THEY HAVE ARRIVED

We are so blessed right now to have our oldest daughter and her family staying with us. Even though things get a little crazy with 3 small children wanting our attention I am enjoying having them with us. When they're with us we do things that we wouldn't do without them -- such as going to a dairy farm and getting to watch Kate milk a plastic cow, ride a horse around a field and eating ice cream cones. I let them get in the wading pool one day, then we took a break so they could have popcicles, then back in the pool to wash the sticky off.
I went home yesterday to a freshly scrubbed kitchen floor. I must admit that I don't do it as often as I should and I guess with Nate picking up anything he can find and eating off the floor it needed a good cleaning. It's also been nice to have our laundry washed during the day while we're gone. I normally do it all on Saturday -- it looks like maybe I'll get the day off this week ;-)
Meals are a bit of challenge--trying to make sure there are enough carb0hydrates for our son-in-law, trying to find foods that the granddaughters will like, and figuring out how much food we actually need. I'm used to living with a "Mikey." Do you remember the Life cereal commercials? -- give it to Mikey, he'll eat anything!!
We've been spending quite a bit of time on Craig's List looking at houses for rent in Nashville. It is amazing how many are listed daily and then how fast they are snatched up. We had heard that there was a housing shortage in Nashville due to the flooding and it seems to be true. I'm not in a hurry to get rid of them but I know that they're concerned with finding a place that isn't too far from work and also having a decent school for Kate, who will be starting kindergarten in August. At least with this move they will be close enough that we'll still be able to see them fairly often.

A PRINCESS BED

I decided with the kids extended visit here that I might need some spare sheets for the double beds. When I went to buy sheets I found these and thought the girls would love to be able to sleep in a princess bed. I hope they like it!!

MOVING ON

As the time for our daughter's move approaches she has talked about those new friends that she will be leaving behind. It saddens her that she and her family will no longer be near to some dear friends. Most of my life I've been on the other end of friends moving. My parents moved our family when I was only 8 years old. Since that time I've lived in the same town for almost 50 years. When I was in high school several of my friends moved away with their families. We all went about the bus'y'ness of high school and lost track of each other after only a few letters. Then I went to college, married, got a job and started living my life. I've had a lot of people touch my life during those years and so many of them were only passing through for a short while. I haven't been good about keeping in touch with those people. I still share Christmas cards with a few of them, but not many. It's sad that we lose touch with so many people. But in this day of the internet and facebook, it's nice that we can reconnect with many of the people that have moved on. And for my daughter's generation, they won't have to wait years for that to happen. Their friends can stay friends and keep in touch via the internet without a lot of effort on anyone's part.

GETTING THE HOUSE READY (part 2)

I've been at it all day today. Got the bedrooms & living room/dining room all done. Handyman worked out in his shop most of the day. We were both too tired to cook tonight, so -----pizza!!

Guest Bedroom - Emptied desk/chest, cleaned off sewing table.
Also cleaned out some of the closet.

I cleared off a little space on the shelves
so a few things can be kept up from the kids.

Master Bedroom - Now you can see the bed!!

Living Room Bookcase - emptied out bottom shelves
so we can put Nate some toys there.
Also moved TV remote up higher!!

Cleared off coffee table so kids can play on it.

We're getting there - bit by bit!!

GETTING THE HOUSE READY

I started this Saturday with my regular chores --1st was the laundry. I usually start it as soon as we finish breakfast. This morning while I was starting the laundry I happened to look around my laundry room/pantry and decided it was time to give it a good dusting and reorganizing. Once that was done I moved on to the bedroom that Kate & Gabby will share. It wasn't bad, but I wanted to move the keyboard out of the room so we'd have room to bring the chest of drawers out of closet to make it easier for them to use. Handyman came in and did the heavy lifting for me. Then I started going through the toys and sorting them out and purging some broken things. I also cleaned out some of our things that were in their closet and pitched them onto our bed to be sorted out later.

Toby is anxiously awaiting their arrival.

Chest of drawers along with Kristy's doll bed that her granddaddy made.

The Murphy Bed that Paw Paw made for the kids.

Some new clothes are already hanging in their closet.

