Memorial Day Parade

One thing that Ben didn't like about Auburn was its lack of parades.  He should be happy here because I think they have a parade for everything!  Last Memorial Day a dentist, who is in our congregation and lives around the corner, invited the 4 oldest to be on his "float" and throw out toothbrushes.  At first they weren't sure if they wanted to because it looked like it might rain.  They went anyway and even though it did rain a bit loved every minute of it.

Museum of Science and Industry

Last weekend we went with some friends to Chicago to see the Museum of Science and Industry.  It was pretty amazing.  We spent about 4-5 hours there and didn't even see 1/4 of the place.  Perhaps we'll go again even though it was quite a drive.

Chicago Skyline

This is probably the closest the kids will ever get to driving a massive tractor.

The space wing was pretty cool.  I think these are the cutest astronauts ever.

For this display butterflies would land on you if you stood still enough.

I can't wait until we can have chickens again.  It was fun watching Adi interact with the chicks.

This was, by far, the coolest thing we saw.  Two people sit opposite each other and each puts a sensor on their  head.  There is a ball that is in the middle.  Whoever is the most relaxed, the ball will move away from.  Sam won, hands down, every time.  He was even laughing and smiling as he was doing it.  Everyone kept asking him, "what were you thinking?" and he just kept saying, "Nothing."  He lives in his own world and it's awesome!

Great Quote

These last few weeks I keep hearing or seeing this quote which pretty much sums up my journey right now: 

"Imagine yourself as a living house.  God comes in to rebuild that house.  At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing.  He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised.  But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense.  What on earth is He up to?  The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards.  You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage:  but He is building a palace.  He intends to come and live in it Himself."

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I was just listening to an Education Week talk that this was quoted in.  It was so awesome, I'm posting the link here.  If you have some time you should listen to it.

The Book of Mormon as a Type: Our Personal Journey

What we do when there's nothing to do. . .

Not much has been happening lately here - mainly because Spring has yet to arrive.  I've never been somewhere so COLD!!  It's the middle of April and the hottest it's been is in the 50's - and only twice.  Everyone keeps saying that this is not normal, I guess we'll see. . . Here are just a few pictures showing what we've been up to.

 Adi's always happy after she's eaten.

 Adi loves to hang out in her sister's bean bag.  She's pretty content as long as she's got something to play with.

The kids made their Easter baskets this year because I have no idea where I put our other ones (still packed somewhere) and I didn't want to buy new ones.  They really liked making them.  I may start doing this every year.

 I don't normally let Stina 'man' the stove, but she kept insisting that she wanted to help make dinner.  In just a few more years maybe we can start the real training.

 Alexis does an awesome job pampering her sister.  Stina loves getting her nails painted and being "made pretty."  Thank goodness her older sister is so good at it!

 Not to be outdone by his sisters, Dayne thinks that his new job is to feed the baby.  If the results didn't end in such a mess, I'd probably let him do it all the time.

Pinewood Derby

Sam (and maybe Ben, too) made another Pinewood Derby.  They did an awesome job and Sam came in 3rd place overall.  Both of them were very proud  - it was a pretty fast car!

 Dayne had so much fun at the race.  He can't wait until he gets to make a pinewood derby car!.

Birthday Week

This last week we celebrated Lexi's and Sam's birthdays.  

Sam's Birthday:

Sam got books for his birthday . . . of course!

Holy Hill Cathedral:  We went to visit this cathedral last Saturday.  It's a beautiful church that is situated up on a hill and you can see it from miles away.

 Here is the view from the front door of the church.

Discovery World:  We've had a pass to this place since before we moved here, but this was the first time we've used it.  It's a pretty cool science museum.  We stayed here most of the day and the kids didn't even have a melt down until we were almost home.

That yellow thing is a shark egg.  An employee informed us that is was laid just that morning.

With Sam's birthday also came the end of a scouting year.  Sam finished this project in just the nick of time.  

Alexis's Birthday:  It's killing me how old this girl is getting.  Middle school is just around the corner - how could this happen so quickly?!?

Alexis requested an ice cream cake - which, surprisingly, her mother made.  However, Lexi wanted to put frosting on it  and I didn't mind one bit.

I suppose I should have added a picture of Alexis as a baby because of her birthday, but Adi and Alexis as a baby are pretty much the same thing.  Doesn't this little girl love her Daddy (or whatever he's drinking)?

Recent Winter Events

Here's what we've been up to lately:

Eating dinner in the basement by the fire.  The kids thought this was so awesome!  We love have a wood burning fireplace.

Lexi turned Stina into an 80's Pop Princess (I guess that's Cindi Lauper).  I don't know if you can tell, but she has a side pony tail - never thought I'd see that again.

Alexis and her friend, Amber, did a history fair project.  They had to choose something from history that has had a large impact on our life now.  You can tell she's Ben's daughter - she chose Chocolate!

We had to pick up something in Green Bay.  I can't believe that Green Bay has an NFL team.  It felt like we were on a college campus - a really small city.

