Category: Family (Page 23 of 26)

Memorial Day 2011

Tim and I decided the time had finally come to sell our boat.

It became obvious us to us last year that, as much as we LOVE having a boat, it just isn’t practical at this time in our lives.  He’s so tired by the time he gets home from work that he doesn’t want to go out again, and it’s hard with little ones.  Plus there’s the added cost of maintaining the boat and monthly payments.  So, after talking it through last year we decided we should try and sell it.

But last summer was a bit crazy–having a baby and all— so the months clicked by and we never really took any steps to make it happen. And lets face it, no one wants to buy a boat in the winter…

So, that brought us to this year.  We had talked to a couple friends about the boat last year and no one seemed interested.  We still had a good chunk left on the loan.  We didn’t have any desire to make any profit on the boat–but we also couldn’t take a loss.  So, we were shocked when a friend at church approached us last month and asked if we were still interested in selling our boat.  Tim quickly worked on “spring cleaning” the boat and scrubbing it up from being stored over the winter.  Then the night after Chloe got chicken pox he came home from work early to take it out with the guy to show him everything and see what he thought (we really wanted to be honest and upfront with him about everything so there weren’t any surprises).  We weren’t sure he would still be interested in it after seeing it in person.  It’s not a NEW boat, after all… so we didn’t know what his expectations were.

MUCH to my surprise, he wrote a check and took the boat home that night.

I admit I’m a bit sad about it.  We had a lot of fun with family and friends on that boat.  Chloe is finally at the age where she wanted to go on the boat (and wasn’t terrified of it anymore 😉 )  But most of all, it was hard to let go of the idea of Tim being able to make memories with our kids on a boat.

But we have to remind ourselves that we’re being smart.  Like I said at the beginning of this, it’s just not a good time in our lives to have a boat.  Things will eventually change.  The kids will grow up a little, hopefully Tim’s work days will lighten, someday I won’t have to teach every weeknight… and then we’ll see.

So, it’s not “no boat forever.”  It’s just “no boat for now.”

🙂

The past two weeks have been crazy and I feel bad for not being able to post as much.  I had a lot of wrapping up to do with the school year ending and then getting ready for the recitals yesterday.  I started to get a little overwhelmed…  hence the lack of posts.  But, all is well again, because I’m finally on summer break!

The recitals yesterday went really well.  Getting ready for the recitals this year was a bit more stressful than normal, however.  I severely misjudged how long it would take me to get the programs done and then Tim had a bachelor party on Saturday that started a few hours earlier than we had originally expected which meant I had the kids and couldn’t get as much done.  Then I had a senior graduating this year and I wasn’t sure how to acknowledge her or what to say, so Tim finally stepped in and helped me out.   I was still folding programs 20 minutes before we had to leave.  Needless to say, I won’t be doing THAT again next year.  🙂  But, like I said the recitals went really well.  It’s always such fun to hear all of my students in one sitting.  I have time to reflect on how far they’ve come as I’m watching them–it’s fun.

What’s that, now?

You say you want to see pictures?

Oh, okay!

2 O'Clock Recital

4 O'Clock Recital

Our semi-annual picture at the piano. No Josiah... he was napping. But I thought it turned out nice of the two of us!

Big smiles! (well, except Josiah... but at least he was in this picture!)

Chloe got to wear her special white dress again for this recital.  I feel like she’s really getting good use out of this dress–who would have though that it would still fit just fine a year later?!  In fact, she still has room to grow in it, since I originally took the straps up and the waist in, to help it fit her better last year.  If I let those out, she’ll have plenty of room.  At this rate she’ll be able to wear it for ANOTHER year!  It’s a good thing we all like the dress.  🙂

In other news… Josiah learned how to say “uh-oh” today.  It’s absolutely adorable.  Especially since he takes a big pause between the “uh” and the “oh.”  I took a video of it.  I’ll see if I can get it posted tomorrow.

Today was my first official day of summer vacation.  And what did I do?  Cleaned, took a walk to the park, cleaned, mowed the lawn, cleaned, did the laundry, cleaned, made a yummy supper, scrubbed the floors, and did I mention cleaned?  Yeah, the house was in shambles from the recital and being overwhelmed for a while, so it feels good to get everything back in order. It was also nice to be able to spend some time outside–it was so nice!

