The First Day of School

Today was the first day of school. I remember when we were attending the county fair on these days of August, but I guess we slowly move closer to year-round school day by day. Today was a special first day of school, because it was Lydi's first day of kindergarten. She had a great time and was more than fired up when she came home. I knew that she would do fine, and she didn't disappoint us. She is such a go-getter once she breaks out of her shell.

It was also a special day because this year Laurel and I are both in third grade. She is, of course, in Judy's room instead of mine, but it is fun to see her when we line up and so forth. It will be really neat to see how she performs from a professional perspective. I am sure she will step up to all of the challenges put before her.

I am already exhausted after just the first day of kids. You forget how much energy it takes to keep them on task. I have to remember that they are essentially 2nd graders more than 3rd at this point. The kids are very sweet, with great dispositions, and it will be very easy to love all of them. I am really excited to have been asked to sit on a committee at school that I have been interested in for several years. I am sure many people would think that I am out of my mind to say that; however, it is a core committee and I like to be at the core of things. I like to know what is going on first hand, not through the grapevine. I am also hoping that maybe if I sit on this core committee, I won't have to put in my time on any others. Maybe this was their way of corralling me! LOL

I already miss the lackadaisical feel of summer, but I know that I am a much better mom and get much more done when I am teaching. It is amazing what one can get accomplished when you have a small window of opportunity to do so. As for the rest of this long day, the girls are in bed, and I am anxiously awaiting Jarod's return so I can ride my bike down to Lori's for a nice glass of Nebraska City wine on the front porch. If he doesn't hurry up, my 9:30pm bedtime is going to come before I get any of that wine!

Summer Gone By

Holy cow! I cannot believe that the summer is over. And what a summer it has been! I can honestly say that it has been an absolutely wonderful summer. Each and every day was filled to the brim. I think that if I had to give this summer a "label," I would call it "friends".

From junior high friends, to high school friends, to college and beyond, we were so blessed to spend time with the wonderful friends that God has given us. I am so glad that the girls and I trekked to Iowa and Illinois to see the Mavins and the Gudemans. We had so much fun, and I am so thankful that so many years can go by and it still seems like we saw each other yesterday. We were also blessed with a trip with Diane to visit Julie Schowalter and her family. We have learned so many things from her over the last 20 years, it is always inspiring to have our spiritual cup refilled with her wisdom.

This summer has brought me an exceptional blessing in the form of a crafting partner. I always say that I am the youngest old person you will ever meet, and it really isn't meant to be a joke. It is true. I am old in spirit, and I feel so blessed to finally have someone my age who understands that. God had a plan when He called us to enroll Lydia at Redeemer for preschool. Not only did she grow in His love, but He intended for me to meet Lori while waiting for the kids. I am so thankful to have a friend who lives 4 blocks away who will share honey for granola, who doesn't ring the doorbell before coming inside, who will treat my children as one of her own (including freaking out when they come in covered in mud), and who is willing to spend countless hours sewing and hashing over the world. We joke that we were born in the wrong generation. We love to sit on our porches and drink wine while dreaming up crazy things to do with the treasures she found at an auction. I am sure many people might think we are a little nuts, but it is just so nice to have someone to be nuts with.

I was really dreading the start of the school year, as it would mean the end of clockless afternoons and evenings, and an end to all of the fun we've had. However, Lori decided to start the school year with us as our school nurse. I am so looking forward to working with her in our professional capacities, and hope she'll be in the building when I need to escape to our creative world for sanity purposes!

Time

Where the heck does time go? I had a whole list of things I wanted to do this summer, and it seems the days are just slipping away! Maybe if I attempt to reflect on all of the things we've accomplished, I might feel like it has been a full summer and I won't be so sad that school is starting in less than a month.

Things accomplished:
* vacation with hubby
* vacation to visit friends
* lots of landscaping and lush flowers
* in particular, a circle garden for my roses
* a new swingset for the girls
* backyard crafting for the girls and others
* a new business,
* lots of time spent drinking wine while accomplishing any task at hand
* many afternoon snoozes on the couch with Princess
* many, many assembled burp cloths
* dried flowers for cards
* hours spent researching more crafting ideas
* a trip to Royal Gorge for a family reunion
* a trip to the Rose Theater, leading to a season membership
* a few stops at Ivana Cone
* not donning my bathing suit at the pool
* two days spent on Language Arts curriculum
* had some moles removed


Things yet to be accomplished:
* creating pressed flower notecards
* figuring out a way to make my hotpads without using binding
* visit Lauritzen Gardens
* get a pedicure
* visit my favorite fabric shops, Cosmic Cow and Material Girls
* maybe a few more naps
* still avoid donning my suit at the swimming pool

Nope! I still am not ready for school to start!

Ockander Adventure, Part 2

It's been a few days since we've returned from our travels. It seems to be that I am pretty good about blogging about the first portion of our travels, but seem to need a few days to recuperate before blogging about the rest!

