8th Grade DC Trip

It was Ellie’s turn to go to Washington, D.C., with her class.  I actually really enjoy going, and I am grateful every year I am given the chance.  I asked Ellie if she was okay with me going before volunteering.  She said she was.  I just requested not to be her group’s chaperone. 

We had a small group of kids – less than 60 kids, I think.  We boarded the bus at 6:30am and took off.  Ellie with her friend, Harper, were somehow right in front of me!  What luck!

   

We stopped at Pizza Hut for lunch, made it to Gettysburg by about 1:30. 

Thankfully, even with the government shutdown, they were giving guided tours at this national park.  The girls learned about the Civil War and the Battle at Gettysburg.  They climbed the very tall fire tower and took pictures on top of Big Round Top.  It ended up being a windy, but beautiful day.

    

After a massive buffet,

we headed to the night tour of various monuments in DC – FDR, Jefferson, and MLK Jr.  These are not my favorite ones to see in the dark, but this is what time permitted us.  Thankfully, the lights were on at FDR and we could see some things.

    

After a good night’s sleep, we met downstairs and had a breakfast buffet in our hotel.  We left by about 8am to get to to our first stop.  This year was a bit different.  There was a government shutdown happening – a really uncooperative Congress was arguing over the budget – so all the Smithsonians were closed.  Our tour company scheduled us a stop at Mount Vernon in place of those.   I had never been here, so I found it interesting.  We saw George Washington’s family tomb, the cemetery for slaves, the slave quarters, toured the house, and soaked in the view of the Potomac.  It was beautiful. 

    

From there, we headed to the Holocaust Museum.  While this intrigues me every year, the political unrest in the U.S. right now painted this in a different light.  It is amazing what can so quickly happen given a chance.  How easily people can be taught to hate based on religion, race, skin color, eye color, country of origin, sexuality, and so many things that don’t really make that person loveable or detestable.  And they certainly aren’t cause for the atrocious acts of violence that were showered on these groups.  It is a hard, but necessary, place to visit.

The kids are usually starving for lunch at this point because it is almost 1pm and lunch at school happens at 10:10.  We head to a mall food court and let them go.  Then, we walk forever around Arlington Cemetery and watch the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  All of this makes me consider the lives that have been lost for causes we aren’t even aware about and sometimes didn’t even care about.  The tragedy of war.

The day ends in a light-hearted and loud manner – at Medieval Times dinner show.  My adult crew (Kelsey Rowley, Maddie Aumend, Jess Matz, and me) had fun watching the kids.  And the kids always have a lot of fun cheering for their knight.  Ellie and her table got a picture afterwards with their knight. 

   

The drive back was LOOOOOOONG.  We were caught in a traffic jam and did not make it back to the hotel until almost midnight.  It made for a very short night.

The last day we souvenir shopped, went to the People’s House (a really neat mock White House experience), and visited numerous monuments. 

    

Then, we headed home.  This was the only snafu – we left without lunch and didn’t feed the kids until almost 2pm!  I was very hungry.  We made it home by about 7pm on Friday night.  And I was thankful for the weekend!

Random Fun Things (Aug-Nov edition)

I have been on a hiatus from blogging.  I am continually on the fence on whether to keep this up or not.  I feel like I still want to continue, but I think it will just come in waves.  I have an unexpected day off (snow day #1!!) and am using it to do the thing I don’t make space for.  We will see how far I get.

AUGUST

Ellie was invited to a friend’s birthday party when the weather was warm and pools were a thing we jumped in.  The Cardinals have a beautiful property that they have decked out with all kinds of fun things, including this new in ground saltwater pool.  It was a beautiful night, and the girls had a lot of fun.

    

Jeremy was living his best concert life when he went to see the Black Keys with Kevin and Sandy.  I don’t really know their music, and concerts are low on my list of fun things.  But he loves them and should do things he enjoys, even if it is without me.  I am so glad he was able to go – especially with these two fun people!

    

Jeremy and I (alongside Shawn and Suzanne Nolt) are once again sponsors for the SYF for this year.  We kicked the year off with an Amazing Race – on foot – at Lake Harmony (and a parent meeting happening simultaneously).  Jeremy planned some exciting challenges at each house along the way.  The youth embraced the experience!  There are 28 of them, and they are an “all-in” bunch from what I can tell. 

SEPTEMBER

My friend Christi chose to celebrate her birthday with a small gathering at LincWay Cafe one night.  It was a eclectic mix of people from all parts of her life.  It was full of laughter and some games of Dutch Blitz. 

The 7th/8th grade choir sang the national anthem at a middle school football game.  Ellie enjoyed that and then stayed after to cheer the team on – literally became a cheerleader for a quarter! 

The SYF prepared and served wood-fired pizzas with the Shues as a fundraiser on a beautiful night in September.  Madison and Kenna worked on cheese toppings.  Over 100 from church came to fellowship, eat, and support the youth.  It was a beautiful sight.

OCTOBER

Homecoming looked a little different this year.  Madison and a group of friends chose to forgo the dance and gather for wood-fired pizza and outdoor fun at Jada’s house.  They created some memories of spinning under the stars and hiking in the dark.  In the formal world of homecoming, we celebrated with Sam as King.