The way to my man's heart... mountain dew, a mountain dew shirt and a giant chocolate cake. 🙂

Tim’s birthday was yesterday and I decided it would be fun to go out on a date!  So, I lined up a sitter and we went to see The Avengers in the theater.  It was AWESOME.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  🙂  Then we went out to eat at Ruby Tuesday (we had a gift card–and you can’t beat a free meal!).   Then we made our way home a little earlier than we had expected because I was hoping to swing by Lowe’s and wander through the garden center for a little bit, but it started raining pretty hard while we were eating… so we came right home.  So, I finished up the cake and we invited Alisa to stay and enjoy some with us.  It was a great day, if I do say so myself!

Did I mention the cake was almost 5 pounds? Can you say "dense?"

It was super moist and chocolatey and awesome. Oh, yeah, and PRETTY!

I don’t know where the days have gone recently–but I accidentally forgot to post yesterday… and I had planned on posting a super cute picture of the kids holding a sign that said “Happy Birthday Uncle Luke.”  But alas, now I’ve missed it.

So, HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY LUKE!  Sorry I missed writing on your actual birthday.  But I hope you had a fantastic day and enjoyed an enormous celebratory cake (or whatever delicious birthday creation you like best)!  🙂

Program Cover

Now that I’m relaxing for the night I thought I would take a moment and write a little more about the requiem.  After all, it did take up quite a bit of my time and energy (and definitely raised my stress level!) for the past month and a half.   🙂

I arrived on Thursday afternoon and Mom and I quick ran through all the music (and when I say quick–it takes an hour to get through it all… so as quick as we could anyway!) before getting ready and hitting the road.  We were both a bit nervous so we decided to just pack a light sandwich to have later in the evening if we got hungry.  We pulled in to the university just before 6:00 and got set up for the evening.  Then we ran through pretty much everything again with the conductor as their warm-up.  We had a 30 min. break to stretch our legs–and for me, especially stretching out my back, which was starting to get quite sore, from driving and then rehearsing at home then driving and rehearsing again… so it was nice to be able to walk around.  We met Dad and decided that we should eat our sandwiches while we waited.  It turns out I was a bit hungrier than I though because I downed the sandwich.

The concert started at 7:30.  All the hours of practice came down to this.

Dad took these pictures from the audience

I stole these pictures from my Mom's website--and as she so accurately says "I know we don’t have the most pleasant looks on our faces, but we were concentrating!"

It was so much fun to actually hear the choir with my piano part.  So often while practicing I would forget that I was just the accompaniment and not the main event!  Plus it was always a bit lop-sided in the melody (or lack of melody) since it was a piano duet.  It was so much fun to hear everything in the full arrangement.  It’s also such a treat to be able to make music with other people–to really work to help the music come alive.  That’s fun.

The concert itself went just fine.  I already mentioned yesterday that I botched up the intro to one of the songs, but I know that I’m not a skilled performer so I expected it.  Luckily it was in one of the middle songs so I doubt many people remembered it by the end.  When we were talking about everything afterwards it was highly amusing to hear that we both started to lose our concentration about three-quarters of the way through the concert.  I guess it’s bound to happen when you’re focusing so hard for so long.  I knew it was bad news when I started to think about how “pretty” the notes were on the page!  🙂  Luckily we were both able to keep it together.

After the concert we went out for a celebratory supper (since by then we were REALLY hungry!).  There is something so wonderful to me about getting special food after a major event.  I just LOVE it!

I ordered a SCRUMPTIOUS strawberry Belgian waffle. Doesn't it look amazing!?!

Mom & Dad both got a meat lovers "skillet"--which also looked AMAZING!

All in all, it was a fantastic day.  I enjoyed learning and performing the music.  I enjoyed being able to hang out with my parents and just chat.  I enjoyed playing piano with my Mom.  And I must say, in spite of all that, I’m enjoying being done.  🙂  At least for now.