Life as a Young

…of the ice cream variety! Josh and I just spent the afternoon at the Moxie Festival in Lisbon. If you are not from Maine, you probably have NO clue what this is. One of our indulgences when we get to the festival is always Moxie ice cream. We each had a cone (a great deal at $1 each I might add) and then bought two pints to bring home with us. With a little forethought we were prepared with two cooler bags. We packed the two pints in the smaller cooler, bought some ice at a local variety store, packed around the ice cream with ice, put that in the bigger bag, added more ice, and VIOLA - Moxie ice cream! We made it all the way home including a stop in Waterville for some shopping in 80+ degree weather with SOLID Moxie ice cream! We were so excited!

We now have a special treat to share with Jared (I would say and Anna, but she probably won’t want to try it!) and Bob next week! We also bought some Moxie Jelly, which I dare say is pretty good! I myself am not a huge Moxie fan - I’ll drink it, but it’s definitely not my first choice - but, I really like the ice cream and jelly. Maybe it’s because it’s not so strong of a flavor.

Have a happy Moxie Day everyone!

seven to go (if you count the linen closet, basement and attic)! That’s all I have left of my Summer Total House Cleaning Adventure! My living room is CLEAN! I’m talking clean people. This was a window and wall-washing, reorganizing, dusting, mopping, vacuuming, garbage bag-filling undertaking! And it feels SO good!

Unless a sudden unexpected urge hits me this afternoon, I will start on the dining room tomorrow after work. The only problem has become that while I labor away at one room the others start to look worse. Hopefully I can keep up with the clean ones while I work on the others. If only people at my house (myself included) would pick up after themselves…any ideas anyone?

My wonderful sister-in-law, who was all of NINE when I met her eleven years ago is getting married at the end of July!  Josh is turning 32 tomorrow and I’m turning 27 next month (officially not in my mid-twenties anymore…now in my late twenties)!  Kelsey will be 13 next month too and DJ will be 15 in November!  My little sister’s baby is almost 18 months old.  I’m starting my seventh year at work in the fall.  The good thing is that 1) Josh will always be older than me!  :D  and 2) I’ll always be a Young woman! 

Here’s the pictures from Candi’s bridal shower last weekend which is what got me started feeling old!

The gift table…

The bride-to-be!

My Mother-in-law made this towel cake that came out really cute!

I wish I hadn’t been so sick for my wedding so that I could have enjoyed all of the prettiness more…I’ll have lots of pictures to post after the wedding I’m sure!

Josh had a conference in Bethel and I got to tag along and just be a vegetable. It was very nice! I read 2 books and watched 2 movies (one with Josh). I got to explore the area which is beautiful, but there isn’t much to do. I have some pics to add here of the area:

A Covered Bridge in Sunday River, Maine.

A Walkway over the Androscoggin River.

So, we had a good time. We got to play with Candi’s soon-to-be husband’s GPS. We’re hooked and would love to have one some day. Anyone feeling generous?!?

I’ll post more tomorrow about the last few weeks - they’ve been busy and I have LOTS of pictures to prove it! I will get the hang of this regular blogging thing, really… I think!

My niece, Summer, is the cutest EVER - until I have one of my own! Check out my sister’s blog. She’s just SO adorable!

for the summer!  At least until I start working at summer school on July 1!

The rest of the week I am packing up DJ’s stuff to bring to Serena’s.  The next week I get to go with Josh to a conference in Bethel for a few days.  Then it’s back to work, but I won’t mind! 

Enjoy the sun while it lasts! 

Do you ever feel like you are ALWAYS playing catch-up?!? I do! The good thing about this blog is that I actually have some pictures on my camera to remind me of what has happened lately that I can catch everyone up on!

Where to start…

The pictures for this one didn’t come out well at all so please forgive! My sister-in-law graduated from college a few weeks ago. Here’s one of her cutting her cake…

He wasn’t supposed to cut it until we’d taken pictures!

Not only did she graduate from college, but she is getting married in July! I met her 11 years ago when she was only 9! And now she’s getting married. *sniff* I feel so old!

Our next adventure was on Saturday the 31st of May. We had a women’s event at church (more on that later). We spent the morning setting up and then came home for a few hours before we had to be back for the event in the evening. It was a damp, dreary day. I heard what I thought was thunder. It wasn’t thunder. It was this:

A tree on our shed!

Thankfully, nothing in the shed was damaged! Our push mower, snow blower, gas cans, and some other miscellanous stuff was in there.

We’re still waiting on our claim, but the tree is cut up and waiting for it to stop raining so we can take care of it.

The ladies event was wonderful! The men cooked and cleaned up.

The women had a great time with our purse theme!

We played games…

…ate, had a wonderful gospel presentation from my mother-in-law (wish I had videoed it!), and everyone went home with a gift…

Our next major event wasn’t great at all. A few days later, Darien had a meltdown over getting consequences for something he had done and he assaulted Josh. This picture is of a bite mark on Josh’s inner thigh. It was done through jeans! He’s still healing a few weeks later, but it looks much better now.

