Five Day Farewell

They were here five days.  It was a good five days.  Really good.

 

 

Two months later, I've almost caught up on the sleep I lost while they visited,

 

 

but I haven't quite recovered from the loss of having them a part of my day-to-day, week-to-week life. 

 

I guess with friends like these (and so many others we've left behind over the years) you never really get over that. 

Redecorating

When Julie and Seager were here, we had many adventures, one of which included the painting of a room in the basement.  We didn't finish while they were here, but they helped me get a great start (Hi Tikvah)!

 

 

Please do not adjust your screen, that is actually neon orange and neon blue on those walls. 

 

 I've never checked, but I feel certain they must have glowed in the dark. 

 

Christine assured me that at least one of her teenage girls would have LOVED the colors in the room.  Being that I'm pushing 35 and have been an old-fogey for a long time, those colors just weren't screaming peaceful guest room to me and I was happy to remove them from the house. 

 

We painted it these two colors instead. 

 

 

The pictures don't translate the colors the best, but they're a blue/gray/green color. I like the darker of the two colors the best and wish we had just painted the whole room the darker color, but I was afraid it would close the room in too much. For once in an aesthetic situation, I should have listened to my husband. Don't tell him I said so, it's not good for our marriage because then he'll feel obligated to mention the fact that I should have listened to him everytime the room is mentioned in coversation. I know it's hard to believe he would ever rub it in. Don't worry, I don't hold grudges either. I would never waste an entire paragraph of your time writing about it.

Anyway, as I was saying, the new colors are nice.  They work a little better with the bedspread (Hi Xandra!),

 

pictures and curtains that are in the room.

 

Besides removing the unsightly orange from the house, getting that room painted inspired me to finish putting wall hangings up the following week.  Here's my favorite wall in the house.  It's Joe's least favorite, but that's just because he had to hang all those pictures up.

 

 

It is missing one picture.

 

 

We'll hang up Yoshi's picture sometime after he arrives in late June. 

 

My goal before he arrives is to remove the almost-as-ugly-as-the-orange green/purple color combination from one of the other basement bedrooms. 

A Capitol Idea

At the very end of September we had some pretty special visitors.  My friends Julie and Seager (she has a first name, but I never use it) stopped by for five days, and they flew all the way from Maryland to do it.

 

In honor of their visit and also in connection with a book we'd been reading in school, we made a trip to the capitol grounds.  Joe joined us for a picnic lunch, as he works about five minutes drive from the capitol.

 

 

The kids ran around

 

and then we headed to the tallest building in North Dakota for a look around.

The Patch: Part 2, Obstacles

After watching pumpkins fly across the field, we took on the obstacle course.

 

 

Then, while we were wandering about the patch, we got some free tickets from another family.

 

The free tickets allowed us to take a ride on the train.

 

After the train we went to the corn crib.

 

Aka a sandbox filled with corn instead of sand.

 

Joe buried the girls alive.

 

Then we took a few pictures

 

picked a pumpkin and let it have a ride since it weighed more than Joey and Tikvah,

 

but not before Joe made fun of me.

 

Then checked out and headed to the car.  When we arrived at the car, I realized I had no idea where the car keys were...absolutely no idea.  After emptying out the diaper bag, every coat pocket, and the stroller and finding no keys, I headed back to the patch to see if I could find them while everyone else sat down for a break.

 

I begged God all the way back to let me easily find the keys.  In a direct answer to prayer, the first employee I found had them in her possession.  Someone found them in the middle of the main walking road and turned them in to her.  She looked at me funny when I said, "Thank you, Jesus."  She could not possibly understand how tired the five kids and two parents involved in this mini fiasco were, and how silly I felt for losing my keys at a pumpkin patch and how glad I was to report quickly to my husband that we found the keys.  If you've known me for any amount of time, then you are well acquainted with the fact that often these types of things turn into a long, laborious ordeal, which involves lots of embarassing explanation on my part...I'm happy to report that, for once, there was an easy, quick solution and a short, simple explanation to my predicament. 

The Patch: Part 1

We made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch this year, albeit a different pumpkin patch than in year's past.  Despite visiting a different patch, we had an enormous amount of fun, same as always.

 

After a picnic lunch, we started with slides.

 

 

They had a mountain of hay bales

 

with a variety of slides

 

protruding from every direction of said mountain.

 

We tried them all,

 

in every one of us,

 

even the momma.

 

After a rest

 

we tackled a few mazes

 

and caves.

 

Then Tikvah slept

 

despite the noise of the pumpkin trebuchet

 

and pumpkin cannon

 

launching pumpkins an amazingly far distance in a nearby field.

 

To be continued....