Around Here Week 34: 08/19-08/25

A look into what it is like to live in our home just this minute.

Intentional Outdoor Hours:  415 hours+ (of 1000)
Up 25 hours this week. The weather is finally starting to feel like summer...just as we are about to head back to school (bummer). We enjoyed a nice, long evening around the fire all together after dinner and scored many hours due to fall sports (practices, games, pep rallies, etc).

Reading Walking to Listen by Andrew Forsthoefel and finishing up my Spanish novels and graphic novels for this year: Robo en la noche, Billy la Bufanda y Las Botas, and La Casa de La Dentista. I am so excited to share the stories with my students this year.

Spending time with cousins. The Gilmores drove in from Hershey for a day to hand treestands so while the boys (including Grey and Reid) headed to the woods for the whole.entire.day - Audra hung out with our house much to Gem and Violet's supreme joy. The kids all played nicely which meant I had most of the afternoon to power wash our siding - a chore I have had on my list all summer. Is there a more satisfying task than power washing? (that'd be a no). Then we were lucky to get a sleepover with cousin Caleb which included a visit to my classroom and a Just Dance competition with my volleyball playing students who were at school for camp.

mini-celebrating our six and a half year old Gemmi Roe with a 'happy birthday' over a cookie for dessert and measuring her height on our kitchen doorframe. Our beautiful, silly, sweet as pie girl, we love you so.

Emergency room visiting for a nurse maids elbow for Rusty. We were seriously afraid that he fractured it on the Lord of the Flies playground (what I call the school playground when Momma and Dad are both coaching practices), but alas and thank goodness it was fixed up with a quick swivel and pop back in place.

Mean Momma'ing it on our playdate with our besties the Fiores at Chimney Rocks.  We headed out for a hike in the afternoon and just as we were getting on the path, two of our kids set off on a full sprint waaaay ahead of us. It was scary for a few minutes when we couldn't catch up to them/find them (especially since the hike is all hills and drop offs) but when we finally caught up to them, I made a flash decision and looked at Kate and mouthed "sorry, but we have to leave now" and then proceeded to explain to the kids that we had to cut our playdate short. The kids understand that momma's rule is "if you don't know how to behave, you don't get to go" - I'm way outnumbered always with this crew, so I need everyone to be responsible and follow the rules - even at three years old. So we turned around and hiked back down the path to the sounds of tears and apologies.

Swooning at the Ligonier Farmer's Market with the girls early Saturday morning. Something about a Farmer's Market just sets my soul aglow. So much inspiration, and real hard work with real hardworking hands, and delicious smells and tastes, and all the beauty. Gah. love it so much.

Fall sporting all.the.days.  We've had football and cheer practices most nights this week, including sports pictures which prompted me to start an annual picture of Grey and Gem that I'll be forcing them to do every year now until they graduate high school (HAH). As cheer coach I've been putting my own kids to work in our garage painting flag football run-thrus for all the games - we have 7 games and we've got 3 run-thrus done so far. We headed out to the varsity field for the Fall pep rally on Thursday night where the kids were thrilled to get Senior Varsity fall sports players autographs (adorable), their faces painting, and food from the concession stand (obviously).
-We also had our first games of the season on the beautiful, sunshiny Saturday at Blacklick. Gemma and our cheerleaders did a great job cheering for the entire flag football game including an awesome first job at our halftime dance routine (to Sit Still, Look Pretty by Daya). Uch and I were exhausted after the game (keeping 19 little 1st and 2nd grade cheerleaders all together for 40 minutes is a feat!) but it was fun and proud the way they all did their best and had fun. I am so grateful to have Uch coaching with me! (love you!!)
-Grey played in the minors game while B headcoached and they did amazing. Seriously so impressed with the whole group of Grey's teammates and friends - it will be so fun to watch them all the way up through Varsity playing together. B is an amazing coach and it makes me so proud to have him out there doing what he was born to do; coaching kids sports and life lessons. #hotdad for real. The babies totally hung in there and played during two games in the hot sun with their little friends (#playerslittlesiblingsquad) and I was so grateful to have them just go with the flow even though it was such a long, hot day with two coaching parents who were distracted most of the time. We had a big cheering section (four grandparents, one great grandparent, two aunts, and an uncle who kept shouting from the sidelines - haha, love you Kev).

Finishing up my classroom and attending my first day back to school (Act 80 work day). We spent an hour or two at B's office doing a little redecorating and adding some more home-y touches to his office and then later that week, I put the final touches into my classroom. I figure we spend half our days in those rooms, they should be some place we enjoy spending time in, right? B laughed this whole summer saying, "geez, we're going to need to take out another mortgage on your classroom" (he's half joking, hah), but it sure does look beautiful and inspiring to me, so whatevs.

Making grilled church picnic chicken, my mom's enchiladas, chicken and zucchini casserole, delicious creamy Italian crockpot chicken (made and delivered by Heather - thank you!!) and crockpot swedish meatballs over mashed potatoes.