So, what is up with us?

We have been sublimely lucky to be able to stay in the Magee Chalet at Blue Knob while we wait for the closing on our new house (hi, Kate!). 

This has meant that our family can all be together in the meantime and maintain some type of normalcy as we make this massive transition to our new life in Southern PA.

While in our temporary home, we have been:
Learning how to shoot hoops

 and watching the chipmunks

and blowing/popping bubbles

and playing in splash pools

and painting

and learning new things (like animal sounds!)

and teaching Bullet tricks

and visiting Grandparents

and meeting Sophia & Aunt Kate for playdates

and just hanging around

It has been a crazy time, but we are making the most of our little “vacation” from regular life. Sorry for the lack of blog posts, I promise when we finally move (July 22) and I have steady internet (let’s says July 25-26…gotta give the cable people some time) I will be back up and running like old times. Thanks for sticking with us in the meantime!

Memorial Day weekend 2011

We had a very busy and fun Memorial day weekend. We’re actually going to call it Idldewild/Petrunak Wedding/Koch Wedding Shower/Marianne’s Birthday/Memorial Day weekend…from here on out referred to as “IPKMM weekend.” As suggested by the acronym the weekend started out for Greyson with a trip to Idlewild with his Grammie & Pappy Studer. It was Grey’s first trip to Idlewild; which is favorite childhood amusement park. Grey got to stroll through Storybook forest and (his favorite) play with the balls in the playground. He also crashed out and got some sweet pizza (among other spoiling) with his grandparents. Such a lucky little guy.

While Grey was having the time of his life at Idlewild, B and I attended our friend, Danny’s wedding. Brandon and Danny worked together all through high school at Stuver’s Nursery and have been friends ever since. It was a gorgeous reception and a really good time. I completely forgot my camera all together – but take my word for it; the place looked beautiful and we looked hot. Hah

On Sunday, we made a trip out to Apollo, PA for Uncle Jonny and Ninny’s wedding shower. My boys came along too, since Uncle Jonny was going to need some company while the girls oohed and ahhed over wedding presents. The wedding shower was beautiful and Ninny got so many nice things. The top secret Memslide that I had my sister make was a huge hit and a surprise. (A memslide is a video of photographers set to music. See my sister’s website here. – hi, Tash!)

After the shower, we loaded up our truck and helped unpack all the new presents at Jon & Linds’ new house. It looks great already and will be ready for move-in after the wedding! We all went out to dinner and Grey chowed down on some pizza and then crashed out on the way back to Blue Knob.

Memorial Day Monday was celebrated with lunch and birthday cake at Grammie & Pappy’s. (Don’t forget – the double M’s in IPKMM stands for Marianne’s Birthday AND Memorial Day!) Grey had a heck of a time being sprayed and getting drinks from the hose.

Then it was over to Abba & Poppa Chum’s house for more Memorial Day celebrations. Grey did a little swimming in the splash pool and hanging with his pals.

Although we had a very busy IPKMM weekend – we did not forget what the real reason behind the weekend means. We are so grateful to all of those brave men and women who have donned a uniform for our country. Thank you for being brave enough to do what you were willing to do – so that we can freely do whatever it is that we want to do. Our freedom is because of you and a million thank yous (or a million photo shoots of my baby and dog) will never be enough to explain our gratitude. But we’ll keep saying thank you…and I’ll keep taking the pictures anyway.

Especially thank you to our favorite heroes, we love you and we're honored to know you.

Kayla Adams, Michael Jurich, R. Jason Hardwick, Al Mesaros, Tausha Studer, Cara Studer, Matt Hagerich, Melanie Uzelac, Albert Rummel, Tyler Ribblett, Mallie Stephens, Kevin Turner, Justin Yingling, Amber Burkhart

Why selling your house is so annoying

Its the showings.
Its the people that want to come look at your house during naptime.
or dinnertime.
or bedtime.
Its the finding some place to go with a baby and a dog while someone shows your house.

Some place that is both safe and not overstimultaing for both a toddler and a dog.
When I'm by myself, that means driving around aimlessly with said parties in the car sleeping/screaming and hanging his head out the window/licking my face.
But when Uch was visiting it meant semi-fun trips to let Bullet drag us all over Presque Isle.

And trips to public playgrounds while I walked Bullet around the block.

Its the trying to keep the house clean with a sticky-fingered toddler and a wet nose dog.

Do you know the amount of glass within sticky-fingered and wet nose reach at our house!?!

Its the semi-moving out but still needing to keep your yard trimmed and beautiful after literally 4 weeks of rain.



seriously - that's like knee high



who is raking that?



Its the driving 3 hours back to the house on a day off with your husband to redo the mulch in the front and back flowerbeds.

 Its the waiting for an offer.