Lilli had a chance this season to play volleyball with the Kent State, Tuscarawas Branch – Go Arrows!  They had a great season, and she flipped between playing defensive specialist and right-side hitter.  We had a chance to go watch a few of her games.  The joy of volleyball returned for those moments.  She said it is so much fun and, in a lot of ways, a whole lot less pressure/time than high school.   They ended the season as National Runners-up in their league. (Lilli is #20, 5th from the right)

Jeremy purchased a projector and screen so we could have movie nights on our patio.  We watched a Star Wars movie one night.  Ellie and Pepper enjoyed it (as did the rest of us!).

NOVEMBER

Madison was on stage crew for the fall production, Get Smart.  She helped initially pick out costumes for all the cast.  She really enjoyed this process.  During the production, she moved things on and off the stage, opened the curtain, and held up a wall.  It made for some busy nights, but she had fun.

   

Jen and Arturo trekked from NYC to Ohio to stay with us for about 5 days prior to Thanksgiving.  It is so good to share space with people and get to know them.  The moments when you can just sit together after all the running, eating, and doing is done makes for some great conversation.  We also took time to go watch Wicked 2 in the theater.  Jen had watched the first part with us a year ago and came back for part 2.  I really enjoyed the movie as a whole. 

Every November on the Saturday after Thanksgiving for the past 16 years a group of ladies has gathered at Rachel Augspurger’s house.  This special gathering has been dubbed “The Tracy Brunch” in honor of Tracy (Miller) Bolyard who bolded accused Rachel of moving into a new place and never inviting her over.  I was not a part of the start, but the group has ebbed and flowed over the years, and I was invited at some point.  There is always (the same) tasty brunch food, a lot of laughter, some serious sharing, and reconnection.  This year, Tricia and Rachel made t-shirts for the crew.

Bake Sale

Since the girls were younger, they have enjoyed having a bake sale and/or garage sale.  They have timed it with the LincWay By-Ways sale which features town all along route 30 in Ohio.  The sales are on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  We have had the sale on Friday and Saturday, I think, but this year, we decided to hold it on the first, and busiest, day of the sales. 

They decided to use the sale as a way to support Jeremy’s VeloSano fundraising efforts, committing 50% of their profits to him.  It was pretty neat because they did it again with our neighbor girls, Anabelle and Ellie, and they were also willing to give the money to Jeremy.  I think it is pretty unique that kids their ages would be willing to give up that much money. 

Ellie really wanted to make cinnamon rolls this year with Grandma, so she set up a day to do that.  And they looked delicious. Later, Grandma made MORE cinnamon rolls because she thought the ones she made with Ellie were going to be tough since she accidentally used bread flour instead of all purpose.  This was a blessing in the end because we sold all of them (60 total!)

Then on Wednesday, the neighbors came over in the morning.  They baked chocolate cupcakes, vanilla cupcakes, funfetti cupcakes, and snickerdoodles together.  Ellie C. also made chocolate chip cookies, and Anabelle made some gluten-free coffee cake muffins.  So, we had a pretty good selection, especially for breakfast!

    

We advertised on Facebook for about a week ahead, spread the word with friends, and put up signs around town.  We set up a canopy – which was being held together with duck tape and hopes!  (It went straight to the trash at the end of the sale). 

Thursday morning (after a late night sleepover together), the girls set up tables, chairs, money spot, and baked goods by 8:30am.  We had our first customer prior to even being “open!”  And the line hardly ever stopped.  (They had a surprise extra helper, Miriam, come early in the day as well.)

   

When it seemed to wane or someone got bored, Ellie C was really good about going out alone or with others to drum up customers.  She had a sign taped to her back for awhile!

They sold everything.  I mean every last thing, including the brownies I made during the sale.  60 cinnamon rolls, 48 chocolate chip cookies, 24 cupcakes, 18 gluten free muffins, 40 snickerdoodles, a few cups of coffee, and quite a few cotton candies! 

The most exciting thing is they exceeded the goal they had for raising money for Jeremy.  In fast, there was $145 donated – freely given without any baked goods – on top of what they sold.  They were SO excited to present that to Jeremy. 

And they were pretty surprised by the profits for their own pockets as well.  They had a lot of fun.  We will see what happens in the future.

Tiny Highlights

Pepper enjoys having us all home, but mostly feels ignored and sad about it.  I am projecting feelings based on what I see, but you know.  So, here are his moments…

   

We did something for the first time this summer – went to drive-in movie at the Lynn Theater in Strasburg.  They were showing How to Train Your Dragon (live action), and we all wanted to see it.  We got there a bit early, pulled into a spot, tried to figure out how to get sound (Pro tip: bring a boom box to tune in to the station it is broadcast on so you don’t have to blare it through your car speakers.), and picked up some popcorn at the concession stand.  The movie was really good, the environment was fun, and it was very late when we got home!

A highlight of summer is Vacation Bible School at church.  For many years, we took the kids to Stanwood Church for VBS because Salem didn’t have it.  But Salem has had VBS the past few years.  And the cool thing is that the girls are old enough to help be small group leaders.  And they love it!  Last year, Christi and I signed up to do the skits.  She was a clueless scuba diver and a was a wise friend last year.  This year, we switched roles and I was a clueless hiker and she was the wise friend.  We have fun being silly, and the kids think we are awesome (and trust me, our acting skills have something to be desired!). 

Another highlight was a surprise.  One of my housemates from after college was heading to Ohio (from Mississippi) and asked if I had time to get together.  Then, she managed to get our other housemate to join us and two other local college friends.  It was so fun to be with everyone again.  I forget how much I enjoy those friendships… I think back to Rachel visiting in June and now this.  Those deep friendships forged in that transitional period of life are so special and so difficult to recreate later in life.  I treasure these times.