July and The Beach!

We were finally able to get a change to our scenery this July with our annual family beach trip to New Smyrna Beach.  This was one of our best trips there in several years.  I'm not sure if was being around people again, the beautiful weather we enjoyed, or simply getting to travel, but it was great.  I'm so thankful we have this tradition.

Mia and Papa enjoyed lots of time together, whether hanging out in the condo or boogey-boarding in the ocean.

I sure do love my people.

One of the coolest parts of the week was seeing a Space-X launch from the beach.  It was so bright!  It was a gorgeous day, so we were able to follow the rocket quite high into the sky.

Nice form for cornhole Papa!

We took a break from the sun one day to drive to Orlando and enjoy a delicious Giordanos' pizza.  It was almost like being in Chicago!

Look at that cheese pull!

Much love for these people.

We are so thankful for Granna and Papa.  They're always great, but we such do appreciate that they share their condo with us each year.  I love this time with them.

Dad with his brothers; these three are something else!

Sid, Elaine, Papa, Granna, Judy, Joe, Robin, Randy, and Georgia.  All these cousins love this time with their families.

A somewhat socially responsible picture gathering this year.

It was a wonderful week that we needed!

A few other things going on this month:

Lily has been loving the paint by number kits that we purchased.  Here are three recent ones that she completed.

Decker was not super excited to have the tortilla blanket put on him, but he may the biggest fan of the Dad's beef jerky.

 I love when Lily gets creative.  She made this box for Avery to celebrate her birthday.  She painted the balloons on the cover and then made it a blue theme since that's Avery's favorite color.  She filled it with all sorts of goodies...candies, gum, nail polish, candle, card, etc.  It was so cool!

 More examples of Lily's creativity.  Love it!

 We went up to The Battery for dinner one evening, not connecting that it was finally opening day at home for the Braves.  No one is allowed inside the stadium, but many gathered just outside to watch the game on the big screen.  This is baseball in quarantine times.

It's been a hot month, but we're grateful that we are all healthy and doing well.

A Quiet June

We have all enjoyed a nice, fairly quiet June.  Not a whole lot to report, but here's some pictures.

These girls sure do love Decker.  He's a pretty good little snuggler sometimes.  They took to him with him to Goldberg's for breakfast at the Battery one morning which I think they all enjoyed.

Before and after his quarantine haircut; he needed this so badly!

We were excited to head to Birmingham to finally visit family.  It had been too long!  We simply enjoyed hanging out and catching up with one another.  Merritt absolutely adores Mia and loves being around her.

The girls have been doing some extra chores this summer to earn some spending money.  Mia has been tasked with pressure washing the back porch and sweeping out the garage while Lily has needed to clean out and organize our pantry, downstairs closet, and refrigerator.

We bought a few different spray in hair dyes and had a little fun with it.  We used this purple and green combo to give Mia a Mal from Descendants look.  It was pretty awesome, but she didn't like how it made her hair feel, and the color never seemed to fully dry, so it was coming out on her brush.  Oh well, it looked super cool while in, and it was something fun to try out this summer.

Lily and I had a lot of fun one evening playing Gravity Maze.  We both enjoyed the challenge and completion of this.  I always love getting one on one time with my girls; they are such amazing people.

Mia has been saving up her money since her last birthday, and she used part of it recently to buy an Oculus Quest virtual reality system.  It's so cool!  She is having so much fun with the games, and it's really neat when it's cast up to the tv, so we can all see what she's seeing.  Lily has tried it out too, and enjoys a lot of it.  Really, it's just funny to watch someone move around with this!

Lily and I have both finished our paint by numbers paintings that we started a couple of months ago; this has been a fun new quarantine hobby to pick up!  I painted van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night, and Lily painted this beautiful underwater scene.  I have thoroughly enjoyed this!

Neither Ryan nor Mia have enjoyed the painting as much as Lily or I, so they are letting Lily paint theirs.  She's been working hard on Ryan's Venetian scene, and then she'll move on to Mia's tiger.

Just a little staring contest between Lily and Decker.

We had a little redecorating this past week.  Since we remodeled back in 2015, we've had "the girls' office."  It had this beautiful wall size map on it, and it was painted a beautiful shade of blue.  We had sticky notes all over it to remind us of friends serving on the mission field around the world.  The girls' desks were in front of the map, and it was a great homework area.  Lily's keyboard was also in here.

