter sweater. But I'm still thinking of them every day.

Today is the day of the new Bishop's installation and it's a super big deal! Wooo! The Downtown area is hopping!

Just recieved a text that Martin and the girls are here at the libary in the children's section, so off I go to meet up with them.

The Bear Family

This is a picture of me when I was little. This is how long I feel like I've been away from my blog. Our computer contracted a virus last week and so far it's unfixable. We are in the process of mending this situation. I don't know when it will be mended though, so posting around this here blog will probably be infrequent for awhile.

In other news, Anja has begun full-out pretending. Let me just say... it's ADORABLE. She has been referring to herself only as "Anja Bear" for the past two days. I am "Mommy Bear" and you can probably guess what the names of our other family members are. So cute.

It is so far past bedtime that our meltdowns are melting down. Definitely time to go.

Fiddle Me This

Well, we definitely had one of the most relaxing Fiddlers' Gatherings in the past few years! The weather was great. It was pretty hot, but we set up in the shade and there was a nice breeze and we were away from the main crowd and everyone was happy. The girls were happy just to be out there, and the bands were great. We saw all the typical friends and drank a couple of lemon shakeups. A good weekend!



You might remember some weeks ago when Martin and I purchased a pair of window unit air conditioners--one for the downstairs, one for the upstairs--from Craigslist. Well the one upstairs was really old. I mean, ANCIENT. I figured it'd get us through the summer at least, and Martin thought we might get a couple of summers out of it. And it did the job fine, even if it was really ugly and had unlabeled knobs. We got it set to a nice cool temperature and as long as nobody touched it, it was fine. But then it started making these clunking noises in the night. And then the clunking turned into more of clunky-wheezing and went on all the time. It got so bad that it would wake Martin up in the night and he'd go downstairs to sleep on the couch! Well, on Sunday after Fiddlers' we went straight up to the river and didn't get back home until late. Both girls were asleep, I got Greta inside and succeeded in keeping her asleep, then got upstairs to our OVEN and realized the a/c was broken. Boooo. Martin was just coming in with a sleeping Anja. We put Anja on the couch and I nursed and walked around with Greta to keep her asleep while Martin switched the upstairs broken unit with the downstairs really nice one. Except it wasn't THAT easy. First, when he took out the old unit from the upstiars, he found an infestation of ants in the windowsill. By the way he described it, I am REALLY glad I wasn't there. I'm feeling my skin crawl just thinking about it now. After cleaning up that nastiness, he cut his hand while bringing the air conditioner downstairs, so then he was bleeding everywhere. Eventually everything got where it needed to go and all was good. But still... gee whiz.

And now we are entering The Most Beautiful Week in History. Sunny and high 70's every day this week?! Yes, please!!

My posts feel incomplete without photos. Boo. I did find Martin's old digital camera though (it's really big!) and I'm still trying to figure out how to take a picture with it. So far I've gotten a black screen and a white screen, but that's all I can find. Hmmm... well, hopefully I'll be back with pictures soon!

Warning: Boring, Colorless Posts to Come

Greta dunked my camera in the kiddie pool today. She got it out of my bag while I was sweeping.

Poop.

In the Good Old Summertime

This is one of my favorite things: We have had nothing but rain for the last few weeks, which means we've spent a lot of time indoors. Bleh. In the few and far between hours that it hasn't been raining buckets, it's been hot, hot, hot. But not a good hot... a sticky, icky hot that makes you feel like you need a shower after just walking past the screen door. But that's okay because little girls always find silly ways to entertain themselves.

Like climbing into laundry baskets

And on to table tops.

Yesterday was the first beautiful summer day in a long time.

I weeded out the old garden plot where I've planted some melons that don't look like they're going to grow. I'm considering making this into a fall harvest garden, but Martin pointed out that since we've never had much luck growing anything there (the new garden boxes are doing wonderfully) maybe we shouldn't count on it for a fall harvest. Well. He MAY have a point...

Anja was doing her own bit of gardening.

While Greta and I just sillied around. (She had just woken up and was kind of grumpy.

Yesterday was Thursday, which was Martin's day off! We ended up sleeping in a little bit, which is something we don't really like to do anymore. Martin typically wakes up before 5:00 every morning, so sleeping in until 8:30 really cuts a chunk out of his day. And for me, not waking up before the girls wake up cuts out a huge chunk of MY day. So our planned Day of Productivity actually turned out to be a day of mixed up naptimes and wasting time instead of doing yardwork. Oh well.

After dinner we walked down to hear the Citizens Band play at the Plaza. Yeah. It took us so long to get out of the house and walk the six blocks to the Plaza that they were finished playing AND most of the people were gone by the time we got there. So we just kind of played around.... we actually didn't do anything. Martin followed Anja around (who was really crazy all day) and I followed Greta around (who was really grumpy and demanding all day) and when we realized it was after 9:00 we started home.... and didn't get home until after 10:00. I'm not kidding! A normal walk from our house to the plaza takes about 7 minutes. With the girls it takes AN HOUR.

Oh well. Can you tell how flooded the river is in this picture?

For some reason, even with all the rain and knowing that the river was flooded, I was startled to see it so high. I have often thought about living in houseboat on the river.

This weekend is the Fiddlers Gathering!!!!! We cashed in our change jar and have plenty of spending moneys for the weekend. Anything leftover will go back to the change jar and be added to for Feast of the Hunters Moon money. Exciting!

It's funny, Martin having Thursdays off always makes Friday feel like Monday. It's a pleasant surprise to realize that the weekend is just a few hours away.

Happy Weekend!