Amazing what a can of paint can do!

By some amazing stroke of luck I remembered to take some "before" pictures before I did the painting! 

Leah's bathroom is one of the 2 remaining rooms that hasn't been touched by paint since we moved in, now 6 years ago! 

 So I've been debating what to do with that pink tile! Certainly not the color I would choose, but I had to work with it and get rid of the off-white eggshell color on the walls that was standard throughout the whole house, trim and all. Plus, I really didn't like the oak cabinet under the sink. What I forgot to take a picture of was the HUGE medicine cabinet on the wall over the sink. 3 mirrored doors, dressing room style lights above-it just had to go. So we ripped it off the wall and got to work.

 Gray paint, white trim, and a few accents that I had picked up over a year ago at the thrift store (pictures, lamp), clean tile grout and what a transformation!

 All that's left is for Dennis to make a frame around  a mirror and put a new vanity light up.

 She's a very happy girl to have her bathroom back!

Fall Hike

This afternoon we went for a wonderful fall hike with some friends at Calvert Cliffs State Park. The trail was an easy walk-about 2 miles-down to a beach on the Chesapeake Bay.

 The kids had a blast all the way down the trail, running ahead, hiding behind trees, and then jumping out when we approached howling like a bunch of Indians! They also loved seeing all of the places where beavers had dammed up the creek. Evidently the park rangers have a full time job clearing parts of the dams away to keep the trail from being flooded!

 Once we got to the beach the kids spread out, looking for shells, fossils and shark's teeth. 

 Someone had built a make-shift bridge over the inlet where the creek water was rushing out into the Bay. Here's Bay next to the Bay! We love saying that!

 Tall grasses, sand and driftwood made a great place for a temporary fort. It was amazing to see the gang of kids play and run hard the entire afternoon. Even being wet and cold, they still ran and chased the entire 2 miles of trail back, and then played on the playground for another 1/2 hour. I think the fall weather really energized them- I know it does me!

 Also, a little school project in this post from this week. Bay and Leah are studying land animals this year. One project was to look at tracks. So we went down to the beach where we see tracks all of the time. We took plaster of paris and poured it into the best defined ones we saw. They turned out amazingly well!

This day we found raccoon (on the left), house cats (on the right), as well as some type of bird. We think it was a crow print, based on our animal tracks book. 

Camping...Finally!

 We finally managed to steal away for a weekend to a place not far from home-Cedarville State Forest. The weather was perfect fall weather.

 Mostly, it was about doing a lot of nothing...campfire, hot coffee for the grown-ups, hot chocolate for the kids...sitting by the fire and catching up on reading...there was a little mountain biking done by the big boys though!

 Cooking dinner over the fire (see Dennis' new/old hot dog cooker he got for his birthday? It was intended for the Ohiopyle trip, but now is the first time he's gotten to use it!) We love the hamburger cookers too-2 is not quite enough. 

 Even Elsa came along this time. There was plenty of room for her to roam on her long leash, and we found a nice big field by the playground for her to have some time running off the leash as well.

 Bay and Leah always bring quite an assortment of toys, animals and such to create a miniature city outside. They really get into their imaginative play!

 We also had a belated birthday cake for Dennis, since he didn't have one on his birthday. We stretched it out to last the whole weekend!

One afternoon we went to a local fall festival (which was really disappointing) but the kids did enjoy painting some medieval swords and shields. However they were dismayed to find out that their hard work and creativity was only going to be put on display...they couldn't bring them home! Oh well-sounds like a fun project for us to do at home anyways! 

Smiling is over-rated anyways

 Eric-my handsome and stoic 12 year old tries to convince me of this often

 Especially when asked to stand still and get your picture taken. it's really just not worth it. See that fierce determination? He is a strong boy-inside and out-one of his better qualities. it may challenge me at times (many times), but I hold him in prayer that God will use this strength for his glory

 Oh yes, strength, and also determination. He is determined to grow so quickly into a man-but he has so much childhood left. So much time for laughing, and forgetting about being serious and cool. He just doesn't realize that I am also fiercely determined to remind him of that!

