Nutshells Are Never Big Enough

I was going to post about the happenings around here in a nutshell, you know, so it won't be novel length.  But as I was uploaded the pictures off my phone, I thought, nope, a nutshell would just be too small to do it justice.  So, this post might be a bit lengthy, but it'll be worth it, I hope. 

Sorry for being out of commission for a few weeks.  We've had a lot of sickness going around these parts and I'll be honest, at the end of the day, some days, I just couldn't find it in me to sit down at the computer to document the events of the day.  But here I am, I haven't given up completely, and that, for me, is a victory!

A few weeks ago, Eddie had the opportunity to go away for a weekend for a bit of a roommate reunion.  He met up with 3 of his old college roomies (old, as in, 11 years ago!).  They all lived in an apartment together right after their missions and I don't think they've really seen each other in about 8 years (since we got married).  They all met up in Charlottesville, VA for a BYU vs. UVA football game and then spent the night in Richmond where one of the guys lives.  Eddie came back so glad he had gone.  Even though it was a lot of driving, he said it was worth it to reconnect with those guys.

While Eddie was away on his trip, I decided to have a bit of special fun with the boys.  Kinda like a date with Mama.  I gave them some options of what we could do on Saturday and they got to choose two.  The first thing we did was go over to the Franklin Park Conservatory in downtown Columbus to see the butterfly exhibit.  In the conservatory, they have a room that is like a rain forest where they have butterflies flying freely.  The kids love it because the butterflies can land on them or they can watch them drink nectar from the flowers.  It is really neat and they have an amazing array of butterflies in there.

Pictures from lower left going clockwise:  1. the boys sitting on a bench waiting for the doors to open  2. looking through the window where all the butterfly chrysalis' are hanging so we can see the butterflies coming out and stretching their wings.  3. the boys love the Koi pond!  4. gorgeous, big, blue butterfly  5.  a butterfly drinking some of the sugar water in the feeder.

After the conservatory, the boys chose to go and see the movie, Planes, in the theater.  I didn't get any pictures of that but we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  It was a really fun day!

Since all of that was a few weeks ago, here are a few of the things we've done in the meantime:

We went apple pickin' and picked about 50 lbs of fresh honeycrisp apples.  They are soooo good!  We also have been harvesting tomatoes from our garden and this year we decided to try cantaloupe and it worked!  We harvested two decent-sized cantaloupes last week.  Score!

Jonny & Henry finger-painted

Henry was pointing out the kitty that lives in the house behind us.  We ended up drawing our own kitty on our picture.  He was really excited!

Thomas was deep in thought, drawing out plans for a real transformer that he is going to invent when he's a grown-up.  He made it look like a real set of instructions by labeling each part of the picture and he even included a list of each item needed and how many of that item he would need written next to it.  It was pretty incredible.  We're definitely going to keep that for when he really is a grown-up!

And the crowning glory of the past few weeks was Jonny starting preschool!!!



He was super excited and seems to be loving it.  As luck would have it, however, he developed pink eye after his second day and had to miss the next day so after only having been for two days, he's loving it so far.   He was the most excited about his new t-shirt.  We are really excited for him, it'll be a great year!

This past week both Jonny and Henry have had pink eye and the upper respiratory infection type symptoms that sometimes accompany it.  It has not been a fun week but they seem to be on the mend so hopefully we can get back to normal this week.  Something else that happened in the past few weeks was that I decided to join a community choir.  It is all women and we practice Christmas songs all through the fall so that we can go around to nursing homes and assisted living facilities to sing to the residents in December.  It has been great singing Christmas songs in September and it helps that the conductor of the choir is one of my good friends from church so I think it'll be a good few months!

Just as a spiritual side note, today I had the opportunity to speak to our Sunday school class about the handcart pioneers who walked, pulling everything they owned in handcarts, from Iowa to Salt Lake City, UT in 1856.  Even though they met with much tragedy along the way, they kept trudging onward.  Their story is very inspiring to me because it shows how much faith and courage they really had.  Even if you aren't a member of the same church that I am, their story is one of hope, faith, courage and endurance and one that has touched me deeply.  I will never forget it.