Last week we had a really bad scare.  Adi took a tumble down the basement stairs.  The staircase is wooden and at the bottom it's concrete.  I think it scared 10 years off of my life!  We have a gate, but in the bustle of getting ready for school it hadn't been shut completely.  She seemed fine, but I took her to the doctor anyway.  The red mark on her eyebrow was the only thing that she got from it and that was gone within an hour.  It was a huge miracle!! 

Stina has always been such a good helper, but now she likes to make sure that she's looking good while she's helping. 

Dayne and Stina making their own pizzas. 

Downtown Ice Scultures

Our town has sculpture contest every year and they invite local artists to compete.  It was fun walking through downtown and seeing all of the different sculptures.  I was amazed at how talented these people were.  I also found out that we have a pretty amazing downtown.  

I think this was of a woman holding a fish bowl above her head. 

This was a sculpture of a nun doing a karate kick - definitely the most creative one I saw.

Pole Vaulter

Freezin' Breezin'

Here's a picture of our new normal.  This is the kids walking to school . . . when it was "warm" (above 15 degrees).  When it's colder than that I drive them to school.  This morning it was -5 when I was driving them to school and when I got home and checked the weather, it turned out that it was -22 with the wind chill.  I found myself thinking - at least the weather is going to warm up by the end of the week (it's going to be 20 degrees).  Like I said. . . my new normal. . .

Getting my kids ready for school reminds me of the mom on Christmas Story getting
Ralphie ready.  It takes me about 15 to 20 minutes to get them all "suited up."

New Car

As I mentioned earlier, Ben's car died en route to our new home.  For the first few weeks we tried living on one car, but it became apparent that it was time to purchase another car.  If any of you know Ben, you'll know that he is meticulous about his research - however, he was 10x more meticulous when it came time to purchase a car.  He loves cars and is very particular about what he wants in a car.  When he had the Civic, he took amazing care of it and it had never had any problems until the engine died (which was a total fluke and had nothing to do with him).

For two weeks he carefully researched what he wanted in a car, what was available, what he could afford and what was a good deal depending on the model of the car.  All around our house were Consumer Reports, Car and Driver, etc and every spare moment was taken up researching.  He would decide on a car that he'd found locally and then for the whole day would research its reliability, performance, and cost.  He would decide on one in particular after much deliberation and then wake up the next morning and say, "I've decided against that car."  It was very exhausting and I wasn't even doing anything!

He finally found the car that he wanted for an AMAZING price and we went down to Chicago to check it out (up to this point we had spent a lot of time going to different dealerships around our area and hadn't found anything).

The funny thing about this car was that it was at a Bentley dealership (it was definitely the cheapest car on the lot).  I'm not a vain person, but I will tell you it's quite humbling to drive into a Bentley dealership with a Plymouth Voyager! ;-)   Anyway, Ben drove the car, felt good about it, and talked them down on their price so we ended up buying it.  It's a nice car which I have yet to drive in.  I told him that I wouldn't drive it until the snow is gone because it doesn't have snow tires on it (and because it's not nearly as classy as my van).

Moving On Up . . .Literally

I realize it's been a while since I've really kept this blog up, but now that I'm snowed in, there's no better time than the present!

Our last drive through Auburn.  I would like to think they were rolling the oaks in
farewell to us, but I think some State Championship was going on.

We've recently moved up to the Great White North.  No, not Canada, but close enough!  In July Ben got a new job.  Since he was contracted to teach at Auburn University until December, we didn't move until last month.  It was quite a shock going from 70 degree weather to snow, but we're still alive so I think we can make it until spring.

Just before leaving town, Ben was doing some last minute tune-ups to his car.  Turns out that was unnecessary!

First off, everything went well getting our stuff moved (his new company paid to move us - such a blessing!) and everything went off without a hitch.  We left on a Thursday (I think the 6th of December) and our plan was to drive to Nashville and stay the night, then finish our journey the next day.  We ended up making it 2 hours out of town and Ben's car had an oil light go on.  We quickly got it to a shop (right off the freeway) and left if there to be fixed.  We decided to stay the night in Birmingham and go to Louisville the next night and stay overnight.

Late afternoon the next day, we headed out with what we thought was a fixed car and made it to Huntsville.  Just outside of Huntsville, Ben's car -again - had the oil light go off.  He decided that since the exit was 1/4 of a mile away, he should stop there (it was night and he didn't want to be on the side of the road on the freeway with everyone).  He almost didn't make it to the exit because his car cut out and he coasted to the exit.

We had the car towed to another mechanic (thank goodness for friends that are from Huntsville!) and went on our way in one vehicle to Louisville.  Ben decided that he would just have to fly back in a week or so and drive it up when it was fixed.

Waiting for the tow truck in Huntsville.

However, the next day we found out it was the engine that had died (and that whole story is for another time).  We got to our new home late that evening - just in time for the first snowfall of the year!  Everyone arrived safe and sound and despite loosing a car, it wasn't too bad.  The kids were awesome and were so excited about the snow!