 I think he's breaking-he tries so hard, but the light in his eyes gives him away. 

 Don't look at me, Eric, or you will lose the serious face contest, because you know

smiling may be over-rated but it's always worth it in the end!

Pumpkins!

Pumpkins!

 Granni took the kids on their annual pumpkin picking trip to a farmer who lives very close to us. I just went along as official photographer since it was such a beautiful day. My instructions were clear to let this still be a special Granni/grandkids time-I was just the fly in the cornstalks!

 The new siding on the big red barn was perfect for a backdrop-

 Leah looking adorable

 Leah has been practicing her sideways glances and funny looks on her dad lately-she gave me plenty today as well.

 Bay-always ready to give a smile, and then a big hug after I took so many pictures, just because that's how he is!

 Eric really is quite a bit taller than Granni, but not THAT much! I can't tell if she's leaning on him for support or what? Anyways, it's the captured smile on Eric that is priceless in this picture. More on that later....

Circles

Circles

At the middle school youth group meeting on Monday night, the youth pastor talked about our knowledge of God being likened to a widening circle. Imagine that everything that you know about God fits inside a circle. Everything that we don’t know is outside of that circle. Over time as we get older and grow in wisdom, experience more and learn more about God, what happens to our circle? Of course, it grows larger. But what happens outside of our circle-what happens to what we don’t know about God-what we don’t understand and can’t comprehend? Why, as our circle grows larger, the outside also grows larger, not smaller. It is a humbling thing to come to the point in life where I realize that, in fact, the more I learn about God and life means that the more I realize how much I don’t actually know, and how vast and limitless He is. I have been so naïve fooling myself into thinking that God fits inside a circle, and as my circle expands, his gets smaller. How tiny and immature I have been in my thinking. I can only pray that God continues to humble me with faith and knowledge of him that serves to increase Him and diminishes me.

Irene and other stories

I realize that I have been very absent from the blogosphere lately-life otherwise seems to have consumed us, but in good ways.

This, our generator, kept us operating at home for 5 days without power during and after Hurricane Irene. We did not have significant damage, but did have numerous trees down.

Notice the nice little shed Dennis built to keep the generator in. It doesn't look quite as nice now-on the first day he ran the generator, it vibrated itself too close to the shed and the exhaust caught the shed on fire! Thankfully, my mom's keen eyes spotted smoke and the fire was quickly extinguished, but the shed now has a nice large black hole! Lesson learned: secure the generator during use so it doesn't move around!

Our very large Bradford Pear tree with the nice cedar bench around it did not make it through the storm. I'm sure the bench will be rebuilt at some point.

I rescued our sunflower heads from the garden before the storm, and gathered all of the seeds out of them. In order to save the seeds for bird food, I roasted them in the oven at a low temperature. I'm sure the birds will enjoy the black oil sunflower seeds this winter!

Our basement suffered a bit of water seepage...Eric's room got the worst of it, and so the carpet had to be pulled and dried. Nothing a bit of steam cleaning and lots of fans couldn't take care of!

After Hurricane Irene was gone, we had a brief respite from the rain to celebrate Dennis' birthday. This year, the Blue Angels came and we went out for a sail on the grandparent's boat to watch. We all agree that watching from the boat is the way to watch the Blue's!

Our Labor Day Weekend was scheduled to end with our annual camping trip to Ohiopyle. Unfortuantely, rain was in the forecast for the entire week. Undaunted, we decided to go anyways, hoping for the best. We arrived, set up in the rain, spent the night listening to pouring rain, woke up to rain and read forecasts calling for 100 percent chance of rain all week as well as flood warnings. Both us and the family with us decided it was not a good use of vacation time, so we wimped out, packed up, and left.

It turned out to be a good decision-there was heavy flooding in the area, as well as the danger of trees falling within the campground-so we are sorry we missed our big trip this year, but glad of our decision.