Yea, its mostly the waiting for the offer.

home is when i'm alone with you

Here's all the reasons why I should be curled up in the fetal position crying in the corner; so overwhelmed that I don't even want to wake up in the morning:

1. we (bud, me, greyson, bullet, two cats, and four fish) are living in my friend's chalet (hi, Katie!) at Blue Knob temporarily with 1/4 of all our belongings with no washer/dryer or garbage service
2. we still haven't sold our house in ERie
3. we are still house hunting a new house
4. greyson stepped on my work computer screen and now I have to lug a full size moniter around with me to work from my laptop
5. internet is spotty at the chalet (as is cell phone reception) which means everyday I am hauling: greyson, diaper bag, work supplies, laptop, full size moniter, and sometimes bullet to our parents' houses (45 mins away) to work
6. we still have 2 weddings, 1 wedding shower, 1 bachelor party, 2 bachelorettes, the beer olympics, and one 10 year hs reunion planned for this summer
7. that's not including the 3 weddings, 1 first year birthday party, 1 wedding shower, 1 bachelor party, and 1 hs senior banquet to hand out our scholarship that we've already done since April.
8. Grey is getting his molars
9. Healthy lifestyle May turned out to be a bust (ugh)
10. we are both working full time

Here's why I'm not curled up in the fetal position crying in the corner; so overwhelmed that I don't even want to wake up in the morning:

1. we have a place to live altogether (THANK YOU, Katie!!!)with parents' that let us do our laundry & drop off our garbage whenever we want
2. we still have house showings on a regular basis and have an open house coming up
3. we have a great realtor that totally "gets us" and has been flexible enough to deal with our last minute requests and crazy schedules
4.my bosses promptly replied, "just get a moniter and we'll worry about getting your computer fixed soon" (hi & thank you, Tracey & Keith!)
5. lack of internet means less creepy facebook stalking and pinterest obessing
6. we have amazing friends
7. we have amazing friends
8. Grey is healthy and growing
9. Brandon thinks I'm beautiful anyway
10. we both have full time jobs

Life is as happy and full as you decide to view it. Jack Johnson says, Take the picture from the pretty side. truth in lyrics.

The song Home by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros has become my anthem. At anytime I start thinking that life is too much and I want to start a self pity party - I turn this song up (in the chalet or in the car) and sing loud and proud. Home really is whenever I'm with them.



and I used this version because I don't know if I've ever seen anything sweeter than these two.

If the mummie can keep it together, everyone can keep it together. I'm one determined mummie.

Erin & Justin and the weekend of fun

After a three hour drive home from Erie to Johnstown; while Tash and I re-worked the FIVE green & speckled frog song to TWENTY green & speckled frog song (while giggling hysterically) to keep Grey from screaming crying; we dropped Tash off at my parents’ and Grey off at B’s parents and headed to the CV senior banquet to give out our scholarship award. Friday was an eventful day filled with work, followed by house hunting in Hollidaysburg/Altoona area…only to come out with a total bust and no luck in that area. Bummer. After our house hunting extravaganza, it was back to my parent’s house to celebrate a fake Mother’s day, since we weren’t with our mother on the actual holiday. What does our wacky family do on a fake mother’s day?


We take weird photo shoots

 

Chum devises strange games for Booboo to play

 

Uch bakes a cake and then we all sing an unrehearsed but oddly on-key rendition of Happy Birthday turned Happy Mother's day tune


And we try to lift my mom to the ceiling while playing light as a feather, stiff as a board and then crack up laughing (and nearly drop said mother on fake mother's day) because the only honest look in the room that was on Frannie's face that she didn't know what in the hell we were doing or why we all knew how to play this ridiculous game -  was just too funny to keep playing with phony serious expressions.  (no photos of this portion of the night...thank goodness.)


Happy Mother's day, Abba!

 On Saturday, Brandon somehow persuaded Jordan and Dad to wake up at four in the morning to do a little turkey hunting, while the girls and booboo all got to sleep in.


he already wants to be just like his daddy!

Around 9:30a, we started our way down West Point Road to participate in the annual Mineral Point Road clean-up efforts orchestrated by our friend (and former vball coach) Sybil (hi, Coach Sybil!) So we spent the morning in latex gloves pulling pop bottles turned chew spitters out of ditches. Welcome to western PA. It felt good though to get my body moving and doing something both productive and kind to Mother Earth.

Later that day, we were honored to attend Erin & Justin’s wedding at the Raystown Conference Center the second week of May.

It was Grey’s first wedding in over six months and he enjoyed the heck out of himself. He also thought he was a grown man and that he could dress up like Justin Timberlake. 

Erin, from here on out to be referred to as Weller (even though that’s not her last name anymore) and I played volleyball together at Susquehanna and even studied abroad together in Costa Rica (hi, Wells!) It had a been a long time since we’ve seen each other, but I was so happy to be there to celebrate her beautiful day…and I threw out a few foghorns for old times sake when they were announced to the reception. Hah, just couldn’t help myself.

We were also happy to spend the evening talking and catching up with my SUVB girls, Marissa and Kerri.



We miss you Weaves!  Sending our SUVB love all the way to Copenhagen!

Karpy and Matt were there too – Karp was a bridesmaid-

and Grey even got to play under the table fort with his bff, Matt.

Besides making friends with total strangers at every single table, and devouring the chocolate fountain table, Grey also took the dance floor by storm. He had one glimpse of the flashing lights and disco ball and he was captivated. At one point, he was the only person on the dance floor, arms over his head, and shaking his booty like he just don’t care. If anyone had any doubt that he had any of “me” in him; that vanished with the sight of his silly dance moves without a care in the world if anyone else was dancing with him.

We had a great night at the reception and then got to have a long, gabby breakfast with the SU girls (and Grey!) in the morning before we all drove/flew/took trains back to our respective homes around the country (Blue Knob/Baltimore/Philly/Denver). It was so great to spend a weekend with old friends. Congrats Wells & Justin!!