On Wednesday of last week the girls and I trekked from Grinnell, IA to Goodfield, IL (southeast of Peoria about 30 miles). We were headed to see my friend Kristi and her family. Kristi is another of my college friends who lives too dang far away! So far that it had been nine years since I'd seen her. That was on my wedding day, when she and Dan drove in for the wedding and had to head back yet that night. (June is not a good time for a crop chemical salesman to be traveling for a wedding!) We met at Rainbow World in Wayne, America...a daycare center where we relied on each other for sanity! She was already married, but since Dan traveled a lot for his job, we had lots of time to just hang out. They were even sweet enough to let me camp out in their basement for a summer. They say hindsight is 20/20....I think that we both agree that maybe living together didn't work out as well as we'd hoped; however, the most important thing is that we've come full circle and when she opened her door Wednesday afternoon to greet us, my heart just melted with her big smile and open arms!

We had a blast at their house! The minute we got there the kids were into their swimming suits and on the inflatable water slide. We hit another t-ball game that night, and didn't get home with pizza until 9:30pm. I forgot to mention that Kristi has 3 boys.... so it was a 180 degree turnaround in the play world for the girls. We finally got the kids to bed and it was 1am before I got there myself.

The next day we headed into Peoria to visit the zoo. They have a brand new African exhibit that was really neat. The kids then played at the park while we soaked up the sun. We tried to wear them out for Dan, who was in charge of babysitting that evening. Dan cooked us supper, Kristi and I bathed the kids, and then headed out for an evening of our own. We talked about a movie, but then decided that if we just shopped we would be able to visit more. So we closed down Old Navy at 9pm, Kohls at 10pm, and then headed for a beer since there was nowhere else to go! Such a hardship, I know! At nearly midnight we decided we should stock up at Walmart for the next day.....I always wondered when they stocked those shelves....now I know! We made it home just in time for some chatting on Facebook, and another late bedtime.

Friday we decided to head in the other direction and see a movie in Bloomington. We ate dinner at the family's favorite Italian restaurant, Avantis. It was very good, and perfect for the kids. We then saw the movie Up. What a wonderful movie! and what a fun day, until the girls and I packed our bags to head home.

We had decided that we would trek into Iowa yet that late afternoon with the hopes of arriving in Iowa in time to hit the outlet mall at Williamsburg. Our trek was a little delayed by two severe thunderstorms, one waited out in a rest stop, and the other at Subway. Two hours behind schedule, we finally arrived at our destination! However, there were no rooms available! So we did a little shopping and trekked down the road. After our friendly, and free, travel agent/occupational therapist/mom's salvation (a.k.a. Diane) found us a room, we finally checked into a motel and crashed at 10:30pm.

We finished our travels home on Saturday. I think the Ockanders are traveled out! Even though it took us several days to recuperate, it was such a wonderful week! I am so thankful that despite our differences or mishaps, we can still be such dear friends. There is just something very special about the girls I met at Wayne State! They are all so very different from each other, and yet they are all so very special in so many ways! I love them all dearly, and I am so very thankful that years, or almost a decade, can go by and it is just like we saw each other yesterday! Now, I only have one request, dear friends.....that we could all meet in the middle.....because it is even more fun when we're all together!

Girls' Vacation

While Jarod is at National Speech contest with Michaela in Birmingham, Alabama, the girls and I decided to take a little vacation of our own. We left home on Sunday morning (late morning) and made it to Omaha before having to stop! We had a gourmet meal at McDonalds and decided it was time to chuck our old dvd player that would play only play one movie ~ Hello Kitty! We purchased a new dvd player at Walmart, grabbed some guilt-free snacks and headed on our merry way. Our next stop was about 100 miles later. That was all the further I could make it after my refill of Coke at McD. We did manage to make it to Grinnell, IA without any other stops.

We have been staying with the Mavin's since Sunday. Laurel and Lexi are only 9 days apart, and their habits and mannerisms are spookily similar. Brea is 3, and has the best vocabulary of any 3 year old I've known. Needless to say, the girls have played, played, played. Sunday we just got everyone acquainted and walked to the local ice cream shop at the end of the block. Yum! 4 kids, 3 dogs, and 3 adults took some acquainting. Yesterday I attended Jenn's gentle yoga class, and was the youngest student by about 25 years or so! The girls were entertained by the daycare at the studio. Then while Jenn taught another class, the girls and I got coffee and treats at the coffee shop and played at the park. Yesterday afternoon brought lots of relaxation, an early evening t-ball game, and some homemade granola in the evening.

This morning Jenn and the girls introduced us to Tiny Circus. I wanted to see what this was all about. It is a group of very artsy people who are interested in traveling by modified Airstream campers to do Artists in Residency. Their "medium" is animation. So they have people rebuilding Airstreams to meet their specific needs. They also have people working on animations. It is called Tiny Circus because they would travel in their "Mini-Airstreams" as a circus would. Very interesting! How I long to be that carefree! The girls were able to create some monsters on paper and then were aided in creating an animation of their monsters! They were very, very pumped to see their monsters turned into a 5 second cartoon!