This is why he is not staying with us right now. He is with a family in Garland who is doing Emergency Respite for last week and the rest of this week. On Saturday he is going to stay with Serena & Rocky for the summer. He is very excited about it which is good. He is not able to live with us right now and this was a great option (even before the assault happened we were in discussion for this to happen). That gives him a summer to look forward to. He will get to go to a Y camp. I am able to work this summer at our extended school year program because I don’t have to worry about finding a place for him while I work. I am VERY excited to work - we haver our same staff and same kids! We only work Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 9:00-11:30. This keeps us in touch with the kids yet we still feel like we get a vacation!

On a fun note…remember my lawn post? Here’s the picture:

He, he, he!

And here are a few other fun ones:

My lilacs (which the rain has since ruined…)

My bleeding heart (transplanted from my grandparent’s old house).

My Aardvark by Bob Daniels (a long time friend of my family).

I’ll try to stay up to date now that school will be out! Hope you all have a wonderful week!

The past few weeks have been absolutely crazy around here!  I know I won’t remember anywhere near everything that happened, but I need to start getting some of it down before I forget all of it…

We’ve been in meetings, meetings, meetings about Darien and how to get him to succeed.  He’s not doing so great at school and currently he is staying with family and friends because he cannot be home right now due to some stuff that has been happening.  I know there’s not much detail, but I needed to get something down.  This is the major part of what has been going on but we’re definitely having some Murphy’s Law stuff happening all around.

So, keep praying…and thank you for all the prayers that have already been offered on our behalf.  We have such wonderful family and friends!

Today I actually feel like I’ve accomplished a lot!  We actually had a Saturday at home for the first time in a long time.  My first major and most relished accomplishment was sleeping in!!!  Usually we have something to wake up for or even if we don’t, we have one child in particular that cannot be quiet once up.

So, today we fired up our new (to us) lawnmower and hooked up the trailer to it.  We went around the yard and collected leaves, sticks, rocks, and whatever else we could find that needed to hauled down back.  In the process I found hole for our lovely neighborhood woodchuck.  Anyone know how to scare the critter off without hurting it?!?  I know our neighbor would love to get rid of it (more on that in a minute).  We also used it to bring our rock salt, sand, and shovels down to the shed.  I’m finally confident that we aren’t getting any more snow!  :)  Not even in Maine!  I did some weeding in my flower beds.  Josh made dump run.  We put together our new grill.  Last fall our grill feel victim to a great wind that knocked it off our porch (despite being tied to the wall) and it, like Humpty Dumpty, just wouldn’t (couldn’t) go back together again.  That was  time consuming process (and very frustrating for poor Josh!).  We washed off our new (to us) plastic deck set.  Josh put together our new push mower (no more borrowing from my dad!)  Yay for the tax stimulus!  I got several loads of laundry done, the sheets on our bed changed, a home-cooked meal for supper, Women’s Ministry notes from LAST Sunday typed up and sent, and went to the grocery store!  That is a major accomplishment!  I don’t ever get to the store before Sunday afternoon if I’m lucky!  AND, AND, AND I updated my blog!  Ha, ha!

This looks like quite the list and I wish I could say that I don’t have anything else to fill my extra-long weekend…but there is still so much more to do!  One major thing we need to do is actually mow our lawn.  We’ve got quite a field of dandelions going!  Now, normal people would just do it when they had time.  Not us…we have competition.  Okay, maybe not competition, but maybe more like a neighbor would I wouldn’t go so far as to call lawn obsessed, but almost.  If I think of it, I’ll take a picture before we mow so that you can see the line where our properties meet.  By line, I mean our dandelion forest meeting his nicely manicured, weed-free lawn!  :D  He is a retired gentleman who spends the winters in Florida.  When he returns in April, the lawn work begins.  He often mows his lawn twice a week and then washes his lawnmower after (think car wash).  He also waters his lawn (wouldn’t want his water bill) and I’m sure he’s quite fed up with our friendly neighborhood woodchuck!  It’s actually comical in the summer because if we go out to mow our lawn and it’s been a few days since he has, next thing we know he’s out mowing too! 

It’s going to be a busy week for us, so I’m glad that we are so accomplished today!  We have three meetings, an appointment, Bible Study, and a women’s event to get ready for.

I think I’m about ready for bed - clean sheets here I come!

Just wanted to let everyone know that despite things still not going really well with Darien (tonight actually wasn’t bad), this evening we talked with someone that has offered us some hope that we never even dreamed of.  It’s a long story so I’m not going into it all now, but just know that we see a light at the end of the tunnel and so by the end of next week, we should be able to share what the new “plan” is.  I know this is terribly vague, but it will all come together in the next few weeks.

On that note - what an AWESOME God we serve!  The answers to our prayers about this situation came to us unexpectedly today (actually two different possibilities).  He shall supply!

It’s off to my bed!  Only one more day of work and then a fun-filled weekend!  Josh and I have a date night tomorrow night (kids are spending the night at Grammies).  My sister-in-law is graduating from college and we are also having an open house for her.  Maybe I’ll get some more pictures!  I’m doing better at that!  Good night friends!