The Museum

PK1 created a "museum" on the back deck this summer.

It started with mostly rocks of different sizes and shapes.  Then she added bits of bark and a few odd non-nature things like a piece of plastic that broke off a toy or the nob that falls off the grill.

The piece de resistance was a broken birds egg, but that was handled by so many neighbor kids that it disintegrated to nothing.  She asked me to get some books from the library to help her categorize the rocks, which I did, but she soon found that cumbersome and went back to her own basic categories.

Gimme S'more of this Neighborhood

Our neighborhood isn't fancy or in a good school district, it may have barking dogs and you can't safely buy produce or meat at the grocery store, you can't turn around in the bathrooms and every sixth house is for sale right now, but sometimes I still LOVE IT.   We have been blessed with the best neighbors. Last night was a little Back to School party between two of the houses.  So fun.

Happy 60th Papa!

Our very special Papa turned 60 a couple of weeks ago.  We all gathered for a big party for him on Saturday.  What a blessing he is to all of us.  Here are some highlights from the big event:


Jim's 60th Birthday from Political family on Vimeo.

Another American Girl Surprise

PK1's best little friend had a huge surprise for her recently.  Her grandmother, had visited and brought this, that she made for PK1:

PK1 is not the gushy or emotional type. But she was just glowing and ecstatic and she and I both even started to tear up a bit at this unexpected and extravagant gift:

These dresses are made to be in the time of the American Girl name Felicity.

This is the drawing PK1 put on the thank you card she made:

If you give a pig a pancake...

There is this really cute kids book called, "If you Give a Pig a Pancake."  I am not sure, but it might be anti-socialist propaganda.  Anyway, the gist is, if you give a pig a pancake it sets off this chain of events, he will want syrup, then a glass of milk, then he might spill the milk etc etc.

Well, that is what happened with our home project last Saturday.

About half the windows in our house are broken.  Not the glass, but the mechanism.  They have to be held up with a stick.  One is actually being held up by an old VHS tape.  It isn't the safest and it certainly isn't the most attractive.  Almost every time my sister visits, she pulls the stick out and it comes crashing down.

So we called a guy out, we never call a guy.  PD is the guy.  But we called a guy out and it was going to be like $150 per window for parts and labor.  This is why we don't call a guy.  But PD said that he watched the guy take the window apart and he could fix it himself.  So we took all the parts off and shipped them to Cinncinati.  They sent us back the replacements. This process itself, took a month.

After a big breakfast on Saturday, PD started to fix the windows.

I decided to wash the windows and the screens while they were out.

Then I decided that the side that faces out would be much easier to paint while they were out, so I gave them a fresh coat of paint.

While I was at Home Depot getting the paint, I could not pass up some half price perennials. (those had to go in the ground now too.)

Then I thought the freshly painted windows would make the rest of the trim look bad, so I had PD touch that up a little too.

It was  a long day and we only did four windows!  The rest will have to wait until September, the next time we will have a free Saturday.  The roast chicken I was going to make for dinner had to wait.  We just ate some sandwiches over the sink.

Summer 2009 Field Trip

We read a lot about Ancient Egypt this year, so I was excited to go see this traveling exhibit at our local Science Museum.  It even boasted a real mummy, which is really cool, but also creaped me out big time.  I did not get a picture of that part because after a policeman reprimanded me, I realized that it was against the rules to take pictures of the ancient artifacts.

Here are the PK's building a pyramid.  I had to make most of it.  I was really wishing PD was there because it was more complicated than it looked to get the insides right.

This camel was fantastic:

Here they are pulling a brick that was supposed to be as heavy as the ones that made up the real pyramids.  I can't believe people worked like that just so some king could store his corpse.  I don't think PK2 would have lasted long in that environment, she wouldn't do it.

See the policeman in the back of that picture?  Well, that was the end of the pictures.  After the Egypt exhibit though, we went to a hands-on construction machine exhibit.  It was awesome.  I made this little slideshow about it:

Trucks from Political family on Vimeo.

Summer 2009 This and That

Every summer, at least once, we go to Dayton with Gram to visit YaYa. She is PD's grandmother. Many times PD's sister and Little Cincinnati Cousin join us. This year we went for her birthday. She doesn't look 83 does she?

We made homeade ice cream in July. Look how we are dressed like it is 60 degress. That is because it was 60 degrees. This was a cold July.

We tried this Italian Ice Place that everyone has been talking about. I was not impressed. We like Jeni's ice cream the best and will have to continue to search for a good Italian ice.

We went to a matinée one day. We saw this:

It was PK2's first movie and only the second for PK1. It was really cute and funny.

One night I went out to eat with my college girlfriends. We have had a little prayer group going since we had kids. We get together a couple times a year, sometimes with the kids, sometimes without. It was really nice to just talk mom stuff and compare notes as we are all really moving out of that toddler/preschool stage and not sure what to do next with these kids that suddenly got so BIG! Don't my lettuce wraps look good?

More Summer 2009

We love our pool.  It is a little bit ghetto and very 60's, but it is cheap, close by, rarely crowded and we love all the people.  And now that I don't have to stand in arms reach of the PKs anymore, I can lay on a chair and relax while they have a ball.  This year I was even accepted by a fun group of moms I like to call "the catholic school moms."   Even some of our local politicians will occasionally take a dip in the best kept secret (pool-wise) in central Ohio. Sadly I do not have any pictures of this.  PD was able to join us at the pool on Saturdays so much more than in the past since he is not currently running a campaign.  He actually developed a slight tan line. I do not have a picture of that either.

First Day at the Pool:

I take this picture every year.  Here they are last year:

They love the slide:

PK1 learned to dive:

And jump off the board:

PK2 can jump really far out:

Even LNG goes to this pool:

She is such a crack up.  Before this picture she said, "Let's put our arms around each other like we are best friends."

Summer 2009

My parents were here recently and PD and I were telling them that this has been the best summer of our married life so far.  That seems like an extreme statement because there wasn't anything that happened that was very extraordinary.  We just enjoyed this summer because we had time to do all the things we love the most.  For us this is a lot of nothing plus a few lazy days at the pool, dinner and wine on the deck with friends, PG's famous grill outs, a couple date nights and lots of ice cream.  This summer was the most laid back of our married life because we did not have a baby or a toddler, we did not have any enormous home projects and PD only had to work a few Saturdays!  I only feel a little bit bad that I didn't take the time to do a lot of blogging, but here are a few highlights from summer 2009.

Playing with our BFFs:

Popsicles with LNG:

First VBS.  I was irrationally worried about them going, especially PK2, but they loved it!

Stay tuned for a few more highlights tomorrow.

Wedding

PD and I went to Michigan for the weekend to attend my cousin's wedding.  We left the PKs home to have lots of fun with the PGs because I wanted to be available to visit with all my relatives that I never get to see.   Also because the wedding was on our 11th anniversary! 

I tried to label all the people in the pictures for those of you who care, but people are from all different families, so it might get a little confusing.  Basically I have two aunts, my dad's sisters, and they each have three kids, all my cousins.  Hillary, the bride is right in the middle age-wise, of the nine of us.  I am the oldest, but the youngest is now twenty!  Unbelievable.

Here is a little slide show I made of the event:


If you still haven't had enough, my sister blogged about the event too.  She did a better job than I did of taking pictures of the beautiful venue.  See it here:  Wedding