On Tuesday morning we loaded up our car with sunscreen and a picnic lunch and drove 1.5 hours north to check out the Indiana Dunes State Park and National Lakeshore. We had zero expectations and figured it would make a fun day trip; we were blown away at what we found. There is a very…
Family
A Girls Trip to Iowa
Emily and I took off on Monday morning to head to Iowa for the week. Andrew had his thesis to officially finish before Friday and was teaching all week at the GERI camp, so we left him to a distraction free week. Emily was a great travel buddy and even though there were some tears,…
Indianapolis Temple Open House
On Monday morning we hopped in the car around 7:50am and arrived at the Indianapolis Temple at 8:50am! The length of time and the ease of the trip is astounding and brings so much joy to my soul for the future; a true contrast to Chicago traffic. I cannot express my excitement and gratitude with…
Project Spice Rack
On Saturday as I was putting away the tupperware containers in the cupboard, I had the thought that it would stay a lot more organized if we took all of our spice jars off the same shelf and made more room for the stacks of plastic. Almost simultaneously I had the idea to use the…
A Garden Update
Our garden has started producing vegetables! We’ve been eating lots of delicious cucumbers and cherry tomatoes right out of our backyard. The zucchini plant has some baby zucchinis on them that will soon be part of our dinner. Our acorn squash plants has lots of flowers still but no signs of squash life yet. Emily…
Bean Bag Project
A few weeks ago, Emily and I started making bean bags out of scrap material. This was the first project we did together that went really well start to finish, and I didn’t get so frustrated that I just finished it myself. It was low stress and I didn’t care that each square was absolutely…
Tip Toes
Emily discovered the art of walking on her tip toes this past week. I love watching her develop this new skill; it is ridiculously cute. While we were waiting for Andrew to pick us up to go to church on Sunday (he has a couple of hours of meetings before church and retrieves us just…
First Look at Electronics
Andrew has been teaching at a gifted students summer camp for the last two weeks here at Purdue. As part of one of his classes he had them do a short electronics unit. They didn’t use all the supplies so Andrew brought an electronic bracelet kit home for Emily to look at. He handed her…
Getting Settled
With Andrew passing his thesis defense the reality of our staying in the same place for the next few years has begun to sink in. To celebrate Emily and I have spent the last two weeks going through the closets in our house and unpacking! Andrew and I have had things in storage for so…
A Good Day
Today was full of good moments. Moments that brought joy and reminded me over and over that this is what being a mom is all about. It was a good lesson about enjoying the mundane and regular life. It was also a much needed reprieve from the many difficult two year old moments the past…