Meet the Team

Let the craziness begin!  The girls are both participating in high school volleyball this year.  Practices started the end of July and will continue keeping us hopping through mid-October.  It is fun knowing they are practicing together and experiencing life together.  Not all siblings get that chance.  This is just a few pictures from Meet the Team this year.

*On an unrelated note, school starts in two days from when I am posting this.  That changes the rhythm of life here – and I could hardly keep up with it during the summer!  I am going to try to build it in so it doesn’t get overwhelming, but just know we are just living life even if I haven’t posted!

Oh, the many things….

It snowed.  I mean it really snowed.  Like it snowed almost a foot of snow.  It was also cold.  Like really cold.  So cold we called off school – multiple days.  The snow was beautiful and deep and I loved it.  Strangely, for the first year in awhile, I did not get out to go sledding.  However, I did shovel lots of snow.  In January, we had school for only 11 days.  11 days!  Crazy. 

The girls put on a fun, just-for-themselves fashion show.  Here are a few fun pics.

    

And the snow….

         

Of course, that much snow would be wasted if you didn’t make snow ice cream… multiple days in a row.

And the cutest scruffy dog in the house  While he enjoys the snow, this was difficult.  He was very frustrated while trying to find a place to go poop – can’t go in the deep snow, doesn’t want to go on the sidewalk or the street – oh, the dilemma!  The driveway/sidewalk was good enough occasionally, and thankfully, some people had shoveled snow in the yard for their dogs and Pepper could go there!

         

For your enjoyment, me on Wacky Wednesday at school.

NYC to Home

All good things must come to an end (they say).  Our time ended on Monday at 8am when we pulled away from the apartment. 

Arturo recommended getting out of town before 8 or after 10am.  We opted for the earlier time, and actually made it out of there 15 minutes ahead of schedule.  Farewell to our abode…

    

The day was foggy to start.

Jeremy and I navigated (tensely) out of the city.  The tensely came from the fact that Google maps actually stinks at navigating you through and to specific tunnels in NYC.  But we made it.

Madison took over driving to get another hour in.  As she drove, the weather worsened – wind, then snow, then blowing snow, and then difficulty seeing.  Thankfully, we could pull into a rest area and switch drivers.   

    

We took a break at the outlet mall, grabbed supper at Panda Express, and finally pulled into our home sweet home. 

Advent: Week #4

Day 21: Ediger Christmas (see previous post)

Day 22: Christmas Movie night. We watched My Secret Santa, a Hallmark-esque Netflix holiday show.  It was actually pretty good. 

Day 23: Go out for tasty drinks.  We headed to Midnight Readers bookstore and coffee shop in Apple Creek.  We enjoyed looking at books – even picked up some last minute Christmas gifts AND saw Sandy there! – and sipping some drinks.  Ellie held off for butterbeer at Treemont Coffee House; we were headed there to pick up a gift card for Jeremy anyway – two coffee shops in one day!

Day 24: Christmas Eve Service.  This is always a special night at church – from the music to the tree to the church family to the candlelighting service.

    

It’s all ready for the next day….

    

Day 25: Christmas day!  Celebrate Christmas with your family!  We woke up and opened stockings while the monkey bread baked in the oven. 

Breakfast

    

Then, we opened gifts.  The girls gave us ours first.  They wrapped up 11-12 of Jeremy’s coffee travel mugs and tucked a gift card into one of them. 

They wrapped up some of my clothes from my closet so I would have something to open and then gave me some nice gifts – a handmade calendar and a nicely presented list of 6 meals that I can make (with Ellie’s help) this year. 

The girls gift each other their gifts.  They enjoy giving them as much as getting them.  It is neat to see the thought they put into each gift. 

    

Pepper even got a gift this year – a new ball to hold hidden treats. 

    

After lunch (spaghetti and meatballs), we packed up and headed on our epic adventure to…. New York City.  (post to follow)

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.

Christmas #2: Our Christmas

Day 25 – Build gingerbread houses. This was a deviation from “Merry Christmas,” but it made a fun activity for the afternoon.

    

We started the morning with stocking opening.

Then, we had breakfast. I made monkey bread this year, which was tasty. (Check out Ellie in this photo!)

After breakfast, the girls swapped their gifts for each other first. They were both very excited about what they had gotten for one another.

    

Then, we took turns opening what remained. Even Pepper got in on the fun.

              

The rest of the day just evolved on its own. Grandma and Grandpa stopped by to see what the girls had received/given. They played a game of bowling with the new set of Switch controllers – a gift for the girls so 4 people can play at once.

We had one additional gift they had to complete an escape room to access. They had fun working through the puzzles to break the code. The prize was passports (in the future… we have to fill out the application and take the pictures, etc). They were excited about these even though there is no specific international trip in our minds.

We went for a walk on the bike path because it was actually kind of nice outside.

    

We ended the night with Elf, a great Christmas classic!