This afternoon we hired a babysitter for the girls while we shopped around downtown Grinnell. We started at Basil Thai restaurant for some basil spring rolls and pad thai. We then headed directly to the quilt shop where I could not resist a beautiful yard of Amy Butler fabric, and also got some "boy" batiks for burp cloths. That was to be the extent of my purchases. That lasted until we got to this little craft consignment shop where I fell in love with a little black desk and chair for the fine price of $30. So once again I will be hauling home a piece of furniture in the back of my van! But it will look great in my kitchen!

The girls are finishing up our stay here with the making of a popsicle stick puppet show. I am trying to finish the pillowcases that were supposed to have arrived completed, but didn't. One more to go. It has been a wonderful time reconnecting and I think it is safe to say the girls are occupied enough they aren't asking for their Dad - yet! We head off to the Gudeman's in Goodfield, IL tomorrow! Can't wait to see more friends!

Day 4 in San Francisco

The final day in San Francisco started with an excellent breakfast at a 50's diner, Lori's. It appears to be a chain and is very good! We then rode the bus down to the AT&T Stadium for the Giants/Cardinals baseball game. I am sure many of you are thinking that I was probably not too excited about this little venture; however, to be honest, I really do like Major League Baseball. The food is usually very good, the stadiums cool, the people watching excellent, and I even do understand the game (somewhat)! In fact, this was my 4th MLB stadium I've been to in California alone. I've been to the Dodgers, the old Anaheim Angels and the old San Diego Padres. I'm not sure why they needed to build new ones, but it is my understanding that my "stadium visits" are a little outdated!

So...all that being said....we arrived at the game 2 hours early. We were actually in line 15 minutes, waiting for them to open the doors to the stadium, because they were giving free hats to the first 20,000 people in the stadium! I guarantee we may have been in the first 200 in the stadium! If you know Jarod at all, he will NEVER pass up on anything free! The weather was about 59 degrees, but the windchill was at least 45! We froze! We were in the very top row of the entire stadium! After being there for 4+ hours, we decided we were frozen enough and left at the 7th inning stretch! The Cardinals lost anyway, so we didn't feel like we missed anything too major!





As you can see the stadium itself was really cool! I loved that the outfield was next to the bay! Yachts and kayaks would fill the bay in hopes of catching homeruns! It was a very beautiful scene!

After the game we went to the ferry building to check out the open markets. The funniest was called "Salty Pig Parts". We did get some excellent coffees...even bettter than Starbucks. However, the fun didn't last much longer. We headed back to the hotel to look up the address of the restaurant we wanted to visit in Chinatown, check in online with the airline, and then it hit...the bug I acquired from somewhere in San Francisco. It was not a fun evening! Come the next morning I felt a little better, but not the best. I did manage to make it home without any major incidences, and I was very thankful that Jarod kept my attention away from the newsbreaking stories about the missing flight from South America. I would have definitely NOT been boarding any planes if I'd known about that!

We were excited to see the girls, and the feelings were mutual! It felt so good to come home to our nice big house, with its nice green yard! I couldn't wait to get out there to prune and weed! I think the cats even missed us! All in all it was an awesome trip! We definitely got a mental break, but a physical workout!

Day 3 in San Francisco

A little side note: I got behind on the blogging due to being too tuckered out on Saturday, and having a little travel bug on Sunday. I will continue to blog about our travels, just a few days late!

Yesterday we woke up bright and early to meet our tour guide for a trip into Napa Valley. We had a very knowledgeable tour guide who had a "Carol Weber" laugh! She taught us a lot about wine making and trivia about the area. The first tour we went on, V. Sittui was by far the best. We were allowed to choose the wines we wanted to taste and we purchased some excellent artichoke cream cheese spread to eat with crackers and proscuitto. We had a nice picnic lunch with a couple from South San Francisco. The next vineyard made sparkling wines. It was very modern, quite yuppie-ish. The sparkling wine we tasted was good; however, not very sweet. We purchased a rose sparkling wine that we actually didn't taste. I hope we aren't disappointed. We then proceeded to two other wineries, Andretti and Black Stallion. It quickly became apparent to us that these wineries specialize in wines that are much drier than what we usually drink. Jarod enjoyed some of the reds, and we did have a chance to try some quite expensive Moscato.

After our visits to the wineries we then rode the ferry from Vallejo back to San Francisco. It was a wonderful day for many reasons. We met many wonderful people from many parts of the U.S. We got out of the city and had the chance to see the land, and hence the lifestyles of the area. It was about 20 degrees warmer than San Francisco and the sun was heavenly. Of course, the wine was also a huge plus! The tour was absolutely worth every penny, and I think we would both be willing to take another!

Upon our return we took the recommendation of our tour guide and had seafood once again. It was a very nice restaurant, and Jarod had some amazing scallops and I had shrimp scampi. My thoughts on the seafood restaurants are that they are way overpriced for what you get. I realize that it is a specialty; however, prime rib is a specialty around here and we don't charge "an arm and a leg" for it! Just my thoughts! I'd still take a rib eye or a prime rib over scallops anyday!