Workout Buddies and Donuts...Third Time

Last Friday was technically our last day of summer vacation before school started. My girls are doing a hybrid option where they do school at home on their own two days a week, school online with their teacher one day a week, and then at the school building in person two days a week. Today (August 24) is the first day school is back in session, but we are not there, we are at home doing school. Their actual first day at school will be this Thurday, August 27. 

But, to continue with what we've been doing the last two years on the last day of summer break, last Friday we all wore out workout clothes to the gym so we could be "workout buddies" and then we got donuts after my class. You can read about the last two years of this here. Lucy wasn't so much interested in having her picture taken this year, but oh well, we did it anyway! I don't really think either of them wanted to do this, but they did want donuts so they knew they had to do it. :) 

We have had a good summer and after 5 1/2 months of not being in the school building, I am so ready for them to experience that again! I think they're ready for it, too. 

2019: 

2018:

2020:

How they spent most every day they had to go to the gym with me: 

Yummy donuts! 

Hiking!

We've had some nice weather lately. It's been hot, but the humidity has been low, making it not too bad to be outside in the afternoon. Sunday we decided to do something outside instead of staying in and watching TV all day. We took the girls to the Nature Center to walk around a little. As you can tell by the picture below, Lucy loved it....NOT! Lucy's expression is about what Molly's was, only Lucy wasn't throwing a fit like Molly. Well, unless you count crying as a fit, then perhaps she was throwing a fit! 

We hiked maybe right at one mile. It wasn't hard hiking and it wasn't really all that hot out, either. But both girls were not happy at all. Probably about 1/100 of a mile into the hike Molly started complaining that she was too tired and Lucy told us her legs hurt. Oh my gosh! It was one of those things that you just had to laugh at and keep going. It was quite ridiculous really! 

But, I guess I should say that in their defense, they are both (especially Lucy) terrified of flies, wasps, bees, anything that flies they're scared of it. No joke! It's made swimming outside somewhat challenging this summer with the way they get so scared and start screaming when they see something flying by. Maybe we will try hiking again in the fall or on one of our typical warm winter days when there are no bugs out. Or maybe we won't.....

Entryway Painting

We (well, actually Ross) have been doing a lot of painting in our house. He started a project last year to paint all of the brown trim in our house white. Along with painting the trim, his list included painting all the window frames, the mantle, the family room window seat bench, and the upstairs cabinet white. He also planned to restain the banister on the stairs and kitchen/family room area a dark brown and repaint all the spindles white. Our plans included painting our kitchen, mud room, downstairs half bath, and two-story entryway grey, too. 

We started the painting project with the kitchen, bathroom, and mud room in March and Ross worked on painting the entryway on our anniversary on April 17. He borrowed our neighbor's extra long extension ladder and got to work. Ross has a fear of heights, so this was quite the task for him to do. He completed it and did a great job on it. Not too long after, he started on the stairway banister and made that look really nice and updated. Right now he has all of the painting done in our house except for the cabinet upstairs and the family room and playroom window frames. Everything looks so nice and it's almost like we have a new house! It's amazing how much paint can really update and modernize a house! Good job, Ross! 

I put this collage together and really love it! After ten years of living in our house, we had never had anything on our stairway walls before. It took a little getting used to, but I really like it!

It Is 2020

 I was at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago and saw this:

In case you can't tell, it's a cat on a leash! I have never seen a cat on a leash before and have never even heard of a cat being put on a leash! It was the oddest thing. Why would you have a cat on a leash and on top of that, why would you have a cat in Hobby Lobby! I'm guessing it was probably an emotional support animal, but who knows. It is 2020, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised by things like this huh?! 

Personality Explanation

This picture is so funny to me! Ross took it on his birthday when we went to a park to walk around for a bit that day. It's a very pretty park with lots of great photo opps places, so we took advantage of it and had fun taking pictures. I love how Molly is peaking around me photobombing this picture. This picture so sums up their personalities! Lucy is just good to sit there and smile, while Molly is just fun to be sneaky like she's being. 

And the pictures below were taken on our little vacation to Branson. Again, you will see how Lucy is trying to be serious and smile like asked, while Molly is just being silly and hamming it up. I sure do love my girls and their different personalities!  

Molly Is So Fun!

Moll is such a fun little girl! This is what she wore one day to the gym this summer. She wore her favorite Frozen jammies top and her favorite pink pants. This picture was taken sometime in June when it was hot weather, but she chose to wear this cold weather outfit and couldn't care less about it! She brought her headphones to use with the iPad and of course, her binoculars. She also helped me by carrying in my mat for me. She is such a fun little girl and doesn't have a care in the world other than what toys she can play with. I do love her so. :) 

Fun With Girls

The girls have discovered Clarie's Boutique in the mall! Claire's is such a girly store and perfect for girls their age. They have every single type of jewelry, hair piece, makeup, and/or accessory, you could think of......if it's girly, it's in there! I do enjoy taking them in there to look at stuff and we don't always buy something, but when we do get to buy something, I do not enjoy it at all! It takes F-O-R-E-V-E-R for them to figure out what they want! But, it's fun to watch them look at everything and get so excited about all that they have! It reminds me of being that age and having fun with my friends like that. I'm glad I have girls! :)

Your Vs You're

Below is a screenshot of an email I received last month from Wonders of Wildlife. I immediately noticed a problem with this email........can you notice it??!

The heading of the email says "You're July Membership Newsletter is HERE!" However, it should read "YOUR July Membership Newsletter is HERE!" Now, I'll be the first to admit that I make lots of typos (there's probably some in this post), but my high school English teacher DRILLED into us the difference between Your and You're, as well as Their, There, and They're. Because of that, I tend to notice those mistakes a little more than others and try very hard to use the spellings correctly! And when a mistake like this is made from a company like this, or even our local news station which happens a lot, it just makes me shake my head! You would think a professional organization would double and triple check things like this that go out!

Boating!

My dad has had a boat for quite a few years and we took it out on a Sunday afternoon in June for a spin around the lake. It's probably been seven or eight years since it's been in the water and thankfully it started up with no problem. However, we did have a problem when we started to go a little faster when out on the lake. It just had no power to get up and go and after riding around at a slow speed for maybe 15 minutes we decided it was best to call it a day. We are glad we did because when we got it out of the water we realized it had been taking on water! He found a hole in the radiator cable which was causing the boat to fill up and not go at full speed. We ended up going back to their house and swimming for the afternoon. My dad got the boat fixed, but we haven't had a good weekend yet to try it out again. Hopefully soon we can take it back out for a real spin around the lake! You can watch a little of our boating here!