However, we recently received a 1908 Steinway piano that belonged to Ryan's grandmother, the wonderful lady we named Mia after.  We decided to give the room a little bit more formal look to it for this beautiful piece.

Lily is already playing the most beautiful music on this!  We are very thankful to now have this piano, both for the special history it holds for our family and for the lovely music that Lily will make on it in the future.

We celebrated Ryan for Father's Day with a Giordano's pizza!  This is his favorite deep dish Chicago pizza.  When we found out they delivered frozen pies, we knew we had to try it.  We ordered one sausage and one pepperoni.  They ship in dry ice to stay frozen.  We made the pepperoni for him, and it was delicious; it tasted just like being in one of their Chicago restaurants!

Mia went over to Danielle's house for an afternoon/evening of swimming and fun which she greatly enjoyed.  It's so nice to start seeing friends again!

While she was gone, Lily and I watched the last movie in The Hunger Games series.  She's quickly read through those books, and we've watched the movie after she's completed each one.  After dinner, she, Ryan, and I watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off together; what a classic!

Like I said, it's been pretty quiet.  We did go over to the Martin's house for another concert by Mark Miller, like we did last month.  That was a lot of fun; it was a beautiful night with great music and good friends.  We've had a ton of fun continuing our quest to watch all the Marvel movies.  We only have three more to go!  This is a great summer for movie watching.  Liz, Kendall, and her girls came over for a day trip, so it was fun to hang out with them again; we went over to my parents on Father's Day and had dinner with them and Wayne's family.  We are always grateful for time with our family.  It's been a nice month, though quiet.  We are healthy and happy to be together.  For that, I am very thankful.

What a May!

What a month this May has been!  We finished out school at home, and I kept my office officially closed until May 18th (though we had a rotating schedule of when employees would go in).  It has really been a unique time for our family, nation, and world.  Ryan and I have said many times that we'll look back on this time and think of it as being one of the best times for our family.  We have spent so much time together, and truly enjoying that time.  The girls have become best of friends again which we've loved seeing.  We've slowed down the pace of life some which has been wonderful.  We also recognize that we are healthy, income-stable, sheltering in a loving, safe, comfortable home, and all of our needs are more than met.  Not everyone has all of those items, so we are staying grateful and appreciative.  The shelter in place order and quarantine bans that we've seen are being lifted, so life is starting to return to a little more normal.

I think we've completely worn Decker out, and he'll be glad if we start getting out a little more!

Blake and Heather Martin hosted a little get-together to celebrate Chip DeWalt's birthday soon after the ban lifted.  It was our three families plus Blake's parents at the Martin's home.  We were so excited that Ryan's guitar teacher and friend, Mark Miller, came to play a concert for us there.  It was a beautiful evening (seriously the weather these last few months has been amazing), so we just gathered in their front lawn, enjoyed some Mexican takeout, and and listened to Mark's great music.  This was our first time to be with friends again in a couple of months, and it was wonderful!

 The girls have had fun doing each other's hair several times.

I just loved this picture of my sweet Mia.  Such joy in this one.

 Oh man, Decker is in need of a grooming appointment!  He can hardly see when he runs!

 Lily found these two house scavenger hunts that we had fun doing around our house one evening.  This was a very fun idea.

 We've all started a "paint by numbers" set which has been a lot of fun.

 It has become our family's summer goal to watch all the Marvel movies in their chronological order (not production order).  We started in the evenings during the last week of school.  We're about 2 weeks in at this point, and we're already down to Ant Man which is more than halfway.  We're all loving this and having fun with these movies.

 One evening we went over to the Foxes house to welcome Sarah and Abigail as "Newest Knights."  We can't wait to have their family at Stonehaven in Lily and Mia's classes next year.  We are very thankful for this family, and we think they'll make a great addition to the school.  The girls all had fun playing together, and we enjoyed sitting out in the driveway with Brian and Katherine to catch up.  Again, it's just so wonderful to be with friends again.

 Mia helped Ryan make bucatini pasta one evening for cacio e pepe.

 They made a few hearts out of pasta too to put in with the noodles.  It looked great and tasted delicious!

 We were thrilled to have Avery and Bella come spend the night last weekend.  The girls enjoyed their friends' company and catching up with one another.

 Just two cute pictures of Decker because really, isn't it always great to see a cute puppy?

 What a wonderful May it has been!