You can't even see our bed here because of coats, jackets, etc. that I pulled out of the other closets.

Guess I'd better get back to it --- time is flying by!!

PREPARATIONS

As the time is getting closer for our "guests" to arrive I'm trying to get some things together. I went to WalMart last night and purchased some 4th of July (ish) clothing for the grandkids. Of course they can wear them all summer, but in case they didn't have anything patriotic I wanted to make sure that they did. So here's what I got them:

For Kate:For Gabby:
For Nate:Nate got an extra outfit because his were on sale. Each set of 3 pieces was only $3.00. What a bargain.

Then I decided that we needed some games to play, so I bought these:

Now I need to open the dominoes and read the directions so I'll be able to explain it to Kate.

TWO WEEKS AND COUNTING DOWN

Our lives are getting ready to change drastically for a short period time. For not the first time, we have an adult child, who will be returning home. But this time will be quite different --- not only is the child returning, but she's bringing her husband and 3 children!! We've enjoyed having our children return home to live for short periods of time and I'm looking forward to this return. We know that it won't last long as they have a job starting in another state in about 5 weeks. Kristy & Kate stayed with us for about a month three years ago before their move to Kansas. Justin was back and forth between here & Ohio that time. But since that stay they've added two more little ones to their family.
I've been trying to get things ready for them by cleaning out drawers and closets so they won't have to live out of suitcases while they're here. I've also cleaned off a few of the lower bookshelves and the coffee table so Nate can have a little more freedom to move about without constantly telling him "no." Since he's started pulling up and walking if he has something to hold on to I'm sure he'll like to explore this new place. I need to go through the toys I have and separate the baby things from the toys for the girls.
Handyman made his regular trip to the grocery today but he also started buying extra food - Goldfish, frozen veggies for their lunch, etc.
We're really looking forward to having this time with them. I'm sure the time will pass quickly, but when they leave they won't be moving too far away. To have them a little over an hour away, instead of about nine hours away will be wonderful!!

A WALK DOWN THE LANE

When we first started staying here at the cabin we didn't have anywhere for Toby to get out by himself, so we kept doing what we had done when we went camping ---walks - every morning after breakfast and every evening after supper (sometimes at noon, depending on how hot it was). It's always enjoyable to get out and enjoy the cool of the morning, listen to the birds singing and just get a little exercise. I had been noticing lately all of the different wild flowers that had started blooming, so today I took my camera out and got some pictures. They aren't the greatest pictures, but hopefully you'll still see the beauty of the flowers. We've got mini-daisies, thistles, morning glories, Queen Anne's Lace (which always reminds me of our #1 daughters wedding bouquet), blue cornflowers and some that I'm just not sure what they are.

VACATION AT THE CABIN

Handyman & I have spent the past week at our cabin. I haven't done much this week other than make sure that we had our meals because I spent most of my time reading (so far, 4 books). Handyman has done a few things around the cabin. The best part was that he got our porch screened in. Everything isn't permanent, but the bug population on our deck has definitely dropped this week! We started out the week having to use bug spray every night. Tonight we had some friends come by and we sat on the deck for a couple of hours and didn't have any problems with bugs. YEAH! Toby now his own door so he can come and go on his own. Yesterday morning when I went out, there was a toad sitting inside next to his door. I guess it thought the door was "just his size!" Sorry, but I didn't have my camera with me to get a picture of him!

Doggie Door
We went to Lowe's earlier this week and bought 2 window air conditioners so now we can sleep in cool comfort. That's nice too since it's been pretty humid this week.
This weekend was the US 68 - 400 mile yard sale. We went out on Thursday and found a few things (mostly junk) and then tried again today, but the rains came and most everyone had covered up their wares. I doubt that we try again.
Handyman went to play a round of golf this morning, but got rained out about the 14th hole. He was trying to practice a little before the golf scramble on Tuesday with some guys from his old work place.

ODOMETER READING

Handyman & I were driving in Glasgow yesterday when I happened to look at the odometer on my car. I mentioned what it was and he asked if I was going to take a picture of it. I was worried that it would click over before I got the picture since I didn't see when it had changed over. If you know me, you'll understand!!