Lexie's first bus ride!

Ever since school started Lexie has been asking when she could ride the bus. I finally got ahold of the bus garage and filled out the proper paperwork (everything here requires the proper paperwork!) and they were off--or on!

Brady is not nearly as enthusiastic as Lexie is but they only ride to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He rides home every afternoon.
The first day, at the bus stop, Lexie put her hand on her hips and said, "Raise your hand if you are in Kindergarten". Two little girls shyly raised their hands. She said that when they got to school in the coat room she asked one "So, do you want to be friends"? The girl said yes. The other little girl got "all huffy" and asked Lexie why she wasn't invited to be her friend. Lexie said "Mom, I just told her "look, I am getting to you but if you are going to be all drama, then never mind"! " I asked Lexie what happened next and she reported that the huffy little one "got her attitude under control" and now all three are buddies!

Way to go Lexie! Too bad we all can't have that kind of confidence!

Alyssa had a soccer game on Sat. I missed the shot of her awesome steal (of course) and of her taking down the bully from the other team (yes, she got called for it). She didn't get a yellow card, but they did get a penalty kick. Her extremely type B coach is reported to have said "Great job Alyssa--it was a great play, don't worry about the call".

The house is coming along nicely. Gary is painting every day like a mad man and even consent

ed to let me have green in the front room. Hooray! The kids and I have moved about 1/2 of the little stuff and the basement is being organized as we go. I am so happy to finally have all my food storage up on shelves again. We hope to finish up this Sat.

From being homeless to having 2 homes!

1514 Cardinal; Bowling Green, OH 43402

Now we have a rental and a mortgage. We are such over achievers! We plan to be out of our rental and completely done with our protracted moving experience by October 8th. Wish us luck.


The house sits on a nice size lot. We are very happy about the size and shape of the back yard and plan to install a fence soon for Ginger. She met the lab next door last night. She and Cooper are about the same age and were instantly great friends.
Standing in the front doorway looking in the house.

Front room, just inside front door.
The main floor has a mud room (with enough room for the washer, dryer, freezer, and hooks for coats), a 1/2 bath, front room, kitchen, and rec. room. Can you see the two tile squares in the kitchen picture? I would really love to know which one you guys think I should choose. My new dishwasher and stove are stainless steel. Our family is pretty much divided about which would be best. Any thoughts?


Double click on this pic for a better look at the tile. You can also see into the front room in this pic. I am standing in the rec. room.

Rec room from the kitchen.

Well mom, as you can see I lied. There are actually 4 windows in the family room. I am hoping I can talk you into making two more sets of Americana Curtains. I will start looking for the fabric ASAP. What do you think? Gary and I are debating over which walls to paint red and which to do with CandleWax.

I want to do one wall 1/2 and 1/2 but I can't find good dividing/stopping points. Any help, please?

The girls room with Alyssa's new dresser.

Guess we need to do some serious wall washing!
Upstairs are the four bedrooms, a small linen closet, and the two full bathrooms. Here is Alyssa and Lexie's room. Yesterday we went to Furniture Row and bought Alyssa this dresser. I will post another shot of it when her room is done and the mirror is attached to it. It is stunning to see and we were very excited about the deal we got on it! I about crashed the other day when I saw the "Denver Mattress Company" truck drive through my neighborhood! I love their mattresses and furniture. It is in Toledo, easy to find (right by Sam's and Walmart--who would have ever guessed? :-)

Here is Brady and Brandon's rooms with views of the back yard from each of their windows.

Brady's room and view

Brady has the squares in his window too, I just managed to open his before I took the picture!

Brandon picked his room because it has a bigger closet and because of the mirror that says "Adio".

I forgot to get pictures of the unfinished basement but it has been recently painted white and has a few shelves and some pegboard. I will post those next week. I did get shots of the garage. I am going to copy my friend Michele's garage wall storage system for the bikes etc. She has a cool system and I found all the parts at my Home Depot here in town. Thanks Michele, now I don't have to try to figure that out on my own!

Front doorway looking into the mud room, and garage entrance.

I know this is a rather long post with lots of pictures, I hope you don't mind. I thought you might like to see as much of the house as I could show. It doesn't really do it justice but I will keep sending pics as we paint and etc.

Marblehead Lighthouse

I never though I would post twice in the same week, let alone twice in one day! After I did a little homework this a.m., we decided to go on an adventure to check out Lake Erie. What follows is a lot of amazing pictures from a really fun day! I hope you enjoy them.

We found the Marblehead Lighthouse, isn't it beautiful. The kids had a ball checking things out with the binoculars and climbing on the rocks.

Ginger went in Alyssa's place (Alyssa is still sick and had a ton too much homework). We missed Alyssa and had to rush home to show off all of our pictures.

He isn't really hanging off of a cliff, it just looks like it! :-)

This is a barge full of limestone being pushed by a tug boat. We watched it head all the way to the horizon!

About 2 miles from where we were is Cedar Point. The kids (Gary included) are chomping to go there very soon. My friend, Faith, from Roosevelt had mentioned it to me before we left. Cedar Point, come to find out, is the largest roller coaster amusement park in the WORLD! You read that correct and I am not exaggerating. These are the shots I got of it with my long zoom lens on my camera. Brady spent most of his time studying it, across the little inlet, with the binoculars.

We think these are some kind of fossils but we don't know what; there were no signs or restricted access of any kind. They were cool though!

As we were leaving Brandon saw this snake slither between two rocks. It is a terrible picture but I was a little unsure of species and temperment so I decided to take what I could get (which ended up with about the last 12" of his tail!

Any and all of these photos are worth double clicking on to enlarge. I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I enjoyed taking them! Have a great week.

The Black Swamp

Alyssa is the first person in the family to get sick here and being the over-achiever that she is--she has two ear infections, strep throat, and a sinus infection for good measure. Her goal for the last 10 days has been to hold down the couch and to not die. We finally got her drugs and she was perked up a bit by Saturday. She didn't get to go to the festival though.
Our ward plays ball every Wednesday and Saturday. Gary just can't help himself; on Thursdays and Saturday afternoons he makes good friends with the ice pack and ibuprophen. He stayed home and kept Alyssa comfortable while Brady, Brandon, Lexie and I headed downtown for the much anticipated Black Swamp Arts Festival!

Bowling Green used to be an area of Ohio called the Black Swamp. It was drained many years ago by farmers who now take advantage of the blackest, most fertile soil I have ever seen. Each year Bowling Green hosts the Black Swamp Arts Festival; one of the top 200 art festivals in the United States. I was very eager to go check it out and it did not disappoint. We were thoroughly entertained with music, crafts, vendors, and food for more than 4 hours!

Brandon and Brady took the advantage to slip off to the library for a little unsanctioned computer time (Sponge Bob seems to turn up in the oddest places) while Lexie had a ball making a corn husk doll, a derby hat, butterfly wings (they had dragon wings for the boys), painting a mural with "mud" paint, and getting her face painted. We finished our time at the festival by trying out some of the food. While we were waiting in line, Brandon and Brady spotted some baby bunnies. By the time I was able to take the shot they had backed up into their hole a bit so it is a little difficult to see the little guy.

Brandon and Brady emerged from the library in time to participate in the tye dye. Brady didn't want to (maybe if it had been a block print :-)--tie die isn't his thing--too messy to do and too messy to look at). Brandon ended the evening at home with rinsing and revealing he and Lexies creations.